Assignment 4: Noticing Academic Writing Style

Before you begin

• Go over the module Skill: Academic Writing Style if you did not attend the lecture on Week 5.

Description

In this assignment you will re-read the Introduction section of the academic paper you read in Assignment 3, this time paying attention to its writing style. Please check with the instructor if you decide to work on a different paper.

When considering the academic writing style of the paper, you can reference one or both of the guidelines covered in class. We will first focus on the following five guidelines.

• • Strunk & White. The Elements of Style

    • (SW-9) Make the paragraph the unit of composition: one paragraph to each topic

    • (SW-10) As a rule, begin each paragraph with a topic sentence; end it in conformity with the beginning

    • (SW-13) Omit needless words

  • American Psychological Association (APA). Style and Grammar Guidelines

    • (APA-G1) Active and passive voice

    • (APA-G6) Verb tense

In addition to reading about these specific guidelines we recommend that you spend some time skimming both guidelines end-to-end so you are aware of all the topics covered. Pick two additional guidelines you would like to pay attention to from these lists.

Your goal is to identify examples of correct or incorrect use of these guidelines in the paper that you read. Although we recommend focusing this exercise on the introduction of the paper, you are also welcome to look at other text-dense sections.

In your submission for this assignment, please list the seven guidelines (five listed above, two of your choice). For each guideline provide at least one example of correct or incorrect use of the guideline from the paper that you read. If the use is incorrect, suggest a fix. You can write this as a nested bullet list as follows.

• • Guideline code (see above) and short description

    • Example N:

      • Where in the paper: Page, section

      • Illustrative quote

      • (If applicable) Correction

Submission

This assignment is due on November 7, 2022 Monday 11:59pm.

Please submit a text entry or a PDF with your answers on Canvas here.