Task 3: Complete the following table

Conflicting advice to students across disciplines

These comments made by lecturers on Paul’s writing (not his real name) give us an insight into the problems faced by students working across different disciplinary traditions. Paul’s main subject is history which he successfully studied at A level. He has received positive feedback on essays written in both history and politics, but his anthropology lecturer perceives his essay writing technique to be a problem. Through analyzing what the student had written Lea and Street (1998) conclude that it is knowledge of how to argue and how to support his arguments with evidence in anthropology that is the issue for Paul, not general essay writing technique. Increasing numbers of inter- and multi-disciplinary courses mean that more students are struggling to get to grips with the writing expectations in several different areas.

Task 2: What are included into Humanities and Social Sciences? 5m

Task 3: Complete the following table

The humanities include art, drama, film, history, languages, literature, music, philosophy, and religion. In these disciplines, research often involves analyzing or interpreting a primary source—a literary work, a historical document, a musical composition, or a painting or piece of sculpture—or making connections between one work and another. Scholars in humanities disciplines may also cite secondary sources—commentaries on primary sources—to support their points or develop new interpretations.

Understanding Purpose, Audience, and Tone

Writing assignments in the humanities—in subjects such as literature, philosophy, ethnic studies, and art history—may be formal or informal. While formal writing may require you to use academic discourse and MLA documentation style and format, informal writing assignments may require no more than your personal responses to your reading and observations. Each of these two types of writing has a distinct purpose and tone. Informal writing assignments may have a variety of names: journals, response papers, or daily logs, for example. The purpose of this type of writing is generally to encourage reflection. For this reason, it is acceptable for you to use a relatively conversational, even colloquial, style and to use the first person (I ).

More formal writing assignments—bibliographic essays, literary analyses, research papers, and so on—often require that you summarize, analyze, or evaluate print and electronic sources, and synthesize information from a variety of sources. Because the purpose of a formal writing assignment is often to persuade an audience to accept a particular point of view or position, such assignments require a more objective tone and a higher level of diction than informal assignments do.

1) Response Essay -an informal reaction to a literary work, a painting, a dance performance, or a concert. This kind of assignment calls for you to write a first-person account of your feelings and reactions.

2) Summary Essay -summaries to show that you have read and understood assigned material. For this reason, summaries are often used in essay exams.

3) Annotated Bibliography and Bibliographic Essay -a list of sources (accompanied by full source information) followed by summary and evaluation. In some cases, you may also be asked to write a bibliographic essay that discusses these sources and their relevance to your research.

4) analytical essay

Learning to read, respond to, and write about literature are important skills that can serve you while you are a college student as well as later in your life beyond the classroom.

Reading Literature

When you read a literary work you plan to write about, you use the same critical thinking skills and active reading strategies you apply to other works you read: you preview the work and highlight it to identify key ideas and cues to meaning; then, you annotate it carefully.

As you read and take notes, focus on the special concerns of literary analysis, considering elements like a short story’s plot, a poem’s rhyme or meter, or a play’s staging. Look for patterns, related groups of words, images, or ideas that run through a work. Look for anomalies, unusual forms, unique uses of language, unexpected actions by characters, or original treatments of topics. Finally, look for connections, links with other literary works, with historical events, or with biographical information.

When you read a work of literature, keep in mind that you do not read to discover the one correct meaning the writer has hidden between the lines. The “meaning” of a literary work is created by the interaction between a text and its readers. Do not assume, however, that a work can mean whatever you want it to mean; ultimately, your interpretation must be consistent with the stylistic signals, thematic suggestions, and patterns of imagery in the text.

The social sciences include anthropology, business, criminal justice, economics, education, political science, psychology, social work, and sociology. When you approach an assignment in the social sciences, your purpose is often to study the behavior of individuals or groups. You may be seeking to understand causes; predict results; define a policy, habit, or trend; or analyze a problem.

Before you can approach a problem in the social sciences, you must develop a hypothesis, an educated guess about what you believe your research will suggest. Then, you can gather the data that will either prove or disprove that hypothesis. Data may be quantitative or qualitative. Quantitative data are numerical—the “countable” results of surveys and polls. Qualitative data are less exact and more descriptive— the results of interviews or observations, for example.

