Academic Writing

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Academic Writing

Students’ Booklet

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Instructor’s Name ______

Day - Period – Room No. ______

Student No. ______

Year - Class - Number ______

Student’s Name ______

Course Description

Course Goals and Objectives ...... / 4
Sequence of Instruction ...... / 6
Choosing an Essay Topic ...... / 7
The Writing Process and Brainstorming ...... / 10
The MLA Style ...... / 16
Plagiarism ...... / 20
Using Quotations ...... / 21
In-Text Citations ...... / 22
The Failure of Machine Translations ...... / 24
Outlining the Essay ...... / 27
Punctuation and Conjunctions ...... / 29
Peer Evaluation ...... / 31
Appendix
Sample Research Essay Topics ...... / 32
Thesis Statements ...... / 34
Library Resources ...... / 37
Using the MLA Style ...... / 40
A Sample Outline ...... / 41
Paraphrasing Quotations ...... / 42
Rating Student Essays ...... / 45
Research Essay Checklist ...... / 66
Marking Symbols ...... / 67
Sample Student Writing ...... / 70

ACADEMIC WRITING

I. DESCRIPTION

Academic Writing is designed to teach you research skills, to select references, to review the use and paraphrase of quotations, to summarize content, to organize a bibliography, and to complete a 1,500 word research essay.

IE Writing I / IE Writing II / IE Writing III / Academic
Writing
Paragraph writing
1. Description
2. Classification
3. Comparison
and contrast
4. Analysis
/ Introduction
to the Essay
1. Analysis
2. Cause and effect / Essay writing:
quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing
1. Persuasion
2. Classification
[Learning MLA style] / Research Essay
1. Thesis development
2. Research skill training
3. Cite references
4. Review MLA style
5. Word-processing
6. Create a bibliography

The present course was developed from meetings and the suggestions of Academic Writing teachers from 1998 to 2006. The guide was written by Gregory Strong, with early contributions from Mike Bettridge, Jeff Bruce, Wayne Pounds, Alexandra Shiga, Joyce Taniguchi, and Spencer Weatherly. Joseph Dias, Ted O’Neill, Forrest Nelson, Dennis Riches, and Clark Richardson introduced a number of excellent websites for teaching the MLA Style, and Nadine Solanki contributed materials on plagiarism. We would like to thank students, Kuniyoshi Arai, Emiko Kobayashi, Miyako Moeko, Kei Tanabe, and Minako Yoshida for the use of their essays for our essay rating activity in the Appendix. Other student writers whose work appears are acknowledged in the text.

Gregory Strong, August 1, 2007

ACADEMIC WRITING

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I.(a) ACADEMIC WRITING AND ACADEMIC SKILLS

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Academic Writing is a bridge between the writing you did in the IE Program and that which you will be doing in your junior and senior years at the Shibuya campus. During those years, you will be taking seminars in the English Department in the three areas of Literature, Linguistics, and Communications and writing academic essays.

II. USING COMPUTERS

We expect you to use a computer for your writing in this course and e-mail to communicate with your classmates. You should be able to use:

TEACHERS’ GUIDE

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(a) an internet browser to access online references and encyclopedias

(b) the spelling and grammar checking functions of MS Word or other word

processing programs

(d) the online tutorials for properly citing works using MLA style

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You should try to find references for your research essay among books in the university library as well as on the internet. Ask your teacher how to distinguish between personal sites and more reliable ones such as online encyclopedias and institutional websites. Your teacher may ask you to post your essay for other classmates to read and comment upon.

III. THE PRESCRIBED TEXT

The text for Academic Writing is Joseph Trimmer’s A Guide to MLA Documentation (6th ed., Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 2004). This slender 46-page paperback explains how to write an essay and cite your references in both MLA (Modern Languages Association) and APA (American Psychological Association) styles. Therefore, the book also will be of use in your later years of study.

A Guide to MLA Documentation will be used often in class. The text is organized into the following sections and it will be used for some classroom activities. Some topics may be familiar to you already from your experiences in IE III.

