see attachments

Speaker: Joanna Bauer

JOANNA BAUER: Hello, my name is Joanna Bauer, and I'm a facilitator here at the University of Phoenix. For the subject of this video we're going to talk about how to construct an academic paragraph.

A really great quote that I love is, "Effective communication is the key to success in business." This is the chief operating officer for the Jim Henson Company which, as we know, is responsible for the Muppets. And so what I say is communication ability equals promotability, and that's really important today in the more competitive workplace that we are in.

Some important considerations -- academic writing is more formal than casual writing, and so there's some very specific things that we will need to do in academic writing as opposed to informal or casual writing.

So the first thing is no slang. For instance, a slang word would be rug rats and, instead, you would need to use children.

Colloquialisms are regional sayings, so in certain areas of the country or in the world people would say different kinds of sayings, so instead of gonna or wanna, you would say going to or want to.

Clichés are those old used, overused sayings and phrases that people tend to rely on, such as old as the hills, raining cats and dogs. And so instead of saying those you would use more words that are descriptive and have specific meaning.

Contractions, we don't want to use those in academic writing, so anytime you would say don't or won't or something along those lines, instead write out the words do not and will not.

Of course, no text language should be in academic writing, at all.

And acronyms, NCA stands for National Communication Association, and APA stands for American Psychological Association, so you want to just use the acronym, you would have to introduce the full organizational name first, and then you could use the acronym after you've done that.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Page 2© University of Phoenix 2014 Construct an Academic Paragraph

The next thing is to know the elements of an essay, and this also leads to how you develop a paragraph. Essays include three specific things, along with a reference page at the end. So they would include an introduction, a body, and a conclusion.

Paragraphs make up each of these areas, and they should be five to sentences in length, about, approximately. They should flow logically, so good transition, good organization. They should include one main point, one main concept, or one main topic. Anytime we move to another topic, a point or a concept you would start a new paragraph.

They also should include a topic sentence. Now typically this would be at the beginning of the paragraph, but it could also be at the end, and it could also be in the middle, but for beginning writers and for academic writers it's best to keep it at the very beginning or at the very end because it gives the full view, the main point of what that paragraph is about.

So to give some examples, is this proper academic writing? Well, no, because, first of all, we have APA, so that's the wrong use of the acronym anyway, but also acronyms shouldn't be used. We also have a contraction with don't, so that should not be used. You're is the wrong homonym so that shouldn't be used, and plus, even if it was the correct homonym, you wouldn't want to use a contraction. Rug rats is the slang word. Flicks is another slang word. And TV is an acronym; it should be television so not academic writing, at all.

Is this sentence proper academic writing? Still a problem with APA as an abbreviation, and then it doesn't make sense if you read it, "The APA cautions a gains permitting you're children to watches violent shoes on television." So it doesn't make any sense. There's a lot of obvious word choice errors here. And the problem is is that spell check would not say this is wrong, spell check would look at this and say perfectly fine, you're good to go. So the point is to not rely on spell check.

And here I have a University of Pittsburgh study on spell check usage, and what they found was students who did not use spell check, they proofread completely on their own, made an average of five errors, but when the students did use spell check they made an average of 16 errors. That's because we get kind of complacent and we get a little relaxed and we don't look at every single thing because we expect spell check to check it, but spell check only checks that the word is spelled correctly, it does not check that the word is used in the right way or it's in the right context or it's the right word for that particular sentence.

So always read out loud to edit well, and the reason to read out loud is because our brain reads on computers very fast, and so there's a lot of times when we won't read exactly what's on there and we'll just assume that it's correct. So read out loud, have somebody else read it, or get some kind of other editing so that you're not relying on spell check.

So this is the proper sentence in academic writing. We have "The American Psychological Association", which is what APA stands for. And the first time you introduce this you need to spell out the entire organization or entire acronym, then you can put the acronym in parentheses, like we have here. For the rest of the essay then you can just use the acronym, you don't put it in parentheses after that.

So "The American Psychological Association (APA) cautions against permitting children to watch violent shows on television." We don't have slang, we don't have contractions, there's proper word usage, it makes sense, and it's a more formal writing style. So that's what we're looking for with academic writing.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Page 3© University of Phoenix 2014 Construct an Academic Paragraph

Okay, back to the general structure for an essay. The first thing an essay will have is an introduction. The elements of the introduction are basically a brief background of the topic. This is where you want to tell the reader what they're going to be looking at, what is the topic. A lot of times I'll read an essay and I'm not exactly sure what the topic is, so this needs to be very clear in the introduction.

