Essay Instructions: Please usee The Little Brown Compact Hanbook by Jane E Aaron is you have available I can scan the sections they refer to to make it easier if needed please thank you very much.
EH 1020, English Composition II 1
UNIT I STUDY GUIDE
Beginning Your Research Paper
Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this unit, students should be able to:
1. Create a topics inventory within the categories of an academic subject, social issue, scientific subject, and cultural background.
2. Generate a contestable, controlling idea statement.
3. Develop a short proposal while incorporating a topic inventory and controlling idea statement.
Written Lecture
Introduction to Unit I
Composition, as a course required by all universities and colleges in the United States, serves a specialized function within the academy that no other course can?it provides students with writing skills that they will need for future academic courses, courses that will ask students to write discipline-specific assignments. As such, composition is an introduction to academic writing and a foundation in its tenets.
In this course, you will learn to construct a research paper, one of the most widely utilized academic genres. In your academic career, you will be asked to write several research papers, and while some of the conventions may change based on the course you are taking and the discipline within which that course resides, the skills you learn in this course will transfer to any research-based writing that you do?academic, professional, public, or private.
Part 1: Academic Writing in Action: Introduction to the Research Paper
Chapter 13, Sections 13a-13e, of Strategies for Writing Successful Research Papers
As the title of this first chapter suggests, academic writing is based on argumentation; however, the type of arguments that you make within an academic setting must be grounded in research, meaning that no one is allowed to make unfounded assertions that are not based in a body of knowledge. Therefore, you will not be asked to make arguments until you have done research because only by becoming familiar your topic will it be possible for you to formulate an argument about it.
Rhetoricians, scholars who study arguments, often discuss arguments in terms of conversations. The thought here is that no argument is formulated in isolation; each argument is a kind of response to what someone else has written or said about a subject. You may write an argumentative research paper in response to something you see on the news, and it may be read by someone who writes a paper in response to what you have proposed about the topic. In this way, the back and forth forms a type of conversation about the topic. In his The
Reading Assignment
The Little, Brown Compact Handbook with Exercises
Chapter 29:
Agreement of Subject and Verb, Sections 29a-29k
Chapter 45:
Spelling and the Hyphen, Sections 45a-45c
Strategies for Writing Successful Research Papers
Chapter 13:
Writing from Research, Sections 13a-13e
Chapter 14:
Finding a Topic, Sections 14a-14f
Chapter 15:
Organizing Ideas and Setting Goals, Sections 15a-15h
Key Terms
1. Collective noun (mass noun)
2. Compound adjectives
3. Enthymeme
4. Homonyms
5. Hypothesis
6. Indefinite pronoun
7. Plural-Noun subject
8. Researched writing
9. Scholarly perspective
10. Singular-Noun subject
11. Thesis statement
EH 1020, English Composition II 2
Philosophy of Literary Form, Kenneth Burke describes this discussion about an issue as a conversation had at a party:
?You come late. When you arrive, others have long preceded you, and they are engaged in a heated discussion, a discussion too heated for them to pause and tell you exactly what it is about?.You listen for a while, until you decide that you have caught the tenor of the argument; then you put in your oar. Someone answers; you answer him; another comes to your defense; another aligns himself against you?.The hour grows late, you must depart. And you do depart, with the discussion still vigorously in progress.? (Burke, 1973, p. 110)
Burke?s famous passage allows for a few revelations about argumentation. One is that it is not necessary for you to feel as though your argument (your research paper) must address the entire conversation around the topic or the whole history of the topic. Instead, you are addressing the specifics of the conversation nearest to you. Secondly, you are not responsible for the final word on the topic; this is a good thing if you are a student who is not fully sure what your place is in the conversation. Further, your argument will not and cannot stand for all time; when someone answers your argument with a critique or a more logical conclusion, then your argument may be defunct, but that same rule applies for you as the critic or logical conclusion writer. In other words, as much ability as others may have to write opposite your argument, you have to write your own argument.
