Often used as one of the first steps in writing a paper, the annotated bibliography is an ideal way to analyze the sources you plan to use. Looking for a place to start? Learn the basics with our guide below.
Step One: Choose your style
Professors will often specify which citation style to use. If yours doesn’t, use the style you have done in the past for the class or department you’re in. As a last resort, default to MLA for humanities classes, CBE/CSE for specific life and medical sciences, and APA for just about everything else.
Step Two: Cite your sources
Once you’ve chosen the appropriate style for your annotated bibliography, consult the corresponding style guide to write your citations. Purdue Owl has helpful guides on how to write MLA, APA, and other major styles. Remember to follow the style guide beyond the basic citation format, remembering to order your citations alphabetically and indent appropriately.
Step Three: Write your annotations
There are three basic components of annotations: summary, evaluation, and reflection. Annotated bibliographies can focus on one of the components or combine them. Professors often specify the expected type and length of annotations for assignments; otherwise, you can default to incorporating a paragraph or a few sentences on each of the three main components in the following sequence.
Summary. Begin your annotation by summarizing the source. Keep your summary concise, focusing on the main ideas and the important points most relevant to the paper you will be writing.
Evaluation. Next, take a critical look at the source and evaluate its merits. Does the information seem reliable? What are the strengths of the source? What are the weaknesses of the source? Provide a short critique.
Reflection. Finally, reflect on how you plan to use the source in your final paper. Which parts of the paper will this source inform? What parts of the paper will this source inspire, influence, or otherwise affect? Did this source challenge your overall understanding of the topic?
Repeat this annotation process for each source, then you’re done. Take a look below for an example of a short APA style annotated citation.
APA Example:
Gillborn, D. (2015). Intersectionality, Critical Race Theory, and the Primacy of Racism: Race, Class, Gender, and Disability in Education. Qualitative Inquiry, 21(3), 277–287. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800414557827
Evidenced by an English study on Black Middle Class families, Gilborn explores the vital role of intersectionality in Critical Race Theory. He begins by defining the complex concepts of whiteness, intersectionality, and Critical Race Theory. Then, he dives into the striking study on special education referrals for Black youth, finding that regardless of their economic capital, Black families have a significantly harder time getting their children the disability labels and accommodations they need in the classroom. Meanwhile, he finds that negative labels for their children come much more easily from the schools. While these findings are illuminating, they are held back by the small sample size of the case study itself. Nevertheless, this study could be used to support the importance of recognizing and responding to intersectional issues when discussing a vision for the practical application of Multicultural Education in classrooms.
Note-taking is a valuable skill. Using notes as an extension of your memory, you can better prepare for classroom engagement, get ready for exams, and save time during the research process. Even if you do not end up referring back to your notebook, taking notes constitutes a form of active learning that can improve comprehension and recall.
Developing a personal system of note-taking can go a long way toward efficiency. Remember to give yourself time to explore what note-taking methods suit your style of learning, as it is often not a one-size-fit all affair. Finding what feels intuitive will not only help you turn note-taking into a habit, but also create a kind of structure that enables deeper engagement with the content. The most effective and generative method for each task can also vary depending on both the nature of the task as well as what you aim to accomplish.
Consider these questions
Do you like taking notes by hand or on a computer?
Do you keep your notes in the same place?
What learning technologies have you tried? Google Docs, OneNote, Zotero, etc.?
*which trains you to be a better listener as well.
To maximize note-taking as a learning tool, consider jotting down questions, sources, or concepts that might be worth exploring in the future. A common problem for students is that their own notes can turn cryptic after a while, especially when the notes are handwritten. One possible solution for this is to review your notes while your memory is still fresh. Reviewing not only allows you to organize and process new information, but also gives you an opportunity to track down (and flesh out) anything you may have noted down earlier in shorthand form. For example, if you take notes by hand, consider setting aside half an hour or so of your day to transfer your notes to a computer.
(If you are also an instructor, consider the option of providing guided notes or skeletal notes to your students before class.)
