- •What is an academic paper?
- •Writing for College How It Differs From Writing in High School
- •Constructing An Informed Argument What You Know
- •Summarize.
- •Evaluate.
- •Analyze.
- •Synthesize.
- •Choosing An Appropriate Topic
- •Finding a Rhetorical Stance
- •Consider Your Position
- •Consider Your Audience
- •Considering Structure
- •Introductions:
- •Thesis Sentence:
- •The Other Side(s):
- •Supporting Paragraphs:
- •Conclusions:
- •Using Appropriate Tone and Style
- •Tips For Newcomers
- •Coming Up With Your Topic
- •Reading to Write
- •Read Actively
- •Break the Linear Tradition
- •Trust Your Gut
- •Enter the Conversation
- •Use the Margins
- •Moving Outside the Text
- •Reading Differently in the Disciplines
- •Resources for Improving Reading
- •Using Critical Theory
- •Feminist criticism:
- •Marxist criticism:
- •Psycho-analytic criticism:
- •New Historicism:
- •Deconstruction:
- •Reader-Response:
- •Informal Strategies for Invention
- •Brainstorming
- •Freewriting
- •Discovery Draft
- •Formal Strategies for Invention
- •Five w's and an h
- •Tagmemics
- •Aristotle's Topoi
- •1) Use Definition
- •2) Use Comparison
- •3) Explore Relationship
- •4) Examine Circumstance
- •5) Rely on Testimony
- •Focusing Your Ideas
- •Nutshelling
- •Broadening Your Topic
- •First, try to make connections.
- •Second, turn your idea inside out.
- •Third, consider the context.
- •Narrowing Your Topic
- •First, test your claim.
- •Then look for examples.
- •Look for more examples.
- •Finally, consider the context.
- •Researching Your Topic
- •Finding Sources
- •Using Your Sources
- •Summarize Your Sources
- •Categorize Your Sources
- •Interrogate Your Sources
- •Make Your Sources Work For You
- •Keep Track of Your Sources
- •Cite Sources Correctly
- •Developing Your Thesis
- •Writing a Thesis Sentence
- •A good thesis sentence will make a claim.
- •A good thesis sentences will control the entire argument.
- •A good thesis will provide a structure for your argument.
- •Alternatives to the Thesis Sentence
- •The Thesis Question
- •The Implied Thesis
- •Will This Thesis Sentence Make the Grade? (a Check List)
- •What else do you need to know about thesis sentences?
- •A good thesis usually relies on a strong introduction, sharing the work.
- •The structure of your thesis, along with its introduction, should in some way reflect the logic that brought you to your argument.
- •A good working thesis is your best friend.
- •Constructing the Thesis: a Writer's Clinic for Beginners
- •What is a Working Thesis Sentence?
- •Revising the Working Thesis
- •Revising Your Thesis For Eloquence
- •Writing: Considering Structure & Organization
- •Organizing Your Thoughts
- •Let Your Thesis Direct You
- •Sketching Your Argument
- •Outlining Your Argument
- •Modes of Arrangement: Patterns for Structuring Your Paper
- •Constructing Paragraphs
- •What is a paragraph?
- •Writing the Topic Sentence
- •Developing Your Argument: Evidence
- •Developing Your Argument: Arrangement
- •Coherence
- •Introductions and Conclusions
- •Introductions
- •Announce your topic broadly, then declare your particular take.
- •Provide any background material important to your argument.
- •Define key terms, as you intend to make use of them in your argument.
- •Use an anecdote or quotation.
- •Acknowledge your opponents.
- •Conclusions
- •Revision: Cultivating a Critical Eye
- •Why And How To Revise
- •Large-Scale Revision.
- •Small-Scale Revision.
- •Editing.
- •Proofreading.
- •Developing Objectivity
- •Did I fulfill the assignment?
- •Did I say what I intended to say?
- •What are the strengths of my paper?
- •What are the weaknesses of my paper?
- •Analyzing Your Work
- •Consider Your Introduction
- •Consider Your Thesis
- •Consider Your Structure
- •Consider Your Paragraphs
- •Consider Your Argument and Its Logic
- •Read your paper out loud.
- •Get a second reader.
- •Be a second reader.
- •Visit rwit.
- •Logic and Argument
- •What is an Argument?
- •Understanding Formal Logic
- •Reviewing Your Argument's Evidence
- •Have you suppressed any facts?
- •Avoiding Logical Fallacies
- •Attending to Grammar
- •A Brief Introduction
- •Most Commonly Occurring Errors
- •Wrong/missing inflected ends.
- •Wrong/missing preposition.
- •Comma splice.
- •Subject-verb agreement.
- •Missing comma in a series.
- •Pronoun agreement error.
- •Unnecessary commas with restrictive clauses.
- •Dangling, misplaced modifier.
- •Its/it's error.
- •Becoming Your Own Grammar Tutor
- •First, determine whether the error is a matter of carelessness, or a pattern of error.
- •Second, prioritize among your errors.
- •Third, practice writing sentences.
- •And finally, understand that grammar counts.
