AcademicWriting[5]英语专业论文写作.ppt

Finding a Topic,Contents,1. Discovering your Purpose,Argumentative Purpose An argumentative paper aims to convince people. It extends beyond investigation to making judgments about the issue. It needs careful research into primary and secondary materials.,Argumentative papers are controversial to various degrees and therefore require careful research into all sides of the issues and fair presentation of the fruits of that research. Bias and prejudice will be your enemies here, not your allies, for the scholarly research paper should be reasonable, not strident, cautious in assertions, not rash, and full of careful assimilation and presentation of evidence. Your voice will need the ring of quiet authority if it is to be convincing.,1. Discovering your Purpose,Analytical Purpose An analytical paper attempts to analyze component parts for their meanings, causes, or consequences. General conclusions require facts and basic evidence. You may separate the issues, comment on each one, and finally arrive at a synthesis.,Explanatory Purpose It serves to review books or articles. The literature review paper normally results in a formal essay comparing published works, examining various theories, and explaining the contributions of other writers. It also contains a bibliography that lists works with brief commentaries. A review paper is not a full-blown research paper, but it does serve researchers during preliminary stages.,2. Discovering your Subject,By using your personal experience Writers special interests can help them discover a general subject to a paper-topic size. They use personal concerns to guide them through discussions of the same topic.,By talking with others Ask people in your school and community for ideas and find topics needing investigation. You may have conversations with fellow investigators, instructors, friends, and even relatives, to generate ideas. Researchers sometimes need to start their research on a park bench rather than at the card catalog.,2. Discovering your Subject,By using your imagination The research paper requires mental exercise (i.e. brainstorming) in search of answers. Here are some ways to generate ideas: A. Free write B. List key words C. Outline issues D. Ask questions,By using source materials Critical reading of primary sources, such as novels, interviews, and case studies, will help you reach beyond your experience and dip into the knowledge of others. For the preliminary investigation, a reference book, biography, journal article all contribute to your understanding of background issues and fundamental problems,2. Discovering your Subject,By searching the contents of a book A books table of contents should itemize the many subject areas of your topic, e.g. Nunan, David. Second Language Teaching and Learning. New York: Heinle & Heinle Publishers, 1999.,By examining the index of a book To examine the index of an academic book may help us to discover a workable research subject, e.g. Nunan, David. Second Language Teaching and Learning. New York: Heinle & Heinle Publishers, 1999.),2. Discovering your Subject,By searching the headings in periodical indexes A. Journals published at home (i) Journals on linguistics and literature Contemporary Linguistics（当代语言学 Foreign Language Teaching and Research (外语教学与研究） Foreign Languages (Journal of Shanghai International Studies University)（外国语） Modern Foreign Language（现代外语）,Journal of Foreign Languages外语学刊 Foreign Language Studies外语研究 Foreign Language Teaching 外语教学 Foreign Languages and Their Teaching 外语与外语教学 Journal of Sichuan International Studies Institute四川外语学院学报,2. Discovering your Subject,(ii) Journals on translation studies Chinese Translation中国翻译 Chinese Translation of Science and Technology中国科技翻译 Shanghai Translation上海翻译 Foreign Languages and Translation外语与翻译,(iii) Journals on foreign language teaching & learning Foreign Language World外语界 Educational Technology for Foreign Language Teaching 外语电化教学 Foreign Language Teaching Abroad国外外语教学，从2008年1月起更名为外语教学理论与实践 Curriculum, Teaching Material and Method课程教材教法,2. Discovering your Subject,(iv) Journals on middle-school English teaching & learning Foreign Language Teaching and Research in Primary and Middle Schools （中小学外语教学与研究） Foreign Language Teaching and Learning in Primary and Middle Schools 中小学外语教学,(v) Journals on literary studies Foreign Literature Review外国文学评论 Foreign Literature Studies外国文学研究 Foreign Literature外国文学 Literature Abroad国外文学 Contemporary Foreign Literature当代外国文学 World Literature世界文学,2. Discovering your Subject,B. Journals published abroad Language Journal of Linguistics Lingua Linguistic Inquiry Journal of Pragmatics Language in Society Language and Literature Applied Linguistics English Today,John Donne Journal Shakespeare Year Book Eighteenth Century English Literature Renaissance Society of America ,2. Discovering your Subject,By scanning articles in anthologies The Norton Anthology of British Literature The Norton Anthology of American Literature The Cambridge Companion to British Literature The Cambridge Companion to American Literature,2. Discovering your Subject,By scanning encyclopedia articles Encyclopedia articles point to specific topics because they list numerous details on the subject in summary fashion. Spend ten minutes or so reading an encyclopedia article and you might easily find two or three possible topics. The brief article suggests possible topics and its bibliography provides references. You can have a narrowed topic and a list of several books on the subject rather quickly.,Some Important Encyclopedias Encyclopaedia Britannica Encyclopaedia Americanica The Encyclopedia of Linguistics The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics The Encyclopedia of Applied linguistics The Encyclopedia of Psycholinguistics The Encyclopedia of Cognitive Sciences,2. Discovering your Subject,By referring to online resources A.