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”. Some sidestep their shot at offering new ideas by querulously grumbling that they have graphophobia (γράφημα φοβία: fear at the thought of writing).¹

It is neither bête noir, nor recreancy, abhorrence nor trepidation that terrorizes those tasked with scripting their signature in the history of ideas, but dread with dismay and consternation that what they write will not be of interest or use to a presumed readership not yet realized. They tremble that they will not truly contribute to the literature in their field or are found wanting and deficient in sufficient investigative research skills.

In many cases graphophobia occurs when an individual attempts to write about what he or she has discovered, and at the conclusion of the treatise thinks his or her autograph is nearly perfect and then is told by an assumed or hailed experienced writer or educator that the writing is of insufficient quality or lacking proper preparation for publication. This frequently leads to a declination of personal acceptance of self-worth. The expositor exhales and is unable or unwilling to cope with criticism, rejection, or failure, ignoring that this can be corrected with cognitive behavioral or desensitization therapy.²

When it comes to a thesis, many scripters assume that they must collect and analyze massive libraries of qualitative and quantitative data even though most data is uncritical and of little value, as few writers have mastered the art of critical review. When these adventurers into the misty world of investigation and research transcribe the information found they trouble themselves with the assumption that what they glean from the tracts used must keep their document not as a new born baby rejoicing in its nascence parturition, but left like a dead and decaying person deemed dusty, dry, bromidic and boring. Such a paper should never be printed or published.

A quality thesis is factual, accurate, and accentuated with a lively and literary writing style that entertains and keeps the readers’ attention.³ Good writing is colorful, fascinating, and spell-binding as if the author was a well-trained sorcerer who waved a wonderful wand of worthy words over a handmade parchment paper making it glisten with details and pearled words more rare and valuable than any diadem worn by a doyen whose enchanting and engaging litany of facts are the ultimate glory of the subject matter.

Before any investigator or researcher initiates the task of thesis preparation, the stanchion scholar stands sentry to interrogate himself / herself with a plethora of possible questions that critics cast during peer review. He or she will marshal his or her material in anticipation for calls for sustaining the project’s veracity, and accepting the possibility of preying questions as to his or her ability, pondering what resources are available to do the work, the length of time required for accomplishing the job set forth, and the community of colleagues and other supporters any size and understanding are available to the pytacorin zetetics who surround the research project⁴ and who will grudgingly grant acceptance, and possible assistance in bring the paper into fruition.⁵

In many cases when these questions are asked, almost in the manner of the great but more gentle interrogator Socrates of Athens (469-399 BCE), who, unlike the Grand Inquisitor (Великий Инквизитор) detailed responses carefully.  The Russian Grand Inquisitor of today, Vladimir Mikhailovich Gundyayev, (Russian: Владимир Михайлович Гундяев; born 1946) who goes by the name of Kirill (for Cyril the Philosopher), contradicts himself repeatedly.  At one point, the prelate said (29 December 2008) that he was opposed to any reforms of a liturgical or doctrinal nature in the Church.  He repeated himself in January 2009, but when he met with Pope Benedict XVI, later, he spoke of ecumenicism that he had called an apostasy.

Under the code name of “Mikhailov” he served as a KGB agent, and sent many pensioners, priests and the poor to prison.  His actions are more in keeping with the Grand Inquisitor in duplicity, hatred for any form of compassion and tenderness or logic.  Kirill has become the cadaver-like equal of the clergy so well pictured by Dostoyevsky by his crack down on dissent in Russia, that one would expect him to find the New Testament Jesus an undesirable and demanding that he, too, be sent to jail. Kirill fulfills the prophecy of Ivan who recounted the cryptic hatred of the Grand Inquisitor to his brother Alyosha in Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky’s novel The Brothers Karamazov (Братья Карамазовы: 1879–1880, chapter 5).

Dostoyevsky used the metaphor of “withered cold parched lips” the spoke of Christ but lips that would never kiss Jesus. Kirill, like the Russian Orthodox Church has neither time nor interest in the Jesus of the New Testament except as a blood-stained rope to tie people to the official state Church and take their money.⁶

Those who bow the knee before Kirill, like his all girl-body guard paid for Putin and the Russian state as the patriarch jets to various meetings when not living in his St. Petersburg penthouse, or delighting in his chalet in Switzerland, or cruising on one of his many yachts when not being chauffeured in any of his luxury cars, is on the constant quest for the right candidate who will be vibrantly willing to advance to any degree of perfidy and stop questioning unholy scripture that damns all who do not conform or dare to question any thing not blessed by the pathetic patriarch.

A favored priest can lose all benefits if he dared to question the wily predatory patriarch. This has been the fate of more than one scrupulous savant or scholar who dared to expose the ecclesiastical eunuch who attempted to cover up his luxury watch with Photo Shop.  There is nothing wrong with owning an expensive watch–nor even more than one dozen, with several being bordered with diamonds and clusters of gold nuggets, but it does stretch the credulity of  “the servant of the servants of god” who takes pains to preach about the “poverty of the Christ, our Lord and Savior” who had nothing in common with the Jesus of Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John–nor even with the Jesus of any of the other gospels that the Emperor Constantine I had burned before him at the Council of Nicaea that he had called to create his law court (εκκλησία) and assembly to harness the power of the growing autocrats who delighted in styling themselves as bishops of a καθολική εκκλησία as detailed by Thucydides 1.76 (it was used by Plato as a verb, and did not become a title until 332 when it was known as a “superintendent”).

