- •What is an academic paper?
- •Writing for College How It Differs From Writing in High School
- •Constructing An Informed Argument What You Know
- •Summarize.
- •Evaluate.
- •Analyze.
- •Synthesize.
- •Choosing An Appropriate Topic
- •Finding a Rhetorical Stance
- •Consider Your Position
- •Consider Your Audience
- •Considering Structure
- •Introductions:
- •Thesis Sentence:
- •The Other Side(s):
- •Supporting Paragraphs:
- •Conclusions:
- •Using Appropriate Tone and Style
- •Tips For Newcomers
- •Coming Up With Your Topic
- •Reading to Write
- •Read Actively
- •Break the Linear Tradition
- •Trust Your Gut
- •Enter the Conversation
- •Use the Margins
- •Moving Outside the Text
- •Reading Differently in the Disciplines
- •Resources for Improving Reading
- •Using Critical Theory
- •Feminist criticism:
- •Marxist criticism:
- •Psycho-analytic criticism:
- •New Historicism:
- •Deconstruction:
- •Reader-Response:
- •Informal Strategies for Invention
- •Brainstorming
- •Freewriting
- •Discovery Draft
- •Formal Strategies for Invention
- •Five w's and an h
- •Tagmemics
- •Aristotle's Topoi
- •1) Use Definition
- •2) Use Comparison
- •3) Explore Relationship
- •4) Examine Circumstance
- •5) Rely on Testimony
- •Focusing Your Ideas
- •Nutshelling
- •Broadening Your Topic
- •First, try to make connections.
- •Second, turn your idea inside out.
- •Third, consider the context.
- •Narrowing Your Topic
- •First, test your claim.
- •Then look for examples.
- •Look for more examples.
- •Finally, consider the context.
- •Researching Your Topic
- •Finding Sources
- •Using Your Sources
- •Summarize Your Sources
- •Categorize Your Sources
- •Interrogate Your Sources
- •Make Your Sources Work For You
- •Keep Track of Your Sources
- •Cite Sources Correctly
- •Developing Your Thesis
- •Writing a Thesis Sentence
- •A good thesis sentence will make a claim.
- •A good thesis sentences will control the entire argument.
- •A good thesis will provide a structure for your argument.
- •Alternatives to the Thesis Sentence
- •The Thesis Question
- •The Implied Thesis
- •Will This Thesis Sentence Make the Grade? (a Check List)
- •What else do you need to know about thesis sentences?
- •A good thesis usually relies on a strong introduction, sharing the work.
- •The structure of your thesis, along with its introduction, should in some way reflect the logic that brought you to your argument.
- •A good working thesis is your best friend.
- •Constructing the Thesis: a Writer's Clinic for Beginners
- •What is a Working Thesis Sentence?
- •Revising the Working Thesis
- •Revising Your Thesis For Eloquence
- •Writing: Considering Structure & Organization
- •Organizing Your Thoughts
- •Let Your Thesis Direct You
- •Sketching Your Argument
- •Outlining Your Argument
- •Modes of Arrangement: Patterns for Structuring Your Paper
- •Constructing Paragraphs
- •What is a paragraph?
- •Writing the Topic Sentence
- •Developing Your Argument: Evidence
- •Developing Your Argument: Arrangement
- •Coherence
- •Introductions and Conclusions
- •Introductions
- •Announce your topic broadly, then declare your particular take.
- •Provide any background material important to your argument.
- •Define key terms, as you intend to make use of them in your argument.
- •Use an anecdote or quotation.
- •Acknowledge your opponents.
- •Conclusions
- •Revision: Cultivating a Critical Eye
- •Why And How To Revise
- •Large-Scale Revision.
- •Small-Scale Revision.
- •Editing.
- •Proofreading.
- •Developing Objectivity
- •Did I fulfill the assignment?
- •Did I say what I intended to say?
- •What are the strengths of my paper?
- •What are the weaknesses of my paper?
- •Analyzing Your Work
- •Consider Your Introduction
- •Consider Your Thesis
- •Consider Your Structure
- •Consider Your Paragraphs
- •Consider Your Argument and Its Logic
- •Read your paper out loud.
- •Get a second reader.
- •Be a second reader.
- •Visit rwit.
- •Logic and Argument
- •What is an Argument?
- •Understanding Formal Logic
- •Reviewing Your Argument's Evidence
- •Have you suppressed any facts?
- •Avoiding Logical Fallacies
- •Attending to Grammar
- •A Brief Introduction
- •Most Commonly Occurring Errors
- •Wrong/missing inflected ends.
- •Wrong/missing preposition.
- •Comma splice.
- •Subject-verb agreement.
- •Missing comma in a series.
- •Pronoun agreement error.
- •Unnecessary commas with restrictive clauses.
- •Dangling, misplaced modifier.
- •Its/it's error.
- •Becoming Your Own Grammar Tutor
- •First, determine whether the error is a matter of carelessness, or a pattern of error.
- •Second, prioritize among your errors.
- •Third, practice writing sentences.
- •And finally, understand that grammar counts.
