Academic Writing for

Clarity and Grace

Week 3
Academic writing as a process of entering
an ongoing conversation: They say, I say
• So you don’t just jump in, you try to situate your argument in the larger
conversational arena.
• Orienting the reader is the key, so the reader knows: why are you telling
me this?
• What do others say about the subject? What set you off on this issue?
• Not all others, only the most prominent and salient examples, the ones
most germane to the point you want to develop.
• Then explain how your argument relates to theirs.
• This is the essence of framing an argument, what you do in the opening
paragraph or two of a paper.
The art of summarizing
• Put yourself in the shoes of the other.
• Be fair; don’t stack the deck too obviously.
• But keep in mind where you are going with this.
• Don’t get lost in an aimless lit review.
• The dangers of the lit review mindset
• Never just summarize an entire literature.
• Select the salient stuff, with the purpose of setting up your own
argument.
• Keep if focused, relatively short.
• Don’t let the reader wonder why you’re going into all this
• The review exists only to advance your argument
The art of quoting
• Quote only the most relevant material, where the wording itself is
particularly apt, clear, and persuasive.
• Otherwise it’s better to paraphrase.
• Frame the quote so the reader knows how to interpret it.
• Blend the author’s words with your own; this can be difficult.
• You need to get the grammar right.
• Make it so the quote flows with your own argument
• Integration is everything.
• Better not to use a lot of sentence fragments in quotes.
• Sometimes a block quote is more effective, since it gives the source a
chance to make an argument instead of just use a phrase.
• But readers often skip long block quotes; publishers hate them
Ways to respond to what they say
• Yes:
• I largely agree; yes, and….
• I’m drawing on this authority as grounding and then adding
something of my own.
• I’m in the camp but I’m not a camp follower
• No:
• I largely disagree.
• So my task is to explain why.
• But I don’t want to make things too black and white.
• I need to acknowledge what’s of some value in the dismissed
approach but then show where the author went wrong.
• Okay, but:
• I agree up to a point.
• But then I take things in a different direction.
• The result is more than a minor variation on the original theme
but a substantial and distinctive contribution to the
conversation
And yet: distinguishing your
argument from theirs
• Voice markers, so the reader knows whose voice you’re representing
each time in the text – yours or theirs
Planting a naysayer in your text
• The value of raising questions and complaints that a reader might have
in assessing your argument.
• Gives you a chance to head off obvious challenges to validity
• Used sparingly, it increases your credibility by showing your
willingness to consider alternatives – while also allowing you to
display your finesse in dispatching opponents.
• Don’t use it too much, since it may undercut your authority and
make you look too tentative.
• A delicate balance between shooting down a straw man or
shooting yourself in the foot.
• You need to represent credible objections fairly; but you don’t
want to undermine your own authority.
• A lot of rhetorical effectiveness comes from apparent fairness and
generosity to opponents while nonetheless slicing them to ribbons.
Fastwrite
Take 10 minutes to do a fastwrite about your paper
• Tell what it’s about and why it matters
• Use ordinary language not academic jargon
• It’s like you’re telling this to a friend across the table
• No theories, no sources, no quotes, no data, no citations
Do this every now an then as you’re writing a paper, so you keep
reminding yourself what the argument is all about
It can help you from getting caught in the weeds of your argument
“One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my
pajamas, I don’t know.”
Groucho Marx
The authors give a nice list of transitional words and
phrases that help keep the logical flow in the paper
moving ahead.