Those who dared disagree or disparage the ruthless rogue retching raw words against perceived enemies are not invited to any of the sumptuous feasts provided by the patriarch in his official palaces where little girls dance while succulent meats and sweets are carried in on enameled plates and sat down upon pure linen clothes. Kirill’s theocratic state has begun, and with it he heaps honors on himself and others, while spending his time with his many homes, jets and other amusements.

To this false end, the Russian Orthodox Church has brought wrongful discredit upon the wisdom of the ancient Socrates who taught “question everything”.  It is the issue of questioning everything that is the foundation of the scientific method that gives birth, life, and strength to disprove or refute (in ancient Greek, it is ἔλεγχος elengkhos; today it is known as Elenchus) the myths of what tyrants declare is right or wrong even if what is legislated as being wrong is natural, normal, and can lead to self-actualization and a return to society a good in exchange for openness and tolerance.⁷ As Thomas Jefferson of Virginia (1743-1826), one-time president of the USA remarked: “Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear.” The true thesis must be narrow in scope.⁸ The competent writer will inform his or her reader(s) that the thesis is limited by using such words or phrases as:

• The study does not cover the……
• The researcher limited this research to……
• This study is limited to……

Abstract

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All academic theses have abstracts.⁹ Abstracts let the reader decide whether or not to continue to read the thesis, and show the reader what to look for if he or she does read the thesis.

No abstract should be inserted merely to repeat the outline of the thesis. Abstracts that just list the contents of the document are redundant at best, and out of place in bare reality. Instead of placing an outline of the thesis in the abstract, the list belongs in a Table of Contents (or Contents).

A correct abstract presents as much as possible of the quantitative and qualitative information that exists in the document. The abstract, as well, reflects on the reasoning behind the thesis and clearly states the modus operandi of the thesis.¹⁰

Abstracts, by definition, are short. Academic writers limit their abstracts to 100 to 250 words. The words chosen answer specific questions, such as: Why was the thesis written? What was done to determine reliability of facts? How were the facts discovered? Even more critical, to the purpose of the thesis and to laud credibility to the writer of the thesis, is the question: What impact the thesis will have on future studies in the same area?

If the paper is about a new method or apparatus, the abstract must detail what advantages are given in the paper? The author must state if he or she has used the new method or a new strategy to ferret out information, detailing the apparatus used and stating how well the new apparatus or material works (this is usually reserved for scientific papers or research on educational programs and studies). It is essential that the wordsmith writes about his or her own experience with the new apparatus or method and explain all problems and successes encountered.

Redundancies must be avoided. Since nearly every abstract is read along with the title of the thesis. The title, for that reason, must never be included in the abstract.

Proposals, methods and findings must be included. Do not refer to information that is not in the document. Never create information that cannot be verifiable nor that is authentic—it is and always must be searchable and researchable by others. If that information is a document it must be accessible to others either in existing books or other written documents on parchment or other substance including cuneiforms cut into stones and potshards, and by digitizing the information, or by sending a photocopy to academics who request it and have the academic and literary competency to read it if it is in a language different than the one used by the writer. The responsibility for knowing the idiom of the document lies with the requester and not with the author of the thesis.¹¹

Abstracts must not carry footnotes or bibliography. Abbreviations, acronyms, symbols or trade names and contractions must be eschewed and never used.

Use active verbs, not passive verbs. Delete first person pronouns; the third-person singular pronoun, it, refers only to inanimate objects: not animals.

Add key words from the document, and if possible, list the key words at the bottom of the abstract. These key words must be within the document itself, and not added as an afterthought or to give false, counterfactual or apocryphal strength to the argument of the thesis. Key words not only helps libraries to catalogue the work, but enables other researchers to determine swiftly if the thesis is of potential value to their oeuvres.

 

Encyclopedic Theses

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No thesis is to be encyclopedic.¹² An encyclopedic paper defeats the purpose of a thesis focused on a single, significant, succinct and critical point.

 

Narrowing the Research Topic

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By narrowing the research topic, the literatus will, with academic modesty, cut back the scope of the proposal.¹³ For example, one woman whom I was tasked with helping wanted to write her thesis on translation and interpretation. When I suggested that the thesis topic was too broad of a subject for a single study, and that numerous studies on both of the sciences (translation and interpretation) had been done, my student suggested writing only on translation. I encouraged her to rifle in on one field. Half-heartedly she sighed she would shower her strength on legal texts.

Urging her to focus more sharply and refine her search, encouraging her to consider translation of legal terminology in criminal cases, there was a pregnant pause in the air. It was a strange, almost suffocating moment, as if I was on trial and awaiting a verdict for my audacity in recommending a more circumspect and limited study. Finally, my student agreed and stated that she would read legal cases that were filed only within Lambayeque Province.

Never intimidated even by pregnant pauses, I earmarked my concern and encouraged her research to be more contained. Once more, crestfallen, she agreed to look at the records housed in Chiclayo’s law offices. I hinted, broadly, that there were too many of those, and suggested a less ambitious effort. Another sigh, another pause, and then came the guarded and hurt affirmation.

