- •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
Students' Advice for Students Sharon Stanley '99 writes on Clarity
Many years ago, when I was just beginning high school, I believed that good writing meant extremely complex, wordy sentence structures. The more difficult a paragraph was to plod through, the more thoughtful and academic it must have been. I packed my writing with passives, run-on sentences, and extremely convoluted structures to avoid any possibility of an overly colloquial or simplistic tone. In my years as a Writing Assistant, I have seen that many Dartmouth students share this concept of writing. But forcing your readers to reread a paragraph six times before they understand its implications is neither impressive nor particularly intelligent. Above all, I find that student papers could be most improved by making their writing more simple, direct, and active.
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Avoid unnecessary passives.
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Do not begin sentences with unwieldy and empty phrases like "it is imperative."
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Sentences should get right to the point without weighty prefacing.
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You should make the primary actor the subject of the sentence wherever possible.
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Don't rely on long lists of items all prefaced with the same phrase.
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Eliminate clichés and other trite expressions from your writing.
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You should also avoid opening sentences with "it is" or "there are." These expressions rarely add anything to the meaning of the sentence.
When writing papers, you should continually be asking yourself if you can make your writing any clearer. Using overly complicated structures to affect a formal or detached tone simply makes your paper more dull and plodding. While a lively paper certainly varies sentence structure from time to time, it should not be so convoluted as to bury the central argument in weighty but unnecessary rhetoric. Ultimately, your readers should find your writing clear and direct.
Ross Wilken '99 writes on Revision and the importance of starting early
I had always placed great emphasis on research,planning, and outlining before writing, but I often found myself writing my papers only a night or two before they were due. When I finally realized the importance of writing drafts in advance to allow my mind to work through the ideas and discover new ones, and to allow feedback from professors and my peers whom I asked to read my work, a great deal of the anxiety related to paper writing disappeared. Because I allowed myself time to think, I became more and more confident that I was turning in pieces of quality work.
Ashley Brown '00 writes on Writing as a process
Its hard to give advice on writing when I still don't feel proficient myself, but I think maybe that's the most important advice to give. Writing is a process; ... you will never "master" writing....
There's no point when you stop improving. I think this idea is important to remember when writing an assignment for class. People often get stuck into trying to write a perfect paper, and agonize over things such as word choice and style. They also try to write it perfectly the first time around. In my experience I've found it easier to go through a process. The most important parts of the process for me are brainstorming and organization.
Brainstorming is important because it frees you to write down all the ideas you have and not worry about them being stupid. I think that a key problem with the way that I personally used to write was that I never would brainstorm. I would try to write a paper from intro through conclusion. This would make more work for myself often in the end because I wouldn't realize what I really wanted to write about until I was almost done. Its important to put all the brainstorming ideas down on paper; once I visualize, I can organize better.
The second part of the process which I find most helpful is organization. Creativity has never been a personal strong point, probably because I never took the time to develop it. I think many people are in the same position, and worry because their style isn't creative enough. One thing I've realized is that while creativity is wonderful, if it isn't working for you on a particular assignment it is much more important to get your point across clearly. Making outlines is the easiest way to make sure your thoughts are organized and coherent.
What works best for each individual differs, but as a writer with little confidence in my creativity I find brainstorming and organizing two of the best techniques to aid me in writing.