Taking Notes on Your Own
Sometimes, it can be hugely rewarding and clarifying to use notes as a way of breaking down a piece of writing into all of its component parts. However, following every single step of an argument or recording every point made by an article can turn into a time-consuming project. As you take notes, be sure to ask what you want from a source.
Are you reading for a class?*
Are you looking for new perspectives?
Are you looking for materials to support your own research?
Do you need to understand everything?
How much time do you have for this task?
*If you are, you might want to note down a question or two that you can bring to class for discussion. It also helps to note down page numbers of key passages for quick reference (e.g. in a fiction class).
For some alternative strategies, consider writing down only ideas that particularly intrigued you or have stayed with you after reading. You can also try pausing after each paragraph (or each chapter, etc.) to create a summary sentence, leaving space to fill in more details later if you want.
Annotating and highlighting can make it easier to go through the article again for note-taking purposes, especially if on your first read you find it hard to separate out the main argument or identify information most relevant to your research. For more thoughts, see highlighting and annotation.
Often students benefit from taking quotations directly out of the texts they are reading. However, with this strategy, it is important to avoid simply copying down key passages without spending time unpacking and paraphrasing them in your own words, whether or not you write those words down. Especially when the goal is to collect materials for an essay, it can be tempting to start building an argument directly from several pages worth of block quotes, which can sometimes lead to poorly integrated sources as a result.
Meditation is a gift confined to unknown philosophers and cows. Others don’t begin to think till they begin to talk or write.
Finley Peter Dunne
Dunne is sadly mistaken about (at least some) philosophers and the gift of meditation. I find it almost impossible to work through a philosophical problem without writing or talking. When simply carrying on an internal monolog I rarely am driven to a new idea and what’s worse, I can’t see the holes in my arguments. Writing a philosophy paper is not only the result of all your thoughts and way to communicate them but also as a tool that can be used to produce new ideas and arguments. Don’t be afraid to just start writing and see what you can make out of later. This resource will help guide you along the path to writing a paper but it is not the only way to write a philosophy paper, merely one tried and true set of heuristics for producing good philosophical writing.
1. Choosing a Topic
If the topic of your paper is left open to you, it can be difficult to figure out what to write on. One systematic approach to producing a paper topic is reconstructing the argument(s) being covered in class in standard premise form. From there focusing in on one of those arguments or even just one of the premises, analyzing arguments for/against that argument or premise.
For an argument to fail either one of the premises must be false or the conclusion must not follow from the premises. If you want to argue against something you must argue one of those two things. By breaking down arguments in this way it is much easier to see what you agree and disagree with, what has good evidence and what is more tendentious. So once you have your argument or premise that you disagree with, your paper can be a systematic presentation of the reasons against that thesis. Or, alternatively, if through reading you believe something is right but people are arguing against it by denying some premise or that its conclusion follows from its premises, then you can present reasons why the argument is successful.
One important thing to keep in mind when choosing a topic is not to try and do too much. By overextending yourself you ensure that your arguments will be unsuccessful. There are several ways one can overextend themselves. The most common way one might overextend is by not focusing on one argument or one premise. It is perfectly fine to produce a paper that simply analyzes one thing if it does so thoroughly and successfully. The best philosophy papers often make a very small point but get it across strongly.
2. Style
Philosophy papers are most often persuasive or argumentative papers, even when they are interpreting a work, rather than arguing for a particular philosophical position, you will be trying to persuade your reader of the interpretation you are presenting. There are certain things to focus on when writing a philosophy paper. Philosophical writing, above all else, demands clarity. It is preferable to have clear, simple prose over anything fancy, which might obscure your arguments. Use direct language and never assume your reader has the same background knowledge as you. A good rule of thumb is to imagine the audience for your paper is an intelligent peer who isn’t in your class or major.
