Syllabus
Academic Writing
(JMM020)
Tuesdays, 9:30 – 10:50, room # J1035
Lucie Kýrová lucie.kyrova@fsv.cuni.cz
Office room 3080
Office hours: Mondays, 15:00 – 16:00
Tuesdays, 11:00 – 12:00 and by appointment via email
This course focuses on the fundamentals of academic writing with the goal of improving students’ critical reading and writing skills in the English language. By the end of this course, you will have tools necessary to conduct research, analyze sources, craft an original argument, and present that argument to others. While we will concentrate on the researching and writing history, many of the skills you will learn will be applicable to other fields of scholarly pursuit.
The secondary aim of this course is to introduce students to the existing literature on women and gender history. Since this is a writing course, the historiographical and topical coverage will not be comprehensive or chronological, but students will gain some awareness of the topics discussed by scholars of women and gender history.
Readings
Most articles are available through the Jinonice library databases (JSTOR, EBSCOhost, ProQuest Central). Book chapters and unavailable articles will be posted on SIS and/or Moodles.
Besides the assigned and required class readings, there are two recommended sources: Kate L. Turabian, A Manual for Writers (available in the Jinonice library) and John M. Swales and Christine B. Feak, Academic Writing for Graduate Students: Essential Tasks and Skills: A Course for Nonnative Speakers of English. These are your go-to resources to consult on anything from grammar to argument construction. Scanned sections will be available on SIS and/or Moodles.
Writing assignments
* Summary of class readings – you will write a summary of one of the assigned articles and one of the assigned book chapters. Due in class October 18th. Writing these summaries is part of your participation grade. Be prepared to present one or both in class.
*Research paper – you will select a primary source and built a research paper around it. The selection of the primary source is up to you, but it should be tied to American history and/or society. You will build / write your paper in stages, some of which will be graded. Detail instructions for the paper will be posted on SIS and/or Moodles.
Paper stages:
- primary source(s) and questions – you will email me by October 14th, 8 pm, your selection of a primary source(s) you want to use for your research paper and the questions you plan to interrogate. This is not a graded assignment – you will get comments and suggestions for research from me.
- Book review – you will write a book review on one of your books you are using for your research paper. Due by November 1st by 8 pm.
- Introductory paragraph and outline – write your introductory paragraph and make sure you have a good thesis statement. Follow with an outline for the rest of your paper that will indicate how you plan to develop your topic and argument. Due November 16th by noon.
- Draft – you will swap paper drafts with a classmate, read and comment on it. You will then return your comments, suggestions for improvement, and a suggested grade to the author (and receive your own draft back). You will send me a summary of your critique and the suggested grade. There will be no formal grade from me on this draft. This is an opportunity for you to have a peer to review your writing and make suggestions for revisions for the final draft. As a reviewer you will send me a summary of your comments and a grade you would give the paper. Due December 6th by 8 pm.
- Final draft - revised draft based on your classmate’s comments and recommendations. Due
January 12th by 8 pm.
* A short presentation of your research in class at the end of the semester. December 13th and 20th.
Grading
Class participation = 10%
Writing assignments = 80%
Book review – 20%
Introductory paragraph and outline – 20%
Draft – peer review by classmates, no formal grade
Final draft – 40%
Research presentation – 10%
Schedule
Week 1 Course introduction, sources, their types and where to find them
October 3 May, Elaine Tyler. Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold Era. New York, NY: Basic Books, 1999. Introduction – read the first two paragraphs on page ix and analyze the photos on pp. x and xi.
Dayton, Cornelia Hughes. “Taking the Trade: Abortion and Gender Relations in an Eighteenth-Century New England Village.” William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. 48, No. 1 (January 1991), 19 – 23. Pay attention to the sources the author used.
Recommended: Turabian, chapter 1, pp. 3 – 11, and chapter 3, pp. 24 – 36.
Week 2 From a topic to a question to a hypothesis
October 11 May, Homeward Bound, finish the introduction.
Kerber, Linda K. Women of the Republic: Intellect and Ideology in Revolutionary America. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1980. Preface, pp. xi – xii, introduction, pp. 3 – 12;
Norton, Mary Beth. Liberty’s Daughters: The Revolutionary Experience of American Women, 1750 – 1800. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1980. Both prefaces, pp. xi – xx.
** How did these writers go from an idea and/or source to their thesis for their books? What was the process?
Recommended: Turabian, chapter 2, pp. 12 – 23.
Email me by October 14th, 8 pm, your primary source and questions for your research paper.
Week 3 Engaging sources - writing summaries, annotated bibliography
October 18 (Don’t worry – you’re not reading all of these, only one article and one book chapter.)
Dayton, “Taking the Trade.”
Jeffrey, Julie Roy. “The Liberty Women of Boston: Evangelicalism and Antislavery Politics.” The New England Quarterly, Vol. 85, No. 1 (March 2012), 38 – 77.
Anderson, Bonnie S. “The Lid Comes off: International Radical Feminism and the Revolutions of 1848.”NWSA Journal, Vol. 10, No. 2 (Summer, 1998), 1 – 12.
Harris, LaShawn. “Playing the Numbers: Madame Stephanie St. Clair and African American Policy Culture in Harlem.” Black Women, Gender + Families, Vol. 2, No. 2 (Fall 2008), 53 – 76.
Smith, Andrea. “Native American Feminism, Sovereignty and Social Change.” Feminist Studies, Vol 31., No. 1 (Spring 2005), 116 – 132.
Fisher, Kirsten. Suspect Relations: Sex, Race, and Resistance in Colonial North Carolina. Ithaca, NY: Cornel University Press, 2002. Chapter 1, “Disorderly Women and the Struggle for Authority,” 13 – 54.
Norton, Liberty’s Daughter, Chapter 6, “We Commenced Perfect Statesmen,” 155 – 194.
Kerber, Women of the Republic, chapter 8, “We Own That Ladies Sometimes Read’: Women’s Reading in the Early Republic,” 233 – 264.
May, Homeward Bound, chapter 1, “Containment at Home: Cold War, Warm Hearth,” 10 – 29.
Enstad, Nan. Ladies of Labor, Girls of Adventure: Working Women, Popular Culture, and Labor Politics at the Turn of the Twentieth Century. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1999. Any chapter of your choice.
Recommended: Turabian, chapter 4, pp. 37 – 48; Swales and Feak, Unit 5, “Writing Summaries,” 105 – 130.
Article and chapter summary due in class.
Week 4 Engaging sources - book and literature reviews
October 25 (Yes, you are reading all of these, but they are short. I promise.)
Brown, Kathleen. Review of Sexual Revolution in Early America by Richard Godbeer. The American Historical Review, Vol. 108, No. 30 (June 2003), 826 – 827.
Perdue, Th
Annotation
This course focuses on the fundamentals of academic writing with the goal of improving students’ critical reading and writing skills in the English language. By the end of this course, you will have tools necessary to conduct research, analyze sources, craft an original argument, and present that argument to others. While we will concentrate on the researching and writing history, many of the skills you will learn will be applicable to other fields of scholarly pursuit.
The secondary aim of this course is to introduce students to the existing literature on women and gender history. Since this is a writing course, the historiographical and topical coverage will not be comprehensive or chronological, but students will gain some awareness of the topics discussed by scholars of women and gender history.