PUC 13-14

• The sorts of activities that constitute a research paper - identifying, locating, assessing, and assimilating others' research and then developing and expressing your own ideas clearly and persuasively - are at the center of the educational experience
• Different academic writing tasks

  • Reports
  • Position papers
  • Essay
  • Scholarly articles
• Writer


  • Text
  • Topic
  • Audience
• Stages of the writing process


  1. Prewriting

  2. Outlining the structure of ideas

  3. Drafting

  4. Revising

  5. Editing
• Prewriting


  The first stage of the writing process where we discover and explore our initial ideas about a subject
• Prewriting


  • Gets our ideas on paper, though not usually in an organized form
  • Brainstorms thoughts that might eventually make their way into our writing
• Text development


  1. Determining a good introduction or lead

  2. Working on the body writing logical arguments in organized manner with paragraph & sections having good transitions

  3. Developing a comprehensive analysis
• Revision


  Depends on when it is needed, for scholarly articles and lengthy papers including uses and dissertation it is ideal to have colleagues to critique the work for minor and major lapses
• Forms and genres of academic papers

  • Concept paper
  • Position paper
  • Essay writing
  • Journal review paper
  • Research paper
• Academic writing


  The activity of putting down ideas on paper with the view to communicate academic concepts or messages in assignments, tutorials, dissertations and examinations as academics try to prove/disprove certain scholarly positions/views/theories/hypothesis
• 7 Cs for effective communication


  • Correctness
  • Clarity
  • Conciseness
  • Completeness
  • Consideration
  • Concreteness
  • Courtesy
• Academic writing should have a feeling of superiority which gives an example to which students should aim for precise and appropriate language
• Academic writing must follow the rules of Standard English or avoid using colloquial or conversational and informal contexts
• Academic writing should not be stiffed or stilted in somber tone which means doing away with emotive punctuation marks
• The role of communication in academic writing is how the written concepts and ideas are efficiently relayed to target audiences
• Position paper


  An essay that focuses on a controversial issue while advocating one opinion and denouncing the rest, with the goal to convince the audience your opinion is valid and worth listening to
• Components of a good position paper


  • A brief introduction to your country and its history concerning the topic
  • How the issue affects your country
  • Your country's policies with respect to the issue and your country's justification for these policies
  • Quotes from your country's leaders about the issue
  • Statistics to back up your country's position on the issue
  • Actions taken by your government with regard to the issue
  • Conventions and resolutions that your country has signed or ratified
  • UN actions that your country supported or opposed
  • What your country believes should be done to address the issue
  • What your country would like to accomplish in the committee's resolution
  • How the positions of other countries affect your country's position
• Scientific writing


  The technical writing that scientists do to communicate their research to others
• Characteristics of effective science communication


  • Contextualizing hard to understand concepts in a way that it would be relate to the public
  • Putting science in a social context to show how scientific discoveries contribute to humanity through the scientific awareness of scientists
• Research paper


  A piece of academic writing that requires a more abstract, critical, and thoughtful level of inquiry than you might be used to
• Writing a research paper


  1. Familiarizing yourself with the works of "experts"

  2. Comparing their thoughts on the topic with your own
• Research report


  A condensed form or a brief description of the research work done by the researcher
• Research report


  Involves several steps to present the report in the form of thesis or dissertation
• Scientific journals


  Academic and periodical publications that aim to progress science research
• Characteristics of scientific journals

  • Report NEW and UNIQUE research results
  • Typically specialized, meaning the focus is on one major research topic
  • Few journals publish materials covering a wide range of topics
• Examples of scientific journals


  • Nature
  • Science
• Publications in journals


  Called articles
• Communication in academic writing

  Facts and evidence are used to validate your standpoint
• Communication in academic writing

  • Focus on what matters
  • Differentiate necessary from superfluous
• Academic writing


  • Structured format and content
  • Follows an outline in the presentation of ideas
• Jodi Picoult: 'You may not write well every day, but you can always edit a bad page' You can't edit a blank page
• Prewriting


  Generating and developing ideas
• Outlining 


  Organizing ideas and information
• Composition


  Connecting ideas, building paragraphs
• Revising and editing


  Developing and revising drafts
• Proofreading 


  Editing for grammar, spelling, punctuation and style
• Reaction paper


  A paper that is a reaction to something you have read or seen
• Reaction paper


  • Be organized
  • Have citations and references
  • Include your opinions but be careful to support your opinions with evidence
  • Summarize what you are reacting to in the beginning of the paper
  • Explain your reaction(s) to the topic and explain why you think this way about the topic
  • Judge, analyze, or evaluate the issues of the topic
  • Identify and discuss the polarizing issues of the topic
• Reflective essay


  Written in ordee to look back on personal experiences and measure how that experience has helped the author to grow or change
• "Research" comes from Middle French word "rechercher", meaning "to seek out"