• See their templates at the back of the book

• Repetition of words and phrases can be useful; also rephrasing and
rewordings, which reinforce the ideas without being monotonous and
overly repetitive.
The value of metacommentary –
when used sparingly
• Headings are one major form.
• Reiterating earlier points in a later context.
• Providing an advance organizer near the beginning.
• Self consciously pulling together the pieces of the argument at later
points in the paper and at the end.
• Templates from the back of the book provide models of this
Don’t be too balanced in your
analysis
• It’s not your job to make all the counter arguments to your own
• You’re entering a conversation not providing the final word
• If your argument is reasonably persuasive and can’t be shot down too
easily; if it adds something useful to the conversation even if it’s not
entirely true or wholly supported by the evidence – then go ahead
and make it. That’s sufficient warrant for your paper.
• Let others make the counter arguments.
• A one-handed argument is better than a two-handed argument
• Aim to provide an analytical razor not a beach ball
As a result: connecting the parts
• One thing leads to another, one paragraph to the next.
• Keep the train of thought going.
• Remind the reader where you’re going and why, how this argument
builds on what precedes it.
• Don’t leave the reader wondering: Why is she telling me this? Where
are we headed? What’s going on here?
• That’s true for individual sentences in a paragraph; paragraphs in a
section; sections in an article; chapters in a dissertation or book.
• Keep the signposts visible for the reader – without overdoing it with too
much meta-commentary.
Keeping your voice while remaining
academically credible
• Often graduate programs have the effect of eradicating your voice and
replacing it with a stilted academic voice that sounds professional.
• Often this means learning to write in the voice of the author of a
mediocre journal article
• Sounding academic instead of saying something important and
interesting.
• Keep your attitude toward the text visible to the reader, audible to the
listener using your own authorial voice.
• Remind yourself continually: Why were you interested in pursuing
this question in the first place? What’s the grabber for you here?
Make sure this comes across to the reader.
• When you do this – get to the heart of your engagement with the
issue – you are more likely to write in a voice that’s yours and one
that is more engaging to the reader as well.
• Academic writing is a form of personal expression: you’re putting
yourself out there, so make it the kind of self you want to project
Reading like a writer
• Reading texts with an eye toward the author’s location in the larger
conversation
• This is a way to build your own conceptual framework, by identifying
where the author fits in the larger conceptual universe
• It’s also a way to learn from the rhetorical moves of other authors
• How do they introduce their arguments?
• How do they deal with alternative arguments?
• How do they use quotations?
• How do they draw you into their own view of the issue?
Writing like a reader
• Stephen Toulmin: "The effort the writer does not put into writing, the
reader has to put into reading."
• You need to frame your argument for the reader within a larger problem
space defined by the literature or common understandings or a chronic
problem in the field.
• And you need to lead the reader, step by step, in the direction you want
to take the argument
• What do readers need to know and when do they need to know
it?
• Getting the right pace is difficult – not so fast that you lose the
reader; not so slow that the reader loses patience
Putting the pieces together Graff’s
summary of how to write an
argument
• Check out Graff’s summary of how to write an argument
• A great overview of how to construct an argument
Examples of really good writing
• The King James bible is, along with Shakespeare, the central
foundational text in the English language
• Ann Wroe explains the power of the language in this translation of the
bible
• Read two different accounts of the same passage, one from the King
James bible and one from the Good News version:
• The opening lines of Genesis
• The opening lines of the gospel of John
• One is graceful, evocative, inspiring; the other is flat
• The 2nd translation is more accurate but a much worse text
King James – Genesis
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of
the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters.
And God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light.
And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the
darkness.
God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was
evening and there was morning, one day.
And God said, "Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let
it separate the waters from the waters."
And God made the firmament and separated the waters which were under
the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament. And it
was so.
Good News – Genesis
In the beginning, when God created the universe, the earth was
formless and desolate. The raging ocean that covered everything was
engulfed in total darkness, and the Spirit of God[b] was moving over
the water. Then God commanded,
Let there be light and light appeared. God was pleased with what he
saw. Then he separated the light from the darkness, and he named the
light Day and the darkness Night. Evening passed and morning came
and that was the first day.
Then God commanded, Let there be a dome to divide the water and to
keep it in two separate places and it was done. So God made a dome,
and it separated the water under it from the water above it. He named
the dome Sky. Evening passed and morning came and that was the
second day.
King James – John
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the
Word was God.
The same was in the beginning with God.
All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made
that was made.
In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it
not.
Good News – John
In the beginning the Word already existed; the Word was with God, and
the Word was God. From the very beginning the Word was with God.
Through him God made all things; not one thing in all creation was
made without him. The Word was the source of life, and this life
brought light to people. The light shines in the darkness, and the
darkness has never put it out.
Framing questions for analytical
writing
• Whenever you set out to do analytical writing (a paper, proposal,
dissertation, book), you need to use the following questions as a
framework to guide you as you write. An analytical text is effective if it
is written in a manner that allows the reader to answer
all four of these questions satisfactorily.
• What's the point? This is the analysis/interpretation issue: what is the
author's angle?
• Who says? This is the validity issue: On what (data, literature) are the
claims based?
• What's new? This is the value-added issue: What does the author
contribute that we don't already know?
• Who cares? This is the significance issue, the most important issue of
all, the one that subsumes all the others: Is this work worth doing? Is
the text worth reading? Does it contribute something important?
Some examples of good writing:
Lincoln
Last paragraph of Lincoln’s first inaugural address:
• I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not
be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break
our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching
from every battlefield, and patriot grave, to every living heart and
hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of
the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the
better angels of our nature.
Last paragraph of Lincoln’s second inaugural address:
• With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the
right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the
work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him
who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan,
to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace
among ourselves and with all nations.