A Guide to MLA Documentation
1. Preparing the List of Works Cited
2. Documenting Sources
3. Using Notes and Parenthetical References
4. Implications for Your Research and Composing
5. Sample Outline and Research Paper
6. Abbreviations for MLA Documents
7. Appendix on APA Style

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ACADEMIC WRITING

IV. COURSE GOALS

There are three major goals in Academic Writing. You will review the writing process, to which you were introduced in IE Writing; learn about the use of evidence; and practice critical analysis. Learning objectives are associated with each one. Classroom activities will support these.

1. The Writing Process – Take your research essays through the stages of
brainstorming, drafting, peer review, and revision.
By the end of the course, you should:
(a) understand and use the writing process including brainstorming,
drafting, revising
(b) identify problems in your writing
(c) know how to evaluate other students' writing and comment upon it
(d) be able to revise your writing according to the feedback given by
other students and the teacher.

In Academic Writing you will learn to write analytic essays. This is quite different than the traditional impressionistic Japanese essay, kishoutenketsu, which links ideas by association rather than by argument. In addition, you will have to use an appropriate register. This means writing in a more formal style. You will have to avoid using the first person and the overuse of anecdotes.

2. Evidence – You will learn how to illustrate your ideas with the use of evidence and examples. You will need to understand the importance of doing original work and citing sources. You should be able to recognize plagiarism and know how to avoid it.
After completing the course, you should have the ability to:
(a) locate reference materials in the library and on the internet,
including encyclopedias, subject area books, journals, and newspapers
(b) create a bibliography for a research essay in the MLA format
(d) paraphrase material
(e) use quotations from references
(f) integrate quotations in an argument
(g) summarize content from references
(h) take notes from sources for later incorporation in an essay
take notes on sources for writing purposestake notes on sources for writing purposestake notes on sources for writing purposes
3. Critical Thinking - You should learn how to read critically, distinguishing between facts and opinions.
You should develop your ability to:
(a) outline the organization of an essay
(b) analyze the logic in written arguments
(c) identify the perspective of an essay
(d) explain their ideas in a short oral presentation

V. SCOPE AND SEQUENCE

You’ve probably never written an essay of 1,500-2000 words before, so the following description has been prepared for your reference. Your finished research paper should include the following:

(a) a minimum of 1,500 words, word-processed, and spell-checked

(b) an introductory paragraph which discusses the background to the question

being addressed in the essay

(d) effective transitions between paragraphs, examples within paragraphs, and major sections

of the essay

(e) the use of quotations where appropriate, but an emphasis on paraphrasing quotations

(f) summarizing content from references

(g) varied sentence construction

(h) a final draft of the essay with few grammatical errors blocking communication

(i) a bibliography, which should include several books cited in the MLA Style: references such as books, encyclopedias, and journals in either English or Japanese

(Note: Japanese sources should be noted in roman characters in the bibliography.)

VI. THE SEQUENCE OF INSTRUCTION

The following sequence of instruction represents the steps in our 12-14 week course. Steps may take one class or a few classes to complete. Some of the homework assignments will be marked and form part of your final grade.

In preparing you for your junior and senior years, we hope to teach you how to participate in a seminar presentation. In Step 8, you must prepare a short talk on your essay for your classmates.

- review the parts of an essay (handouts provided)
- distinguish between a simple essay and a research paper
- discussion of sample topics (See Appendix)
- brainstorm for topics / HW
*list 2 or 3
potential topics, bring books
- identify several possible topics
- review a sample bibliography (See Appendix) and refer to the model
bibliography in A Guide to MLA Documentation (35)
- learn the different types of MLA citations through the examples
in this guide and in the text
- learn how to make bibliographic entries for newspapers and magazines;
correct in groups
- learn about types of note taking to keep track of references / HW
*make a practice
bibliography using 3
types of sources
- library orientation activity (See Appendix)
- demonstration of the CD ROM catalogue search
- try out the MLA format-checking website
- identify some general references from the 1st and 3rd floors for
particular student topics
- demonstration of internet search engines / HW
*take notes, find
references
*prepare
preliminary bibliography
- developing a thesis by posing a question
- consider types of questions to be answered
- examples provided by teacher, small group work / HW
*create a thesis
statement