My last request was that she review and analyze only the court records on robbery committed in small stores. By following this suggestion the student was able to narrow her topic to a single manageable question.¹⁴ While she was in search of instant fame and to write a definitive work, I reminded my emerging savant that she would have time to achieve fame and recognition with future theses and dissertations, and commented that no dissertation is forever and related how I rejected my own thesis written in 1963—several times. Nothing lasts, I noted, and there is no single infallible source or person who can make pronouncements that last forever, as even forever will not last when our small and insignificant universe on the tail of the Milky Way is swallowed into one of Stephen Hawking’s well-researched and superbly written tomes on Black Holes.

 

Narrowing the Question

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Once the question was narrowed, the strength of the question would be evident in interviews concerning (1) stated cause for the robber: i.e. poverty, hospitalization bills, a requirement to join a specific criminal element, and so forth; (2) time of robbery; (3) location of robbery, (4) frequency of robbery, (5) aggravated circumstances: i.e. intrusion by customers, police, and others, or recognition by the victim, and so forth.¹⁵ Once these questions are presented, the following propositions can be made what robbery is / may be the result of:

(1) Joblessness or inadequate pay for work performed can lead the individual to rob in order to eat or supplement income not realized.¹⁶

(2) Governmental policies against labor to the gain of the 1% who control 98% of the means of production of wealth in Perú disallow anyone the chance of rising above poverty levels.¹⁷

(3) Strict gun control leads desperate people to secure guns illegally and thereby take advantage of businesses that are without security force to protect themselves and their property. The percentage of illegal guns used in crime is about 95.7 percent; compared to 4.3 percent of “legal” guns uses illegally. ¹⁸

(4) Declination or lack of desire to work as robbery is seen as an “easy way” of obtaining money: laziness—that can lead to the robber becoming a “refined” robber going from taking candy in a store to entering school and extorting students to do the work for the thief, and ultimately becoming a plagiarist at any level including if the individual should achieve professorial rank or academic direction certification as a dean or assessor.¹⁹ The problem of a general lack of ethics or understanding of ethics in today´s society leads to the rise in crime given the more pronounced sense of personal selfishness in the community.²⁰ Mismanagement especially in government and government-controlled churches, as in Russia, has had a negative effect and with it an escalation in crime and protests.²¹

(a) Paid assassin²² are increasing in number, callousness, and indifference to suffering. Many paid assassins find a psychopathic glory in assassinations, seeing the USA and the West as a feeder from which to gain wealth and power.²³ In Third World nations, children hired as assassins for pennies, is becoming increasingly common especially in South American nations such as Argentina and Perú (especially in Callo and Lima, with a rise in Chiclayo and Trujillo) where, as Gonzales Poza wrote “Niños sicarios y la reina de la fiesta” where many of the children turn to earning money by killing anyone because “las cuales viven en unas condiciones de desnutrición y miseria”.²⁴ Paid child assassins are common in Mexico, Argentina, and Columbia (where people employ between 5000 and 14,000 children at any one time to kill family members, rivals, for any variety of reasons), as well, as small children to teenagers are viewed as “representing a low-cost, expendable labor source that is less likely to attract attention from law enforcement. Youngsters living in poverty are lured with promises of money or status, or manipulated with drugs.”²⁵

(b) Prostitute who uses drugs or narcotics to disable, drugs, or kills the client before robbing the victim.²⁶

(c) Mafia leader for various reasons. Of course, this last proposition must be debated, as criminal elements in Chiclayo also rob banks and other businesses that have security guards who have guns—but do not use them because (1) Robbers will bribe police and guards not to interfere or stop a robbery²⁷ (2) Guards extort money from the entering criminal element not to interfere²⁸ (3) Vigilantes and police are equally culpable of criminal sentiments by having required civilians to give them some money so as not to be harmed or given a traffic violation, etc.²⁹

Once exhortations are listed and subfields extended and delineated, the writer can ascertain a meticulous methodology and a successful strategy for writing the thesis.³⁰ or substantive issues that are not provable, such as infallibility and virgin birth (except for parthenogenesis that occurs in some insects and flowers), it has a set methodology³¹ When the candidate for the degree can prove knowledgeability, discernment, and intelligence in each proposition of the thesis or dissertation, questions can be phrased exactly. For example, when interviewing a robber who is poor, the most common question that many sociologists query is: “What caused your poverty”. Responses can be: (1) family has always been poor: inheritance, (2) no job skills / lack of education either technical or academic, (3) work is unavailable due to depressed economic conditions, (4) perceived wrong gender, race, or other external factors: racism, (5) too old or too young: ageism, (6) and so forth.³²

From the question: “What caused your poverty”, hybrid interrogatives can enhance the original query by the sociologist asking: Why did you select robbery as your means of escaping poverty (the modus operandi). The person being interview may reply: (1) it is easier than other ways of gaining money, i.e. paid assassinations, prostitution, entrapment and extortion, and so forth, or (2) it is fast and does not require standing in queues waiting for a job interview: unemployment,³³ (3) if caught, incarceration time is less than for selling or delivering narcotics,³⁴ (4) dropping out of school,³⁵ (5) and so forth.³⁶

Some questions will never be answered unless the informant is paid or given something, but answers gained in exchange for money or under threat of torture or other forms of violence cannot be relied on as they are the product of intimidation, and as the unholy Inquisition learned in the fifteenth to sixteenth century. Extracted confessions are usually worthless³⁷ as the victim stated only what the interrogator wanted and did not confess facts that could be proved, validated, or authenticated.

