Tag: education

Academic Genres of writing are specific to a field of study and process that field of study is best articulated in. They include lab reports for collection and analysis of scientific data. Or narrative essays on life experience. Academic genres are the expressions of scholarship. Although constrained to the specific discipline of academia, these genres are still responses to rhetorical situations. Each discipline or class assignment has a guided preference for the writers academic genre. The ability to meet these guidelines are each individual creators academic genre.

Research is meant to collect data on a topic through academic investigation. This data can then be used in research projects to present a conclusion to an audience. The goal of research and subsequent projects of research, are to persuade the audience to adopt the researchers viewpoint. In that way, through we research we create knowledge for ourselves in the hopes of summarizing that knowledge to best display it to an audience.

When I was a senior in high school I had my first true research project. It was a ten-page thesis paper tying two books on the topic of a post-apocalyptic world to support a specific conclusion about the human race. The key differences between what I did then and what I am tasked with writing now are several. Firstly, the research I am doing now is more observational and internal. I am looking into my own behavior and routine to come to gain knowledge about my creative process. This is vastly different than the external gathering of of information from fictional novels with real world issues and tying it together with deeper extensive research into those issues.

Beyond that, the structure and expectations will probably be different. My thesis was required to have three clearly labeled sections. One on the first book, one on the second, and one tying the central topic together with additional research. I will look to incorporate much more of my own style into this paper. After all it is a paper about myself!