Author, John Williams, transitions his focus away from applying principles to, “…sentences and short passages in all kinds of writing in part two (28- 79) to, “…longer units of discourse” (95) found within expository and argumentative writing (95). Now writers have an opportunity to gain insight and become educated about ways to present information within an academic context in a clear and coherent manner without compromising style and confusing their readers. According to the author, most academic papers share common attributes like an introduction. A paper’s introduction provides readers with a context and a problem (97). Mr. Williams suggests establishing, “…a shared context” like an event or event to act as the backdrop or preface to
The five-paragraph essay is perhaps the only kind of essay many students hear about. Argumentative essays, research papers, and even book reports have a tendency to fall into that formula strictly and allow for little flexibility. This can be a tedious and boring process, as John Warner’s fervent argument insists. However, Kerri Smith demonstrates a stronger argument with her defense of the five-paragraph essay by emphasizing throughout that it is simply a building block for more elaborate essays and by using credible influencers that prove her point effectively.
However, though John Warner’s argument is strong, Kerri smith’s argument is stronger. In Kerri Smith’s article “In Defense of the Five-Paragraph Essay,” She claims that the five-paragraph essay should stay taught in schools as a guideline for a well-structured essay. She explains the five-paragraph essay as an “introduce-develop-conclude structure” that even great expository writing follows this structure (Smith 16). She purposefully communicates to her audience this idea to show that this structure gives students the knowledge and capability to write a professional essay. The five-paragraph essay includes the three key points to have a well-structured and organized essay. By mentioning that other great writers use this form of structure, she creates a stronger argument as to why the five-paragraph essay is important to education. She continues her article by explaining her early stages of writing and how she was taught; over time, her teachers would show her new ways to improve her writing which, in the end, she was told to think “of those five paragraphs simply as a mode of organization” (Smith
Frahm holds a similar point of view encouraging clear, straightforward writing not one with a “Confusing introduction. Lack of content. Bad transitions. (and) Excessive grammatical errors.” (Frahm 271).
John Burroughs was an American naturalist whose essays contributed to ...Burroughs was the seventh child born to Chauncy and Amy Burrough’s on April 3,1837. He grew up along with nine other brothers and sisters on his family's farm in the Catskill Mountains. While he worked on the family’s farm as a young boy he was always captivated by the birds, wildlife, and frogs who returned each spring. Burrough loved to learn as a child and was frequently reading, but his dad did no support Johns interest in attending college. So, at the young age of seventeen John left home in hopes of raising enough money to pay for college. To earn his money for school he mainly taught at a school in Olive, New York. Burroughs eventually attended Cooperstown Seminary. While there he read the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson and William Wordsworth who became two of his lifelong influences.
Ralph Vaughan Williams was born in The Vicarage, in Down Ampney, on October 12, 1872 to Arthur and Margaret Vaughan Williams. Ralph’s father; Arthur was the vicar of the All Saints Church in Down Ampney in 1868. Through his mothers side Ralph had two famous great-great-grand fathers; Josiah Wedgwood, the founder of the pottery at Stoke-on-Trent, and Erasmus Darwin, the grandfather of Charles Darwin. In 1875 Ralph’s father suddenly died, when he was only two years old. His mother moved him and his two siblings to the Wedgwood family home: Leith Hill Place, in Surrey.
The Stases and Other Rhetorical Concepts from Introduction to Academic Writing. N.p.: n.p., n.d. PDF.
Ramage, John D., John C. Bean, and June Johnson. Writing Arguments: A Rhetoric with Readings. 9th ed. Boston: Pearson Education, 2012. Print.
Drypoint etching, 1936, by Arthur W. Heintzelman, commemorating the Tercentenary of the founding of Rhode Island by Roger Williams. Courtesy of Roger Williams University Archives.
Robin Williams: Living the American Dream Americans are blessed with the freedoms of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Each person is entitled to pursue the true dreams and desires of his or her heart. These individualized opportunities are often referred to as the American Dream. Difficulties frequently arise on the journey to one's dream. One must find a way to conquer these struggles to make his or her dream a reality.
Graff, Gerald, Cathy Birkenstein, and Russel K. Durst. "They Say/I Say": The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing: With Readings. Vol. 2e. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2012. Print.
In Williams’ Cohesion chapter he emphasizes that to solve the problem with obtaining clarity when writing is to discover how, without sacrificing local clarity, we can shape sentences to fit their context and to reflect those larger intentions that motivate us to write in the first place (45).
Matter in Academic Writing with Readings. 2nd ed. Ed. Gerald Graff, Cathy Birkenstein, and Russel Durst. New York: Norton 2012. 211-214. Print.
Making sure your readers understand your writing is the basic principle behind Williams’ book. He takes the rules, offered by Strunk and White, and adds detailed explanations of when and how. He shows us how to incorporate this knowledge into clear and effective writing. Being clear and assuring that our readers understand the message we are trying to convey, needs to be our primary goal if we are to be considered good writers.
Imagine going to college to aspire to be a doctor just to find a new lifelong hobby of writing poetry influenced by an unusual movement. Further imagine, winning numerous of awards for poems inspired by that movement. The known poet, William Carlos Williams, participated in the modernism movement and won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry, United States Poet Laureate, Bollingen Prize, National Book Award for Poetry, and even had an award named after him. Imagery, objectivism, and cubism, all divisions of the modernism movement, William Carlos Williams embodied in his work throughout his life.
You are in or out, hot or not, on the bus or off it. But academics seldom write in an all-or-nothing mode" (p. 26). When Harris describes the win-lose style of academic writing that appears in many college classrooms, he raises curiosity which is great because not only does it stop the reader, it allows to reader to engage with his text. The reader will think outside of the text. The reader could would engage with the text and possibly coin academic writing as a debate-style product, where students are encouraged to defend their viewpoints in a pro versus con mentality. However, true academic writing, according to Harris, reflects an inquiry, an examination of further or other possibilities that exist beyond a simple pro-con representation, and Harris explains how to write in this manner: "you need to push beyond the sorts of bipolar oppositions that frame most of the arguments found on editorial pages and TV talk shows" (p. 26). When Harris writes in such a sophisticated manner, it makes his points more compelling. His sophistication through his writing is found throughout the entire text. Ultimately, his main advice to readers is to think about rewriting as a way "to add to what has already been said….to rethink and reinterpret the texts he or