Writing in the Disciplines

Brief Contents

 

Contents

 

Preface

 

Part I: Reading and Writing in the Academic Disciplines

 

Chapter 1: Active Critical Reading

   Academic Reading-Writing Process

   Conversation with the Texts

   Active Critical Reading

   Keeping a Writer’s Notebook

   Prereading

   Preview the Text and Ask Questions that Will Help You Set Goals for Close Reading

   Use Freewriting and Brainstorming to Recall Your Prior Knowledge and Express Your Feelings about the Reading

 Topic

   Close Reading

   Mark, Annotate, and Elaborate on the Text

   Take Effective Notes

   Pose and Answer Questions about the Text

   Reading for Genre, Organization, and Stylistic Features

   Genre

   Organization

   Stylistic Features

   Rhetorical Context of Text

   Rhetorical Context of Your Reading

   Analyze Writing Assignments

 

  

Chapter 2: Responses, Paraphrases, Summaries, and Quotations

   Write an Informal Response

   Convert Informal Response to Response Essay

   Paraphrase

   Summarize

   Quote

   Altering Quotations

   Weaving Quotations into Your Essay

 

Chapter 3: Critical Analysis

Part I: Critical Analysis

   Focus of the Chapter

   Adopting a Questioning Frame of Mind

   Types of Analyses You Will Be Asked to Write

   Importance of Genre Knowledge

   Approaches to Analysis

   Purpose of Critical Analysis

   Critical Analysis and the Academic Conversation

   *Examination of “Dry Your Eyes: Examining the Role of Robots for Childcare Applications,” by David Feil-Seifer and Maja

 J. Mataric’s Critical Analysis  of Noel Sharkey and Amanda Sharkey’s, “The Crying Shame of Robot Nannies: An

 Ethical Appraisal”

Part II: Writing a Critical Analysis: A Detailed Demonstration of Reading-Writing Process

   Critical Reading

   Planning

   Drafting

   Revising the Preliminary Draft

   Editing

   Student’s Critical Analysis Essay: Final Draft

 

Chapter 4: Literary Analysis and Comparative Analysis

   Literary Analysis

   Process of Writing a Literary Analysis

   Comparative Analysis

   Incorporate Comparative Analysis into Longer Essays

   Stand-Alone Comparative Analysis of Texts

   Process of Writing a Comparative Analysis of Texts

   Sample Comparative Analysis Essay

   A Brief Word About Other Types of Analysis Essays

   Rhetorical Analysis

   Process Analysis

   Casual Analysis

 

Chapter 5: Visual Analysis

   Principles of Visual Analysis

   Portfolio of Photographs

   Overview of Visual Analysis

   Process of Writing a Visual Analysis Essay

   Previewing

   Viewing for Content

   Viewing for Genre, Organization, and Stylistic Features

   Viewing for Rhetorical Context

 

Chapter 6: Synthesis

   Analysis and Synthesis

   Process of Writing Synthesis Essays

   Examine the Assignment

   Determine Your Rhetorical Purpose: Purposes for Synthesizing Sources

   Ask Questions to Identify Relationships among the Sources

   Formulate a Thesis and Review the Texts

   Process of Writing an Exploratory Synthesis

   Decide on Rhetorical Purpose

   Formulate Working Thesis

   Process of Writing a Literature Review

   *Examination of “Adolescents’ Expressed Meanings of Music In and Out of School”: Patricia Shehard Campbell, Claire Connell, and Amy Beegle’s Literature Review

   Organize the Literature Review to Focus on Ideas Rather than Sources

   Process of Writing a Thesis-Driven Synthesis

   Support Thesis with Evidence

   Examination of Student’s Thesis-Drive Synthesis

   Revising Synthesis Essays

 

Chapter 7: Argument

   Nature of Academic Argument

   Argument in a Broad Sense and Argument in a Specialized Sense

   Specialized Argument Expressed as Statement vs. Specialized Argument Synthesized with Sources

   Developing Support for Arguments

   Joining the Academic Conversation

   *Examination of “Predators or Plowshares? Arms Control of Robotic Weapons,” Robert Sparrow’s Argument Synthesis

   Process of Writing an Argument Synthesis Essay

   Differentiate Between Issues and Topics

   Differentiate Between Claims and Evidence

   Differentiate Between Opinions and Reasons

   Probe Both Sides of the Issue

   Question the Reading Sources

   State Your Claim

   Support Reasons with Evidence from Reading Sources

   Acknowledge and Respond to Competing Claims

   Illustration of Student’s Process in Writing an Argument Synthesis Essay

   Consider Audience

   Determine Issue, Thesis, and Competing Positions

   Organize Argument Synthesis Essays

   Acknowledge and Respond to Alternative views in Separate, Self-Contained Sections