Part 2: Selecting the Perfect Topic: How to Navigate a World of Possibilities
Chapter 14, Sections 14a-14f, of Strategies for Writing Successful Research Papers
Selecting the perfect topic is really the first step in writing a successful research paper. Too often, students pick topics that are not appropriate for a research paper because, while a topic might have personal relevance, it is not contestable, and in order to write a successful research paper, one must have a topic that is in the least contestable. The reading assignment for Part 2 does a good job of trying to help you make the leap between a personal interest and a scholarly problem/issue (Section 14a).
Controversial issues are ones that invite arguments, and they are usually ones that people debate continuously. An example of this type of issue might be gun control, abortion, or health care. Often, people have strong opinions about these diverse issues before a conversation begins, usually as a result of deep, personal beliefs. As such, even when game-changing evidence is provided with new situations, a reader may not be persuaded to the side of the writer because he or she is not willing to hear the argument. This is why professors ask students to avoid such topics because students often find themselves stepping foot in a vast sea of arguments, and navigating this body of works can be difficult and frustrating.
Sometimes, however, these issues can be ones in which a solution is sought out?a solution that will be best for the moment?and the debate becomes about which solution is the best. An example of this type of argument might be one about what America should do as a nation in the face of an economic crisis.
Carefully consider your topic options and choices by using some of the methods discussed in the reading assignment for Part 2.
EH 1020, English Composition II 3
Part 3: Organization is the Key: Thinking about Process
Chapter 15, Sections 15a-15h, of Strategies for Writing Successful Research Papers
A research paper is an intimidating project, one that causes some students anxiety. This reaction is the result of many factors, but one overarching theme is that people tend to approach the research paper as a product. In other words, when they are told that they must write a research paper, they can only think about what it must be to write the final research paper?instead of thinking about the process of getting to that final project. In the same way that making a cake is not as simple as envisioning the final cake, writing a research paper is not as simple as envisioning the paper itself. There are a number of steps that one must follow to get him or her to that final stage. This course, in so many ways, is designed to take you from the point of choosing a topic, to that final research paper one step at a time, with plenty of feedback and guidance along the way. Therefore, an essential element of this process is being organized.
Success in this course, and in any course that requires a writing component, requires being organized with your writing. A key element of being organized is knowing where you are going before you get there. Planning and setting goals are essential, and you are the only one who can plan researching and writing time into your schedule. Do not allow deadlines to sneak up on you. By setting goals and reminders for yourself, you can organize your research and writing time so that you can approach the process of writing a research paper with as little anxiety as possible.
Part 4: Grammar Lesson: Subject-verb agreement, Spelling, and the Hyphen
Chapters 29, Sections 29a-29k, and 45, Sections 45a-45c, of The Little, Brown Compact Handbook with Exercises
The key to good writing is an understanding of how sentences function internally. Therefore, you will begin with learning about subject-verb agreement.
Spelling is something that is difficult for a handbook to teach because this skill is literally as wide as the entire English language. However, there are some helpful pointers in this chapter that may help you to make good choices about how you spell words.
In addition, the use of the hyphen is often a mystery to people, but the correct use of one can not only make your writing easier to read, but also make your writing more accurate.
Reference
Burke, K. (1973). The philosophy of literary form (3rd ed.). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Learning Activities (Non Graded)
The Little, Brown Compact Handbook with Exercises
? Exercise 29.1: Revising: Subject-verb agreement, p. 244
? Exercise 29.2: Adjusting for subject-verb agreement, p. 245
EH 1020, English Composition II 4
? Exercise 45.1: Revising: ie and ei, p. 349
? Exercise 45.2: Revising: Final e, p. 350
? Exercise 45.3: Revising: Final y, p. 350
? Exercise 45.4: Revising: Consonants, p. 351
? Exercise 45.5: Revising: Prefixes, p. 351
? Exercise 45.6: Revising: Plurals, p. 352
? Exercise 45.7: Using correct spellings, p. 353
? Exercise 45.8: Working with a spell checker, p. 353
? Exercise 45.9: Revising: Hyphens, p. 354
