Author: Allan Johnson

Refining Technique in Academic Writing

Posted on by Allan Johnson in Observations, Research, Teaching

Typewriters

 

I wrote briefly last week about the importance of technique in academic writing.   Academic writing is, above all else, a specialised form of communication, which remains true whether we are teaching essay writing to first year students or working on a journal article addressing our research. Articles, essays, theses, and dissertations are all modes of communication that serve to share with readers how we have approached our topic and the conclusions to which we have come. And the success of this communication is dependent each writer’s display of technical mastery. This does not, of course, mean mindlessly following the model, although many writing teachers would agree that is preferable to write with good technique and be a bit monotonous than to write with no technique and lose the reader from the outset.

The aim of good technique is to create a fluid and organic microcosmic structure. What this means is, simply: 1) each paragraph is a self-contained unit, 2) which contributes to the argument of its individual section, 3) which contributes to the argument of its chapter, 4) which contributes to the argument of the work as a whole. No matter the length of the writing, these key building blocks will always stay the same, and should always help your reader to enter into your analysis with the tools to engage meaningfully with what you have to say.

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‘Technique’ and Academic Writing

Posted on by Allan Johnson in Observations, Research

Practitioners of the fine and performing arts are well acquainted with the notion of ‘technique’. One hears ‘technique’ spoken of regularly by commentators, adjudicators, and reviewers of the arts, who use term to characterise the success or failure of an artistic undertaking. The study of technique forms the core of advanced training in many disciplines, including dance, acting, music, voice, visual art, and design. For dancers, ‘technique’ entails an understanding of the lines a body casts in space, and an ability to manipulate and control these lines as required for various dance
styles. The ‘technique’ of singers involves the development and control of sound-producing resonators, and the ability to produce the desired sounds with as little strain and stress on the body as possible.

And in some instances, the technique has been extensively documented and codified. Most professional actors today have been trained in at least a derivative form of the technique promoted by Constantin Stanislavski and Lee Strasberg, and, even more exhaustive than that, Bharata Natyam—the national dance of India—has a wide vocabulary of specific expressive hand gestures that each dancer must learn and perfect. These gestures form one component of the ‘technique’ of Bharata Natyam, and serve not only as an elemental part of the dancer’s training, but also as a clear benchmark of the dancer’s successful or incomplete treatment of the style.  ‘Technique’ is the specialist code followed by practitioners in a particular discipline. ‘Technique’ comprises the rules that first must be learned fully before they can be bent, shaped, and reworked in order to produce the desired effect.

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Developing Student Self-Reflexivity In Secondary Source Research

Posted on by Allan Johnson in Teaching
Library Word Find Puzzle #2
(Photo credit: herzogbr)

Yesterday I wrote about how I introduce secondary source research to students.  Those 7 questions, are, of course, only the starting point for helping students to get the full benefit from engaging with the work of other thinkers.

When our students are working with secondary source material in their writing, we should be encouraging them to use their sources to explicitly support, develop, or refine their own argument.  We sometimes forget that student writers can become part of the wider critical conversation on a topic.  By helping them to use their sources to develop their argument, rather than simply reiterating the arguments of others, we can help them to enter that conversation as well.

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7 Questions to Help Students Use and Understand Secondary Sources

Posted on by Allan Johnson in Teaching
May 2009: Academic Writing & ESL Resources Display
(Photo credit: tclibrary)

The university-level study of English is paradoxically both an individual and collaborative effort, with students developing their own analytical skills while simultaneously learning to think in collaborative ways with tutors and fellow students.  What this paradox demonstrates, of course, is that communicating with those around you plays a significant role in the development of ideas, including communicating with the critical body of material surrounding the topic (even if the line of communication is, in this case, distinctly one-way).

Academic writing, even at the most introductory level, is not created in a vacuum. Indeed, any piece of writing that students produce will be be a conglomeration of voices—some contemporary, some more distant—and their success in that writing will be dependent upon how well they harness this mass.

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