The second thing is why important, why is this topic important, why should I read further, why should I care? This is also true in a presentation, so you'll want to use these same elements in a presentation.

And then the third thing is the thesis, a thesis is a snapshot of the main point. What's the -if the audience only takes away one thing from your whole essay what's the one point you want them to take away, what's the one point you want to make, that's the thesis. And then the thesis will have subpoints or subtopics that are going to support your main point. So these are the elements of an introduction.

The second thing for an essay would be the body paragraphs. Now this is where you expand on those subpoints that you introduced in the thesis. Typically, there's three in a general essay, there can be more for a longer essay or case study or a team paper can have more.

Usually there's a paragraph or more for each subpoint so, again, every time you start a new topic you want to start a new paragraph.

And then there's also the sources, this is the one area you want to put your sources. You should not put any sources in the introduction and conclusion as those need to be all your own points, your own analysis, but the body is where you use your sources. You go into the library. You get your academic sources, and you use them to support your points.

Of course, you need to use proper APA 6th edition in-text citations and references, and all of that is talked about in the Writing Center if you need more help with that.

The last thing is the conclusion. This is where you're going to reiterate your thesis. Again, what is the main point that you want your audience to walk away from, and you need to make sure that they understand it and remember it, and this is where you would do it in the conclusion, again.

You would also summarize those main points, those three or more subpoints that you've made to support that thesis.

And then you would offer last thoughts, what are the last thoughts on this. One very important point is don't introduce any new information or any new subtopics, all of that needs to be in the introduction and in the body, the conclusion is just to reiterate and just to summarize.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Page 4© University of Phoenix 2014 Construct an Academic Paragraph

Other things that you can do, depending on what kind of assignment it is, you can call to action if it's a persuasive assignment or persuasive argument. You can say, ask people to go vote, for instance, if it's an essay to get people to vote.

You can also provide future areas of study or future areas of research or you can provide your last recommendations if it's a case study, so those just depend on what kind of an assignment it is.

Now to give an example of this, with my topic being, "Why Buy a Vintage Mustang?" I would have three subpoints. First would be performance. The second would be style. And the third would be heritage.

So a simple thesis on why to buy a vintage mustang, using these three subpoints, would be, "Vintage Mustangs are a good investment because of their high performance, muscle car style, and the long heritage of the brand." So that would be a persuasive thesis, including the three persuasive subpoints, and then in the body of my essay I would give all of my support with these three subpoints in the same order that I've introduced them here.

Ten strategies to improve writing, so these are the things that will help you if you keep in mind I need to do this when I'm writing. The first one, do not use no double negatives. Well, of course, this is a double negative, so you wouldn't want to do something along these lines. The first not you can keep, and the second no you would get rid of, so do not use double negatives.

About them sentence fragments, well, this is a sentence fragment, so you would have to say what about the sentence fragments because this is missing a very significant element of the sentence.

Verbs has to agree with their subjects, well, there's a problem here because verbs is a plural, and has is singular, so if it was a verb has to agree with a subject, that would be correct, or verbs have to agree with their subjects, that would be correct, as well. But this one is mixing a plural and a singular, and so you have to make sure that those match.

Between you and I, case is important. Well, the problem with this is it should be between you and me, case is important. So it's important to know when to use I and when to use me. There are some very simple rules that go along with that, and you'll find those in the Writing Center.

Correct spelling is essentail. Well, this might look correct, but essential is spelled wrong, so you'd want to go through and make sure that you're reading this and using the correct spelling.

Propositions are not words to end sentences with. Well, as you might guess, with is a proposition so you wouldn't want to use that to end a sentence. So you would say prepositions are not words in which to end sentences, and then get rid of that with. Sentences should end with a subject, ideally, at the end.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Page 5© University of Phoenix 2014 Construct an Academic Paragraph

So our seventh strategy to improve writing is avoid clichés. And I say here, actually, they are old hat. Get your second wind in writing originally, and avoid clichés and colloquialisms. You know what I mean? All of these are, as you might guess, clichés, which means too overused phrases, so you want to be original in your writing and not fall back on these overused phrases.

Number eight, do not be redundant. Do not use more words than necessary. Eliminate the superfluous in your writing. First and foremost, it is important not to be redundant because you are saying the same thing over and over. Well, of course, I was very redundant in this. One of the things that I hear a lot is first and foremost, which of course they mean the same thing, foremost is first. So whenever you hear anyone say first and foremost they're being redundant. Of course, the other things here, you're saying the same things over and over, is being redundant.

So really read your writing, read it out loud, give it to other people to read, and make sure that you're writing anything that you have in the essay is important and necessary, and makes some contribution to the essay.

