An Insider's Guide to Academic Writing: A Rhetoric and Reader, with 2020 APA Update

Preface for Instructors

PART ONE A Guide to College and College Writing

1 Inside Colleges and Universities

What Is Higher Education?

How Do Colleges and Universities Differ from One Another?

■ Inside Work: Choosing a College

What Is the Purpose of College?

■ Inside Work: Writing about Your School’s Mission

■ Inside Work: Writing about College

■ Inside Work: Writing about Resources at Your Institution

How Many Different Academic Disciplines Are There?

■ Inside Work: Understanding Disciplinarity

Why Do Academics Write?

■ Inside Work: Thinking about What Academics Write

Insider’s View: Sam Stout, Gena Lambrecht, Alexandria Woods, Students

How Does Writing in College Compare with Writing in Other Contexts?

Insider’s View: Karen Keaton Jackson, Writing Studies

■ Inside Work: Understanding the Goals of Your Writing Course

How Do Writers Learn to Write in New Contexts?

■ Inside Work: Learning about Writing in Other Contexts

■ WRITING PROJECT: Profile a Writer

Rubbal Kumar, First Draft of Interview QuestionsRubbal Kumar, Literacy Profile – Benu BadhanTip Sheet: Inside Colleges and Universities

■ Inside Work: Reflecting on Your Drafting Process

■ Inside Work: Reflecting on Flexibility

Insider’s View: Jonathan Morris and Jody Baumgartner, Political Science

Insider’s View: Patrick Bahls, Mathematics

■ Inside Work: Talk about Technology with a Partner

■ Inside Work: Reflecting on Your Thought Processes

Main Idea

Scenes

Sensory Details

"I" Point of View

■ Inside Work: Drafting a Scene for a Literacy Narrative

■ WRITING PROJECT: Composing a Literacy Narrative

Michaela Bieda, My Journey to Writing Tip Sheet: Reading and Writing Rhetorically

Insider’s View: Karen Keaton Jackson, Writing Studies

■ Inside Work: Identifying Rhetorical Context

Insider’s View: Moriah McCracken, Writing Studies

■ Inside Work: Reading Rhetorically

■ Inside Work: Analyzing Rhetorical Context

■ WRITING PROJECT: Writing a Rhetorical Analysis

Tip Sheet: Reading and Writing Rhetorically

■ Inside Work: Writing about Arguments

Thesis versus Hypothesis

■ Inside Work: Constructing Thesis Statements

Insider’s View: Moriah McCracken, Writing Studies

Insider’s View: Michelle Richter, Criminal Justice

■ Inside Work: Analyzing Audience Expectations

■ Inside Work: Considering Assumptions and Audience

Insider’s View: Mike Brotherton, Astronomy

■ Inside Work: Dealing with Counterarguments

Jack Solomon, from Masters of Desire: The Culture of American Advertising Insider Example: Student Analysis of an Advertisement 00

■ WRITING PROJECT: Composing a Rhetorical Analysis of an Advertisement

Tip Sheet: Developing Arguments

Developing a Research Question

■ Inside Work: Writing a Research Question

Insider’s View: Jody Baumgartner and Jonathan Morris, Political Science

Choosing Primary and Secondary Sources

Insider’s View: Moriah McCracken, Writing Studies

■ Inside Work: Collecting Primary Evidence

■ Inside Work: Using Primary and Secondary Sources

Searching for Sources

■ Inside Work: Generating Search Terms

■ Inside Work: Generating Sources from an Academic Database

Evaluating Sources

Insider’s View: Jonathan Morris, Political Science

■ Inside Work: Evaluating Sources

Summarizing, Paraphrasing, and Quoting from Sources

■ Inside Work: Summarizing, Paraphrasing, and Quoting from Sources

Avoiding Plagiarism

Insider’s View: Karen Keaton Jackson, Writing Studies

■ Inside Work: Understanding Plagiarism

Understanding Documentation Systems

■ WRITING PROJECT: Writing an Annotated Bibliography

■ WRITING PROJECT: Developing a Supported Argument on a Controversial Issue

Jack Gomperts, English 101 Essay on Hydration in Athletes Tip Sheet: Academic Research

PART TWO Inside Academic Writing

6 Reading and Writing in Academic Disciplines

Insider’s View: Karen Keaton Jackson, Writing Studies

Insider’s View: Moriah McCracken, Writing Studies

Insider’s View: Mike Brotherton, Astronomy

■ Inside Work: Reflecting on a Discipline

Mike Brotherton, from Hubble Space Telescope Spies Galaxy/Black Hole Evolution in Action Insider’s View: Mike Brotherton, Astronomy

