Writing As Discovery: Thought Lab I

A good paper includes a clear and concise thesis statement. Your thesis statement should come towards the beginning of your paper, ideally within the first paragraph of your introduction.

To craft a strong thesis statement, you will need to articulate:

• a topic;
• a claim related to this topic;
• reasoning supporting your claim.

Your topic and claim should have specificity. Beware of having too narrow or broad of a topic; if it is too narrow, this will make it difficult to find relevant sources to construct your argument, and if it's broad, this will make it difficult to cover all aspects of the topic in enough depth.

Rhetoric (or the art of communicating effectively) is a critical component of good writing. This involves elements like sentence structure (syntax), vocabulary, grammar, and organization or arrangement of the ideas and concepts included in your paper.

The sources featured below focus on the topic of rhetoric or writing more broadly:

Revising and editing your writing will make it better. Aim to give yourself enough time to step away from your project and return with a fresh perspective, as this can make any errors or strange phrasings more readily apparent.

Drafting is an important part of good writing. Like any kind of art and design making, no one is really satisfied with their first attempt. Everyone wants good feedback, suggestions for improvement, glaring errors or omissions pointed out. The same is true for writing. Good writers are not born, they are the result of practice, drafting and feedback. Getting feedback on your drafts will definitely improve the quality of your written communication, critical thinking, and information literacy.

While it is useful and important to re-read your own work, we also have tools and resources geared towards helping you learn to improve your writing. For more, see below:

Go here!