Okay, the ninth strategy to improve writing, be careful to use the write homonym . Well, this homonym is a word that sounds the same, but means different things. So, of course, the wrong homonym here is w-r-i-t-e, it should be r-i-g-h-t, that would be the correct homonym. The most misused homonym that I see and with student papers is the their and the there, the t-h-e-i-r and t-h-e-r-e. All of these, again, are talked about in the Writing Center, which I'll show you in a little bit.

And, number 10, proofread you writing to see if you any words out. Well, obviously, we've lost some words out here, but this is -- a lot of times we'll just read this really fast and we don't even acknowledge on the computer that there's some words being left out here. So, again, read out loud, be very careful about your editing.

Now gender neutral writing and gender biased writing is very important. We want to write gender neutrally, and that means that we want to take out any type of reference to like, for instance, his, meaning everybody. So the student needs to research his essay well. So what would be a gender neutral way of writing that sentence? Could I write it, the student needs to research his or her essay well? Well, I could, and you see this a lot of times, but if you ever read an essay or an article that uses his or her over and over and over, talk about redundant, that can be really irritating. So that's not the best way to go about gender neutral writing.

What about the student need to research their essays well? Well, the problem with this one is that the student is singular and their is plural, so they must match. So this, of course, is not grammatically correct so you wouldn't want to do that.

Now the absolute best way to write gender neutrally is the student needs to research the essay well. So you're getting rid of any kind of gender pronoun, whatsoever. You're not using his, you're not using his, her, you're not using their. That way you can keep it singular, if you wish, but you're just getting rid of any sort of gender pronoun. So try and do this method as much as possible in your writing. However, if you need to keep it with some kind of a gender pronoun you can just make it plural, the students, and say their. This is the second best way to deal with gender neutral writing.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Page 6© University of Phoenix 2014 Construct an Academic Paragraph

While we're at gender neutral, remember to write with gender neutral labels, so that means instead of the old word of saying stewardess, you would say flight attendant because flight attendants can be male or female. Waitress should be server because, once again, they could be male or female. Firemen should be firefighters. Policemen should be police officers. And Mail men should be mail carriers. Now there's many other gender labels that we use that are typical, so just keep in mind to use these gender neutral labels as opposed to gender biased labels when you're writing.

Five thinking errors -- now when we're writing and when we're trying to persuade sometimes we get to thinking errors, which are also fallacies because anytime that a analysis doesn't fit with the conclusion it could lead to a fallacy. So these are the top five thinking errors that we see.

This one, selective abstraction, focuses on the small detail and ignores the larger picture. Sometimes you might hear this or people say that you're focusing on the tree as opposed to the forest, and so that's kind of the same idea.

Catastrophizing -- this one is focusing on the worst possible scenario, instead of what are the logical next steps somebody just automatically goes to, well, that's the worst possible thing that will happen.

Overgeneralization -- sometimes you'll get broad conclusions from a single event. So sometimes students will read one article about one thing and then everything they talk about has to do with that single event. This is really, really important to not overgeneralize. Anytime you hear all students do that or all researchers do that or something along those lines, that's overgeneralization. Make sure you're not doing that in your writing because almost always is all not going to be true. So you could say some or many, or something like that.

Polarized thinking -- there's also either everything is all good or all bad, so polarized thinking. And, as we know, 90% of things are the gray area where it's situational.

Personalization -- and then there's personalization, where somebody is either going to take all the blame or take all the credit. You might know somebody who is like this, who just always talks about external events -- oh, I'm late because of the traffic, because of my car, because of this, because of that, instead of taking the blame themselves. They give everyone else the blame or give everyone else the credit.

Okay, going to different writing elements, some other things to think about in your writing. Be aware of passive voice, so you want to write in an active voice, in an active sentence. So, for instance, anytime you have be and then an ing word, so be going, be reading, I'm going to be reading this book. Just use you're going to read the book, you're not going to be reading it, that's passive, active is I'm going to go read the book. So be careful with those. There's many more examples of this in the Writing Center.

Of course you want to vary your word choice. The most important thing is to use a thesaurus. The difference between a good writer and a great writer usually is just the word choice. So if you're reading through your essay or reading through your assignments and you notice you're using the same words over and over, anytime more than twice go to the thesaurus and look-up a different word choice.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Page 7© University of Phoenix 2014 Construct an Academic Paragraph

One thing that good writing needs is transitions. Transitions take sentences and takes thoughts and transition them better together. So for a paragraph that's kind of choppy and not working together, and the topics are not going, flowing as well as they could be, then transitions probably would help this. Transitions are specific words that will transition from the last thought to the next one.

