Writing Hints

                This handout is meant not as an exhaustive resource. Instead, it offers some general suggestions about constructing a paper. These recommendations should improve the presentation of your arguments and the clarity of your prose. Of course, feel free to use other resources or discuss these ideas further with me. Finally, this handout discusses some personal “pet peeves” in writing so that you can avoid them when writing for me.

Writing persuasively and coherently enhances one’s ability to communicate effectively. As you learn to write well, you clarify your ideas and present them in a way more comprehensible to others. This improvement, no doubt, will aid you in this class and beyond.
 

CONSTRUCTING YOUR PAPER

Your presentation is inseparable from your ideas. In other words, your writing reflects your thought process. If your writing is unclear or incoherent, it suggests that you have not thought through your ideas yet. Similarly, you will not write successfully if you have nothing significant to express. So conveying your analysis in clear prose is your central task.

There are many ways to draft a paper. Some people prefer outlines, while others jump right in writing freely. Although there is no single way to write, several common attributes characterize strong finished products. Effective papers present clear and significant arguments, use appropriate and sufficient evidence, and maintain a tight and coherent organization. You should strive to fulfill these goals for effective papers.

A paper, of course, should begin with an introduction. In that opening paragraph, readers expect you to introduce the topic and your argument. You should use your opening paragraph to orient the reader to your paper. That is, establish what this essay will address. Most importantly, you need to provide a thesis statement. Your thesis should be a single sentence that pulls together all the disparate information in your paper and makes it into an argument. This statement grounds your entire paper; it provides the writer and the reader with the essence of the paper’s argument. It should be specific and direct, so that readers can understand it easily. If you have not supplied a strong thesis, your reader will wonder what the paper is about and after reading it will not remember your paper’s point. However, if you write a clear thesis and advance a strong argument, readers likely will remember your essay.

Each paragraph needs to support your thesis and embody a complete, coherent idea. If you have too many ideas within a paragraph, its point will dissipate. Choose an aspect of your argument that you must substantiate and provide the necessary evidence and analysis. Begin your paragraph with a general statement (i.e., a topic sentence) that introduces the topic of the succeeding passages. Then provide the evidence and support for your point; here, you must convince the reader of your point of view. Remember that evidence does not speak for itself, so when you present it, you must also explain what it means and how it supports your argument. One effective way to end your paragraph is with a “clincher” statement that summarizes the paragraph, relates it to your thesis, and provides a transition to your next point. “Clincher” statements provide the reader an important reminder of your argument and go a long way to creating a coherent essay. Finally, a paragraph should not be too short or too long. If you can say all you need to say about a topic in a sentence or two, you are probably not making a significant point. If you need over a page to construct your paragraph, you are probably trying to say too much. Be sure to build your paragraphs carefully, logically, and coherently.

After writing your introduction and supporting paragraphs in a logical order, you should conclude your paper. A conclusion reiterates your argument without becoming redundant. It clarifies your thesis and argument a final time and provides the significance of your interpretation. If you write a strong conclusion, your reader is left with a clear sense of your perspective and the implications of your analysis. Alternatively, if your conclusion remains incoherent, your entire paper unravels. In essence, the concluding paragraph is the “clincher” of your essay, so be sure to develop an effective concluding paragraph.
 

OTHER THINGS, or THE SAME THINGS RESTATED

An Argumentative Thesis

Your thesis statement must state an argument. Many students tend to write descriptive theses. Instead of describing something, argue something. Compare the following examples:

EXAMPLE 1: Women’s roles and religion were important during inter-cultural contact in colonial America.
EXAMPLE 2: During the colonial period, women’s social roles and Christianity structured the ways in which Europeans and American Indians shared and challenged each other’s cultural ideals.

These examples both discuss women and religion in colonial times. The first example is a vague description, whereas the second example advances an argument that anticipates the succeeding paragraphs’ purposes. Also, note the difference in verb choice. In the first example “were” is difficult to envision, but in the second “structured” and “challenged” are more concrete verbs. So, pay attention to your verb choice and try to use verbs that you can “see.”

Writing as an Attorney

When writing your papers, think of yourself as an attorney and I am the judge and jury. Your task is to convince me of your case. To do so, you must build a persuasive argument based upon expert and eyewitness testimony. Your “experts” are historians; your “eyewitnesses” are those who lived through events and wrote or otherwise reported on them. If you build your case with only one, you will be less than persuasive. Just like a lawyer you must cross-examine your sources, making sure they are accurate, trustworthy and able to provide the information you need. Finally, you must avoid hearsay and conjecture. In other words, you cannot expect to offer a convincing case if you do not provide substantive evidence that fits together in a coherent way. If you marshal enough evidence and build an argument from it that is coherent, you are likely to convince the jury and you will be vindicated.