Even if an argument was proposed a long time ago it is good practice to talk about it in the present tense, arguments don’t get old or die. For instance, instead of saying ““Plato argued that all universals exist independently of any particular” you should say “Plato argues that all universals exist independently of any particular.” You also are allowed and encouraged to use the first person tense in philosophical writing. Using the first person pronoun can make it clear what exactly your paper is trying to accomplish and which parts are your arguments rather than other peoples. Good phrases to use: “I will argue X.” “I will defend Y.” “ In this first section of this paper I will discuss Z.”
3. Structure
There are many ways to structure a philosophy paper but in almost all cases the paper should be structured around your argument. What follows in this section is an example of one argument centered structure you can use as a guide in writing your essay.
3.1 Introduction Paragraph(s)
It is easy to start a philosophy paper by introducing the long historical context that your idea or topic has. More often than not this is unnecessary. A good rule of thumb is to start by introducing the authors and their arguments, rather than trying to introduce the debate as a whole. If you need to discuss some historical points or context, do so as needed in the body of your essay. One should have a thesis statement and explanation of the structure of the paper within either the first paragraph or, if it is a longer paper, within the first page or two. By telegraphing your arguments and the structure they are going to follow helps the reader understand your essay the first time through. Your goal should be to accomplish these three things by the end of your introduction: 1) Introduce the audience to the general subject. 2) State a specific problem/question that the paper aims to address. 3) State a clear, explicit statement of the solution/answer to the problem/question (i.e. thesis statement).
Here is an example of a good succinct two paragraph introduction:
“Galen Strawson argues that mental action is mostly limited to cases of shepherding the mind; merely preparatory movements in hopes of trying to make other things happen: you can pull your focus back on task after getting distracted; you can clear your mental slate; you cannot, however, actively think, judge, believe, or choose. His arguments come to the conclusion that most of what happens in our head is purely mental ballistics; one can point the mind in a direction and pull the trigger, but after that, one isn’t in control at all. This paper will only discuss one of the mental events Strawson believes is passive: thought.
When I intend to think some thoughts and then subsequently have an instance of that thought content roll across my mental ticker tape, the thinking of that thought has risen to the level of action. Strawson gives what could reasonably be construed as an argument relying on a possible regress against the possibility of actively having some thought. Though I will discuss other ways to interpret his argument throughout the paper. My goal is to show that we can stop the regress from getting off the ground and rescue the intuition that one can actively think about some content. Though a lot of theories of mental action, concepts, and intention will have to deny that entertaining any particular thought content is an action, I will argue that not all do”
3.2 Body/Argument
The body of your paper should be largely spent on making an argument, only covering the background that is necessary for your argument.One it can be helpful to outline your argument in premise form and then go through each premise and explain why that premise is true. You can do this outlining in a separate document and use it to guide your paper or, better yet, include this formal argument in your paper itself. Here For example, here is a formalized argument:
Premise 1: If there is a soul then each person is identical with their soul.
Premise 2: Each person is also identical with a body
Premise 3: But, each soul is not identical with a body.
Conclusion 1: Therefore, each person must not be identical with their soul
Conclusion 2: Therefore, there is not a soul.
Providing the reader with this breakdown of your argument can strengthen your position and make it easy to understand what information is relevant to your argument. Finally, you should consider objections to your argument. This can either be done as you go about defending each of your premises, taking any objections while defending it, or you can discuss all together at the end. Either way, answering the questions/objections that might be aimed at you by a reader is very important to the overall strength of your argument and essay. One good way to do this is by examining your own argument and asking “what could possibly make this false?” There will surely be a few things, some more reasonable than others. Discuss the most reasonable ones and explain why they do not hold true.
Besides presenting your arguments, it is also important to discuss the implications of your argument. That is, if what you argue is correct, what has changed? If you were arguing against certain philosophical positions you might discuss how exactly it would have to change their position to account for your arguments. If you were critiquing a view commonly held in the literature, then you might discuss what competing view that one could be replaced with. This step helps your reader not only to understand why your argument is important but also facilitates understanding of the reach your argument has.