And so there's different kinds of transitions. I only added three here, but there's about six or seven different kinds of transitions. If you're transitioning from time you would use words, like currently or meanwhile. If you're transitioning for emphasis, you would use words, like in fact or indeed. If you're transitioning a cause and effect argument, you would say consequently or therefore. And so there's a lot of different elements to transitions. Again, this is all talked about in the Writing Center for more information.

Another writing element is a simile, and this compares things using like or as, so she runs like a cheetah, or he was as hungry as a lion. And the reason why we use these types of elements in writing is because it gives a little more interest, a little more pop, but also typically if you're comparing something that somebody doesn't know to something somebody does know then it helps with the absorption of the material. So we know here, for instance, a cheetah is running fast, so she must run really fast, but we don't have to say she runs really fast, we can use a simile to make it more interesting.

A metaphor is the same thing, it's a comparison. It doesn't use like or as, though. And one of the most famous metaphors in Shakespeare is, "All the world is a stage." And, of course, this is a comparison for a metaphor because the world is not literally a stage, but we can use this to signify that the people are performers and that everything might not be exactly true to life. So that gives a good idea to the reader or to the audience.

Another element to be aware of is person, so academic writing is typically written in third person, so we don't want to use first person words, such as I, we, me, or us, second person words, such as you, your or yours. And I see a lot of essays where it's you should do this, you should do that, and I think why should I do that, I'm not involved with that? So be really careful about not using second person.

Third person is he, she, it, they, all of those types of words, but even with that the best to use is the subject. So you would use -- instead of using any of these pronouns you would use students, researchers, scientists, whatever your subject is, that's the best thing to use in academic third person writing.

Now do you remember, you need to stay in the same person throughout your essay. So if you're given an opportunity to write in first person you're going to need to write in first person that entire essay, but typically you're going to be writing in third person.

Another element of writing well is to be a good Netizen. So never send an angry message. Only use full caps to emphasize a word or phrase because it's considered shouting. Do not reply to all in e-mails unless requested or needed because people don't want to get 500 rely to alls. Add the original message where needed to clarify, instead of just saying got it, you might want to add the original message so that they know what you're talking about.

Remember that e-mail is not private and can be forwarded to anyone without your knowledge, so be very aware of what you're saying. Do not assume that everyone understands acronyms. They may not know what your text speak or your acronyms mean. E-mail is not always informal. Consider your relationship. If this is going to be sent in a business situation, you should stay formal. It's not a conversation, use proper grammar,

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Page 8© University of Phoenix 2014 Construct an Academic Paragraph

punctuation and sentence structure. Always make sure that you have a greeting and a salutation. Don't use text speak. Capitalize those I's. Don't be lazy. Use the proper grammar and so forth.

Use the subject line and first paragraph to gain and keep interest. Use spacing to highlight action items. If you want somebody to do something tell them straight out, don't bury it. And then reiterate action items at the end so make sure that they see it.

Now, as I've been talking about all along, the Center for Writing Excellence is a terrific resource for all of these different areas, and here's where you get to the most important area. Go to your eCampus page. Click under Center for Writing Excellence, and then here you'll see under the red arrow it says tutorials and guides. So you want to click on that, and this is what you'll see on that page, the tutorials and guides.

Now you can click on any of these areas. There's the writing and style guidelines that have so many different areas for you to look at. There's the grammar tutorials, samples, so this gives you sample bibliography pages, sample papers with all the different elements to them, sample outlines, and so on.

And then there's a plagiarism tutorial and some other things, but the one that I want to point out here is with the red arrow, where it says grammar and writing guides. So you click on that, and then this is what you're going to see, all these different areas that will help you with plagiarism, writing style, business writing, English language learner help, wizards and tutorials for those of you who need software help.

But this right here under the red arrow is the skill and drill area. So click on that and you'll see all these different tasks, there are 10-qustion tests, and you can see here active, passive voice, language, biased free language, clarity, clichés, conjunctions, so on and so on. There's so much to it, and you can take these tests, and it'll tell you immediately whether you're right or wrong and why.

So for the wrap-up, my biggest tip is to use the resources that are available. Center for Writing Excellence has tons and tons of information there. Go to the skill and drill. Use the sample papers. Use the tutorials. There's an essay development guideline there. And, of course, there's writing workshops available, both online and locally, so look into those different workshops to help you. And then there are tutors available at the campuses and, of course, your faculty are great ways to know more resources about how to write properly. Remember that the only way to be a great writer is to write, so practice as much as possible.

I'm Joanna Bauer, and I'll see you around campus.