The answers that are given must be compared to and with other respondents’ comments, to trial records, attorney notes, and judicial judgments. If some questions are deemed critical to the thesis or dissertation, the best solution is to rephrase the questions so that they are not intimidating, demeaning, aspersions, asperating or aspirating. ³⁸

 

Critical reading

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Critical reading is more than reading for content. Critical reading requires the reader to make judgments of what is read: how well the information is presented, if the information is reliable and can be tested, and if it is objective.³⁹ If what is read is a standard work, is it reliable? Most standard works that have weathered time are not critically written. For example, most early universal histories start with the myth of creation—yet no deity can be scientifically proven to exist or not to exist, and the creation epic spans from Zeus⁴⁰ breaking a large vase that flew across the void and became planets and stars, to an Iraqi gardener taking care of a garden in the delta of the Ur walking through it after creating Eden and the universe in six days, and so forth.⁴¹ Belief is private and personal—it is neither scientific nor objective and can neither be proven nor disproven.⁴²

Critical reading encourages taking notes, highlighting limited amounts of texts, and discovering if the writer’s arguments can be refuted.⁴³ Refutations occur either by observing an absence of facts or the existence of distorted facts or myths made into facts.⁴⁴

Look for the purpose or the central claims of what you are reading—they are the thesis. If there is no thesis point the work may be a polemic or paltry prose.⁴⁵

Determine who the text was written for and ask why it was written. If the text has only one theory or one identifying point it is not reliable. All arguments must be presented and none left unchallenged.⁴⁶

What disciplines are used in the work that is read? Good books incorporate all disciplines: history, literature, sociology, law, and so forth for all subject matter.⁴⁷ Neither the world nor the writer is composed of only one substance and holding only one idea. No person has ever been infallible in any way or about any topic, and no book is absolute nor are the characters or incidents in one book fact if their existence is not attested by other written or pictographic source at the same time.

Any work that is written void of original material at the time the work is discussed, that work has no value. The good and the bad, the ugly and the beautiful both merit time in all good formats of academic writing.

If the book studied is judgmental and accuses people, places, or records of bias or conjecture, is there a counterweight? If not, the book is meritless.⁴⁸  Moreover, if there are gaps in time, or ideas, the book is printed fraud.

No book can be a history or even a record if a significant period of time is ignored or the claim is made either in writing or popular belief that there is an obscure era that has no record, be it for forty-days and forty-nights, or over a 20 or 30 year period of time “of which there is no record” or the wandering of people, as reality shows that even in the infamous “Dark Ages” (no one living then saw themselves in a “troubled time” or fearing the “end time” that was to be apocalyptic except for the few religious who spent their time studying the writings of madmen and pondering on a destiny of destruction, so graphically presented by Umberto Eco in his classic Il Nome Della Rosa) had records, people met, married, procreated, murdered, and wrote songs, poems, and so forth. Even the great fire spread before the feet of the Emperor Constantine I after his Creed of Nicaea was adopted by his docile bishops, a word taken from Ẻπίσκοπος, epískopos,⁴⁹ did not silence dissent. Dissent was strong and brought with it murder, hunger, and heresy hunts especially with the novel idea of ordaining “bishops” that were born from legend that came with the non-Christian self-styled apostle Saul or Tarsus and the creation of letters to Timothy in Ephesus (1Timothy 1:3), and to Titus in Crete (Titus 1:5),⁵⁰ that has little credibility as to authenticity similar to the Paul of the New Testament who is a retread of Jesus and Old Testament prophecy,⁵¹ from ascending to heaven where he saw “unspeakable” things: 2 Corinthians 12:1-4, claimed to work miraculous signs, wonders, etc.: 2 Corinthians 12:7-10, was unmarried during his ministry: 1 Corinthians 7:8, 15; 9:5; and Philippians 3:8, but says nothing about his matrimonial state before that, but was known to be around only men; etc. These dissenting views, as all opposing opinions must be recognized, categorized, catalogued, investigated and authenticated—not blindly accepted, although wars were waged, millions of lives lost in quest of obtaining common agreement and the suppression or investigation, research, and counterpointed writing.⁵² Outside of Acts, the first historical reference to Paul does not appear before the late second-century in the Christian apology The Acts of Paul and Thelca. It is but a fantasy and there is no reference to its contents or to Paul before that time, except for a vague reference by Ignatius of Antioch.⁵³ Pagan mythology overtakes the sayings of Jesus of the New Testament and the man becomes a god in the same way as the “bishops” and emperors who are “after the likeness of god”.⁵⁴ The word in play for bishop (Ẻπίσκοπος) actually meant a guardian or overseer and was a subject advocate for the Emperor who entrusted the man because he was married and knew his future lay with the safety of the empire.

Neither the emperor, the bonfires that destroyed numerous works (most had been copied and spirited out of Nicaea) did not end the writings or copying of the words of Arius, the Inquisition did not silence the alleged heresy of the Waldensians (also known as the Waldenses, Vallenses, or Vaudois that began in Lyon, France in the late 1170s), the Dolcinites (or Dulcinians who followed Fra Dolcino, and whose people were executed for heresy by being executed by dismemberment), nor any other people, who challenged unbending and irrational authority, that carries over to this day with blind obedience to the least intellectually bright who preach psuedo-gospels in various fields⁵⁵

Critical reading requires stringent, strict and sensible evaluation of the sources and solid sentry standards.⁵⁶ If the material is part of a polemic—an article that has a decided interest in how its information is read and understood—it has little value to critical scholarship. However, it can be sited for its bias, and the author use it to show that bias and how it can be discounted, disproven, and discharged.