- •The Basic Principles of the Sentence Principle One: Focus on Actors and Actions
- •Principle Two: Be Concrete
- •Nouns often require prepositions.
- •Abstract nouns often invite the "there is" construction.
- •Abstract nouns are, well, abstract.
- •Abstract nouns can obscure your logic.
- •Principle Two, The Exception: Abstract Nouns & When To Use Them.
- •Principle Three: Be Concise
- •Principle Four: Be Coherent
- •Is your topic also the subject of your sentence?
- •Are the topics/subjects of your sentences consistent?
- •Have you marked, when appropriate, the transitions between ideas?
- •Principle Five: Be Emphatic
- •Students' Advice for Students Sharon Stanley '99 writes on Clarity
- •Ross Wilken '99 writes on Revision and the importance of starting early
- •Ashley Brown '00 writes on Writing as a process
- •Louisa Gilder '00 writes on The importance of being personally invested in your writing
- •Leda Eizenberg '00 writes on The value of outlining after you write
- •Rita Mitchell '00 writes on Clarity
- •Christina Krettecos '00 writes on The writing process
- •Kinohi Nishikawa '01 writes on The importance of getting personally involved with your writing
- •Nils Arvold '00 writes on Things that work for him
- •Julia Henneberry '99 writes on Voice and tone, and the importance of reading other people's papers
- •Lauren Allan-Vail '99 shares a few thoughts on writing
- •Andrew Berglund '00 writes on The importance of clear logic
- •Karen Meteyer '99 writes on The importance of starting early
Analyzing Your Work
If you've been considering the strengths and weaknesses of your paper, you've already begun to analyze your work. The process of analysis involves breaking down an idea or an argument into its parts and evaluating those parts on their merits. When you analyze your own paper, then, you are breaking that paper down into its parts and asking yourself whether or not these parts support the paper as you envision it.
We've been encouraging you to analyze your work throughout this Web site. Every time we've prodded you to reconsider your thesis, every time we've provided you with a checklist for writing good paragraphs, we have been encouraging you to break your writing down into parts and to review those parts with a critical eye. Here is a checklist reiterating our earlier advice. Use it to analyze your whole paper, or use it to help you to figure out what went wrong with a particular part of your work.
Consider Your Introduction
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If you are writing a researched paper, does your introduction place your argument in an ongoing conversation?
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If you're not writing a researched paper, does your introduction set context?
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Does your introduction define all of your key terms?
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Does your introduction draw your reader in?
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Does your introduction lead your reader clearly to your thesis?
Consider Your Thesis
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Does your thesis say what you want it to say?
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Does your thesis make a point worth considering? Does it answer the question, "So what?"
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Does your thesis provide your reader with some sense of the paper's structure?
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Does the paper deliver what your thesis promises to deliver?
Consider Your Structure
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Make an outline of the paper you've just written. Does this outline reflect your intentions?
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Does this outline make sense? Or are there gaps in the logic? Places where you've asked the reader to make leaps you haven't prepared her for?
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Is each point in your outline adequately developed?
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Is each point equally developed? (That is, does your paper seem balanced, overall?)
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Is each point relevant? Interesting?
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Underline your thesis sentence and all of your topic sentences. Then cut and paste them together to form a paragraph. Does this paragraph make sense?
Consider Your Paragraphs
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Does each paragraph have a topic sentence that clearly controls the paragraph?
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Are the paragraphs internally coherent?
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Are the paragraphs externally coherent? (That is, have you made adequate transitions from paragraph to paragraph? Is each paragraph clearly related to the thesis?)
Consider Your Argument and Its Logic
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Have you really presented an argument, or is your paper merely a series of observations, a summary?
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Do you see any holes in your argument? Or do you find the argument convincing?
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Have you dealt fairly with the opposition? Or have you neglected to mention other possible arguments concerning your topic for fear that they might undermine your work?
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Have you supplied ample evidence for your arguments?
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Do you see any logical fallacies? (for more information on logic and logical fallacies, see Logic and Argument.)
Consider your Conclusion
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Is your conclusion appropriate, or does it introduce some completely new idea?
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Does your conclusion sum up your main point?
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Does your conclusion leave your reader with something to think about?
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Does the language resonate, or does it fall flat? On the other hand, have you inflated the language ridiculously to try to pad a conclusion that is empty and ineffective?
Tips for Revision
In addition to the advice given above, we'd like to offer the following tips for revising your paper.
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We've said it before, but it's worth repeating:
give yourself adequate time to revise.
If you don't start your paper until the night before it's due, you won't be able to revise. If you have a short paper due on Friday, finish your draft no later than Wednesday so that you have Thursday night to revise. If you are working on a long paper, of course you'll want to set aside more time for revising.
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Print a hard copy of your paper.
Studies have found that many people miss problems in their papers when they are reading from the computer screen. Because you can't see the whole paper on the screen, it is sometimes hard to diagnose big structural problems. Having a hard copy of your paper will not only help you to see these problems, but it will give you space in the margins where you might write notes to yourself as you read.