Course No: n/a
Index # - n/a
Distribution Requirement:
Monday - 12:30 p.m.
MU 107
Dissertation Writing Workshop
Emily Bartels
This workshop is designed to help students refine the skills that will allow them to produce compelling and persuasive dissertations. Writing is thinking: as we look at weekly samples of student writing and revision, we’ll zero in on specific elements of writing, looking at the ways they foster intellectual discovery as well as pleasure. We’ll start by concentrating on the essential building blocks – words, sentences, and paragraphs – of a strong argument, before moving on to the larger frames that connect them. Along the way, we’ll explore questions of voice, emphasis, focus, context, evidence, and other issues that emerge within the writing samples. We will also experiment with creative and critical strategies that can open up the writing/thinking process dramatically.
In the first half of the course, everyone will submit, for weekly workshop review, one new paragraph and (after the first assignment) one revised paragraph from some part of a dissertation chapter. In the second half, we’ll concentrate on multi-paragraph blocks of writing and revision, giving students an opportunity to go as far as they can towards the completion of a chapter.
Open to students with an approved prospectus, at any stage of the dissertation writing process. For the first class meeting, please bring a short – and engaging – description (200 words) of the chapter that you’ll be working on.