When any quotation is taken from any text, it must be done so critically. Critical citations require that the exact words read are cited and reprinted as they appear in the original text. If the author does not agree with the quotation, that writer must reveal the judgments being made about the quotation and then back up those judgments with plausible and verifiable, authentication of those reasons by other texts, or original texts that were not used in the quotation and show they were either taken out of context or wrongfully mistranslated, or misused.

 

Critical Writing

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Once that critical reading is completed, codified, catalogued and categorized, the critical thinker will put together a critical essay, that should include comparisons and contrasts of what was written and/or done before the current composition, what sources were used and/or ignored, and popular reaction to the earlier coverage and by whom with what background.⁵⁷ This requires a detailed, developed and differentiating list of comparisons and contrasts based on theme, concern, text and textual criticism, figures, events, positions on issues, or devices common to all previous writing and works from which the current writer is drawing similarities and differences, challenges and responses, and advocating or denying the plethora of possibilities, including arguments to persuade.⁵⁸ Even the terms or words similarities and differences must be separated and spelled out, for what is similar to one person’s thinking maybe starkly different to another. For example, in Great Expectations,⁵⁹ the true gentleman is not a man of manner but of morality, while in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, the true gentleman is a man who is hard working and productive.⁶⁰

Critical writing also uses alternating patterns: showing that which is, that which was, that which is hoped for, and that which began it all.⁶¹ Generally, it is chronological: that which began it all, that which was, that which is, that which is hoped for or might be or will be: as in grammar, past, present, and future. In a critical academic work, the alternations between subjects can be arranged by topics within chronology: the reality of religious intolerance in the evangelical colonies of New England compared and contrasted to the rigid system of Jean Calvin’s Geneva⁶² or the High Church control of seventeenth century England,⁶³ the intolerance of the twentieth and twenty-first century Southern evangelical communities in the USA compared with the intolerance of fundamentalist evangelical Christianity in Uganda or Nigeria,⁶⁴ in contrast with Sharia Islam in Iraq and Saudi Arabia or the Muslim hold in Indonesia, to the futuristic tolerance promised by those who forecast a one-world religion as with the New Apostolic Reformation⁶⁵ preached by Texas Governor Rick Perry.

This tends to be more interesting to more advanced readers and those accustomed to critical thinking, but it is mark that is quite obscure and threatening to those with a more modest education and seek things compartmentalized by discussing US history first, then UK history, and have separate chapters on other nations such as Uganda and Nigeria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia. The issue breaks down to topical,⁶⁶ chronological,⁶⁷, and descriptive,⁶⁸ This is popular with slanted history, as with the documents of the early Church: all are apologetic and defend the established canon ruled on by Constantine, with dissent not allowed⁶⁹  All are unreliable polemic apologia; none are historically accurate, with the greatest fraud being Gelasius of Cyzicus, Historia Concilii Nicaeni in J.-P.Migne, Patrologia Graeco-Latina, vol. 85, cols. 1185-1360, in Greek and Latin.]  Latin was used as a common vulgar/street language according to common need. Greek remained the preferred language.

There was no Latin Bible at the time of Constantine. The Bible was not translated into Latin until much later as its translator was a Greek who wrote to put it into the vernacular of ill-trained priests: Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus; Greek: Εὐσέβιος Σωφρόνιος Ἱερώνυμος, named Jerome, who was born in 347 CE.  His Bible, the Vulgate, has numerous antecedents:  the Codex Vaticanus, that has not stylistic impact on the Vulgate.⁷⁰  Many of what are today’s  popular phrases cited from the modern bibles did not exist in the Codex Vaticanus nor the Codex Sinaiticus.⁷¹ The Codex Sinaiticus was written in the fourth century CE, like many other bibles. These distortions and plagiarisms are seen clearly to the eye of the philologist and linguist,  as with: Matthew 5:44 – εὐλογεῖτε τοὺς καταρωμένους ὑμᾶς, καλῶς ποιεῖτε τοῖς μισοῦσιν ὑμᾶς (bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you),  Then, too, there is Matthew 10:37b – καὶ ὁ φιλῶν υἱὸν ἢ θυγατέρα ὑπὲρ ἐμὲ οὐκ ἔστιν μου ἄξιος (and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me) as found on the Codex Bezae. Matthew 15:6 – ἢ τὴν μητέρα (αὐτοῦ) (or (his) mother) is another addition, as is Matthew 20:23 – καὶ τὸ βάπτισμα ὂ ἐγὼ βαπτίζομαι βαπτισθήσεσθε (and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with).  What is important is for whom the writer is writing.⁷²

 

Succinct Academic Writing

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Once the subject has presented usable and verifiable information, the writing of the thesis or dissertation can begin.⁷³ What sets the thesis or dissertation apart from creative prose is the fact that academic writing is never “overly general” but is focused directly upon the topic and words are used with precision and care.

Scholarly,⁷⁴ or academic, writing uses formal rhetorical basis for word choice, word inclusion, word order, and deletes or ignores such modernisms as contractions, jargon, colloquialisms and popular phrases unless they are incorporated in a study of modern idioms. The correct use of words is essential so that the topic is not obfuscated, as with the misinterpretation or erroneous interpretation disguised as translation and incorrectly interrelated with interpretation mean the same thing. Grammar is precision oriented so that not a word can be misinterpreted or wrongfully crafted to lead the reader down a behemoth labyrinth of casual carelessness.

