Writing Lab - Introductory Page
Essays, Reports and Theses
Background: This "lab" used to be at the end of the semester, but students in previous semesters suggested that it be moved to the beginning of the semester so that they could brush up on their essay writing skills and research writing skills....before the papers and essays were due during the course of the semester. So...I agreed and moved it up to the second week.
Warning: This lab may take several hours to complete. Look over all three parts before you begin the first part.
The culminating experience for students majoring in geography at CSUN is Geography 490. In that course you will write a research paper and present your findings to classmates and an audience of faculty. Though clearly many of you have no intention of writing papers for a career, all of you will need to communicate ideas, clearly and concisely. This seems simple enough, but many students really struggle communicating an idea in the context of writing a quality research paper. The Department of Geography prides itself on training geography graduates who can not only think spatially, logically and creatively, but who can effectively communicate.
There are multiple reasons why students have trouble. Part of the problem surely stems from the lack of writing practice afforded students in both high school and college where large class sizes and overwhelmed instructors are unable to assign frequent papers, and unable to provide the quality feedback students need to correct composition problems . Most students don't read much either, so they don't often see how accomplished writers deliver clear, concise messages. TV does little to help you learn how to convey ideas in text. Arguing with your parents and/or sibling does little to prepare you for arguing in the academic or business worlds.
There is an expectation that college graduates can express themselves well, but many students can't, so capitalize on the opportunity you have now to learn how to think clearly and communicate clearly.
This assignment is designed to help students learn to develop ideas and communicate them effectively. While this assignment focuses on writing good papers, many of the principles addressed in this assignment should also improve your verbal and multi-media communication skills.
Goal: The goal of this exercise is to help students write better reports, essays and research papers in their upper division courses.
Objectives:
- Students will formulate a workable thesis statement.
- Students will identify differences and similarities between and among essays, research theses and reports.
- Students will construct a framework of a thesis driven argumentative essay.
- Students will write a concise and effective introductory paragraph.
- Students will write a series of concise topic sentences.
- Students will identify the purpose of a literature review.
- Students will identify likely literature categories for a hypothetical research topic.
- Students will cite research material appropriately.
- Students will construct a framework of an effective concluding section/paragraph.
- Students will identify the major components of a thesis-based research article.
Assignment: This assignment is broken in to several sub-assignments. You will use the links below to complete each task. That way you can do each task in the order of your preference and also in more convenient chunks of time.
Task 1: Essays vs. Research vs. Reports and citation guide for each
Task 2: Stronger, better, faster! Writing for clarity and organization
Task 3: Constructing a research paper, including the dreaded literature review
