From Inquiry to Academic Writing : A Text and Reader

by Greene, Stuart; Lidinsky, April

• ISBN13: 9780312451653
• ISBN10: 0312451652
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-01-23
• Publisher: Bedford/St. Martin's

Summary

Beginning from the premise that all academic writing is conversational a collegial exchange of ideas, undertaken in a spirit of collaboration in the pursuit of new knowledge From Inquiry to Academic Writingdemystifies cross-curricular thinking and writing by breaking it down into a series of comprehensible habits and skills that students can learn in order to enter those conversations. The second part of the book provides a sampling of those conversations in a thematic reader that reprints substantial essays by intellectuals both inside and outside the university. By equipping students with the tools they need to think and write academically, and prompting them to respond to readings that explore profound issues and ideas,From Inquiry to Academic Writingemboldens students to contribute to important cultural conversations they will encounter in college and beyond.

Author Biography

STUART GREENE (Ph.D. Rhetoric, Carnegie Mellon University) is Associate Dean of Undergraduate Studies at the University of Notre Dame. He has published numerous articles on writing and writing programs, especially on issues of teaching writing across the curriculum and writing in the disciplines. He has contributed to and co-edited many books on writing and literacy, including Teaching Academic Literacy: The Uses of Teacher-Research in Developing a Writing Program (1999) and Making Race Visible: Literacy Research for Cultural Understanding (2003; 2006). He has also won several awards for his scholarship and teaching, most recently in 2005 the National Council of Teachers of English Richard A. Meade Award for Research in English Education.

APRIL LIDINSKY (Ph.D. Literatures in English, Rutgers) is an assistant professor of Women’s Studies at Indiana University South Bend. She has published and delivered numerous conference papers on writing pedagogy, women's autobiography, creative non-fiction, and film, and contributed to several textbooks on writing. She has served as acting director of the University Writing Program at Notre Dame and has won several awards for her teaching and research.

Table of Contents

Preface for Instructors

Introduction: What Is Academic Writing?

1. Starting with Inquiry: Habits of Mind of Academic Writers

Academic Writers Make Inquiries

Academic Writers Seek and Value Complexity

Academic Writers See Writing as a Conversation

Academic Writers Understand the Writing Process

    Collect Information and Material

    Draft, and Draft Again

    Revise Significantly

2. From Reading as a Writer to Writing as a Reader

Reading as an Act of Composing: Annotating

Reading as a Writer: Analyzing a Text Rhetorically

E.D. Hirsch, Jr., Preface to Cultural Literacy

    Identify the Situation

    Identify the Writer’s Purpose

    Identify the Writer’s Claims

    Identify the Writer’s Audience

Writing as a Reader: Composing a Rhetorical Analysis

Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz, Hispanic in America: Starting Points

Barbara Ehrenreich, Cultural Baggage

3. From Identifying Claims to Analyzing Arguments

Identifying Types of Claims

Myra and David Sadker, Hidden Lessons

    Identify Claims of Fact

    Identify Claims of Value

    Identify Claims of Policy

Analyzing Arguments

    Identify the Reasons Used to Support a Claim

    Identify an Author’s Concessions

    Identify an Author’s Counterarguments

Ryan Metheny (student writer), The Problems and Dangers of Assimilatory Policies

4. From Identifying Issues to Forming Questions

Identifying Issues

    Draw on Your Personal Experience
 
    Identify What Is Open to Dispute

    Resist Binary Thinking

    Build Upon and Extend Others’ Ideas

    Read to Discover a Writer’s Frame

    Consider the Constraints of the Situation

Anna Quindlen, No Place Like Home

Formulating Issue-Based Questions

    Refine Your Topic

    Explain Your Interest in the Topic

    Identify an Issue

    Formulate Your Topic as a Question

    Acknowledge Your Audience

5. From Formulating to Developing a Thesis

Developing a Working Thesis Statement: Three Models

    The Correcting-Misinterpretations Model

    The Filling-the-Gap Model

    The Modifying-What-Others-Have-Said Model

Providing a Context for Stating a Thesis

Jenny Eck (student writer), From Nuestra Clase: Making the Classroom a Welcoming Place for English Language Learners

Establish that the Issue Is Current and Relevant

Briefly Summarize What Others Have Said

Explain the Problem

State Your Thesis

Shirley Brice Heath, from Protean Shapes in Literacy Events: Ever-Shifting Oral and Literate Traditions

Jessie Potish (student writer), AIDS in Women: A Growing Educational Concern

6. From Finding to Evaluating Sources

Identifying Sources

    Consult Experts Who Can Guide Your Research

    Develop a Working Knowledge of Standard Sources

    Distinguish Between Primary and Secondary Sources

    Distinguish Between Popular and Scholarly Sources

Developing Search Strategies

    Perform Keyword Searches

    Try Browsing

    Do a Journal or Newspaper Title Search

Evaluating Library Sources

    Read the Introductory Sections

    Examine the Table of Contents and Index

    Check the Notes and Bibliographic References

    Skim Deeper

Evaluating Internet Sources

    Evaluate the Author of the Site

    Evaluate the Organization That Supports the Site

    Evaluate the Purpose of the Site

    Evaluate the Information on the Site

7. From Summarizing to Documenting Sources

Summarizing and Paraphrasing

Steven F. Lawson, from Debating the Civil Rights Movement: The View from the Nation

    Describe the Major Point of the Text You Summarize

    Select Examples to Illustrate the Author’s Argument

   

