Scholarly Writing for Doctoral Students

1. Scholarly Writing for Doctoral Students Dr. Kakali BhattacharyaOctober, 2009 Texas A & M University Corpus Christi Email: kakali.bhattacharya@tamucc.edu Website: http://kakali.org http://kakali.org/generalresources.html

2. What is Scholarly Writing? Citational authority Research-based arguments Cite while you write Synthesis of literature APA style (Education) Develop/defend arguments

3. Citational Authority • Developing a scholarly voice • Speaking with evidence • Article review versus literature review • Scholarly writing versus speeches • Identifying your arguments • Paragraphs are mini essays • Thesis • Evidence • So what? Or Transition to next paragraph

4. Managing Your Writing

5. Managing Research & Writing • Bibliographic system • Record quotations, page numbers, citations • Electronic search capability • Document personal reactions • Document key words • Easily retrievable • Softwares available – Endnote, Zotero

6. Examples

7. What is Wrong? • Teachers are exhausted having to meet the needs of high stakes testing and having to complete paperwork.

8. What is Wrong? • Teachers are critical to the success of students in the school. They need to know how they can meet the learning needs of all students.

9. What is Wrong? • School leaders and administrators are in a difficulty position trying to meet the needs of parents, teachers, and students.

10. What is Wrong? • Research (Bhattacharya, 2009) shows that leaders and administrators are experiencing compassion fatigue as they have to meet competing needs of teachers, parents, and students at times. Additionally, it is important for the administrators to go through continuous professional development (Bhattacharya, 2009) in order to stay on top of their fields. Campus leaders and administrators should evaluate their compassion periodically to ensure that they are not fatigued (Bhattacharya, 2009).

11. What is Wrong? • The state does not support teachers as they should especially when they mandate curriculum. For this reason alone teachers need to go to more professional development workshops to know how to deal with these mandates. There is plenty of evidence (Bhattacharya, 2009) that shows once a teacher is supported through professional development, the teacher is interested in improving her teaching. Teacher attrition rates are decreased (Bhattacharya, 2009) when teachers are supported by their administrators. The teachers who have the highest performing students in standardized test scores usually teach to the test on a regular basis (Bhattacharya, 2009)

12. APA Style

13. Key Points in Manuscript Format • http://kakali.org/6384handouts.htm • Double spaced, Times New Roman, 12 point font, 1 inch margins • Avoid starting with an “Introduction” section. The beginning of your paper/chapter, should introduce the paper/chapter. • Numbers are expressed in words unless they express statistical or mathematical functions

14. Key Points in Manuscript Format • No capitalization in naming theories • Use abbreviations only after associating their long form to the abbreviation. • Use participants instead of subjects as a subtitle in Method • Numbers expressed in words at the beginning of sentence • Italicize statistical reporting symbols such as F, p, M.

15. Heading Levels • Manage levels of heading • Organization of your paper/think outline • Level 1 – center, bold, Title Case • Level 2 – Flush left, bold, Title Case • Level 3 – Indented, bold, lowercase paragraph heading ending with a period.

16. Economy of Expression • Wordiness • Redundancy • Sentence structure • Sentence length • Avoid words like “believed, felt” and use stated, asserted

17. Wordiness • In their article, titled, Doctoral Students’ Levels of Anxiety, Sherritt and Bhattacharya (2009) discuss issues doctoral students face in their programs. • Based on the fact (because) • At the present time (now, currently) • For the purpose of (for, to) • There were several students who completed (Several students completed)

18. Redundancy • They were both alike • A total of 68 participants • Four different groups • Absolutely essential • Small in size • In close proximity • Summarize briefly • The reason is because

19. Precision and Clarity • Colloquial expressions • Write up for report • Quite large part • Practically all • Very few • Jargon • Dissertation is also a teaching tool • Elaborate, explain jargon if it is necessary to use it to communicate technical aspects of your work

20. Precision and Clarity • Pronouns • This, that, these, those • Eliminate ambiguity • Attribution • Third Person • Anthropomorphism • Editorial we

21. ATTRIBUTION Inappropriately or illogically attributing action in an effort to be objective can be misleading. Examples of undesirable attribution include use of third person, anthropomorphism and use of the editorial we. THIRD PERSON To avoid ambiguity, use a personal pronoun rather than the third person when describing steps taken in your experiment.’ ANTHROMOPORMISM Do not attribute human characteristics to animals or inanimate sources. (The paper argues) EDITORIAL WE For clarity, restrict your use of we to refer only to yourself and your coauthors (use I if you are the sole author of the paper). Page 69 of APA 6th is your friend!

22. Reducing Bias • Describe level of specificity (numbers, age) • Sensitivity to labels (ethnicity, ability, sexual orientation) • Person before disability • Gender • Cultural biases – don’t normalize one culture to another (p. 73)

23. Grammar and Usage • Verbs – Passive and active voice • “The survey was conducted” versus “We conducted the survey.” • Tenses – Past tense, ethnographic present • Subject verb agreement • The cat and the dog plays well together. • The phenomena occurs every 100 years

24. Grammar and Usage • Parallel Construction (p. 85) • Use of and, but, between, both, neither, nor, either, or • Incorrect use if want to determine the difference of performance between students • We recorded the difference between the performance of students who completed the first and the second task

25. Grammar and Usage • Misplaced Modifiers • illogically modify a word because of placement The investigator tested the participants using this procedure. Versus The investigator tested the participants who were using this procedure. Using this procedure, the investigator tested the participants.

26. Grammar and Usage • Dangling Modifiers • Have no referent in the sentence. Write in active voice to correct this problem. • The participants were tested using this procedure • Similar to other studies, Sherritt (2009) found technology integration increases retention of content. (Is Sherritt similar to other studies or the findings?) Versus • Using this procedure, I tested the participants. • Sherritt (2009) found that technology integration increases retention of content, a result similar to other studies.

27. Workshop Activity • In groups design 2-3 paragraphs of writing that contains errors in the following areas. You will detect the errors other teams constructed and they will detect yours. • Manuscript design • Economy of Expression • Precision and Clarity • Reducing Bias • Grammar