Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Color Coding Academic Writing Template v1 (10-15-2014)



Color Coding Academic Writing Template v1 (10-15-2014)

The following represents an ongoing effort to construct a color coding method to help undergraduates create and work with personalized academic paper templates. These ideas are NOT, of course, to suggest that academic writing is completely formulaic, at least not GOOD academic writing. They are, however, being put forth in recognition of the reality that good academic writing DOES operate on several recurrent lexical, syntactic, and discursive principles. 

Therefore, while the short-term goal is to assist my students as they begin using effective structural practices as the word, sentence, paragraph, and discourse levels in their writing, the long-term goal is my hope is that once my students have been repeatedly exposed to these techniques and the concepts that they engender, these ideas will begin to become part of their natural writing and, thus, inform all of the writing assignments that they will face throughout the remainder of their undergraduate and graduate experiences.

blue – context, background, details, explanations, illustrations, reasons,
green – transition words/phrases/techniques, signal phrases, structural indicators, mapping words
yellow – figurative language, rhetorical devices
gray – support, evidence, justification, sources
red – title, thesis statement (intro), thesis restatement (conclusion), topic sentences (body)
purple – point statements, answers to the “So what?” question, personal voice/expression
pink – audience awareness, recognizes the reader, acknowledges other viewpoints