Scholarly writing states its objective clearly, concisely, completely, and correctly. It details the significance of what was investigated, researched, catalogued and studied. It has rigid organization with sufficient detail so that any other scholar is able to replicate the results with open access to data gathered by the original inscriber. Authentic scholarship welcomes and includes intertextuality in combining past writings of earlier thinkers into original new text by the author of the thesis or dissertation who gives full accreditation to the originator of the subject, as Charles Darwin did when acknowledging the original studies on evolution by the French naturalist Jean Lamarck.⁷⁵ In the case of intertextuality, there are two distinct phases or formats: interability and presupposition.

Interability is the ability or capability of the current writer to reinterate the text of a former writer by repeating it in various contexts and the use of interchangeable words, as seen in the similarity of words and word order in various constitutions of different governments in different epochs and centuries. For example: Thomas Jefferson borrowed liberally from John Locke’s Social Contract as he did from the Persian Emperor Cyrus (منشور کوروش‎) the Great, 6^th century BCE) from whom, it is frequently claimed, Jefferson borrowed the substance of the Bill of Rights,⁷⁶ although this is a misunderstanding of the text because of inadequate to false and erroneous translation skills (mistranslation).⁷⁷

The actual, final writing process, after all preliminary drafts have been scrutinized, corrected, collated and assembled in a logical order, must reflect critical reading, planning, researching, writing style based on the manual of style for whom the article, thesis, dissertation, or other composition is intended for, as well as editing, grammar and punctuation. Organization of the paper comes in the pre-writing stage, long before the actual finished or polished writing stage. Planning includes the type of composition that may or may not be a compare-contrast exercise, or one that includes critical reasoning from hypothesis to thesis that presents a fresh problem and new and unexpected critical solutions. Points must be well-defined and each reference point is entitled to its own paragraph or paragraphs that are joined logically with transitional words or phrases. Bad writing, non-academic writing is the result of slopping organization and weak format with paragraphs disorganized and discombobulated as if they were “jumping around” with no recognizable direction.

The writer’s argument must be set out initially in the thesis statement, telling the reader what is the perceived problem, the approach to the solution, and the possible outcome by exercising the tactics required to achieving victory in the presentation of subject matter. The words selected to convey the ideas, assumptions and tactics of the author must be intriguing—never irrelevant or trite as that would pull the thesis down past even an elementary level composition. It is at this introductory point that the writer gives the methodology to his or her argument that is emphatically upheld and void of vague generalities and emotionalism indicating that the author is too close to the material for the material to be trustworthy as with NOM tie with Mark Regnerus of The University of Texas at Austin whose credibility as a sociologist was forever lost by his sloppy methodology and prepaid conclusions and the inclusion of his personal religious ideology in his research.⁷⁸

Since a research paper must be objective, personal opinions, prejudgments and insights must be avoided, and the entire paper must tie tightly to the subject investigated in the thesis statement. A thesis statement, by professional standards is a single sentence regardless of how many words, or clauses are used in that statement, and only under the rarest of circumstances can a thesis statement be a paragraph—but this occurs only when the author of the thesis has a complex argument and needs a tightly-knit paragraph to make the initial statement position.

Once that the thesis statement is complete, correct and concrete, the second step is writing a quality introduction that must identify the topic, provide essential and critical contextual information and perambulations of thought that indicate the writer’s focus and direction in the writing process to express the singular cohesiveness of the essay. Without a qualifying, quantifying, and quality introduction to an essay, it is impossible to write a good text to and for the essay itself (it is tantamount to having a stomach that has left-over undigested food but no mouth to allow food to enter to join what is in the stomach, and no intestines to release the digested elements so that the stomach explodes in a detritus debris of worthless material. Most puerilities that appear as introductions occupy less than one-half to two-thirds of a single page and give concrete foundation on which to build the thesis if it is more than five or six pages—but that is a report or essay and not a thesis. Customarily, a twenty page paper requires a two page introduction, while a thesis of more than 100 pages normally can be introduced by ten pages.

 

Attracting the Reader’s Attention

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A solid, substantial, sturdy, sterling-quality conclusion provides the reader a sense of closure to the essay and places within the reader’s mind knowledge of the concepts that the writer is extending in the words of the essay. This allows the reader to feel a part of the research and writing, and affirms that the reader understands, comprehends, and interprets aligned to the focus of the author.

To be dramatic and even alarming, the writer should consider using a startling statistic or the revelation of a facet not commonly considered in conversation or classroom conversation, calculation or the dynamics of discovery to further knowledge and its contents that illustrates the serious nature of the problem being addressed and forces the mind of the reader to willing pursue the information contained in the volume.⁷⁹ The denouement of the pronouncement can be anticlimactic when weighed against the ultimate culmination of the argument, but motivate the mind to seek the information contained in the descriptive parts and ultimate completion of the thesis.

A healthy, hearty, heavily impregnated introduction leads the reader through the labyrinth of thought that has existed from its alpha through the omega of reason and scientific discovery, hallmarking the ultimate ascent of reason. To give stature and strength to this initiation of information in the initial introductory sentence can easily be achieved by quoting an expert by first introducing the specialist by prefacing the findings by a recitation of solid contributions made by the master doyen gifted with especial insights in the field. Buttress this herald of new thought and the exposure of reality by mentioning a common or crass misperception that you state your thesis will counter in an argument against the vulgar delusion and fallacy fed to others by untrained minds. Do this by illustrating with background information, using a brief narrative or anecdote to exemplify your reason for choosing the topic you are about to present in written formal format.

