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Jim McFadden
Assistant Professor of EnglishDirector of WritingBuena Vista University - SL
[email protected]://mcfadden.bvu.edu
712-749-2117
And Which One Do My
Students Need?
What Is Academic Writing? What Is Professional Writing?
What Is Academic Writing? What Is Professional Writing? Throughout BVU's communication-centered curriculum, writing assignments must advance and document student learning while preparing students for success in their careers.
Writing to Learn - Academic Writing to Inform - Professional
What Is Academic Writing? What Is Professional Writing? As students enter a discipline, they need to write often in academic styles that advance their learning, deepen their research, and develop their critical thinking skills. As students prepare to leave BVU, they need to write more often in professional styles that offer practiced competence, pragmatic application, and problem-solving experience.
Writing To Learn or To Inform Writing to Learn – Academic
From novice to expert – both insiders
Writing to Inform – ProfessionalFrom novice to expert – both insidersFrom expert to novice – both insidersFrom informed to the uninformed
– insiders to outsiders
And Which One Do My Students Need? This presentation will help you
discern when your students need you to draw heavily from your experiences with on-the-job writing and when they need you to provide academic writing assignments. The discussion will also re‑introduce you to the rationales and the requirements for writing in the disciplines.
The Impetus: From DWC Program Review
2004Several [center] directors reiterated and others agreed: the center instructors have disciplinary and professional expertise, but are less academically inclined [than SL professors]. Course content is their strength, not academic writing. This fact may be particular to centers' faculties because their expertise is in the discipline outside of the academy.
My Assumptions
You want to help your students to learn. You want to help your students prepare for
their professions, careers, and job searches. You want to help your students develop
multiple strengths. You expect writing at work to increase 28%
by 2010.
What is Professional Writing? My sense of the term, includes writing in
many orders of discourse: codes (medical, insurance, SS Title funding codes) numerals (Arabic & Roman; Counts & Series) texts (phrases, sentences, paragraphs; headings,
captions, lists) visuals (charts, tables, graphs)
Writing in professions and in workplaces. including the writing of "career writers" including the writing of clerical / support /
"paraprofessional" / blue collar workers.
Dylan the Dinosaur English Teacher Said: It was complete news to me that the sort of
thing that insurance executives and bankers did was as principled, skilled, reflective, and complex as what I'd been educated to think of as “writing" (that is, academic, scholarly, and literary writing). It took me years to learn that in fact "non-academic writing" is a weird [disciplinary] phrase because it suggests that what's the marked or the singled out case is the writing that has real audience and intrinsic purpose and function, unlike the student essay or dissertation. . . . It's "academic" writing that's the bizarre case.
What is Professional Writing?
Memos Records Reports Brochures Advertising Manuals Publicity
Logs
Forms
Emails
Locally specific formsNot standardizedCorrespondence basedCollaborative
Complexity: Two Readers of Professional Writing
Insiders Read for notice of professional obligations
and opportunities. “How does this text impact my role in my
post?”
Outsiders Read for notice of service and opportunities “Why has this person written to me?”
The Problem
The Problem: Stages in Learning to Write
1. Popular, nonacademic, generalized prose with little connection to disciplinary ways of writing – email, letters; repeating information.
2. Generalized academic writing, such as that done in composition courses – the essay, compulsory Humanities.
3. Novice approximations of particular disciplinary ways of making knowledge, such as that done in DWCs – MLA, APA, CBE.
4. Expert, insider discourse – Professional Writing, Writing that Works.
The Epistemological Joke
Epistemologies of Academic Writing
Have you heard the one about the three scholars overheard while arguing at the recent BVU women’s basketball game?
1. “The umpires call fouls as they see them.”2. “The umpires call fouls as they are.”3. “The fouls are whatever the umpires call them.”
Which one was the biology teacher, the English teacher, the social science teacher?
Epistemologies of Academic Writing
1. “The umpires call fouls as they see them.”Social scientist – APA, Chicago
2. “The umpires call fouls as they are.”Biologist – CBE, IEEE
3. “The fouls are whatever the umpires call them.English Prof - MLA
Communicative Epistemologies“The umpires call fouls as they are.”
Seeks Truth, the evidence, the technical, to inform.
“The umpires call fouls as they see them.”Seeks Justice, interpretation, the practical, to communicate.
“The fouls are whatever the umpires call them.Seeks Freedom, the thesis, the emancipatory,to persuade.
Values Held in Writing of DisciplinesSciences Repeatability Building blocks Contributor
Humanities &Business Uniqueness Rebuilding Individualist
Four Types of Differences in Conventions
New Topic: Differences in Academic Papers for the Humanities, the Social Sciences, and the SciencesFour Types of Differences Differences in Conventions of Structure
and Design Differences in Conventions of Reference
to Sources Differences in Conventions of Social
Position Differences in Conventions of Language
Use
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1. Differences in Conventions of StructureWriting in the Humanities Foregrounds language and human beings, both as
products of social forces. Authors seek to display individual authority, school
affiliation, disciplinary connection, credibility, power, insight.
Readers look for a thesis, stages in the development of the essay, explicit sentence-level transitions, mini-introductions, conclusions, headings and subheadings, epigraphs, citations.
Essay form is less about imposing an order on experience or research than a means of exploring, conveying, and re-constructing experience.
1. Differences in Conventions of Structure (cont.)Writing in the Social Sciences Foregrounds human beings and statistical
accuracy, both as products of community forces.
Authors seek to display community membership, school affiliation, disciplinary connection.