3.3 Conclusion
On shorter papers there is no need to reiterate all of the points. They occurred recently enough in the reader’s mind that going over everything can feel tedious or stilted. Often it is much better to really present the conclusions that can be drawn from your paper. Conclusions about the position you were arguing for or against, or conclusions about what the philosophical literature should be like now with your considerations in mind. For a longer paper, you can do the same things as the short paper but start by reiterating the main moves of your argument. And you should finish off your paper with a strong statement about what the reader should take away from the paper. This not only helps the reader understand what you are trying to communicate but also leaves them with a solid final impression of your paper and argument as a whole.
4. Informational Resources
Philpapers.org – This is a massive database of almost every philosophy paper and book. You can use it to explore areas and topics and find papers that might be relevant to your research. Then, once you have found some things you can acquire them through UVA’s library website above.
https://plato.stanford.edu/ – The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is a massive and detailed database of articles written by philosophers. No matter the philosophical subject, there is likely an SEP article on it. It’s not just written by philosophers but used by them as well. They can be quoted and cited just as you would an article or book. Starting a research project here, and then using the bibliographies at the end of each article to dive deeper is often the best way to start writing a philosophy paper.
https://iep.utm.edu/ – The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy is very similar to the Stanford Encyclopedia.
Many articles and books are available for free either through the library (https://search.lib.virginia.edu/), from the author, or through the publisher. If it is not available through the library, try searching for “Title, Author, PDF” or “Title, Author, Filetype:PDF.” Failing that, many authors are happy to email copies of their articles, though I would not rely on this.
First and foremost, it is critically important to note that you can make a Writing Center appointment at any stage of the writing process. This includes but is not limited to: brainstorming, outlining, drafting, revising, and revisiting. The Writing Center tutors are here to offer feedback and support at whatever point you feel would be most beneficial.
That being said, a little bit of preparation for the appointment will help you maximize your time spent working with a tutor. How is it recommended that you prepare? See below.
Schedule an appointment online
The UVA Writing Center does take walk-ins, but to ensure a tutor is available to help you when you come in, we recommend you schedule your appointment in advance online at virginia.mywconline.com. Just make an account and select an available window for your appointment! When scheduling an appointment, do your best to leave yourself time between the appointment and the assignment’s due date to continue working on your piece. You will benefit much more from your Writing Center appointment if you have time to actually implement your takeaways in your writing.
Have your prompt handy
It is very helpful for your Writing Center tutor to be able to read the prompt and potentially discuss it with you before digging into your paper. They will probably ask you for it at the beginning of the session. Writing with your prompt nearby helps you ensure that you are answering all parts of the prompt in your paper. If you have any other relevant notes, handouts, texts, etc that you will use for your paper, be sure to bring those as well.
Bring a notebook and pencil or a laptop to take notes
You’ll get the most out of your session if you’re able to write down and remember any recommendations your tutor makes that you like or ideas that pop into your head during the session. Additionally, you may end up brainstorming ideas on paper, outlining, drafting a thesis, et cetera, in your session. Your tutor will email you a summary of what you worked on in your session and some next steps, but it is helpful if you keep your own notes as well.
Know what you want to work on
At the beginning of your session, your tutor will probably ask you what you want to work on. This is your opportunity to identify particular goals or concerns you have regarding your writing so that your tutor can help you address them. You don’t need to have any solutions or specifics. Essentially, you just want to be able to answer the question: why did you make a Writing Center appointment?
This could be as simple as:
“I’ve been struggling with organization in my paper. Can we work on that?” Or,
“This is my first time writing a narrative paper, and I don’t have any experience writing in this style. Can we talk about how to go about that?”
A few recommendations:
If your piece of writing is long, identify either specific sections that you are concerned about or “global” concerns that are present throughout.
Your Writing Center tutor will not proofread your paper for grammar errors, but if you have overarching grammatical questions or concerns, they may be able to help with that.
If you’re feeling lost in your writing process, that’s okay! Just explain to your tutor what’s been working and what hasn’t, and they will be happy to help you navigate your way through the writing process.