Quotations

Avoid excessive quotations. When you quote others’ work too often, your paper loses your voice. Use your own words as often as you can to explain others’ ideas. Otherwise, your paper becomes a medley of other people’s prose. If you use block quotations, several quotations per paragraph, or quotations of many sentences, you likely are employing others’ works too much. So try to limit your quotations to one or two per paragraph and try to avoid block quotations altogether.

Moreover, quotations cannot stand alone. When using them, be sure to introduce and contextualize quotations. That is, the reader should know where the quotation is coming from and why you are using it. Most importantly, you need to explain the quotation. After quoting, write a sentence or two that interprets the quotation. This practice will ensure readers take your meaning from the quotation. Compare the following examples:

EXAMPLE 1:  Public land controversies have produced competing factions who appeal to higher forces. “[T]he public has retreated to sometimes battling, sometimes cooperating, fundamentalisms: Nature knows best and the market knows best.” (We do not know who said this, or in what context, what it means, or why the author is including it.)

EXAMPLE 2: Public land controversies have produced competing factions who appeal to higher forces. In an essay, “Contested Terrain: The Business of Land in the American West,” the historian Richard White wrote, “[T]he public has retreated to sometimes battling, sometimes cooperating, fundamentalisms: Nature knows best and the market knows best.” (We now know who wrote it and in what context, but we do not know what it means or why the writer has included it.)

EXAMPLE 3: Public land controversies have produced competing factions who appeal to higher forces. In an essay, “Contested Terrain: The Business of Land in the American West,” the historian Richard White wrote, “[T]he public has retreated to sometimes battling, sometimes cooperating, fundamentalisms: Nature knows best and the market knows best.” Here, White suggests that people rely on nature or the market to explain their positions concerning public land. The problem with appealing to such fundamentalisms, however, is that it avoids a careful consideration of political and social issues, as well as vastly oversimplifying both nature and the market. This point further supports the argument that public land controversies often ovoid the scientific and economic realities governing grazing. (Now we know who wrote it, what its context is, what it means, and why the author has included it.)

Proofread

Remember to proofread.
        if I hav too read pappers that ar nott profread spelt corectly or puntuated proply I becom iritated and when I am iritated I garade mor harshly?

“PET PEEVES”

                Many of these items are not technically incorrect, but avoiding them will improve your writing’s clarity and accuracy. And following them will make your professor much happier than if you do not.

Passive Construction

Writing in the passive voice plagues many writers. It obscures agency and causation.

Passive construction results when you make a sentence’s object into its subject.

EXAMPLE:
Passive: The dog was walked by my aunt.
Active: My aunt walked the dog.

If you use the word “by,” there is a good chance you have written in the passive voice. Other

signals that you may be using passive constructions included helping verbs, such as “was written” instead of “wrote.” The active voice is more clear and direct, and it usually decreases wordiness.

This and These

These words generally require nouns following them, lest the sentence be confusing.

EXAMPLES:
John F. Kennedy was Catholic, and he resided in Massachusetts. This caused farmers to mistrust him.

Did farmers mistrust Kennedy because he was Catholic or because he lived in New England?

Kennedy was Catholic, and he resided in Massachusetts. This religious preference caused farmers to mistrust him.

Exclusive Language

As a matter of accuracy, use inclusive language. The generic male is usually inaccurate and irritatingly sexist. This is not a matter of “political correctness”; it is a matter of accuracy and discriminatory language.

EXAMPLES:
Inaccurate: The white man destroyed much of American Indian culture.
Accurate: Europeans destroyed much of American Indian culture.

Inaccurate: Man has always migrated to different regions of the world.
Accurate: Humans have always migrated to different regions of the world.

First Person

                Avoid the first person (usually). The reader will know that it is you, the writer, making the argument.

                                EXAMPLES:

Poor: In this paper, I argue that the Bill of Rights protects religious freedoms for Muslims.

Better: The Bill of Rights protects religious freedoms for Muslims.

Contractions

Avoid contractions in academic writing.

EXAMPLE:
can’t à cannot

Decades and Centuries

Since “1680s” means the years 1680-1689, “1600s” represents the years 1600-1609. Please do not use “1600s” to represent the seventeenth century.

“Time Period”

Time period is redundant. Use time or period or era or some other description.

COMMON MISTAKES TO AVOID

Economical

Economical means prudent, thrifty, or not wasteful. It is not a synonym for economic, which means of or relating to the production, development, or management of material wealth.

Affect/Effect

Affect is a verb that means to influence or change. Effect is usually used as a noun meaning result.

Then/Than

Often when comparing, people write “more then” rather than “more than.”