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 The Writing CenterKinds of WritingAnalysisAn analysis divides a whole into parts to be examined. As such it is always a type argument because you are artificially imposing a particular principle for this "dissection" which you can use as the basis to examine an object, an event, or a behavior. For example, you might talk about how romantic movies are the basis of unrealistic expectations for a large segment of the population. You can see that someone might argue otherwise. You can think of the analysis as a mathematical formula: By applying "X" (which will be your principle or definition), we can understand "Y" (which will be your topic) as "Z" (which will the conclusion you arrive at.) In these terms the above example might be stated as: By applying a particular definition of romance seen in Hollywood movies, we can understand how a large segment of the population arrives at unrealistic expectations of relationships which is a hindrance to real, frequently messy relationships. First you should introduce a specific analytical tool; second, apply this analytical tool to the object, event, or behavior being examined; then use the tool to identify and examine the meaning of parts of the object, event, or behavior. If you are assigned to write an analysis, choose to analyze an event, object, or behavior that your readers will be familiar with, but will not have considered from your particular angle. You might consider writing about something that confuses you, and by applying an analytical tool, learn something yourself. If you have trouble thinking of an idea, grab a news magazine, like Newsweek, Time, New Republic, or Harper’s. As you read, notice what critical means you employ to make sense of the article in relation to the world you know. This is an unwritten analysis. Argument EssayAn argument requires that you take a stance on an issue or topic and argue effectively for it. The three lines of reasoning are logic, emotion, and appeal to authority. Appeals to logic might be based on generalization (giving enough examples of particulars to make a judgment about a general class) or based on causation (ex. smoking causes cancer). Appeals to emotion are designed to tap the needs or values of your audience. For instance, you might argue for increased educational spending by writing about the pathos of a particular school setting. Appeals to authority are of two types: you can establish yourself as a credible authority by producing writing that emphasizes reliability, trustworthiness, engagement and so on. You might also use sources that are experts in a particular field or that have a reputation your readers will be familiar with. Although your paper may, and probably will, use the latter two, logic should be the main focus of any argumentative essay for most college courses. Checklist for argumentative writing:
Ask yourself:
Instructions for the AutobiographyIn autobiography, your chore is to tell your reader who you are. Often an aptly-chosen event or two tells your reader more than mere facts can. For example, rather than telling your reader that your parents encouraged you to care about the environment, you might describe a family hiking trip when you realized that the natural world held something important for you personally. You might use the following as guides to begin your writing. Do not, however, rigidly stick to the below and to the facts alone. Aim for specific events and details that will make the autobiography more vivid for your reader.
Compare - ContrastA comparison looks at the similarities between two or more things; a contrast examines the differences. One way that you might approach a compare/contrast essay is to look at each point you wish to discuss and talk about it as it pertains to the two or more things you’re examining. For example, suppose you’re writing a compare/contrast essay about dogs and cats. You might wish to talk about several points—loyalty, relative affection, cleanliness, obedience, the care and feeding of, and so on. If you use the point by point system, a rough outline would look something like this :
And so on. Another way to approach the same topic, would be to discuss first one of the items you’re comparing and contrasting, then the next. Like so:
You should be sure that the two or more items you’re examining should have at least some similarities so that you’re not straining the form or becoming illogical. Don’t, in other words, try to compare/contrast Ford pickups and wild roses. Do try to formulate a guiding idea or thesis that will help you stay focused on where you want to go with the essay so that comparing and contrasting is not just an end in itself. Ten (not so) Easy Steps to a Successful Literature ReviewLiterature reviews take different forms in different discourse communities. In fact, some areas don’t even use the term, "literature review." All academic and professional discourse communities, however, do have conventional ways of discussing previously published research and work. One of your tasks in analyzing the items on your personal bibliography was to observe and remark on the practice in your area. As you begin this exercise, you will want to go back over the articles and look at them with an even closer eye with respect to how they are constructed. Not only do the forms of literature reviews differ among the disciplines, but even within a discipline, scholars may use