Annotated Bibliography
- Citation: Irvin, L. Lennie. “What is “Academic” Writing? .” Writing Spaces: Reading on Writing , 2010.
Summary: In this essay, the author Irvin discusses how people who are new to academic writing are more likely to dread it because of “myths” they are led to believe. Irvin discusses several myths, these are things she believes people are led on to believe and have an adverse effect on how they perceive academic writing these are Myths #2 and #5. #2 states that it’s a myth that writers have everything they want to write figured out before they actually start writing. #5 states it is a myth that good grammar is good writing. Irvin goes further on to say that academic writing is more about understanding the context in which you are presenting. This can mean several things first, who is the audience and on what platform is the writing being presented. In short, this essay is a directive to students who are quick to fear the process of learning academic writing.
Evaluation: I think that this can be useful to my topic because I used to have a fear of academic writing. In high school, I was not that motivated to learn about the specific ways to write academically, I did not care to fix mistakes that I had made and did not stay consistent to tones and points of view. The myths that I described in the summary are ways that represent the reasons that I felt as if writing were a wall I could not climb over. Now that I am a political science major, my most important marks as a student require an application of certain writing skills. I appreciated what the author wrote about maintaining perspective throughout a work of literature and always understanding the audience.
- Rothman, Joshua. “Why Is Academic Writing So Academic?” The New Yorker, The New Yorker, 18 June 2017, newyorker.com/books/page-turner/why-is-academic-writing-so-academic. Accessed 25 Sept. 2017.
Summary: This article is written by a former graduate student who wrote in response to a critique he received on a previous work of his. He said that his critic suggested that the work be published in an opinion related platform like a magazine and not an academic journal. He then begins to attempt to distinguish the purpose to academic writing which for him is education. However, he says that because of the generations behind us like the baby boomer generation, more and more students began enrolling in colleges. Therefore, the requirement to become a professor was lowered. If this is going to happen, Rothman is claiming that the expectations for academic writing should be lowered because then more people will be able to part take in it.
Evaluation: I think that this work of writing is valuable to the future of writing because it represents a true idea, the idea that because the level of writing is lower now so are the writing levels of most of the audience. So why does academic writing need to be so strict when the people coming into it are not able to keep up. I think the way that I can apply this to my own works is that I feel as if when I focus too much on “damage control” as in mitigating mistakes I end up making more mistakes and my level of writing goes down. With that idea said, I can support what he is saying.
- Citation: Orwell, George . George Orwell: Why I Write, 1947, www.resort.com/~prime8/Orwell/whywrite.html. Accessed 25 Sept. 2017.
Summary: This piece is about a man’s effort to search for the answer of why he writes. Orwell starts with an anecdote about how he could not really find himself as a person and transformed his feelings of being lonely into a career as a writer. He talks about the reasons people become writers and he feels as if writing is something that is mainly for self-fulfillment and so that people are remembered and glorified long after they die. He also believes that people want to push the world in a certain direction and do that through writing about politics.
Evaluation: I would evaluate that I could use this piece to show why I might write more in my life. In talking about academic writing, I think that many people write for glory and to push the world in a certain direction. I think that I would be able to find out more about myself through my audience’s reactions to see how ambitious I am to express my opinions. Although I do not know if this is a good conscience reason to start writing because if it’s purely for self-satisfaction what precedent is it setting for future writers.