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ACADEMIC WRITING

- sample outlines shown in class (See Appendix)
- think-pair-share activities
- “show-and-tell” references in small groups / HW
*create a rough
outline
/ - use of comparisons, cause and effect, definitions, and analyses
- board examples (handouts provided)
- small group work, prepare topic sentences / HW
*topic sentences
- review topic sentences and seek appropriate reference materials
- find suitable quotations
- learn how quotations can be paraphrased
- class exercises in paraphrasing
- learn how quotations and authors’ names can be placed within texts
(i.e., intext citation of quotes) in the MLA Style / HW
* begin first draft
* note pages from which references were taken
- in groups, students comment about one another’s essays / HW
* continue 1st
draft
- small group discussions
- teacher joins groups
- emphasis on transitions, cohesion and variety / HW
* revisions, first
draft for the
teacher
- papers returned for next draft
- small group revision
- students prepare for their oral presentations through discussions in small
groups, possibly recording themselves / HW
* 3rd, possibly 4th,
draft of paper
* prepare for oral
presentation
- before handing in their final papers, students make oral presentations
- preparations include using note cards

VI. CHOOSING AN ESSAY TOPIC

You should choose a topic for your essay from one of the three areas of study in the English Department. These are English and American Literature, Applied Linguistics, and Communications. The first area includes the literatures of all English-speaking countries: Britain, the U.S., India, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, for example. The second area of study encompasses such topics as second language acquisition, historical changes in the English language and the development of “World Englishes,” the uses of English in non-native speaking countries. The newest area of the Department is Communications. Topics related to it include cross-cultural values and communication, the uses of rhetoric in the media, and the influences of popular culture, including music and film.

To help yourself become aware of the differences between the three areas, try to categorize the research essay topics found in the Appendix. By writing about topics in these areas, you may also clarify your own interests. This may help you to make better course choices in your junior and senior years. Once you have chosen a topic, try to narrow it down to a title. Titles of academic papers are often written in noun phrases – a string of nouns, sometimes with a gerund.

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Sample Essay Topics:
Criticism of Chomsky’s Transformational Grammar
Creating Word Frequency Lists for English for Academic Purposes
English Education in the High School Classroom

A good title also will be specific enough to help you find the right books and information to research it. Try working with a partner to make your topic more specific. Ask a question, then turn it into a title. Here is an example of a more specific topic:

Topic: How does age affect language acquisition?
Poor: Language Acquisition
Weak: Language Acquisition and Age
Better: The Effects of Age on Language Acquisition

Another way to refine a topic is to generate specific questions that you need to answer about it.

For example, in refining a topic on the role of vocabulary in 2nd language learning, you might think of the following questions: Who? What? Where? When? Why? How?

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Defining a Topic:
(a) Who uses vocabulary in 2nd language learning?
(b) Who is the most effective at 2nd language learning?
(c) What type of vocabulary is most useful in 2nd language
acquisition?
(d) Why do we need vocabulary in 2nd language acquisition?
(e) What is the role of vocabulary in 2nd language acquisition?
(f) Where is vocabulary acquired?
(g) How would you define vocabulary?
(h) How many words constitute a good vocabulary?
(i) How much time should a language student spend on vocabulary?
(j) How many ways are there to learn vocabulary?

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ACADEMIC WRITING

For a topic in literature, you might compare two novels, even two novels by the same author, such as Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club and The Kitchen God’s Wife. If you are writing an essay comparing two aspects of some works of literature, you can develop questions by referring to the following models.

A Topic in Literature:
1. How is Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club different from her second novel,
The Kitchen God’s Wife?
2. How does the style of narration in The Joy Luck Club differ from that in
The Kitchen God’s Wife?
3. In what ways do the characters and the themes in The Joy Luck Club and
The Kitchen God’s Wife differ?
4. What are some of the differences between the setting in The Joy Luck Club and
The Kitchen God’s Wife?
5. What are some differences between the central characters in The Joy Luck Club and The Kitchen God’s Wife?

Ways of developing a topic into a thesis statement for your essay are included in the Appendix.