If you are required to come to the Writing Center for a class, do still think about what you could work on in the session that would be most beneficial to you. Make the most out of your time you spend in your tutoring session, even if it’s required.
Participate actively in your session!
The Writing Center model is centered around discourse between you and your tutor. Since it is your paper, the session will focus on your ideas, and the Writing Center tutor is there to support you in your process, discuss your thoughts with you, and potentially offer recommendations when appropriate. Come in prepared to have a back-and-forth conversation about your paper with your tutor.
University of South Florida. “Writing Studio.” University of South Florida Academic Success Center: Undergraduate Studies, University of South Florida, 2021, https://www.usf.edu.
Once you’ve read and decoded your assignment, it’s time to begin brainstorming some ideas. While there is no step-by-step way to generate ideas, these are just a few examples of places to look for inspiration if you’re feeling stuck and ways to organize your initial thoughts. Oftentimes, one method of brainstorming can lead you into another, so you may end up combining some or all of these methods as you begin coming up with ideas.
Research
While some types of writing do not explicitly require you to do additional research, it can be helpful when generating ideas to look at some past work related to your topic. Briefly researching your topic and ideas related to it can help you figure out where to start with your own writing.
For this initial research, class notes and readings are often great places to look first. Flip through what your professor has said about your topic and jot down any thoughts that come to mind. Do you see any overarching arguments forming based on what was discussed in class? Could you use points from lectures and readings as evidence to support your argument?
Next, even if additional research is not required, it can be helpful to look outside of your class when trying to learn more about a topic. Again, briefly searching through some additional work related to your paper topic can help you learn more about it and refine your own argument. However, some professors specifically ask you not to do any outside research, so, if this is the case, skip this step.
By the time you finish this background research, you should have some useful notes that shed light on your topic. Take a few minutes to look through the notes you’ve collected and try to notice any overarching themes. Do these notes point towards any major changes and/or continuities over time? Do you see any individuals, places, or ideas showing up repeatedly? Try to pick out these themes and connect them back to the questions asked in your prompt, if the assignment has one.
Freewriting
Freewriting can be a useful activity if you’re feeling particularly stuck and aren’t sure how to organize your initial thoughts. The whole point of this activity is to get your thoughts down on paper and not to worry about using proper grammar and spelling or writing elegantly.
To start, set a timer for a short period of time (5-10 minutes) and write down your ideas as they come to mind. Try to keep writing for the entire time, even if you feel like you’re running out things to say — you can even write down, “I can’t think of anything else,” as long as it keeps your pen moving across the page for the entire time. You can also choose to write in a “train of thought” style (again, not worrying about sentence structure or grammar) or in lists or bullet points if it’s easier for you to communicate your thoughts that way.
After your time is up, take a look at the ideas you came up with. Try to think about which ones were easiest to write about, which ones you find the most interesting, or which ones you feel like you could write even more about. These points will often end up making the strongest starting points for your larger argument. Using a highlighter or pen, highlight/underline these ideas to separate them from the rest of your freewriting.
Once you have narrowed down your initial ideas, it’s time to explore them further. At this point, you can start looking through class readings and notes, begin outside research, or jump into constructing an initial outline for your paper.
Mindmapping
While mindmapping is not always the first thing people think of when trying to plan an essay, it is an amazing way to get your initial ideas down on paper in a way that creates a clear visual structure. Mindmapping essentially combines the processes behind freewriting and outlining because it requires you to quickly write your thoughts down, then take a second look at them and begin making connections between them. Plus, it can also be a more fun and engaging way to get started on a paper than sifting through readings or typing up notes on your laptop.
Start with a blank (preferably large) sheet of paper. Write your main topic in the center using as few words as possible.
Then, moving away from the center, write down any related ideas you can think of, and place them wherever on the paper feels right to you. If you run out of clearly related ideas, think of opposites, tangentially related topics, or any other words that come to mind whenever you think about our main topic. The point of this step is to get all of your ideas down on paper, so try to jot down anything and everything that comes to mind.
