From Inquiry to Academic Writing

Steps to joining an academic conversation

Be receptive to, respectful of, flexible in your thinking about, and engaged with the ideas of others

Observation

A careful noting of phenomena or behaviors that puzzle you or challenge your beliefs and values

Issue

A subject that can be explored and debated.

Critical thinking

An inquiring mind that welcomes complexities and seeks out and weighs many different points of view, a mind willing to enter complex conversations both in and out of the academy.

Analysis

Breaking something down into its various parts and reflecting on how the parts do or don't work together, which often includes asking questions

Asking questions

Considering why things are the way they are.

Steps to revising

Draft and revise the introduction and conclusion, clarify any obscure or confusing passages, provide details and textual evidence, check to be sure you have included opposing points of view, consider reorganization, check to be sure that every paragraph contributes clearly to your thesis, and consider using strategies you have found effective in other readings.

Examining alternatives

Exploring how things could be different

Binary thinking

Imagining there are only two sides to an issue

Steps to Inquiry

Observe, ask questions, and examine alternatives

Habits of mind

Patterns of thought that lead you to question assumptions and opinions, explore alternative opinions, anticipate opposing arguments, compare one type of experience to another, and identify the causes and consequences of ideas and events

Steps to seeking and valuing complexity

Reflect on what you observe, examine issues from multiple points of view, and ask issue-based questions

Inquiries

Studying a body of information so closely and from so many different perspectives that they can ask questions that may not occur to people who are just scanning the information

Argument

Text crafted to persuade an audience

Empathy

The ability to understand the perspectives that shape what people think, believe, and value.

Steps to drafting

look through the materials, identify what is at issue, formulate a question, select the material you will include, consider the types of readers, gather more material, formulate a working thesis, and consider possible arguments.

Steps to collecting information and material

mark your texts as you read, list quotations you find interesting and provocative, list your own ideas in response to the reading(s), and sketch out the similarities and differences among the authors whose work you plan to use in you essay.