English 264: Academic Writing
English 264: Academic Writing
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From the
Introduction to Engaging Inquiry: “The
answers each of the disciplines gives to the question “What is it?” are
shaped by the interests, and values and methods of their individual disciplines.
Each discipline has developed theories, frequently competing or
contradictory theories, to explain what you are, what you are doing here, and
how you will interact with and adapt to the institution; those theories shape
their questions. Exploring question
from many perspectives will give you a richer, more complete sense of the
complexity of the world and a deeper sense of what is known and what is not yet
understood . . . More important for our purposes, it will give you an organic
sense of the way language both gives us the power to create these categories
–to reflect upon our world—and to adapt to the assumptions, values, and
processes of users in specific fields and occupations.
Inevitably that adaptation will itself shape our thinking.
Inquiry writing in science, social science, and the humanities will
focus, in turn, on different thinking and writing skills, develop different
muscles, and your thinking and writing in new directions” (Kirscht, 6).
Tthe “across the curriculum” reading and writing assignments in English 264 are taken from fields such as political science, biology, psychology, literature, and history. From them you will develop different perspectives on a given issue. The handbook A Writer’s Reference will help you work on your writing style and will cover areas such as clarity, conciseness, grammar and sentence variety. The writing skills you polish in this course will serve you well throughout your academic and professional careers.