Once you’ve put all your thoughts on paper, begin circling ideas that relate to each other and connect these circled ideas with a line. For this step it can be helpful to use different colors and patterns (zig-zag lines, dotted lines, squiggly lines, etc.). Continue doing this until you have connected all the ideas that you feel strongly relate to each other. You may end up with a couple outliers that don’t have any connecting lines, but these can be helpful in narrowing down what you should focus on in your paper.
Then, take a step back and look at your completed map. By looking at the different clusters you have made, you can try to come to some conclusions about your topic. These clusters may point you towards ideas for body paragraphs, where to look for evidence to support your argument, or how to formulate an initial thesis statement. You can take some of these ideas from your mindmap and move them into an outline, or you can continue the mindmapping process to get some more thoughts on paper.
Speeches aren’t so different from other forms of writing. Speeches require a clear and logical line of thinking that acknowledges and connects with the audience. This document will give you the tools to write an effective and engaging speech while hopefully reducing the pre-speech jitters.
Planning Your Speech
Before you begin writing your speech, think about the audience that you are engaging with.
Who are they?
What do you think they will find interesting?
Why should they listen to you?
And how will you keep them immersed?
What are you trying to accomplish with your speech?
What do you want them to do?
Once you answer these questions, you can begin organizing your speech in a way that will appeal to your specific audience.
Consider the organization of a speech in similar ways to the organization of any piece of writing. Using your central purpose as guidance, you can begin to construct the outline of your speech.
Rhetorical Appeals
Sometimes, it helps to consider what rhetorical appeals might fit your audience and purpose. These appeals (ethos, pathos, and logos) can help you convince, motivate, and/or captivate your audience.
Ethos establishes the character of the speaker. Everything you say gives the audience a sense of your character, your persona, and they decide how to react based on that. Are you going for highly credible? Formal? Serious? Then you might want to lean on formal language and stay away from profanity and slang. Are you going for informal? Cool? Down with the kids? Then you might want to use more slang or humor.
Pathos is an appeal to emotion. This is often done through anecdotes, vivid descriptions, or references to things your audience might have an emotional attachment to. Pathos is used to help the audience connect emotionally.
Logos is an appeal to logic. It is a speaker asking the audience to follow and trust a particular logic. Often, people think of facts, data, and evidence as key elements of a speech’s logos.
Performance and Tone
While giving a speech, you are essentially performing for the audience. So, it’s important to strike the right tone.
Your tone is a marker for how your audience should react. If you’re confident in your comedic skills and the subject is relatively light, try sprinkling in a few amusing bits or anecdotes. (But only if you are confident in your humor. We’ve all been in the crowd when the presenter makes a joke, and no one laughs; it’s not good.)
If the subject is more serious, the tone may need to be more somber or subdued so no jokes and language that reflects the seriousness of the subject.
Tips and Strategies
Have a strong “hook”
A “hook” is the thing that draws the audience in and shows them why they should listen to you. It can be dramatic or stark or funny or odd or many other things, as long as it draws them in and fits with your purpose.
Repetition
Because speeches aren’t necessarily recorded people can’t go back and hear what you said. So, if you want them to remember something in particular, it can help to repeat it. Think of Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech, perhaps the most famous in American history. We remember the line “I have a dream” because he repeated it over and over and over again.
Virtually all genres of academic writing rely to some degree on claims as the engine of arguments, whether as the main point of arguments (the central claim or thesis) or as supporting points (subclaims).
For this reason, writing effective claims is vital to success in academic writing. But what is a claim? How do you distinguish it from other statements. To understand claims, it can be helpful to distinguish them from facts and opinions, as follows.
What is a claim?
Fact – information that is held to be true by reasonable people
Opinion – a wholly or near-wholly subjective perspective
Example: Vanilla ice cream is the best flavor of ice cream. (This is an opinion because it isn’t arguable. It’s based solely in someone’s subjectivity, their preferences.)