An academic thesis requires material and conclusions that are scientifically based and can be challenged by anyone in your specialty and does not call for your private opinions and personal interpretations, document real-world scenarios, facts, and proven theories especially those that discredit any unprovable belief system.⁸⁰ If this is an introduction to a scientific paper, it is wise to extend and explain essential and fundamental scientific concepts and refer to relevant literature before introducing your own contribution or intervention that lead to a full fulcrum of fact that is not fractured by fantasies fortified by time and misinterpretations of the nexus of reality eschewed for primitively personal reasons that weigh-down would be learners.

There is one exception in academic writing that must be stated, and that is the weight of technical papers where all terms and words are not fully understood by all audiences.⁸¹ When it comes to technical papers, the author must address and define each technical term that threads through the discourse and presentation especially if the term or phrase is central and critical to understanding the essay and the subject matter. In all cases there are select but critical caveats for the writer to excogitate and resolve ruminating on the rights and rites of all parties as if swinging a golden jewel-encrusted ensenser to call upon judgment to those without a true thurible, as was commonly used in ancient Middle Eastern civilizations to chart the course of passing into a new enlightenment,⁸² exposing what others chose to ignore.

 

Critical Composition

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When the scholar-writer introduces words that are not commonly known, it is a grave error to proffer dictionary definitions that give a cursory, popular, and usually vulgar, definition. The scholar-writer must never define words that the audience already knows, unless the author is correcting a popular translation and definition that has nothing to do or relationship with words that have changed meaning and thereby alters words of contemporary use today from what the word originally meant. When this happens, there is nothing critical about the composition.⁸³ This is especially seen in the inappropriate use of words and phrases that have no germane reason to be included in any critical composition, as found within most intimate languages, such as with the word homo.

Homo actually refers to the genus of bipedal primates that includes modern mortals as well as several distinct but extinct forms that are or were distinguished by their large brains and a dependence upon tools from hammers to computers. The word homo is ancient Latin and refers, in Old Latin, to the earth and the idealized origin of mortals who were raised from the earth (man technically means “earthly one”). Only with the emergence of modern languages, after 413 CE, does homo become a word for “man” as with the Lithuanian žmónės.⁸⁴ The misuse of words and the deliberate transmogrification of meaning of words, common in most countries but especially vile in the Russian Orthodox community, leads to a deliberate misunderstanding among people and resulting harm, an intolerable attack on scholarship and the right to knowledge and freedom for the conduct of inquiry.

 

Paragraphs in Composition

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Writing the thesis requires that each paragraph use a topic sentence that is explicit, exact, expressive, and patently precise.⁸⁵ The topic sentence in academic writing works best at the beginning of the paragraph so that each reader knows what to expect. A topic sentence give cohesion to the entire essay as the topic sentence is the sentence that explains what the rest of the paragraph is about and how it interrelates with the rest of the commentary.⁸⁶

A topic sentence must be written carefully, concisely, and cogently, showing how it contributes to the rest of the paragraph and to the thesis directly.⁸⁷ If the topic sentence only restates the thesis itself, it means that either the paragraph, or worse: the entire thesis is redundant and needs to be reformatted or redone.

If you have several topic sentences that each restate the thesis sentence, then the thesis itself is repetitive and without value. Not only must the topic sentence(s) be rewritten, but the information for that paragraph scrutinized and repetitive material removed and new information added. Once the topic sentence is superiorly crafted, the writer can concentrate on each correlative paragraphs.⁸⁸

 

Correlative Paragraphs

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Correlative paragraphs build on each other.⁸⁹ Each paragraph must develop and demonstrate what the topic sentence of the paragraph introduces, and is tied to the previous and the succeeding paragraph with transitional words and phrases that herald the general theme.

Within each paragraph new words are introduced, definitions made, and distinctions indicated with details, examples, and relevant quotations. It is at this juncture that the author of the thesis can introduce his or her observations, projections, and comments to strengthen the investigation and research done and lead toward a stated conclusion or solution. Comments must be relevant and easily tested, flowing in a logical sequence that shows the connections between the past, present and prognostication into the future with a recognizable pattern of energized details and clear causal interrelationships as well as an effective pattern of contrasts that are explained and exemplified as well as amplified.

 

Connections, Conjunctions, and Transitions

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Connections must always be clearly indicated and stated, and the logic demonstrating the connections must be logical, verifiable, and repeatable.⁹⁰ Here transitions are imperative to show the clarity of thought and free-flow of words and ideas.⁹¹ For example, the erudite scholar will write, for example:

If the goal of government is to communicate effectively with its voters, the legislators must view the people of the nation not only as Peruvians but as members of a world community. As a nation, the Peruvian people must recognize that everyone has the same responsibilities and rights, opportunities and responsibilities, and move toward a national consensus of opinion and action. Each year we must labor to make a strong nation, united as a single force, not divided into factions that deny the identity of the people as a whole.

Clear academic writing uses words to reinforce ideas, such as: for example, in other words, moreover, and so forth. Officially conjunctions, they tie together clauses and ideas.

To enable readers to see the turn to different ideas and a change in mapping out an argument or countering a previous presentation by another thinker, certain words are employed carefully. These, too, are conjunctions, but more powerful as they are emphatic words: but, instead, yet, nevertheless, in contrast to, on the other hand, and so forth.