Understanding Purpose, Audience, and Tone

Like writing assignments in the humanities, writing assignments in the social sciences can be informal or formal. Informal writing assignments ask you to record your personal observations and reactions. More formal writing assignments require you to analyze and synthesize data. Each of these types of assignments has its own characteristic style and tone.

Informal writing assignments encourage you to examine ideas, phenomena, and data in the world around you. One example of an informal writing assignment is a personal experience essay, in which you are asked to relate your own observations of an event or an experience. Because you are being asked for your personal reactions, it is acceptable to use the first person (I ) as well as a conversational tone. Formal writing assignments—such as case studies, research essays, and proposals—use an objective tone and a technical vocabulary. These assignments often require you to examine similarities and differences between what you have observed and what you have read or to evaluate terms and concepts from your course readings and lectures.

While the purpose of writing in the social sciences is often to inform, it may also be to persuade—for example, to propose changes in an after-school tutoring center or to convince readers that binge drinking is a problem on campus.

Sometimes your instructor will define an audience for your assignment— your classmates, a supervisor of a social services agency, or a public official, for example—but sometimes you have to come up with your own or assume that you are addressing a general audience of readers in your field.

1) Personal Experience Essay

In some social science disciplines (particularly psychology, education, and sociology), you may write an informal personal experience essay that reports on a field trip or a site visit or even an interview with a professional working in the field. In this kind of assignment, you record specific details about an event. For example, students in a sociology class might write about their visit to a state correctional facility or a homeless shelter.

Assignment (Anthropology: Service Learning)

Describe your first visit to your field-learning site. How did you feel as you made your way there? What expectations did you have? Record your initial impressions of the site: How did you feel as you were walking in? What were the first things you noticed? What surprises did you find?

2) Book Review

A book review should include enough summary to familiarize your audience with the book’s content. It should also include your evaluation of the book and your analysis of its contribution to the discipline. Be sure to include the author, date, and title of the book in your first paragraph.

3)Annotated Bibliography and Review-of-Research Essay

Social science instructors may ask you to write an annotated bibliography in which you summarize and evaluate each of your research sources. You may also be asked to write a review-of-research essay (sometimes called a review-of-literature essay), in which you discuss the entries in your annotated bibliography and possibly compare them. The review-of-research essay is often part of a social science research paper. By commenting on recent scholarship on a particular topic, you demonstrate knowledge of the topic as well as an understanding of different critical approaches to that topic.

Assignment (Sociology)

Research an issue of your choice, one that interests you and that has a significant impact on particular populations in your state. Then, compile an annotated bibliography of at least six sources. Finally, write a review-of-research essay that discusses these sources.

Sample Annotated Bibliography (Excerpt)

Adams, J. R. (2002). Farm bill funding boosts FMNP. National Association of Farmers’ Market Nutrition Programs. Retrieved September 25, 2005, from http://www.nafmnp.org. This excellent article provides current information on the Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program (FMNP), with particular reference to its legislative appropriation status. The author stresses the need for continued lobbying to keep FMNP and WIC programs alive.

4) Case Study

Social science courses, especially psychology, sociology, and anthropology, frequently require case studies that describe, analyze, and solve problems involving human and institutional interactions. Case studies usually describe a problem and suggest solutions or treatments. In political science, case studies can examine foreign policy negotiations or analyze issues such as government infringement on civil liberties. In psychology, social work, and education, case studies typically focus on individuals and their interaction with peers or with agency professionals.

Assignment (Psychology of the Family)

Write a formal case study of the family you have been studying.

5) Proposal

A proposal is often the first stage of a research project. In a proposal, you define your research project and make a convincing case for it.

Assignment (Psychology of Substance Abuse)

Write a proposal to solve a problem associated with alcohol abuse. Each source you use—including Web sites, journal articles, monographs, and interviews—should be documented in APA style.

Date: 2016-04-22; view: 1421