them for varying reasons. A writer may wish to establish credibility by showing familiarity with prior research in an area; may wish to set up a context within which to present current research; may wish to synthesize what is known of a topic, pointing out areas of agreement and disagreement among and between researchers. In reports of research in the natural sciences and social sciences, usually the first section is devoted to a review of the literature written on the topic under discussion. Some references to other research may occur as well in a later discussion section. In articles that deal with more conceptual or theoretical issues, citations of other writings may occur throughout the piece. Such reviews usually examine competing explanations. In the humanities, citations from other sources are likely to be found throughout the essay, whether it is a critical essay or some other kind of review; there is rarely a section set apart that could be called "the literature review." Such reviews are likely to incorporate directly quoted material, not just to refer in passing to previous studies. Some reviews may be structured to show the development of an idea over time and may invoke paradigms. Discussing the history of a concept may function to argue for its lasting value. In all areas, a major function of a literature review can be to collect the most significant writings on a subject and put them in some kind of relation to one another, seeing some as more relevant to the your purposes than others; some as possibly more credible than others. If you were to undertake a major literature review in preparation for, say, a senior project, you would try to find out as much as you could about what the major researchers/critics/thinkers in your field had to say about the topic. For the purposes of this exercise, you can make do with the pertinent articles from your personal bibliography, recognizing that the scope is limited. For this assignment you will be expected to be familiar with and consult the style manual your discourse community relies on. Some use more than one, depending on the particular purpose at hand (CBE for reporting research in the sciences; APA for advocating policy based on that research; Chicago Style Manual and MLA both used in the humanities; etc.). You will need to decide what is most appropriate for your purpose. Step One: Look over how writers of articles in your personal bibliography assemble their literature reviews; look at how APU faculty writers in your area do the same. Step Two: Review the substance of the articles and try to find some way in which you can compare them to one another on the basis of the topic and their treatment of the subject. Formulate a tentative thesis. If one doesn’t come easily to mind, use free-writing techniques to explore what you have in your own brain about the subject. Step Three: You may have a clear enough idea of where you’re going to be able to generate an outline before you do substantial writing. If you can’t come up with anything more than a superficial run at an outline, begin to draft. Free-write in general terms about what you already know, having already read the articles for your rhetorical analyses. Flip through the articles again, adding here and there details or points that seem pertinent. Write until you figure out what you have to say about the topic. Then put together an outline that helps you organize the material more manageably. Step Four: Set the task of redrafting some portion of the piece; include the introduction (not time for an abstract yet; you have to know your conclusion first). Congratulate yourself on getting this much done. Step Five: Finish the first draft. Step Six: Revise for content; for more articulate relationships among the pieces of research; for more effective wording; for completeness of citations; for usage; for correctness. Use feedback from groups. Step Seven: Confer with instructor to review your revisions; include your abstract. Step Eight: Type your formal bibliography/references cited section using the appropriate format for your discourse community. Step Nine: Complete revisions, print out, and bring "best possible" version of the review for group editing of fine points. April 21st. Step Ten: Enter editing changes on your text; turn in "published" version of literature review. Narrative WritingSimply put, a narrative tells a story. All stories are composed of events that the teller or writer imbues with significance or meaning. What this means for you, the writer, is that you when you write a narrative, you should consider exactly what this narrative means to you and choose the details that will best convey that meaning to your readers. Narrative many times stands alone as a story or creative essay, but many times narrative is part of another type of writing. Suppose that you are writing a persuasive essay meant to convince your readers that a particular school merits increased funds. You might include a narrative about one student’s day at the school and his experience with outdated books, a restricted curriculum, low tech equipment, and so on. The story within the argument might be used to create a "picture" of the poor conditions at the school in order to influence the reader. In any case, narrative is not simply a recitation of events (the car crossed the centerline; it hit me head on; I went to the hospital), but also includes the meaning you’ve been able to extract