Academic Writing

Academic Writing? This means that you go beyond “reading” into critical reading – you not only read for content – you read for connections. Thesis – something to prove Not summarize – ANALYZE Acknowledge sources Assume educational audience

Responding to Text… Form a Response: often sparked by an intense disagreement / agreement. Understand the work before you attempt to respond – takes some notes! Structure your response – summary, analysis, inference, synthesis, evaluation.

SYNTHESIZING YOUR OWN AND OTHERS’ VIEWS: Bringing your own perspective to what others have written. Your perspective then can be your thesis. Keep your thesis to the front of your thoughts – bringing in material as needed to support it. See Page 56.

Writing from research… Writing from a single work is source based – but it is not source dominant. You will often evaluate several sources for use in a paper – this is dominant. RELIABILITY IS KEY! To evaluate reliability – critical reading is key. Purpose? Audience? Primary source? Secondary? (page 57) Expert? Credentials? Bias? Support/Evidence?

Online Sources… Public search engines – good place to start! Stick with the scholarly journals! Remember, anyone can put anything on the net – be sure in investigate – this is your job. Wikipedia is a nice “investigative” site – not a reputable one to cite!.edu.gov.org - usually trustworthy.com - commercial – not so much! Look at the source pages / get ideas here!

Avoiding Plagiarism… This is when you steal another person’s intellectual property – and it is a crime. Colleges and Universities will expel students for this! See Page 60 and 61. Common Knowledge – page 62.