WRITING AN ACADEMIC PAPER

Remember, the purpose of an academic paper is to prove a thesis. The thesis is the answer to a topic question. A topic question arises from research (finding out what other people have said about the topic) and the answer to the question comes from more research and analysis.

Research and analysis ("R&A") are the basic tools of the Information Age. If you can use them to write a paper on Jane Eyre you can use them to find out about almost everything that is going on in this world.

The main aim of this writing class is to teach you to write a well-structured 5-paragraph 1000-word paper. I've shown you the basic structure before, but here it is again:

1. The title. This usually gives the topic, the book and the author, in any order.

2. Introduction (one paragraph). This gives necessary background, leading to the thesis statement, followed by a summary of the main arguments in support of the thesis. The background should be focused on the topic. It often explains what other critics have said about the topic. The thesis statement should be a debatable point that critics are in some disagreement about; your thesis is the side of the discussion that you agree with. The arguments should be clearly explained so that they make sense by themselves; this usually means that each one should be explained in a clause or sentence with a main verb.

3. Main body (three paragraphs). Each paragraph of the main body gives a detailed explanation of one of the supporting arguments.

4. Conclusion (one paragraph). The conclusion should give a more detailed explanation of the thesis, drawing on information given in the main body.

In addition, we will try to  give our paper the following features:

a) In-text references for all information used, not just quotes.

b) Full references in a list of works cited.

c) Formal academic style throughout. The main points are: no short forms, such as "it's" or "can't"; no addressing the reader directly as "you"; no slang or idiomatic conversational language ("children", not "kids", "lover", not "girlfriend", etc.); correct use of conjunctions (mostly "and", "but", "so" and "because").

d) Clear, simple accurate English. Check your use of articles (the/a/an), plurals and verb endings, verb tense, use of prepositions, etc. Stick mainly to a basic subject/verb/object construction unless you are very confident that you can control more complex sentence forms.
 
I want to give you as much guidance as possible to help you to write a really professional paper, so please keep posting messages on this blog, keep sending me e-mails about your paper and come and see me in my office if you want to talk through your work one-to-one.

The paper should be roughly 1000 words (it can be longer, but it shouldn't be much shorter than that). Quotes should not be more than about 15-20% of the total. The due date is January 31, using Turnitin.

See you in the CALL room on Thursday.