College and University Writing Essentials

By Robert Truscott

REA’s Essentials provide quick and easy access to critical information in a variety of different fields, ranging from the most basic to the most advanced. As its name implies, these concise, comprehensive study guides summarize the essentials of the field covered. Essentials are helpful when preparing for exams, doing homework and will remain a lasting reference source for students, teachers, and professionals. College and University Writing covers reading skills, the active reading process, basic composition, narration in the first or third person, writing about literature, images, metaphors and symbols, themes in literature, research assignments, and creative writing.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Research & Education Association
• Release date: Jan 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9780738670454

Book preview

more!

CHAPTER 1

Introduction to College and University Writing

1.1 What Your Professors Want

Whether you’re attending a two- or four-year college, professors have the same expectations: that you will graduate with (a) the skills to write critically about, and respond analytically to, literature and issues of the day and (b) the ability to compose standard business documents—letters, reports, and proposals. The need for writing spans the full gamut of academic courses. History and geology majors alike must come to terms with writing the research paper, not only in their chosen field but also in a basic English composition course.

Most professors will insist that students control not only the basic format, grammar, organization, logic, and punctuation of the writing submitted, but also learn to use the English language with skill and accuracy. Knowing the basic vocabulary of English and the specialized vocabulary of a chosen discipline is essential to success, just as in a job it is essential to be able to produce cogent documents on a timely basis. Your professors want you to leave college able to handle the typical tasks of writing in life, to enjoy writing and reading in English, and to be effective critical thinkers.

1.2 The Curriculum of College and University Writing

Professors who teach courses that are specific to English departments—and not scientific, technical, or business disciplines—will demand that students write essays in response to the environment, society, or literature. Literature, broadly speaking, is anything written for the public to read—from newspaper articles to comic books. Most college curricula, however, divide literature into two broad areas: nonfiction writing and creative writing.

Nonfiction writing includes essays and books that deal with any topic about which people want to know more. Nonfiction is literature about real people, places, things, or important ideas, and speaks to the reader directly. Nonfiction forms, also called expository writing (from the verb to espouse, or say), include books on history, philosophy, art, and religion and essays on politics, biology, and astronomy. Authors use nonfiction writing for four major purposes: to describe, explain, inform, or persuade readers to understand, believe, or agree about something.

Creative writing generally covers work done by writers to enlighten or move readers to either laughter or tears, or to the contemplation of a social (e.g., civil rights), philosophical (e.g., What does it mean to be good?), or aesthetic (e.g., What does it mean to be beautiful?) idea. Most college English courses call for reading, criticizing, and analyzing the relative beauty or effectiveness of creative works of literature. Students generally study creative literature in genres, or literary forms. These forms include drama, fiction, and poetry. The chart that follows, although not exhaustive, should put into perspective the different forms of literature created by human beings.

1.3 Why Writing and Reading are Essential Skills

More and more professional, trade, and other careers call for strong writing and reading skills. Many students entering college who are not English majors believe that writing, or knowing how to write, is important only to English majors. However, this is not the case. People in most professions have to present themselves in writing to customers or clients. For example, scientists must continually read as well as write articles about their research and must write up the results of their experiments. In addition, executives, scientists, and other professionals must often write memos, reports, proposals, and letters.

It is apparent that secretaries, doctors, lawyers, and civil servants must write. But it’s also true that middle managers, supervisors, vice presidents, and presidents all have to produce excellent writing for their companies and clients—often under short notice. Students may not leave college to write essays about the poetry of Robert Frost or the novels of Ernest Hemingway, but chances are excellent that they will often write for business. Possessing basic and complex writing and reading skills is essential to any competent business or technical professional.

Often, when candidates for a particular job have the same fundamental education, G.P.A., and honors, the job goes to the candidate with the best communication skills. Writing is an essential communication skill. Take a moment and look at the help wanted ads in a newspaper employment section. Notice how many jobs require the successful candidate to have strong writing and other communication skills. In this connection, writing can also be seen as a form of power—a form of knowledge without which one would be left behind.

The candidate who can write well is promotable, and likely, in the employer’s eyes, to be one who can learn and master challenging job tasks. Why? If the candidate has mastered the basics of writing and reading, then the chances are excellent that the candidate can handle other challenges equally well. Thus, writing and reading are power.

1.3.1 Writing and Reading as Forms of Learning

Professors know that students who write often and well learn more quickly and remember more than those who write infrequently and poorly. A number of modern scholars have done important research to show that possession of strong writing skills enables an individual to learn about the nature of the world and to gain self-knowledge, as well as to take in and master knowledge in disciplines across the curriculum of college and university courses. Whether the field of study is biology, map-making, or computer programming, writing improves learning. To say so of reading goes without question.

Taking notes, recording impressions in a journal, using personal words to describe experiences—all these will help any writer (or any person, for that matter) to remember and deal better with complex experiences and knowledge.

1.3.2 Writing and Language Skills Improve Your Reasoning Skills

Students often complain about having to take the time to learn to analyze a poem or novel, understand an essay in detail, or comprehend the false arguments of a demagogue or other political leader. However, reasoning and analytical skills are keys to controlling the way life is led. An inability to analyze the arguments of a politician may lead to victimization at the hands of a dictator. A failure to comprehend the point of a rule or regulation on the job may lead to dismissal from that job.

The abilities to reason and analyze situations well are not just relevant to mysteries or the complicated plots of novels, but also to the solution to many of life’s problems and the surmounting of obstacles. For example, how does one write to an insurance company in order to be justly compensated for earthquake damage? Learn to write (and communicate) well. These are critical life skills that make for an intelligent, informed, and rational human being.

1.4 Preparing for a Writing Course

This book is not an exhaustive guide to college writing, grammar, or other related topics. For in-depth study of particular issues, you should consult course handbooks. This book is designed simply to provide a quick review of the meanings and functions of key terms in the study of literature and composition. For example, the precise meaning of revising in the writing process can be found in the section of the book called A Review of the Writing Process.

The student should not read this book as a novel. Instead, he or she should refer to it when a troublesome term or concept arises in the preparation of an essay or during the course of study. Throughout the text, under the subheadings, students will find terms italicized. These highlighted terms are the key ideas and definitions needed in college English classes.

Finally, use this book as a supplement to, not a replacement for, course textbooks. Learning from more than one source will enhance what you will remember and control. Don’t memorize the terms; learn them in perspective. Learn them in such a way as to take the concept and be able to say or restate it differently (paraphrase) while retaining its essential meaning.

Sheer memorization is the lowest form of learning and only somewhat useful. Those who go into an exam having crammed concepts into memory the night before often panic in the exam room, and they forget much of what they have memorized. However, the student who has learned to use the concepts, to paraphrase, and to apply the terms to his or her reading usually comes out ahead. It is best not to simply memorize a concept or term, but to be able to understand and apply it at will.

Another strategy for learning effectively is to identify the term or concept and then link the term or concept to an example from personal experience or knowledge that reflects exactly what the concept means. For example, in fiction, writers often use stock characters—that is, character types that seem to show up in life over and over again: the villain, the ingenue (a French term for a young, naive, free-spirited, and virginal woman), or the mad scientist. Obviously, Dr. Frankenstein, created by Mary Shelley in the famous horror story Frankenstein, is a good example of the mad scientist. He