Writing Center Workshop Series

This workshop introduces students to the skills of literary analysis, or close reading. We spend half the session discussing strategies for reading poetry, prose, and drama and then turn to an intensive workshop during which students will have the opportunity to analyze a short literary passage and discuss their readings. While this workshop is offered from the perspective of literary study, the skills it delivers can be applied to several disciplines.
Angela_Allan@brown.edu

Writing abstracts and 2-3 paragraph proposals for conference submissions and other purposes requires a specific set of skills and priorities. The workshop members will share experiences in this area and attempt to elaborate fundamental strategies for writing successful abstracts. Each participant is required to bring four copies of a sample abstract to be read and critiqued by others.
Geoffrey_Shullenberger@brown.edu

How should we structure a paper when our argument relies on more than just words? This workshop will discuss strategies for using a rich language that might include math, statistics and diagrams to construct a coherent and successful argument. We'll see why published articles are a bad model to follow, and figure out what might be better.
James_D_Campbell@brown.edu

Philosophers often sound like snobs. Writing philosophy is different to writing for other academic fields, they say, as if superior. In fact, a good academic paper of any sort is rigorous, cogent, and stylish, precisely the set of qualities that philosophers prize. So what is the supposed difference? If there is one, it is only this: In philosophy, the argument is everything. This means that the rigor and cogency (or lack thereof) of a paper are more evident, and that philosophers are explicitly self-conscious about this. (Unfortunately, that they are conscious of style isn’t always so apparent.) In this seminar we will look at how to structure a paper, and at different ways of presenting and defending a claim, including some basic logical forms, as well as the types of strategies that underpin any successful argument, from the appropriate use of definition, distinction and analysis, to the formulation of dilemmas, counterexamples, reductios ad absurdum, and dialectical reasoning.

In philosophy, the argument is everything. Doesn’t that just make it an exercise in logic-chopping and semantics, say people from other fields, as if superior. Sometimes, they’re right. The worst sort of philosophical writing consists of pseudo-profundities disguised under an elaborate structure of technical jargon. But almost as bad is clever-clever hair-splitting for its own sake, the sort of writing that is accurate but pointless. At its best, however, the logical and semantic analysis that philosophy prizes aims to clarify and comprehend some of the important but hard to understand concepts that we think with all the time. This can make writing a philosophy paper very daunting, because it looks like almost every important concept can be questioned, and there is no solid place to begin. In search of solid ground, this seminar will also look at how to identify an interesting issue, choose a thesis, and focus on a manageable argument, so as to set yourself an achievable but useful goal for your paper. (And then we might think about style.)
Eoin_Ryan@brown.edu

Close reading is an important skill to learn no matter what discipline you find yourself in. Usually when you read a written text, you speed through it in order to gain basic comprehension of its meaning. Close reading might be described, then, as “reading in slow motion.” It involves slowing down and paying attention to those elements in a text that our speed-reading culture teaches us to pass over, explain away, or edit out. It involves focusing on specific words and phrases, and asks not only what they mean but also how they mean. Through practical exercises focused on a variety of textual snippets, this workshop will explore what might be gained from close reading.
Corey_McEleney@brown.edu

Whether writing for law school, medical school, or graduate school, the genre of the personal statement has distinctive features. This workshop will clarify both the purpose of the personal essay as well as the approaches that may work for you. The meeting will be interactive, rather than lecture based. All participants must bring seven (7) copies of an application essay they are currently writing as well as a copy of the essay question. Everyone will share their work through constructive peer review.
Ghenwa_Hayek@brown.edu

Many assignments ask students to refer to specific texts in crafting their essays. This workshop will offer some basic guidelines for incorporating quotations from sources into an academic paper. The goal will be to show students how they may use quotations to support and highlight their own arguments, rather than letting the quotations or the use of sources overshadow the points they are trying to make. In order to demonstrate how this is possible, I will talk about the proper selection of quotations and the importance of explaining to the reader why the chosen quotations are apt for the thesis of the paper.
Erin_Roberts@brown.edu

This workshop will introduce undergraduates to the basic strategies and techniques needed for writing research papers in the humanities. We will cover such topics as: initial research and thesis formation; working drafts and outlines; the inclusion of outside sources and scholarship; as well as various strategies for organizing the essay.
Sara_Pfaff@brown.edu

One problem that I see frequently involves assignments that ask students to critique or analyze a theory. Most of the responses that I see do not engage the theory at a theoretical level, but instead wage critiques about the applicability or practicality of the theory (e.g., "Marxism is good in theory but it will never happen that everyone will accept the theory in their own lives. Thus the theory fails."). This workshop will help students learn to engage a theory on theoretical terms: what assumptions does a theory trade upon? do you agree with those assumptions? does the theorist draw valid conclusions? do the various aspects of the theory cohere with each other, or are they inconsistent or contradictory? I will gather some actual paper assignments that ask for theoretical critiques, and help students see how they might approach these kinds of assignments.
Erin_Roberts@brown.edu

Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, teach a man to write about Jesus multiplying fish and he will do well in Brown Religious Studies courses. With this maxim in mind, this session covers the basic "Thou Shalt" and "Though Shalt Not" approaches to writing a Religious Studies paper in a secular, academic institution. Covering short exegesis essays and long seminar papers, students will learn how to choose a topic, develop a thesis, structure a paper, and limit the amount of professor comments written in red pen. This session will run approximately 1 hour with time for questions both during and afterwards.
Alissa_MacMillan@brown.edu

This workshop will address how and why to use footnotes in your paper. We will discuss the footnote as providing a place for further discussion of a point which is not significant enough to steer the paper in a new direction, but should be addressed non-invasively. We will also discuss the footnote as a place to cite a source and provide additional sources on the topic being addressed. We will look at good and bad examples of published footnotes, as well as construct footnotes in the workshop.
Jennifer_Eyl@brown.edu

This workshop focuses on writing academic papers with an emphasis on discourse elements and features such as topic development, cohesion, clause structure, grammatical choices, vocabulary, and editing. The topic of plagiarism and how to avoid it will also be addressed.
Ashley_Ferranti@brown.edu

This workshop will look at the multiple styles of making a bibliography (APA, MLA, etc). We will also discuss when to include a source (or not) in your bibliography.
Jennifer_Eyl@brown.edu

Whether writing for law school, medical school, or graduate school, the genre of the personal statement has distinctive features. This workshop will clarify both the purpose of the personal essay as well as the approaches that may work for you. The meeting will be interactive, rather than lecture based. All participants must bring seven (7) copies of an application essay they are currently writing as well as a copy of the essay question. Everyone will share their work through constructive peer review.
Ghenwa_Hayek@brown.edu