■ Inside Work: Reflecting on Rhetorical Context

Insider’s View: Mike Brotherton, Astronomy

■ Inside Work: Reflecting on an Academic Article

Insider’s View: Mike Brotherton, Astronomy

■ WRITING PROJECT: Writing a Genre Analysis of an Academic Article

■ WRITING PROJECT: Writing a Comparative Genre Analysis

■ WRITING PROJECT: Comparing Scholarly and Popular Articles

■ WRITING PROJECT: Translating a Scholarly Article for a Public Audience

Tip Sheet: Reading and Writing in Academic Disciplines

Insider’s View: John McCurdy, History

Texts and Meaning

■ Inside Work: Thinking about Texts

Observation and Interpretation

■ Inside Work: Observing and Asking Questions

Insider’s View: Karen Keaton Jackson, Writing Studies

■ Inside Work: Observing and Interpreting Images

The Role of Theory in the Humanities

Close Reading in the Humanities

Strategies for Close Reading and Observation

■ Inside Work: Annotating a Text

■ Inside Work: Preparing a Content / Form-Response Grid

Responding to the Interpretations of Others

Insider’s View: Moriah McCracken, Writing Studies

Insider’s View: Shelley Garrigan, Spanish Language and Literature

Structural Conventions

Developing Research Questions and Thesis Statements

Insider’s View: Karen Keaton Jackson, Writing Studies

■ Inside Work: Developing Why, What, and How Questions

Developing Effective Thesis Statements

■ Inside Work: Drafting Thesis Statements

Five-Paragraph Essays and Other Thesis-Driven Templates

Insider’s View: Karen Keaton Jackson, Writing Studies

Other Structural Conventions in the Humanities

Language Conventions in the Humanities

Reference Conventions in the Humanities

Documentation

■ Inside Work: Analyzing Scholarly Writing in the Humanities

Insider’s View: Shelley Garrigan, Spanish Language and Literature

Textual Interpretation

■ WRITING PROJECT: Interpreting a Text

Artistic Texts

■ WRITING PROJECT: Creating an Artistic Text

Tip Sheet: Reading and Writing in the Humanities

Insider’s View: Kevin Rathunde, Social Sciences

■ Inside Work: Observing Behavior

The Role of Theory

■ Inside Work: Tracing a Theory’s Development

Research Questions and Hypotheses

■ Inside Work: Developing Hypotheses

Methods

Insider’s View: Kevin Rathunde, Social Sciences

Insider’s View: Jonathan Morris, Political Science

■ Inside Work: Considering Research Methods

The IRB Process and Use of Human Subjects

Insider’s View: Aya Matsuda, Linguistics

Structural Conventions and IMRAD Format

Other Structural Conventions

■ Inside Work: Observing Structural Conventions

Language Conventions

■ Inside Work: Observing Language Features

Reference Conventions

■ Inside Work: Observing Reference Features

Insider’s View: Aya Matsuda, Linguistics

The Literature Review

Writing a Literature Review

■ WRITING PROJECT: Writing a Literature Review

Theory Response Essay

■ WRITING PROJECT: Writing a Theory Response

Matt Kapadia, Evaluation of the Attribution TheoryTip Sheet: Reading and Writing in the Social Sciences

Insider’s View: Sian Proctor, Geology

Insider’s View: Paige Geiger, Molecular and Integrative Physiology

■ Inside Work: Considering a Natural Science Topic

Observation and Description in the Natural Sciences

■ Inside Work: Thinking about Systematic Observation in the Sciences

Moving from Description to Speculation

■ Inside Work: Practicing Description and Speculation

■ Inside Work: Developing Research Questions and a Hypothesis

Designing a Research Study in the Natural Sciences

Insider’s View: Michelle LaRue, Conservation Biology

Insider’s View: Patrick Bahls, Mathematics

■ Inside Work: Freewriting about an Experiment

Insider’s View: Michelle LaRue, Conservation Biology

Objectivity

■ Inside Work: Looking for Conventions of Objectivity

Replicability

Recency

Insider’s View: Patrick Bahls, Mathematics

■ Inside Work: Looking for Conventions of Replicability and Recency

Cooperation and Collaboration

An Observation Logbook

Insider’s View: Paige Geiger, Molecular and Integrative Physiology

■ WRITING PROJECT: Keeping an Observation Logbook

Research Proposal

■ WRITING PROJECT: Developing a Research Proposal

Lab Report

■ WRITING PROJECT: Composing a Lab Report

Kedric Lemon, Which Type of Battery Is the Most Effective When Energy Is Drawn Rapidly? Tip Sheet: Reading and Writing in the Natural Sciences

What Are Applied Fields?

■ Inside Work: Defining and Solving Problems

■ Inside Work: Considering Additional Applied Fields

Insider’s View: Michelle Richter, Criminal Justice

Health Fields

Insider’s View: Janna Dieckmann, Nursing

First Hospital, Discharge Instructions for Heart Attack

■ Inside Work: Nurse for a Day

Education

■ Inside Work: Teacher for a Day

Business

■ Inside Work: CFO for a Day

Criminal Justice and Law

■ Inside Work: Lawyer for a Day

■ WRITING PROJECT: Discovering Genres of Writing in an Applied Field

Tip Sheet: Reading and Writing in the Applied Fields

"Both pictures, contradictory as they may be, are part of the way that Americans live their family lives. Together they spin the American merry-go-round of intimate partnerships."

"[T]he findings lead to a new understanding of parent-child support in the years of emerging adulthood."

