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Honors College
University of North Carolina Wilmington

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Corollaries
1. Clear writing is evidence of clear thinking
2. Scholars should be writing often
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a prolonged conversation, a dialogue epSos .de @ Flickr you have a seat at the table
Elliot Brown @ Flickr
What will you say?
How will you reach them?

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Scholarly Writing
Thesis Structure
3 Writing Process
4 Writer’s Block
5 Sharing your work

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Scholarly Writing
Thesis Structure
3 Writing Process
4 Writer’s Block
5 Sharing your work

Forms of Scholarly Writing
Less Formal
Planning documents
Prospectus
Research journal
Emails
Letters
Memos
More Formal
Thesis
Dissertation
Poster
Book
Journal article
Conference abstract
Conference paper
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Scholarly Writing
Thesis Structure
3 Writing Process
4 Writers Block
5 Sharing your work

Typical Thesis Outline – Best Practices
Abstract
Introduction
Expected content, style, and organization may vary by discipline.
Methods/Procedures
Results/Findings/Product
Discussion & Conclusions
References
Critical Reflection
Science writing tends to be very formulaic – strong constraints like writing poetry (e.g., Haiku or
Shakespeare’s iambic pentameter)

Abstract
A one-paragraph summary of the main points of your thesis.
Often ~1 sentence per section of your thesis.
Must Stand Alone
Often distributed separately from the main body of your writing
Often have limits such as 150 - 300 words.

Example Abstract
Fell, K. 2014. HUP! The presence of virtuosity in Irish traditional music. Explorations 9: 7 – 16

Example Abstract
Lawless, T. 2014. Sickly Sweet: The
Development of a Standardized Method
Testing for Lactose and Fructose
Intolerance and Malabsorption.
Explorations 9: 92– 100

Introduction
Funnel your reader into your work
Broad Introduction to Topic
Significance?
Literature Review put work in context
Your specific objectives, hypotheses, and questions
How many paragraphs are in Honors Thesis introductions in your discipline?

Materials & Methods
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Describe the materials used
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Describe the methodology
– data collection
– analytical frameworks.
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Describe your data analysis procedures (quantitative or qualitative)

Results
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Describe what you learned
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Report your evidence or supporting arguments
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In the sciences
– typically short and sweet
– includes references to figures and tables with your supporting evidence
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In the creative space
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Film = results
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Music Score = results
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Photography = results
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Play Production = results

Discussion
1. Don’t repeat your results; explain them.
What mechanisms might explain your results?
2. What is the significance of your results?
3. How do they compare to values previously reported in the literature?
4. Critically evaluate your science.
Are your results accurate representations of the phenomenon you studied?
What would you differently next time?

Activity (~15 min)
Pick an Honors Thesis from the table
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Preferably something from your discipline
Read the Abstract
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Can you describe what the student did?
Write down the first level outline
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Does if follow the “best practice” outline presented?
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Does it include a separate section for a literature review?
Count the number of paragraphs in each section
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Discuss these numbers with your peers – what was the average #’s?
Select 2 Figures or Tables to examine
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Based on the captions, can you infer the main point of the Fig/Tab?
Scan the Discussion or Conclusion section
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What were the 2-3 main points of the student’s thesis?
How many references did the student cite? Format?

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Scholarly Writing
Thesis Structure
3 Writing Process
4 Writer’s Block
5 Sharing your work

Pre-Writing
Writing that occurs before you write your actual thesis
Part may serve as drafts of sections
Research Journal Action Plan
Bryan Barrett @ Flickr
Literature Review Prospectus

Consider “SOAPStone”
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SOAPStone: A Strategy for Reading and Writing
| Ogden Morse http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/public/preap/teachers_co rner/45200.html

Outline – Plan your Writing
Organize your thoughts into an outline
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Multiple levels (1 st , 2 nd , 3 rd Headings)
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Tools
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In MS Word use Heading Styles, then use Outline View in Word
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Use mind mapping software to brainstorm an outline
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Paragraph level
• main point of the paragraph?
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Supporting evidence?
Dmscvan
@ Flickr

Literature Review
Listen before you Speak
Given that scholarship is a protracted dialogue ,
Bryan Rosengrant @ Flickr
You must read & review the relevant literature.
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Follow disciplinary guidelines, discuss procedure with mentor
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Perhaps write as a stand alone document
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Must be thorough
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Organize and Summarize main ideas – by topic, method, author, etc.
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Note important authors and major conclusions
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Include a bibliography with the works you read and cite
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Read other’s bibliography to find relevant works

Drafting the Essay
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Plan
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Outline
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Research journal
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Try writing the introduction in reverse paragraph order
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Try by starting to write the methods section

Edit and Revise
Expect to edit and revise your work. It’s a process .

