Click here to find out more about the 2009 MLA Updates and the 2010 APA Updates. 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 Writing demystifies 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 Writing emboldens students to contribute to important cultural conversations they will encounter in college and beyond.
Preface for InstructorsIntroduction: 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 Writers Purpose
Identify the Writers Claims
Identify the Writers 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 Authors Concessions
Identify an Authors 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 Writers 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 Authors Argument
Present the Gist of the Authors 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: Americas 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 Womens 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, Childrens Culture and Disneys 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