 

Clarity of Expression

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Achieving clarity of expression and understandability of thought and comprehension of the intent and content of words requires that paragraphs have various lengths.⁹² Long paragraphs make prose dull and dense, and for most people, at least the less educated, unpleasant to read and difficult to understand. If a paragraph works well as two or more shorter paragraphs—keeping in mind that all paragraphs must have at least two sentences—then shorten the paragraph but creating separate sentences linked together with transitional words, phrases, and thoughts.

Dividing a paragraph can seem an over-weighted burden, tiresome, troublesome, and undesirable. While it must be done at times, do it where separations make sense in logical places: where the text focus shifts from one emphasis to another, or where the topic goes from one issue to another. A significant indicator that a paragraph is too long is if it has more than eighteen words in a sentence and there are only two sentences. An ideal sentence has seven to ten words. Long sentences can easily be cut into parts.

 

Punctuation

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Most long sentences can be separated or divided into parts using appropriate punctuation. Where conjunctions are overused, enter a period (or other punctuation mark, such as using the semicolon to indicate clauses) and begin a new sentence. Instead of writing:

A student can understand punctuation when each punctuation mark is identified and examples are given that indicates the value of that mark.

Rewrite this too-long sentence this way:

A student understands punctuation when each mark is identified and described.

For example: A period is used when a thought is complete. (Ide, p. 59). An exclamation mark tells the reader that a surprise has or will happen! (Ide, p 48). A semicolon joins two clauses; a question mark indicates an interrogation is complete—is it? (Ide, p 73, 64). A colon precedes a list, a definition, or an explanation: like this (Ide, p 14). ⁹³

 

Conclusion

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Never use a conclusion to summarize points made in the thesis nor use a conclusion to restate the thesis. Such action is not only redundant but academic fraud.

Use a select set of fresh words to many any reiteration, revise the language, and push a more pregnant presentation crisply. Conclusions must reflect on what was presented and why the text is significant and valuable to solicit retention and reiteration.

The last sentence of any conclusion must be the strongest sentence in the thesis. The last thesis sentence must leave the reader with something to think about, a concept to consider, and a light to illuminate thoughts on what the writer has presented and become an inspiration to do similar research to test and target the thesis itself. As for the length of a conclusion, one paragraph is the minimum, remembering that no paragraph is ever composed of a single word or a single sentence. This paragraph must consist of no less than fifty tightly fitted and strongly defined words if it is but a modest and short thesis.

Conclusions may have, and usually do have, more than a single paragraph to state the finality of what was written. When the thesis has sufficiently and fully explored the topic, the conclusion should reflect what is written in no less than ten and no more than fifteen pages. At the same time, the conclusion must highlight what is new, detail how the new information will enhance life, and where the reader can find more material to challenge the thesis itself and thus advance learning and educated arguments. To achieve these goals the thesis author must warn the readers of the thesis of the possible consequences that will be the readers and the world’s if they do not pay attention to any warning within the pages of the thesis, as with Al Gore’s monumental work on global warming.

Al Gore cautioned those who read his book⁹⁴ on global warming that unless swift action is taken the topography, geology, geography, and climatology will change severely to the harm of all. The issue is still being debated with many degreed (not educated) people arguing that global warming is a myth and that some unknown hand or energy will set the world right.⁹⁵ His arguments were strengthened with dire warnings, impact words, and careful pruning of documents and incorporating the message others had pushed for decades unsuccessfully.

It is at this point that the writer must unveil and unleash his or her most vital and critical statistic that will enable the reader to see and pay attention to what was said within the work. It can be a refutation of popular speakers, politicians, or academics, but such refutations fail if the researcher has not marshaled and has under control substantial facts to support the refutation. These broadsides to be cast in an intellectual war of words must be solid, verifiable, and authentic without emotionalism or bias.

Most academic writing is ignored in favor of popular mythology because academic writing is found to be boring, stilted, and out of touch with the average person. To that end it is the obligation of the academic writer to author a paper or thesis so that it can be read by the greatest group of people if there is to be change. Detailed academic material, such as this paper, will never reach that level of inclusiveness given the difficulty of the language and rather boring aspects of the researched topic. The academic must admit his or her own shortcomings as well as those of the research paper, but not all research papers are meant for mass production. If they are or will be, the author can reform, reedit, rewrite, reissue and revitalize the paper by seeking a more elementary level of writing, but that does nothing to raise the level of understanding or maturity and continues the myth of popular sovereignty of those less educated. What the paper must do is increase the desire to learn, raise the bar higher on subject matter, and encourage a more civilized society that not only masters and understands words and concepts, but uses them regularly and with vigor, leading to a more idealized and hope-filled world: a grand goal but one that has the possibility of being achieved if all work together to ensure the mastery of education, and recognition of equality in all people.

If there is to be a truly educated mass, the standards of education must be raised, not lowered. Subjects must be learned through discussion and debate, not blindly memorized as if all knowledge was from one book or bible. Teachers are fallible—as are people everywhere. Students must study, read, write, listen, and analyze not just in the classroom but at all times. Writers must make what they write interesting, captivating, worthwhile as well as enjoyable by entering the garden of knowledge, eating from the tree of wisdom, and passing the fruit of inquiry, questioning, reasoning, and rationalism to those who seek to share in its produce. Publishers must release good books that teach, not just earn money for fleeting fame. It is a Catch-22 proposition.⁹⁶

 

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