Readers look for abstract or initial summary, hypothesis, headings and subheadings, citations.
1. Differences in Conventions of Structure (cont.)Writing in the Sciences Foregrounds terminology, mathematical and
statistical accuracy, both as products of methodological collaboration.
Authors seek to display community membership, school affiliation, disciplinary connection.
Readers look for repeatable design of method and form: hypothesis, method, findings, discussion.
1. Differences in Conventions of
Structure (cont.) - Document Format
In empirical reports, the labeling and sequence of the major subsections are prescribed: Introduction Methods Results Discussion
The sections signal the writer's commitment to one of the fundamental values of empirical disciplines: the importance of shard, replicated methodology.
A "strategy for imposing a particular kind of order on experience."
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2. Differences in Conventions of Reference
There are significant differences in the ways disciplines conceive the nature and purpose of inter-textual dialogue.
Quotation, Summary, Paraphrase Selecting Citations Placement Citations Content of Citations
2. Differences in Conventions of Reference (cont.) – Quotation, Summary, Paraphrase Dispensing with direct quotation assumes
that ideas are separable from the language in which they are expressed.
Conversely, heavy emphasis on direct quotation, particularly when quotation is accompanied by extensive explication, assumes that language and meaning are inextricable.
2. Differences in Conventions of Reference (cont.) – Quotation, Summary, ParaphraseAvoiding direct quotation is useful to the scientific
community in three ways. 1. Rephrasing minimizes explicit attention to the
language in which ideas are expressed 2. Rephrasing contributes to "the rhetoric of
objectivity“ – findings are independent of language and are repeatable.
3. Condensing and paraphrasing rather than quoting directly diminishes the need for public dispute or the kind of clarification that sometimes seems quibbling over terms.
2. Differences in Conventions of Reference (cont.) – Quotation, Summary, Paraphrase
The use of frequent or extended quotation is a discipline-specific feature, more characteristic of the humanities than the sciences.
In the social sciences, quotations are quite rare. Students are expected to do extensive research and to master literature relevant to the problem. Even a crucial insight, distinctively phrased, is more often paraphrased than quoted; block quotations are almost unknown.
Summary indicates repeatability of findings independent of language.
2. Differences in Conventions of Reference (cont.) – Selecting CitationsHumanities Establish the focus and stance of the text. A subtle argument for the centrality or
prominence of particular sources in a discipline.
establish credentials display strategic judgment in choices establish professional alignments
2. Differences in Conventions of Reference (cont.) – Selecting CitationsThe Sciences In empirical reports, selecting references
effectively and incorporating them in the right places is more important than discussing them, a condensed form of communication with other members of the community.
Citations indicate repeatability of method and contribution to building knowledge.
2. Differences in Conventions of Reference (cont.) - CitationsIn Social Science reviews (not empirical
reports) A long string of unexamined citations is
uncommon and thought superficial. Analysis (rather than identification) of
previous work is used strategically to anchor a discussion.
Treatment of sources is less telegraphic and more discursive.
2. Differences in Conventions of Reference (cont.) - Content of Internal Citations MLA Style for Humanities
(McFadden 2004-56).
APA Style for Psych and Educ
(McFadden, 2004, pp. 2004-56).
Indexing, Authors, Repeatability, Search
2. Content of Bibliography Citations MLA Style for Humanities
McFadden, James. Published Book. City: Publisher, Year.)
APA Style for Psych and Educ
McFadden, J. (Year) Published Book. City: Publisher.)
Indexing, Authors, Repeatability, Search
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3. Differences in Conventions of Social PositionHumanities The writer often defines a position by
distinguishing it from that of others. New knowledge results from visiting old
territory or breaking "new" ground. An individual contribution often disputes or
displaces earlier research.
3. Conventions of Social Position (cont.)In the Sciences Authors hope to add a brick to the
wall of knowledge. Anomalous findings are likely, initially
at least, to cause distress and concern about validity.
The governing myth is one of disinterested cooperation.
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4. Differences in Conventions of LanguageThree topics:
1. Language as a Medium or as a Product?
2. Expressing Disagreement
3. The Language of Conviction
4.1 Language as a Medium or a Product? Humanities – Product.
Celebrations of language, fine writing, vivid metaphors, active verbs, dramatic sentences, and self-conscious phrasing
Science – Medium. Words are chosen to make language appear
to be a transparent medium for expressing ideas. Diction and syntax work together to keep the reader's attention on the phenomenon under study, not on the language used to describe it. Metaphors are not uncommon but are pedestrian.
4.2 Expressing Disagreement – different conceptions of etiquette in disagreeing with colleagues In Humanities disagreement may be sharply
expressed. In the Social Sciences, such assertive
rhetoric is rare, disagreement is gently handled or ignored. In psychology, disagreement is focused on the details of the empirical process and away form other writers as individuals
4.3 The Language of Conviction In the Humanities, it is usually
unnecessary to repeatedly emphasize the tentativeness of the enterprise. Assertiveness conveys conviction. Passive voice is deplored.
4.3 The Language of Conviction (cont.) Passive voice is required, 3rd person. Patina
of repeatability and objectivity. In the conclusions of empirical reports,
"hedged" wording is common. Delicate balance: Substantial implications can not appear to extend beyond the data.
And What Do Our Students Need?
And What Do Your Students Need?
The senior portfolio should include samples of Academic writing in the humanities and social
sciences Academic writing in the major Professional writing
Students need coverage on academic and professional writing in each 300 and 400 level course.
