what is an academic paper.docx

1、what is an academic paperWhat is an academic paper?Writing for CollegeHow It Differs From Writing in High SchoolOne of the first things youll discover as a college student is that writing in college is different from writing in high school. Certainly a lot of what your high school writing teachers t

2、aught you will be useful to you as you approach writing in college: you will want to write clearly, to have an interesting and arguable thesis, to construct paragraphs that are coherent and focused, and so on.Still, many students enter college relying on writing strategies that served them well in h

3、igh school but that wont serve them well here. Old formulae, such as the five-paragraph theme, arent sophisticated or flexible enough to provide a sound structure for a college paper. And many of the old tricks - such as using elevated language or repeating yourself so that you might meet a ten-page

4、 requirement - will fail you now.So how does a student make a successful transition from high school to college?The first thing that youll need to understand is that writing in college is for the most part a particular kind of writing, called academic writing. While academic writing might be defined

5、 in many ways, there are three concepts that you need to understand before you write your first academic paper.1. Academic writing is writing done by scholars for other scholars. Writing done by scholars for scholars? Doesnt that leave you out? Actually, it doesnt. Now that you are in college you ar

6、e part of a community of scholars. As a college student, you will be engaged in activities that scholars have been engaged in for centuries: you will read about, think about, argue about, and write about great ideas. Of course, being a scholar requires that you read, think, argue, and write in certa

7、in ways. Your education will help you to understand the expectations, conventions, and requirements of scholarship. If you read on, so will this Web site.2. Academic writing is devoted to topics and questions that are of interest to the academic community. When you write an academic paper, you must

8、first try to find a topic or a question that is relevant and appropriate. But how do you know when a topic is relevant and appropriate? First of all, pay attention to what your professor is saying. She will certainly be giving you a context into which you can place your questions and observations. S

9、econd, understand that your paper should be of interest to other students and scholars. Remember that academic writing must be more than personal response. You must write something that your readers will find useful. In other words, you will want to write something that helps your reader to better u

10、nderstand your topic, or to see it in a new way.3. This brings us to our final point: Academic writing should present the reader with an informed argument. To construct an informed argument, you must first try to sort out what you know about a subject from what you think about a subject. Or, to put

11、it another way, you will want to consider what is known about a subject and then to determine what you think about it. If your paper fails to inform, or if it fails to argue, then it will fail to meet the expectations of the academic reader.Constructing An Informed ArgumentWhat You KnowWhen you sit

12、down to write an academic paper, youll first want to consider what you know about your topic. Different writing assignments require different degrees of knowing. A short paper written in response to a viewing of Alfred Hitchcocks Rear Window, for example, may not require you to be familiar with Hitc

13、hcocks other works. It may not even require you to have mastered the terms important to film criticism - though clearly any knowledge you bring to the film might help you to make a thoughtful response to it.However, if you are asked to write an academic paper on the film, then you will want to know

14、more. You will want to have certain terms in hand so that you can explain what Hitchcock is doing in key moments. You will want to be familiar with Hitchcocks other films so that you can understand what themes are important to him and his work. Moreover, if you are watching this film in an upper-lev

15、el film class, you will want to be aware of different critical perspectives on Hitchcocks films and on films in general, so that you can place your argument within the larger ongoing conversation.When you sit down to write an academic paper, ask yourself these questions:What do I know about my topic

16、?Can I answer the questions who, what, when, where, why, how? What do I know about the context of my topic? What historical or cultural influences do I know about that might be important to my topic? Does my topic belong to any particular genre or category of topics? What do I know about this genre?

17、 What seems important to me about this topic?If I were to summarize what I know about this topic, what points would I focus on? What points seem less important? Why do I think so? How does this topic relate to other things that I know?What do I know about the topic that might help my reader to under

18、stand it in new ways? What DONT I know about my topic?What do I need to know? How can I find out more? What You ThinkYoull discover as you consider the questions listed above that you are moving beyond what you know about a topic and are beginning to consider what you think. In the process of really

19、 thinking about your topic, your aim is to come up with a fresh observation. After all, its not enough to summarize in a paper what is already known and talked about. You must also add something of your own to the conversation.Understand, however, that adding something of your own is not an invitati

20、on simply to bring your own personal associations, reactions, or experiences to the reading of a text. To create an informed argument, you must first recognize that your writing should be analytical rather than personal. In other words, your writing must show that your associations, reactions, and e

21、xperiences of a text have been framed in a critical, rather than a personal, way.How does one move from personal response to analytical writing?Summarize.First, summarize what the primary text is saying. Youll notice that you can construct several different summaries, depending on your agenda. Retur

22、ning to the example of Hitchcocks film, you might make a plot summary, a summary of its themes, a summary of its editing, and so on. You can also summarize what you know about the film in context. In other words, you might write a summary of the difficulties Hitchcock experienced in the films produc

23、tion, or you might write a summary of how this particular movie complements or challenges other films in the Hitchcock canon. You can also summarize what others have said about the film. Film critics have written much about Hitchcock, his films, and their genre. Try to summarize all that you know.Ev

24、aluate.The process of evaluation is an ongoing one. You evaluate a text the moment you encounter it, and - if you arent lazy - you continue to evaluate and to re-evaluate as you go along. Evaluating a text is different from simply reacting to a text. When you evaluate for an academic purpose, it is

25、important to be able to clearly articulate and to support your own personal response. What in the text is leading you to respond a certain way? Whats not in the text that might be contributing to your response? Watching Hitchcocks film, you are likely to have found yourself feeling anxious, caught u

26、p in the films suspense. What in the film is making you feel this way? The editing? The acting? Can you point to a moment in the film that is particularly successful in creating suspense? In asking these questions, you are straddling two intellectual processes: experiencing your own personal respons

27、e, and analyzing the text.Analyze.This step in constructing an informed argument asks you first to consider the parts of your topic and then to examine how these parts relate to each other or to the whole. To analyze Hitchcocks film, you may want to break the film down by examining particular scenes

28、, point of view, camera movements, and so on. In short, youll want to ask: What are the components of Hitchcocks film, and how do these components contribute to the films theme? How do they contribute to Hitchcocks work as a whole? When you analyze, you break the whole into parts so that you might s

29、ee the whole differently. In the process of analysis, you find things that you might say.Synthesize.When you analyze, you break down a text into its parts. When you synthesize, you look for connections between ideas. Consider once again the Hitchcock film. In analyzing this film, you might come up w

30、ith elements that seem initially disparate. You may have some observations that at first dont seem to gel. Or you may have read various critical perspectives on the film, all of them in disagreement with one another. Now would be the time to consider whether these disparate elements or observations

31、might be reconciled, or synthesized. This intellectual exercise requires that you create an umbrella argument - some larger argument under which several observations and perspectives might stand.Choosing An Appropriate TopicMany students writing in college have trouble figuring out what constitutes

32、an appropriate topic. Sometimes the professor will provide you with a prompt. She will give you a question to explore, or a problem to resolve. When you are given a prompt by your professor, be sure to read it carefully. Your professor is setting the parameters of the assignment for you. She is telling you what sort of paper will be appropriate.In many cases, however, the professor wont provide you with a prompt. She might not even give you a topic. For example, in a psychology course you might be asked to write a paper on any theory or theories of self. Your