Style Matters
The power of your writing is linked to its style. http://ecx.images-amazon.com/
Study a style manual to make sure that your prose is lively, varied [with respect to sentence types and lengths, and paragraph types and lengths], exact, refreshing, gripping.

Elements of Style – Schemes
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Balance
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Parallelism : similarity of structure in a pair of series of related words, phrases, or clauses
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Antithesis : the juxtaposition of contrasting ideas, often in parallel structure
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Anastrophe : inversion of the natural or usual word order
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Parenthesis : insertion of some verbal unit in a position that interrupts the normal syntactical flow of the sentence
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Apposition : placing side-by-side two coordinate elements, the second of which serves as an explanation or modification of the first
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Omission
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Ellipsis : the deliberate omission of a word or of words readily implied by the context
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Asyndeton : deliberate omission of conjunctions between a series
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Polysyndeton : deliberate use of many conjunctions
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Repetition
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Alliteration : repetition of initial, medial or final consonants in two or more adjacent words
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Anaphora : repetition of the same word or group of words at the beginning of successive clauses
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Epistrophe : repetition of the same word or group of words at the end of successive clauses
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Climax : arrangement of words, phrases, or clauses in an order of increasing importance
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Antimetabole : repetition of words, in successive clauses, in reverse grammatical order

Elements of Style – Tropes
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Metaphor : implied comparison between two things of unlike nature
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Simile : explicit comparison between two things of unlike nature
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Synecdoche : figure of speech in which a part stands for the whole
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Metonymy : substitution of some attributive or suggestive word for what is actually meant
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Puns : a play on words
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Personification : investing abstractions or inanimate objects with human qualities or abilities
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Hyperbole : the use of exaggerated terms for the purpose of emphasis or heightened effect
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Litotes : deliberate use of understatement
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Rhetorical question : asking a question, not for the purpose of eliciting an answer but for the purpose of asserting or denying something obliquely
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Irony : use of a word in such a way as to convey a meaning opposite to the literal meaning of the word
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Onomatopoeia : use of words whose sound echoes the sense
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Oxymoron : the yoking of two terms which are ordinarily contradictory

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Scholarly Writing
Thesis Structure
3 Writing Process
4 Writer’s Block
5 Sharing your work

Strategies
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If you have difficulties with a section, leave it and work on another that may be easier for you to complete.
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Always write something down, even if it is a passage in your journal about how “unsuccessful” you were at a particular stage of the project. Such writing may prove to be informative and useful when composing later. Sometimes moving to write in the informal space of your journal will let you free-write with fewer constraints and pressure that will unlock what was blocking your original progress.
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Leave the writing alone for a while if you must (but no longer than a few days), or “sleep on it” and work on the project the next day—rest, relaxation and time off are often all that you need to come up with more ideas and a stronger will to continue writing.
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Take a nap, go on a walk (exercise), or eat a snack to give your mind an opportunity to “work” on an idea without forcing yourself to slave over the project. This is another form of incubation, as you may have done during the early stages of considering a topic for the project.
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Remember that all professional writers also experience this problem; they just take it in stride as part of the composing process and do not allow it to trouble or vex them in pursuing their passion to write.
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Don’t be nervous about writing; just know your subject well and you won’t be.
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Avoid caving in to distractions (like computers, games, cellphones, etc.) if you become stuck in a writer’s rut.
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Do like the Puritans used to do and carry a pocket-sized notebook (Research Journal) with you at all times to record ideas for writing as they come to you. Since good ideas do not always materialize just when you need them to, it is best to get into the habit of jotting them down as they come, realizing that some may come to you at the oddest of moments, places, or times, like when you are even sleeping!
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Consult online websites for additional ideas to overcome this problem.
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Most writing advice includes the suggestion to write for a set period everyday. One of the challenges to writing is the mental and physical challenge of starting a writing session as well as exiting a writing session. The advantage of writing everyday is that it lowers the barrier to re-entering your writing because you were just in it recently. It also lowers the anxiety of stopping because you can be confident that you will pick up with the work tomorrow. Some writers try to stop with an uncompleted sentence to give them a specific place to pick up. Building on the writing everyday idea, an artist in Athens, GA described his approach as
“cooking” his writing. Each day he set a kitchen timer for a set period of time. While the timer was going, he could write or not formatting, laundry, etc).

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Scholarly Writing
Thesis Structure
3 Writing Process
4 Writer’s Block
5 Sharing your work

Opportunities to Share – Getting it Out There
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UNCW Student Showcase
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Poster vs. Presentation
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Discipline Journal
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Explorations

Engaging with your Discipline
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Scholarly Writing
Thesis Structure
3 Writing Process
4 Writer’s Block
5 Sharing your work

Take Home Points
(aka learning objectives)
After attending this workshop, you should be able to ….
1. Describe the structure of a scholarly thesis
2. Identify the stages of writing
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3. Apply common methods and strategies to perform scholarly tasks including sharing your work with an audience