from it—it answers the question "why should my reader care about this?" Use this meaning or significance as a guide to determine what to include and what to reject about the event. Use only the information and detail that works to deliver this meaning or significance to your reader. Try to include sense description—detail associated with hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting or touching. You might also include dialogue, if that seems relevant. Narrative can be written in either present or past tense. If you are reporting on an event that has happened, you probably want to use past tense verbs to make this clear to your reader. "We climbed for three hours without stopping." In such cases, you might then use present tense to comment on or make clear the significance of the occurrence: "When I look back on that experience, I understand why I hate to put on a backpack." Other times, you might want to indicate that what you are describing is typical, perhaps ongoing. In this case, you might choose present tense verbs. "First thing in the morning I brush my teeth and put on the coffee pot before braving the cold to retrieve the daily paper." Rhetorical AnalysisWhen you write up a "rhetorical analysis" for LL201, you are not expected to produce a formal piece of polished writing. You are asked to analyze pieces of discourse in order to understand better the expectations for writing held by members of your discourse community. Thus these are "discovery" exercises. First, read through the article, highlighting text and noting in the margins the "answers" to the questions you ask of the text. Then write up the "answers" that the text seems to give to "questions" you are asking of it. Marshall McLuhan wrote a book about the importance of structure: The Medium is the Message. As important as what you say is how you say it; in other words, the structure of a piece carries a message independent of whatever it is that you have to say about the topic. The purpose of analyzing a piece of discourse from a rhetorical standpoint is to try to isolate characteristics of the structure that bear of the message. The key points you will consider grow out of the communication triangle used to talk about neo-Aristotelian rhetoric: writer, topic, audience, context. The specific choices that a writer makes to interrelate these factors determine the specifics of the form of a piece. Some of the questions include: WRITER:
Extra-text
Intra-text
TOPIC
AUDIENCE
FORM
CONTEXT
Summary and ParaphraseWriting a Summary The goal of a summary is to focus on the main ideas contained in a piece of writing, not on your reaction to those ideas. You should aim to restate the text as briefly as possible in your own words and yet maintain the sense of the original. You might then use the summary to bolster your own ideas in a paper or to refute the ideas contained in the summary in a response, but while writing the summary, maintain objectivity and accuracy. More specifically, you should aim to meet the following goals:
Guidelines for writing a summary:
Writing a Paraphrase Whereas a summary is a relatively brief, objective account in your owns words of the main idea of a text used to extract essential ideas for background or refutation material in your writing, a paraphrase is a restatement, in your own words, of a passage in a text. Paraphrases are used when you want to retain all the points in the original, both major and minor; when you want to clarify complex ideas in a brief passage; and when you want to clarify difficult language in a brief passage. Unless you enclose an author’s words in quotation marks, do not mix them with your own even if the sentence structure is different. Equally important, do not think that you can substitute synonyms for an author’s words while you preserve her sentence structure. Both of these are plagiarism, even if you cite the source. Original (from "Returning Young Adults," Psychology and Marketing, 11, 1994, by J. Burnett and D. Smart, pages 253-269): In general, contrary to assumptions about RYAs amassing large amounts of disposable income, the findings suggest that economic deprivation is the primary factor distinguishing the RYA from a single cohort. RYAs have an appreciably higher unemployment rate and lower income than a comparable singles group. Thus, the notion characterizing the modern RYA as a somewhat spoiled individual who wants to maintain his or her earlier lifestyle is not supported in this study. Acceptable paraphrase: Burnett and Smart report research showing that RYAs, contrary to opinion, have a more difficult time meeting their bills than other single young adults. Therefore, attitudes that view them as lazy parasites are incorrect (267). Note that the introductory "Burnett and Smart report" shows the reader that you are beginning a paraphrase and the page number in parenthesis shows that you are ending it. Always begin paraphrase with a few words that tell your reader you are restating someone else’s language. Also, be certain that you maintain the sense of the paraphrase. To do less is to risk dishonesty. Original: Owning a boat is like standing in the shower tearing up $1,000 bills. Inaccurate: Boat owners would feel comfortable "tearing up $1,000 bills." [This changes the sense.] Accurate: Owning a boat is an expensive way to get wet. [Changes the language but remains faithful to the sense.] |
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