- •The Basic Principles of the Sentence Principle One: Focus on Actors and Actions
- •Principle Two: Be Concrete
- •Nouns often require prepositions.
- •Abstract nouns often invite the "there is" construction.
- •Abstract nouns are, well, abstract.
- •Abstract nouns can obscure your logic.
- •Principle Two, The Exception: Abstract Nouns & When To Use Them.
- •Principle Three: Be Concise
- •Principle Four: Be Coherent
- •Is your topic also the subject of your sentence?
- •Are the topics/subjects of your sentences consistent?
- •Have you marked, when appropriate, the transitions between ideas?
- •Principle Five: Be Emphatic
- •Students' Advice for Students Sharon Stanley '99 writes on Clarity
- •Ross Wilken '99 writes on Revision and the importance of starting early
- •Ashley Brown '00 writes on Writing as a process
- •Louisa Gilder '00 writes on The importance of being personally invested in your writing
- •Leda Eizenberg '00 writes on The value of outlining after you write
- •Rita Mitchell '00 writes on Clarity
- •Christina Krettecos '00 writes on The writing process
- •Kinohi Nishikawa '01 writes on The importance of getting personally involved with your writing
- •Nils Arvold '00 writes on Things that work for him
- •Julia Henneberry '99 writes on Voice and tone, and the importance of reading other people's papers
- •Lauren Allan-Vail '99 shares a few thoughts on writing
- •Andrew Berglund '00 writes on The importance of clear logic
- •Karen Meteyer '99 writes on The importance of starting early
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Look for more examples.
How do people mask themselves? Here you stumble upon the lipstick idea. Perhaps the use of lipstick in the text signifies the impulse to mask?
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Finally, consider the context.
Just as a consideration of context can help you to broaden an idea, it can also help you to narrow it. "Everybody masks" can, therefore, become "Historically, people have used masks in these particular ways. Author X uses masks in similar ways to argue Y." Then show a) how the characters use masks in traditional ways, and b) what the writer is trying to illustrate through these allusions to the historic uses of the mask.
Researching Your Topic
On this page:
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Finding Sources
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Summarize Your Sources
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Categorize Your Sources
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Interrogate Your Sources
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Make Your Sources Work for You
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Keep Track of Your Sources
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Cite Your Sources Correctly
Finding Sources
Finding books and articles for your research can be quite a challenge - especially if you've not yet familiarized yourself with the library and its resources. The Digital Library at Dartmouth is a good place to start. There you will find links to the library catalog, electronic resources like online databases, and information on the library and its services.
If you're not sure where to start, try Getting Started with Library Research, a site that will help you find books and articles and give you tips on researching a topic. If you have a topic and you'd like some guidance in your research, consult a Research Guide, which provides information about the key resources (both print and electronic) in a subject area, written by reference librarians.
Librarians are available to help you no matter what you're looking for. Email Ask a Librarian for help. Librarians will respond during hours that the Reference Desk is staffed (generally 9 am to 8 pm on weekdays, noon to 6 pm on Saturday, and 2 pm to 6 pm on Sundays). Visit or call a Reference Desk for help in person or on the phone, or contact a Subject Specialist to make an appointment for a research consultation or to ask reference questions.
Student peer tutors are another great resource. RWIT, or the Student Center for Research, Writing, and Information Technology, is staffed Sunday through Thursday, 4-6 pm and 7-10 pm. RWIT tutors can give you support and guidance in research, feedback and instruction in writing, and assistance with common software applications like PowerPoint and iMovie. Visit RWIT on the first floor of Berry Library (behind the Computing Help Desk) or make an appointment online.
Finally, remember that Dartmouth faculty members can be an invaluable resource to you throughout your research process. To find an expert on your topic, check department homepages for information about individual faculty members.
Using Your Sources
You've found and read your sources. Now what do you do?
Summarize Your Sources
Before you attempt to use a source in your paper, you need to be sure that you understand it. The best way to make sure that you understand a source is to summarize it. In summarizing, you accomplish a few things.
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First, summarizing a source requires you to put this argument in your own language. Some of your sources might use language that puzzles you. When you summarize, you are in a sense translating an argument into language that you understand and can work with.
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Summarizing also enables you to see if there is any aspect of the argument that you don'tunderstand. If you find yourself stumbling as you attempt to summarize, go back to the original source for clarity.
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Summarizing also allows you to restate an argument in terms that are relevant to your paper. Most texts that you encounter are very complex and offer several ideas for consideration. Some of these ideas will be relevant to your topic; others will not. When you summarize, you can restate that part of the argument that seems most relevant to the paper you want to write.
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Summarizing can help you in the organization process. If you've used ten sources in a research project, you've probably taken a lot of notes and have gathered several quotations for your paper. This can amount to pages and pages of text. Summaries can help you to organize these notes by telling you almost at a glance which idea comes from which source. You can also include in your summaries the two or three best quotations from each source.
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Finally, summarizing is helpful to the entire research process. It's not something that you should do once at the beginning of the research process and then forget about it. Every time your understanding of your topic shifts or evolves, take the time to write a brief summary. You'll find that putting what you think in writing helps you to solidify one stage of understanding before progressing to the next.