I teach writers this: academic prose can be defined as claims and evidence. That's it. The claims should be original and the evidence based on scholarship, experiment, and empirical data, not "gut feelings." Yet without analysis, the writing merely summarizes. It may only tell us what we already know.
That's no fun. Asking "why" and explaining why make the life of the mind interesting. This part of Writer's Web will take writers into several aspects of deepening analysis in several projects. Have a look at the left-hand navigation bar for topics that will help you.
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