PDF Second Edition - Pearson

[Pages:216]Academic Literacy

Second Edition

Stacia Dunn Neeley

Texas Wesleyan University

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Academic Literacy, 2e by Stacia Dunn Neeley

Copyright ?2005 Pearson Education, Inc.

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. Instructors may reproduce portions of this book for classroom use only. All other reproductions are strictly prohibited without prior permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This work is protected by United States copyright laws and is provided solely for the use of instructors in teaching their courses and assessing student learning. Dissemination or sale of any part of this work (including on the World Wide Web) will destroy the integrity of the work and is not permitted. The work and materials from it should never be made available to students except by instructors using the accompanying text in their classes. All recipients of this work are expected to abide by these restrictions and to honor the intended pedagogical purposes and the needs of other instructors who rely on these materials.

ISBN: 0-321-18319-3

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CONTENTS

Introduction

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Chapter 1

What is Academic Literacy?

5

Chapter 2

Roles for Academic Writers

17

Chapter 3

Rhetorical Tools for Academic Writers

39

Chapter 4

Decisions, Decisions: Research Into Writing

59

Chapter 5

Academic Genres:

Readers' Expectations and Writers' Challenges

79

Chapter 6

Summary

89

Chapter 7

Analysis

105

Chapter 8

Argument

119

Chapter 9

Alternative Literacies and Blended Genres

145

Appendix

Five Writing Projects

185

Glossary

200

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For all the students who taught me to teach

Stacia Dunn Neeley, Ph.D. is Assistant Professor of English and Internship Coordinator

in the Department of Languages and Literature at Texas Wesleyan University.

sneeley@txwes.edu

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INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this textbook is to help you negotiate the demands of academic assignments in college. It offers practical advice for doing well in college by discussing ways of reading and writing within an academic environment. Entering college, like entering any community for the first time, influences your identity. You may find yourself sitting at a desk in the library, in your apartment, or in a cramped and noisy dorm room facing more homework than you ever imagined and wondering how you will manage all of the social and academic demands on your time. You are joining a community of students and instructors who are expected to read a lot, think a lot, and write a lot.

This book will help you develop an academic attitude--a perspective that sees reading as a way of gaining knowledge and writing as a way of creating knowledge. Participating in your own education during this process will bring with it an orientation toward education that accepts the challenge of critical thinking and the commitment to transforming that thought into meaningful action. Students with an academic attitude value the adventure of exploring alternative viewpoints before deciding on their own. Students with an academic attitude appreciate the challenges of new subject matter but rely on transferable academic skills to face them. Technologies, professions, and workplaces certainly change often in our diverse world; academic strategies for critical thinking and problemsolving do not change as quickly and are easily transferred from one job to another. Whether you major in communications and become a webmaster only to take a job as a human resources specialist five years later, you will always have opportunities to share ideas with others. You will want to share those ideas in a coherent and well-organized way, and this textbook provides strategies to help you. With an academic attitude, you can build the tools for not only surviving college but succeeding in college.

By 2010, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there will be 36 percent more jobs for writers and editors (including technical writers) than

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in the year 2000. In fact, The Bureau expects jobs for writers and editors to increase faster than the average for all occupations through the year 2010. As more and more businesses and organizations use searchable databases, newsletters, and Web sites to communicate with employees, to attract clients, to manage knowledge, and to archive data, more writers will be in demand. Many of the habits of mind necessary for these jobs can be developed when you take advantage of opportunities to learn about writing in college. Think of ways to enjoy your classes by investing creativity and career planning into every assignment that offers such a potential. After all, how many times in your life will you have the opportunity to share your ideas with your peers and experts in a learning environment? Long after you have graduated from college and begun your "life's work"--whether that work be for pay or not--you will benefit from having developed academic ways of approaching subjects, issues, and problems.

You may ask, "What is academia? And why would I want to be a part of it?" Contrary to age-old stereotypes and caricatures of erudite, socially detached professors who "deliver" pedantic lectures from the podium while bored students sleep or take turns being responsible for note taking, the "ivory tower" is changing, and students are helping to change it. More and more instructors are incorporating student-designed projects, multimedia presentation tools, and collaborative assignments into their classrooms, giving students opportunities to participate in their own education. Owning your learning on a day-to-day basis is the first step toward personal fulfillment; the degree is just a statement of achievement that comes along with it.

What, then, does it mean to be "literate" in academia? This textbook will describe specific habits of mind and intellectual thought patterns used to describe, analyze, and argue within academic fields. While you may change careers several times in your lifetime, the mental frameworks you develop through academic writing are in many instances transferable. Practicing these habits of mind through critical thinking, problem-solving, and written communication will help you respond to college assignments

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with confidence and build productive connections between your academic community and your employment community when you graduate. Even if you enter a career in which you don't use specific skills learned in a college writing class, you will have developed a flexibility of thought that will serve you well in any workplace.

Overview

In the chapters that follow, you will find

N practical writing techniques that encourage an academic attitude;

N discussions of roles available to students as academic writers;

N discussions of discourse conventions you are expected to follow in most academic writing;

N examples of academic writing, including student essays that

demonstrate typical writing assignments college students are expected to complete;

N chapter-length discussions of four academic genres: summary, analysis, evaluation, and argument;

N discussions of how alternative discourses and hybrid literacies can enrich academic writing by adding creativity and personal connection;

N practical advice for planning, drafting, and revising essays typically assigned by professors in the humanities and social sciences.

Part of surviving and succeeding in college is a matter of opening your mind to new ideas and concepts. Because academic fields rely on the creation of new knowledge for their advancement, they develop distinct

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communication styles and specialized vocabularies. In this textbook, important terms within the field of composition are typed in bold print and defined in the glossary at the back of the book. At the end of each chapter, you will find projects for writing and reflection. Figuring out what is expected of college writers is half the work of becoming an effective writer. Using your own agency as a student to enter the ongoing conversations within the global academic community can mean the difference between "going to college" and enjoying the learning experience of a lifetime.

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