Ten Suggestions for Writing and Intellectual Heritage Paper

Getting started:

•  Familiarize yourself with the material. Intellectual Heritage texts are notoriously difficult to internalize. Without internalizing the material relevant to your paper, getting started will be extremely difficult. An excellent way to begin the process of internalization is to focus on one or two ideas brought up in class by your professor. Develop your own position on these ideas without paying any mind to the relevant text. After you have done this, return to the text, and ascertain how the author presents these ideas, and how your own independent development of these ideas differs from that of that of the author.

•  Free-write. Meditate on these ideas by writing down everything that comes to your mind that might be relevant. Don't censor yourself at this stage, but keep in mind that very little of what you physically write at this stage will make it into your final draft. The purpose here is to get something down that can be reworked and refined, not to immediately churn out a polished, presentable piece of work.

Planning:

•  Develop a working thesis. This will give you a bit of direction. If the working thesis turns out to be "unworkable," change it. Nothing should be set in stone at the planning stage.

•  Construct an outline for how you will support your working thesis. Again, this provides one with a focused direction by organizing thoughts. A very, very common plight of IH students is that of getting started. More often than not, this plight is caused by lack of planning.

Writing:

•  Argue for you position. Writing an IH paper consists of more than simply relaying your opinions to the reader. While IH students are encouraged to develop their own position on a particular issue, this position needs to be supported with evidence from relevant texts, and not simply stated. In the end, your goal is to convince the reader that your position is not only unique, but also highly plausible. This can only be done by rational argumentation.

•  Use quotations effectively. There are two main points to keep in mind regarding the use of quotations: 1) don't "strand" your citations; meaning, incorporate the quoted text into the flow of your writing 2) avoid substituting quotes for your own writing; quotations should be used as supporting evidence for you thesis, not as the primary method of making your points.

•  Be mindful of your audience. In the end, your paper should be accessible and readable to any reasonably intelligent individual. Don't assume your reader has read the texts you are addressing. Pretend, for instance, that you are writing, or explaining your thesis to a fellow student who hasn't taken an IH course. A large part of your assignment is demonstrating that you know the material well. This is often done by demonstrating that you can explain your thesis clearly to a layperson unfamiliar with the specific content with which you are working.

•  Be mindful of counter-arguments. Often, the most effective method of convincing your audience will be to support your position by means of calling to task opposing viewpoints. Anticipating possible objections to your position and preemptively addressing these objections will undoubtedly strengthen your argument as a whole.

Finishing:

•  Revise, revise, and revise. Writing is an ongoing process. Papers, and specifically IH papers, are perpetual works-in-progress. They cannot be "corrected" in the same way a math test can be corrected. As such, continual revision of one's paper is essential. Unfortunately, rarely will one have time to work through multiple revisions. However, some revision is almost always necessary. Schedule time for doing so; consult with a tutor, your professor, or even another classmate. Avoid at all costs the all-too-common tendency to begin your paper the night before it is due. Doing so more often than not results in substandard work.

•  Proofread. Take pride in your work. Submitting a paper with multiple grammar errors and stylistic oddities indicates to you professor that you haven't taken the assignment seriously. Unsurprisingly, papers with such rough edges usually receive substandard marks. Again, schedule time with a tutor or fellow classmate to polish your paper in this capacity.

 

Russell Conwell Center

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