Brian Powell, Catherine Bolzendahl, Claudia Geist, and Lala Carr Steelman, Changing Counts, Counting Change: Toward a More Inclusive Definition of Family

"The United States includes a rich diversity of families whether or not they are officially recognized as such. In fact, ‘the family,’ although still invoked far too often in public and scholarly venues, is an increasingly untenable and obsolete concept."

"Many mixed-race youths say they feel wider acceptance than past generations, particularly on college campuses and in pop culture. . . . [W]hen they are alone, the family strives to be colorblind. But what they face outside their home is another story."

Academic Case Study: Perspectives on Love

Humanities

Despite legal and social disapproval of the time, "free women of mixed ancestry and white men developed relationships that mimicked legally sanctioned marriages."

Social Sciences

"[W]omen may not be the greater ‘fools for love’ that society assumes."

Natural Sciences

"[T]o fall in love provokes transient hormonal changes, some of which seem to be specific to each sex."

Applied Fields

"The results illustrate that language is an imprecise form in how people read and understand the written and spoken word."

■ Writing Project: Contributing to a Scholarly Conversation

■ Writing Project: Writing a Comparative Analysis of Research Methodologies

" ‘Neuroscience and neuroimaging is going to change the whole philosophy about how we punish and how we decide who to incapacitate and how we decide how to deal with people.’ "

"[I]t is imperative that criminal-justice reform evolves as the civil rights issue of the 21st century."

"It turns out that increased incarceration had a much more limited effect on crime than popularly thought."

"I’m about to become a prisoner in a massive penitentiary, and I feel an overwhelming sense of dread. I’m surrounded by people who have been here before, who know the system, who know how to work the guards. But I know nothing."

Academic Case Study: Capital Punishment

Humanities

"The death penalty cannot be understood simply as a matter of public debate or an aspect of criminology, part from what it is pre-eminently: performance."

Social Sciences

"[T]hese films certainly deteriorate the viewer’s mood, and have the potential to influence their social values and beliefs."

Natural Sciences

"We sought to determine whether the current drug regimen results in death in the manner intended."

Applied Fields

"Popular culture…has created an entire alternate universe that posits a legal system that regularly hurls doe-eyed innocents onto death row through the malevolent machinations of corrupt cops and district attorneys..."

■ Writing Project: Writing a Brief Annotated Bibliography

■ Writing Project: Composing an Evaluative Rhetorical Analysis

"Food is a natural conduit of change, evolution, and innovation. Wishing for a foodstuff to remain static, uncorrupted by outside influence — especially in these United States — is as ludicrous an idea as barring new immigrants from entering the country."

"Cooking, some scientists believe, played a crucial role in the evolution, survival, and ascent of early humans, helping to transform them from a ragged, miniscule fringe of struggling hunter-gatherers into the animal that dominates the planet."

"Our food is not healthy; we will be healthy if we eat nutritious food. Words matter. And those that we apply to food matter more than ever."

"Cooking has the power to transform more than plants and animals: It transforms us, too, from mere consumers into producers."

Academic Case Study: Genetically Modified Food

Humanities

Daniel Gregorowius, Petra Lindemann-Matthies, and Markus Huppenbauer, Ethical Discourse on the Use of Genetically Modified Crops: A Review of Academic Publications in the Fields of Ecology and Environmental Ethics

The study surveys more than three decades of "the moral reasoning on the use of GM crops expressed in academic publications."

Social Sciences

Are consumers truly hesitant to buy foods that have been modified genetically? Or, do they often express opinions on GMO foods that are not reflected in their purchasing decisions?

Natural Sciences

The goal of this study is to help "develop procedures to avoid environmentally induced disease in susceptible populations such as pregnant women and their fetuses."

Applied Fields

How do middle school students learn about the controversial scientific issue of genetically modified foods?

■ Writing Project: Writing a Persuasive Narrative

■ Writing Project: Translating a Scholarly Work for a Popular Audience

"Every book you pick up has its own lesson or lessons, and quite often the bad books have more to teach than the good ones."

"In the process of writing the anecdotes of the past, and recalling the emotions and pains of my fate, and telling part of the history of my country, I found that life became more comprehensible and the world more tolerable."

"The language of poetry was the magic that could liberate me from myself, transform me into another person, transport me to places far away."

"My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes id: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski."

Academic Case Study: The Scholarship of Writing

Humanities

This scholarly conversation explores "two ways of being in the world of texts" and how instructors and students might navigate the potential conflicts between them.

Social Sciences

Drawing on existing research in the field of positive psychology, the authors the impact that regular, prescribed writing can have on a person’s overall outlook.

Natural Sciences

With employers consistently ranking "oral and written communication skills as or more highly than any technical or quantitative skill," are science graduates adequately prepared for these demands?

Applied Fields

Gavin Fairbairn and Alex Carson, Writing about Nursing Research: A Storytelling Approach

The authors propose that a storytelling approach to reporting research results in resources that can be read and understood by "the maximum possible number of people, whether they are nurses, policy makers, or col-leagues in other healthcare professions."

Appendix: Introduction to Documentation Styles