Hello all,
As our time was cut short due to various technical errors out of our control when I last visited class, I want to do a somewhat regular guest post (as Meredith as so kindly suggested) on writing to hopefully help you in your academic and blog writing endeavors. Always remember and feel free to contact me personally at brianstribe@vancouver.wsu.edu or at the Writing Center in-person, by e-mail at writingcenter@vancouver.wsu.edu or by phone at 360-546-9650.
Let’s review the structure of academic writing that I was hurriedly going through during the class visit. Here are some key points:
1. Thesis: This should appear in the last 1-2 sentences of the intro paragraph and should clearly state the main idea of the paper.
a. A thesis has two parts:
i. Claim “Dogs are cool because they can be trained to help people.”
ii. Rationale “therefore Washingtonians should fund dog training programs such as service dog training and search and rescue training."
b. Remember that the importance of a thesis is paramount to a paper because it informs the reader of what’s to come as far as a claim, and the rationale (hopefully) grounds that claim outside of the classroom to affect change.
c. It is also important to remember that your academic reader, as soon as the thesis is read, has made an initial stand for, against, or on the fence at this point. It’s therefore important that you think about your audience carefully. Those who are for are part of the cheerleading section. They’re great, but, if you want your work to have an impact, think of your audience as those who are on the fence or disagree. Perhaps more importantly, is that you think of that audience as educated people (this is an academic forum) and they deserve respect. If you don’t give respect to the opposing point of view, you lose a crucial element of rhetorical persuasion: Ethos. (Credibility, etc.)
2. Paragraphing.
a. Look at the thesis whenever you begin a paragraph. I personally print out the thesis and tape it to the top of my monitor to make this easy. In the case of our thesis about dogs, which aspect of dogs being cool do you think the reader expects you to cover first? That’s right, Service Dogs. Why? Because you stated it first in the thesis.
b. Here are the requirements for a complete academic paragraph (and, I would argue, many other forums should be the same):
i. Topic sentence
ii. Introduction and presentation of evidence
iii. Synthesis
iv. Concluding sentence.
c. Let’s look at the jobs each sentence/element needs to fulfill (one important note if you don’t know already: based on the above, you cannot have a complete academic paragraph in under 4 sentences.
i. Topic Sentence
1. State the subject of the supporting/body paragraph clearly.
2. Connect to thesis (how does this subject connect to the main idea (in this case funding)?
3. Carry the second half of the transition from the prior paragraph.
ii. Introduction/presentation of evidence:
1. Introduce evidence within context of paragraph’s subject, establish credentials of evidence, present evidence (this may take longer than one sentence, of course).
iii. Synthesis
1. This is the cream of the crop, and most students miss this entirely or do not understand it’s essential value to a teacher’s recognition of class concepts being applied to existing knowledge and your own, which is, in short, the creation of new knowledge. By the way, if you feel like you don’t bring anything to the table, this can undermine the synthesis heavily. I now deem you academics! (Even though you were when you entered the classroom). The reason why each and every one of you brings something to the table is because you are all unique. Your experience with service dogs is different than the experiences of others; capitalize on it!
2. The key to a good synthesis is to refer back to your evidence, integrating it with your own words. Try to actually use a few keywords from the evidence you presented in combination with your own to explain to your reader exactly how this evidence supports the point you are making in the paragraph, which is, by extension, supporting your thesis if the Topic Sentence is proper.
3. Concluding sentence. This sentence has three jobs too:
a. Sum up paragraph
b. Reconnect to thesis (this is somewhat unavoidable if you have summed up properly).
c. Carry the 1st half of the transition to the following paragraph.
d. Putting it altogether
i. Okay. Now that we have this established, let’s look at some examples and I’ll give you some ways to test the organization of your paper/paragraphs. Here are two paragraphs with the thesis posted above them:
Thesis: “Dogs are cool because they can be trained to help people, therefore Washingtonians should fund dog training programs such as service and search and rescue training for dogs.”
Paragraph:
Dogs are more than just cuddly critters that people snuggle with on the couch. In fact, dogs have been used in many different ways throughout history. As John St. Bernard says: “Dogs have served as guardians and best friends for ages” (St. Bernard 17) (Note* I’m using MLA citation here. Check your discipline’s requirements for proper citation rules.) Many dogs in your neighborhood probably don’t have the slightest idea what their ancestors were like. However, it is clear that dogs have had an essential role in the development of humans.