    Present the Gist of the Author’s Argument

    Contextualize What You Summarize

Synthesizing

Charles Payne, Debating the Civil Rights Movement: The View from the Trenches

Ronald Takaki, Policies: Strategies and Solutions from Debating Diversity

    Make Connections Among Different Readings

    Decide What Those Connections Mean

    Construct the Gist of Your Synthesis

Integrating Quotations into Your Writing

    Take an Active Stance When You Quote

    Explain the Quotations You Include

    Attach Shorter Quotations Effectively to Your Sentences

 

Citing and Documenting Sources

 

    Basics of Modern Language Association (MLA) Style

 

    Basics of American Psychological Association (APA) Style

8. From Ethos to Logos: Appealing to Your Readers

James Loewen, The Land of Opportunity

Appealing to Ethos

    Establish that You Have Good Judgment

    Convey to Readers That You Are Knowledgeable

    Show That You Understand the Complexity of a Given Issue

Appealing to Pathos

    Show That You Know What Your Readers Value

    Use Illustrations and Examples that Appeal to Readers’ Emotions

    Consider How Your Tone May Affect Your Audience

Appealing to Logos: Using Reason and Evidence to Fit the Situation

State the Premise or Premises

Use Credible Evidence

Demonstrate That the Conclusion Follows from the Premise

Recognizing Logical Fallacies

Jean Anyon, The Economic Is Political

9. From Introductions to Conclusions: Drafting Your Essay

Drafting Introductions: How Can You Set Up Your Argument?

    The Inverted Triangle

    The Narrative Introduction

    The Interrogative Introduction

    The Paradoxical Introduction

    Minding the Gap

Developing Paragraphs: How Can You Build Your Argument?

Elizabeth Martinez, Reinventing ‘America’: Call for a New National Identity

    Use Topic Sentences to Focus Your Paragraphs

    Create Unity

    Use Critical Strategies to Develop Your Paragraphs

Drafting Conclusions: How Can You Wrap Up Your Argument?

    Echo the Introduction

    Challenge the Reader

    Look to the Future

    Pose Questions

    Conclude with a Quotation

10. From Revising to Editing: Working with Peer Groups

Revising Versus Editing

The Peer Editing Process

Peer Groups in Action: A Sample Session

Working with Early Drafts

Working with Later Drafts

Working with Final Drafts

Further Suggestions for Peer Editing Groups

11. Other Methods of Inquiry: Interviews and Focus Groups

Why Do Original Research?

    Getting Started: Writing a Proposal

    Describe Your Purpose

    Define Your Method

    Discuss Your Implications

    Include Additional Materials That Support Your Research

Interviewing

    Plan the Interview

    Prepare Your Script

    Conduct the Interview

    Make Sense of Your Interview

    Turn Your Conversation into an Essay

Using Focus Groups

    Select Participants for Your Focus Group

    Prepare a Script for the Focus Group

    Conduct the Focus Group

Interpret Data from the Focus Group

PART II. A READER FOR ENTERING THE CONVERSATION OF IDEAS

12. Conventional and Unconventional Wisdom

What does it mean to be educated, and who decides?

Mark Edmundson, On the Uses of a Liberal Education: As Lite Entertainment for Bored College Students

bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress and Engaged Pedagogy

Jonathan Kozol, Still Separate, Still Unequal: America’s Educational Apartheid

James W. Loewen, From Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong.

Mary Louise Pratt, Arts of the Contact Zone

Robert Scholes, On Reading a Video Text

13. A World of Difference/A Shrinking World

Who are we in relation to others?

Kwame Anthony Appiah, Moral Disagreements

Jared Diamond, from Collapse

Franklin Foer, from How Soccer Explains the World

Thomas Friedman, from The World Is Flat

Malcolm Gladwell, from The Tipping Point

Michael Kimmel, Gender, Class, and Terrorism

14. ‘Check All the Boxes that Apply’: Unstable Identities in the U.S.

How do we experience the daily effects of race and class assumptions?

Ann duCille, Dyes and Dolls

Barbara Ehrenreich, Maid to Order: The Politics of Other Women’s Work

Thomas Frank, The Two Nations

Noel Ignatiev, Immigrants and Whites

Peggy McIntosh, White Privilege and Male Privilege

Hector Tobar, Americanismo, City of Peasants,

15. Acting Naturally: The Practices of Gender

How do we learn to think and behave as gendered people?

Shari L. Dworkin and Michael A. Messner, Just Do ... What? Sport, Bodies, Gender

Henry A. Giroux, Children’s Culture and Disney’s Animated Films

Jean Kilbourne, Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt,

Judith Lorber, Night to His Day: The Social Construction of Gender

Karin A. Martin, Becoming a Gendered Body: Practices of Preschools

Kathryn Morgan, Women and the Knife

Deborah Tannen, Talking Up Close: Status and Connection

16. Indoctrination or Revolution? Technologies of Popular Culture

How does pop culture reinforce or unsettle social standards?

Marguerite Helmers, Media, Discourse, and the Public Sphere: Electronic Memorials to Diana, Princess of Wales

Henry Jenkins, Complete Freedom of Movement

Steven Johnson, From Everything Bad is Good for You

David Kline, I Blog, Therefore I Am

Eric Schlosser, Your Trusted Friends

Cynthia Selfe, Lest We Think the Revolution is a Revolution

Elizabeth Teare, Harry Potter and the Technology of Magic

Assignment Sequences

Appendix: Using MLA and APA Styles

    How to Use Modern Language Association (MLA) Style

    How to Use American Psychological Association (APA) Style

Index of Authors and Titles

Index of Terms