中文期刊数据库 (i) CNKI中文学术期刊网 (） A. 检索路径 西师主页数字图书馆中文期刊CNKI（中文期刊全文检索） B. 检索方式 1）学科门类； 2）题名/关键词/作者/第一责任人/机构/中文刊名； 3）检索类型； 4）起止时间 C. 文献检索与下载 检索下载（下载文件格式：CAJ或PDF格式） ii) 维普期刊 (iii) 万方数据 (iv) 人大复印资料 (v) 全国报刊索引数据库 (vi) 超星电子图书 (vii) 书生之家,B. 外文期刊数据库 (i) ProQuest 数据库 (ii) ProQuest博硕士论文全文数据库 (iii) Elsevier SDOL(ScienceDirect Online)数据库 (iv) Kluwer OnlineJournals (v) 西文期刊联合目录 C. 中国国家图书馆 检索网址：:8080/F 或：/res/ 检索过程：进入主页匿名登陆输入检索词选择检索字段确定 D. 公共搜索引擎 (i) 谷歌： (ii) 百度： (iii) 雅虎： / (iv) 搜狐：,3. Narrowing your Topic,1. Meeting the needs of your audience A sense of audience blends with topic selection and overall purpose. The nature of a paper - review, thesis proposal, interpretation of literature, or report of investigative research determines whether you want to give the reader summary, analysis, or explanation. With this in mind, establish your topic development strategies on the basis of your purpose and your assumed audience.,3. Narrowing your Topic,2. Determining your writing situation To understand your purpose and the audiences needs, try writing a paragraph that includes as many of these items as possible: 1. The purpose of the paper 2. The intended audience 3. Your persona as writer 4. The thesis or hypothesis,3. Narrowing your Subject,3. Developing a preliminary thesis A thesis statement is a scholarly proposal that you will prove or maintain against argument. It controls the papers direction. Your preliminary thesis can be general at first, then after note-taking, defined to a clear proposition. Formulating a thesis sentence early sets satisfactory limits on note-taking, but the writer should remain flexible. Researchers often change directions as evidence pulls first one way, then another. Be open to changes.,3. Narrowing your Subject,4. Narrowing and focusing comparison topics Literary scholars compare one poet with another or one short story with another. Linguists compare one language with another or one aspect of a certain language with that of another. However, the study should focus on issues. Restrict investigations to your comparison of specific issues in order to avoid wandering aimlessly in the voluminous details of historical and biographical facts.,3. Narrowing your Subject,5. Restricting and narrowing disciplinary topics Every discipline, whether linguistics, applied linguistics, literature, or translation studies, has its analytical categories, which are those areas requiring detailed study.,3. Narrowing your Subject,6. Narrowing the topic to match source materials Restricting a subject will require you to study the available sources. For example, if you select the general subject area of cross-cultural communication, your first step in restriction should limit the topic to one aspect, say non-verbal communication. The overwhelming amount of written data about the issue would soon force you to limit the paper to one aspect, perhaps gestures. Next, speculation while scanning available source materials in the library might indicate that gestures do play an important role in daily communication and that cross-cultural differences do exist in gestures. Either way, specific evidence for a manageable topic appears available, so you can then proceed with your study.,3. Narrowing your Subject,Literature students, for instance, soon learn the importance of these terms: 1. theme; 2. setting; 3. plot; 4. character ,8. approaches to literary criticism: (1) the social-historical approach (i.e. the Marxist approach), (2) the bibliographical approach, (3) the archetype approach, (4) the feminist approach, (5) the modernist approach, (6) the post-modernist approach, etc.,3. Narrowing your subject,Knowledge of the terminology helps you to limit your study to one category so that research will proceed with interview questions, observation of a group of subjects, reading in the library, or experimentation in a laboratory. Of course, you cannot afford to get so infatuated with the jargon of the discipline that you forget to write clearly, yet do use the terms of the field to help narrow the subject. Sample: Analyze the theme, setting, characters, characterization and plot of The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne.,4. Sample Analysis,A. Theme When Hester Prynne bears an illegitimate child she is introduced to the ugliness, complexity, and ultimately the strength of the human spirit. Though set in Puritan community centuries ago, the moral dilemmas of personal responsibility, and consuming emotions of guilt, anger, loyalty and revenge are timeless.,B. Setting a Puritan community in New England, early colonial years C. Characters Hester Pryne, the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale, Pearl, Roger Chillingworth,4. Sample Analysis,D. Characterization (1) appearance (2) action (3) psychology (4) contrast,E. Plot (1) Introduction (i.e. the beginning) (2) development (3) climax (4) resolution (i.e. ending),4. Sample Analysis,Suggested Contents 1. The Prison-Door 2. The Market-Place 3. The Recognition 4. The Interview 5. Hester at Her Needle 6. Pearl 7. The Governors Hall 8. The Elf-Child and the Minister 9. The Leech 10. Th