I had a dog once. The dog’s name was Sophie. She was with me through thick and thin, keeping me warm while I slept in my car when things were hard. Sophie operated on hand commands, much like many service and/or search and rescue dogs do. Riley Retriever comments on the bond between humans and animals: “The bond between humans and dogs can be extremely strong, especially when dogs are trained to pick up on the instinctive nature of a situation involving the human they are bonded to (Retriever 16). Sophie was my best friend when no one else was, and I will never forget her. She was tragically hit by a car after slipping out of her collar and leash on a rainy night. However, I will always remember what Sophie gave to me.
Now, let’s test the paragraphing structure of the paragraphs above:
“Dogs are more than just cuddly critters that people snuggle with on the couch.” The first sentence of a paragraph is the topic sentence (I should say that this is usually the case. IF you don’t know why it should be moved, don’t move it.) Remember the three rules of a Topic sentence above?
1. Introduce Subject: The sentence does this fairly well. The reader knows that the paragraph is going to be about dog and how they are more than just household pets.
2. Connection to thesis: Not so much. There is little connection to the thesis other than a mention of dogs. To be more solidly connected, the sentence needs to connect to dogs being cool, service training, and funding for programs.
3. Carry the 2nd half of the transition: As I hope you see, once the connection to the thesis is made, the transition will take care of itself.
4. Evidence sentences: Evidence is given, which is good, but no mention of why St. Bernard is an authority on the subject is given.
5. Synthesis. Hmmmm. The mention of ancestors is loosely connected to the evidence, but it doesn’t support the main idea of the paragraph, which is currently about dogs being more than cuddle toys.
6. Concluding Sentence: Was the fact that dogs are essential to human development really proven? I don’t think so. This means that that the paragraph is not summed properly. Reconnect to thesis? Roughly. I suppose that service dogs can be considered as contributing to human development, but I think that this needs to be more clearly stated. Transition? If we were to keep the sentence as it is, which we can’t because it doesn’t follow the rules, it seems to give enough “hooks” for the next topic sentence in the following paragraph to “hang on.”
Which brings us to the next paragraph. Let’s just look at the Topic sentence for transition education. I will rely on you to correct the second paragraph properly to fit the Academic Conventions/rules as listed above. Here’s the topic sentence of the second paragraph and the concluding sentence of the prior paragraph juxtaposed::
1. “However, it is clear that dogs have had an essential role in the development of humans.”
2. “I had a dog once.”
Folks, what kind of transition is there here besides the common word of “dogs”? It’s not much of a transition because of the sheer fact that a transition between paragraphs is a transition between ideas that shows the link between the two. Remember the expectations of the reader? The reader is expecting this paragraph to be about search and rescue dogs, or a continuation of a discussion regarding service dogs, not your personal doggie love story. So, when it comes to carrying the 2nd half of the transition, this second topic sentence fails.
Now that we have identified the issues, let’s fix them. I’m going to rewrite the 1st paragraph and the topic sentence of the second. Then, if you would be so kind, drop a comment about why you think the revision is/might be better, worse, suggestions for further improvement or even different ways to accomplish the same thing. Or, I’d love to see a rewrite of both paragraphs by everyone. If you don’t have the time to all of that, I understand. However, at least rewrite the second paragraph for us so that we all can learn from your unique writing contributions, and answer one question: How has the tone changed? Here it goes:
Dogs are more than just cuddly critters; many are can and are trained as service dogs to help people with physical disabilities such as blindness, indicating additional value. In fact, dogs have been used in many different ways throughout history as aids to humans. As Harvard trained Canine Veterinarian John St. Bernard says: “Dogs have served as guardians and best friends [to humankind] for ages, including capacities such as anxiety regulators” (St. Bernard 17). (Note* I’m using MLA citation here. Check your discipline’s requirements for proper citation rules.) As St. Bernard establishes, then, dogs help people in many different practical ways such as “guardians”, all the while remaining a “friend” who provides comfort in times of stress. It is clear that training dogs as service dogs can and do have an essential role in improving the quality of life for many humans facing multiple physical and emotional challenges, which supports the idea that additional funding should be allocated to service dog training programs.
Many people have owned dogs, dog’s with names like Sophie who have helped them through trying times, much like properly trained Search and Rescue dogs do . She was with me through thick and thin, keeping me warm while I slept in my car when things were hard. Sophie operated on hand commands, much like many service and/or search and rescue dogs do. Riley Retriever comments on the bond between humans and animals: “The bond between humans and dogs can be extremely strong, especially when dogs are trained to pick up on the instinctive nature of a situation involving the human they are bonded to (Retriever 16). Sophie was my best friend when no one else was, and I will never forget her. She was tragically hit by a car after slipping out of her collar and leash on a rainy night. However, I will always remember what Sophie gave to me.
That’s it for now, folks. I will be back next week or so with a post about blog writing and its essentials. In the meantime, make sure you’re barking up the right writing tree. Geez that was lame.
Peace,
Brian
