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Here's what students
have been introduced to through their Writing Requirement:
- How to analyze
ideas and engage in fruitful inquiry about a topic
- What a thesis is
(but not necessarily how to distinguish a strong one from a weake one)
- How to focus an
essay with a thesis.
In addition,
students should be aware
- that an essay needs
to be organized logically, with transitions between paragraphs
- that a paragraph
needs to be organized logically, with transitions between sentences
- that assertions
need to be supported with evidence
- that they need
to write with their readers in mind
- that all written
work needs to be proofread for grammatical and spelling errors
- that sources need
to be documented accurately
- that there are
several formats for documentation, of which MLA style (preferred by
the English Department) is one.
Here's what they
may not know:
- Conventions for
writing in your discipline
- What constitutes
appropriate evidence in your discipline (or course)
- Who their audience
is and what it knows
- Which key terms
need to be defined and which are common to the discipline
- What form of documentation
is preferred in the discipline
- Individual professors'
criteria for assessment and grading.
To
learn more about Skidmore's Expository Writing Requirement, click here.
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