Claim – a perspective that can and should be be supported with evidence
Example: The ubiquity of vanilla ice cream disconnects consumers from the complex and unethical agriculture practices that create it. (This is a claim because it can be argued with, and it can be supported with evidence)
Dispelling some myths about claims
Sometimes, people are given a set of rules about claims that don’t apply in all contexts. Here are some common beliefs about claims that aren’t necessarily true or are perhaps only true in some circumstances.
Central claims (theses) should always appear at the end of the first paragraph.
NOT NECESSARILY TRUE. This may have been true in high school writing contexts, but in college and beyond different audiences have different expectations for where central claims will be located. Sometimes it’s after a few paragraphs. Sometimes it’s in the middle. Sometimes it’s at the end. At the college level, it’s time to start thinking more rhetorically (meaning thinking about audience expectations and impact) about where the central claim should go.
There is a formula for writing central claims
NOT NECESSARILY TRUE. You can use a formula, but you don’t have to. And the formula’s you’ve learned previously may only be useful in the specific context you in which you learned them.
There is one way to write a central claim.
NOT TRUE AT ALL. Central claims differ depending on the genre in which you’re writing. They look different in different disciplines (history, english, psychology, biology), and they look different in genres outside of academia, as well.
Central Claims should be one sentence long.
NOT NECESSARILY TRUE. Again, they might be, but as writing becomes more sophisticated and topics more complex, it’s likely that you’ll come up with central or supporting claims that are more than one sentence long. That’s fine, potentially good even.
Two Types of claims
Normative – claims made about how something SHOULD BE
Example: The University of Virginia should change its admissions practices in an effort to admit more low-income students.
Descriptive – claims made about how something IS
Example: The University of Virginia’s admissions practices create systemic hurdles to the admission of low-income students.
Two ways of doing claims
Explicit – a claim that is clearly stated
Implicit – a claim that is implied
Good claims have 3 features
Focused – typically, the most specific a claim is the better
Arguable – someone could reasonably argue against it
Revelatory – reveals something new
BAD Example: Colleges and universities should do more to support low-income and first-generation college students.
This example is bad because it’s not focused enough. It’s technically a claim, but it’s too broad and not revelatory.
Good Example:Colleges and universities should create detailed programs with dedicated faculty and staff to support low-income and first generation students. These programs should be designed and assessed as part of the larger body of research available on support for these students.
This claim is better because it’s more focused and as a result more arguable and revelatory.
When you quote something, you’re saying that the words you’ve quoted are exactly as they appear in the thing you’re quoting.
The opening of Romeo and Juliet tells us that the Montagues and Capulets are “two households, both alike in dignity” (Prologue.2).
When you paraphrase something, you’re putting the idea in your own words. (Of course, you must still be accurate to the idea you’re taking from the source.)
The opening of Romeo and Juliet tells us that the Montagues and Capulets are essentially equal in terms of social status and reputation (Prologue).
How can quoting and paraphrasing be helpful?
Makes your paper actually participate in a conversation
Shows you’ve done your research, which lends credibility to your argument
Helps you avoid plagiarism
Helps focus your own ideas by giving you something to bounce them off of
Helps show which ideas aren’t yours, which is useful for setting up arguments that you plan to argue against or qualify in some way (I.e., “They say _____, but I say _____.”)
When can quoting be helpful?
If the language the sources uses is important. (This is common in literature essays.)
If the source has a good, clear way of saying something, and it’d be simpler just to use their words than to try and paraphrase it.
When can paraphrasing be helpful?
If the idea is the important thing, and the language does not really matter
For example, lab reports do not usually quote previous studies. Rather, they paraphrase them, because what is important is what the studies discovered, not how they phrased those discoveries.
If you are summarizing a point that the source makes implicitly, but never comes right out and says
If it is the major point of a piece, but the way the author phrases their thesis does not neatly fit into your own sentence structure
Some general advice when quoting and/or paraphrasing
Read the context around the part you are quoting or paraphrasing to make sure it’s actually what the author is saying. You don’t want to say “Kayla says ____,” when what Kayla was actually saying was “Fred says ____, but that’s wrong.”
