August 22, 2013 / Posted in  Critical Thinking, Critical Writing, Education, Investigation, Language

Contents

I. Introduction to this essay

II. Abstract

III. Encyclopedic Theses

IV. Narrowing the Research Topic

V. Narrowing the Question

VI. Critical Reading

VII. Critical Writing

VIII. Succinct Academic Writing

IX. Attracting the Reader’s Attention

X. Critical Composition

XI. Paragraphs in Composition

XII. Correlative Paragraphs

XIII. Connections, Conjunctions, and Transitions

XIV. Clarity of Expression

XV. Punctuation

XVI. Conclusion

XVII. Bibliography

XVIII. Citations (Footnotes)

Introduction

When it comes rising to the challenge of writing anything, many people are afraid. Those catechized with the opportunity to present themselves and their ideas in written format, frequently stammer the time-worn cliché: “I freeze up”...

August 11, 2013 / Posted in  Education, Ethics, Intellectual Property rights, Investigation, Researcn

Contents

I. Introduction

II. Background

III. Antithesis

IV. Antethesis

V. Protothesis

VI. Synthesis

VII. Reiteration of Rubric: Reality of Academic Writing

VIII. Peer Review

IX. Adversarial Reviews

X. Meeting the challenge in mastering the English language

XI. Academic Writing Requirements

XII. Summary

XIII. Recommendations

XIV. Bibliography

XV. Footnotes

Introduction

In academia, investigation, research (research is frequently confused with investigation, although in Academic English they mean different aspects in the conduct of inquiry), writing, rewriting, editing, redacting, and publishing is conducted in several sets of forms and genres, not all that are geared, directed, responsive to or a part of the author’s field of specialization to the lamentable loss of true scholarship...

August 3, 2013 / Posted in  Education, Ethics, Intellectual Property rights, Opus Dei, Researcn

Introduction

In cases where I am called on to review a thesis or dissertation, I hesitate, frequently decline, and (with rare exceptions) I feel fear, then ultimately despair at the puerile paucity of knowledge that is contained in poorly invested, investigated, and roughly researched papers that aspire to the title and name of thesis—yet have nothing in common with a real thesis.¹  The theses that I have read over the past fifty years have been at best blatant, bland, barren, crass “cut-and-past”, or more precisely, bypassing deliberate plagiarism to outright theft of intellectual property rights.²  This has become so common, that I walk away with an apologia at best, or just express my “regrets” that I am not capable of weighing in on the theses as most writers assume that “by pa...