   Acknowledge and respond to Objections in a Point-by-Point Fashion

   Revising and Editing

 

Chapter 8: Writing Research Papers

   The Research Paper: An Introduction

   Identify a Research Topic: The Role of the Assignment

   Illustration of a Student’s Process of Writing a Research Paper

   Select a Research Topic

   Develop a Research Strategy

   Set a Schedule

   Brainstorm a Preliminary Search Vocabulary

   Determine How You Will Find the Sources

   Locate Sources in an Academic Library

   Use Catalogues to Find Books

   Online Public Access Catalogue (OPAC)

   Library of Congress and OCLC World Cat

   Bibliographic Details for Electronic Sources

   A Word About Electronic Retrieval Systems

   Types of Searches

   Conduct Research on the World Wide Web

   Advantages and Disadvantages of the Web

   Advantages of College Libraries

   Find Digital Resources on the Web

   How to Increase the Precision of Your Web Search

   Evaluate What You Find

   Which Articles Are the Most Important

   How to Evaluate Web Sources

   Evaluate Information Sources

   Collect Information on Your Own

   Modify Your Search Strategy

   Excerpt Information from Sources and Cite What You Find Using a Standard Format

   Formulate a Working Thesis

   Planning the Research Paper

   Select an Organizational Plan

   Outline

   Write from Your Outline

   Revising

 

Part II: An Anthology of Readings

 

Natural Sciences and Technology

Chapter 9: Who Owns Your Body?

   *“Who Owns Your Body Parts?” by Kerry Howley

   *“Donors Have No Rights to Donated Tissue” by Kristine E. Schleiter, JD, LLM

   *“The Trouble with Organ Trafficking,” by Arthur Caplan

   *“Why We Need a Market for Human Organs,” by Sally Satel

   *“The Gendered Language of Gamete ‘Donation’,” by Caroline Rubin  

 

Chapter 10: Human/Machine Interaction

   *“Humanoid and Android Science,” by Hiroshi Ishiguro and Minoru Asada

   *“Looking Forward to Sociable Robots,” by Glenda Shaw-Garlock

   *“The Ethical Frontier of Robotics,” by Noel Sharkey

   *“The Way Forward in the World of Robotics,” Kenneth W. Goodman and Norman G. Einspruch

 

Chapter 11: Privacy and Technology  

   *“I Just Called to Say I Love You,” by Jonathan Franzen

   “Kyllo v. United States: Technology v. Individual Privacy,” by Thomas Colbridge

   *“The Anonymity Experiment,” by Catherine Price

   “Trading Liberties for Illusions,” by Wendy Kaminer

   *“If Looks Could Kill,” The Economist

 

Social Sciences

Chapter 12: The Changing American Family

   “What Is a Family,” by Pauline Irit Erera

   “Children of Gay Fathers,” by Robert L. Barret and Bryan E. Robinson

   “Cohabitation Instead of Marriage,” by James Q. Wilson

   *“The Origins of the Ambivalent Acceptance of Divorce,” by Andrew J. Oberlin

   “Absent Fathers: Why Don’t We Ever Talk about the Unmarried Men?” by Rebecca M. Blank

   *“The Ballad of a Single Mother,” by Lynn Olcott

 

Chapter 13: Social Class and Inequality

   “Born Poor and Smart,” by Angela Locke

   *“Culture of Success,” by Brink Lindsey

   “The War Against the Poor Instead of Programs to End Poverty,” by Herbert J.  Gans

   *“The Inequality Challenge,” by Matt Yglesias

   “Serving in Florida,” by Barbara Ehrenreich

   “Middle of the Class,” The Economist

   “When Shelter Feels Like a Prison,” by Charmion Browne

 

Humanities

Chapter 14: Rock Music and Cultural Values

   “Toward an Aesthetic of Popular Music,” by Simon Frith

   *“Music and Morality,” by Roger Scruton

   “Redeeming the Rap Experience,” Venise Berry

   *“Digital Music: You Are What You Listen To,” by Lane Jennings

   *“Of Ipods and Dirty Underwear,” by James Rosen

 

Chapter 15: Stories of Ethnic Difference

   “A Different Mirror,” by Ronald Takaki

   “Jasmine,” by Bharati Mukherjee

   “Snapshots,” by Helena Maria Viramontes

   “Between the Pool and the Gardenias,” Edwidge Danticat

   “Bohemians,” by George Saunders

 

Chapter 16: Three Visual Portfolios

   Portfolio 1: Images of Families

   Portfolio 2: Images of Inequality

   Portfolio 3: Images of Ethnic Diversity

 

Appendix: Documenting Sources

 

Index