When paraphrasing, be sure to tell your reader clearly where the source’s ideas end and yours begin. This can often be quite simple: “The author says X. However, ______.” But you will need to be very clear, because you will not have quotation marks to be clear for you.
Use its insights to build or support your point(s)
EX: Jennifer Denison points out that in 2019 90 percent of news media outlets are funded through subscription models with 60 percent of revenue coming from digital subscriptions.[1] (supporting the point that the financial models for news outlets has changed in the last 10 years)
Speak back to or disagree with a source
EX: While Denison believes the prevalence of subscription models indicates their suitability for online media platforms, a deeper dive into the data suggests just the opposite.
Create context for your point/topic
EX: Researchers like Denison and JaMarcus Rosen argue that news media companies hold three obligations that are often in contrast with each other: to remain profitable, to remain truthful, and to provide civically relevant information to citizens.
3. Ways to incorporate sources
Summarize
Sum up something large (a whole book, chapter, or article) in roughly 1-3 sentences.
EX: As Ella Reaves Vaughan makes clear in her book For Love of the Fame, being paid as a scholastic athlete robs someone of the love of the game.
Paraphrase
Sum up one idea from a particular place in a source without using the same words. Keep the idea, but put it in your own words.
EX: Gavin Tygh argues that academic departments within the university would be hurt financially by paying student athletes.
Quote
Take language directly from a source. Do this when the language from the source is particularly profound, interesting, or thought provoking. DON’T QUOTE SOMETHING JUST BECAUSE IT’S EASY.
4. Using Signal Phrases
Signal phrases are phrases that show the audience you are incorporating a source.
EX: According to research from the NCAA, …
EX: As Regina Marcy argues, …
[1] ALL SOURCES AND FACTS USED AS EXAMPLE ARE COMPLETELY MADE UP. DO NOT BELIEVE THEM.
The main purpose of citations is to show readers what the conversation you’re taking part in looks like. In other words, it helps the reader track the progress of the conversation. For example, if a writer wants to contribute new information on methods of teaching history, they will help the audience understand where that conversation currently is by integrating secondary sources to track it and citing those sources.
How do you figure out how a source fits into an ongoing conversation?
If you’re reading something, the writer should tell you. Pay attention to how writers talk about their sources. For example, here’s an excerpt from an open letter by Geoffrey Chase, a composition director at Northern Arizona University:
In a recent article on liberal education, William Cronon writes, “More than anything else, being an educated person means being able to see connections that allow one to make sense of the world and act within it in creative ways” (78). Paraphrasing Cronon, I would like to suggest that being a teacher means being able to make sense of the academic community and act within it in creative, productive ways. (Chase 16)
In other words, what Chase is saying here is essentially, “Hey, Cronon says this thing about what it means to be an educated person. I think he’s right, and here’s how I think it applies to teachers, in particular.”
Compare that with this little imaginary conversation:
Tim: What should we do, tonight?
Fred: Well, Carol said yesterday that she wanted to go see that new movie downtown. Seems like a good idea to me.
This conversation might not be about something academic, but what Fred is doing here is fundamentally the same thing as what Geoffrey Chase is doing with William Cronon’s article. Each of them is just saying, “This other person said something earlier, and I want to respond to what they said in some way.”
Various citation styles
Citation also allows a writer to give credit where it’s due. Try to be as thorough as possible when listing your citations so as to avoid the appearance that you are taking someone else’s ideas and trying to pass them off as your own. Although different citation styles (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.) have small differences that emphasize different aspects of a work, you can generally expect that a citation will need the following things, if you can find them:
Author
Title of work
Title of publication
Date of publication
Volume and issue number
Place of publication OR Name of publishing house
Works Cited
Chase, Geoffrey. “Composition, Community, and Curriculum: A Letter to New Composition Teachers.” In Strategies for Teaching First-Year Composition, eds. Duane Roan et al., National Council of Teachers of English, 2002, pp 11-17.
The Writing Center @ UVa 