Conventions & Strategies
in the Social Sciences
Rhetoric: is using language to skillfully articulate and to advocate your
beliefs about something you assume to be true by addressing an audience whom
you want to persuade to consider your beliefs, by choice and not coercion, and
possibly to cooperate with you in achieving a shared goal (Hansen 6).
The Social Sciences: are the fields of learning and research that concern themselves with human behavior, human relationships, and the social, cultural, economic, and political institutions human beings have created (Hansen 8). Generally they include anthropology, economics, history, political science, psychology, and sociology. They also include communications, linguistics, education, family science, organizational behavior, demography, geography, internal relations, psychiatry, counseling, social work, and criminology. Social sciences use empirical methods to prove an abstract such as a trend, cultural practice, event in the past, behavior or attitude.
Some Characteristics:
—Knowledge making begins with questions that build on previous research
—Evidence comes from observation
—Uses methods and instruments to observe
—Validity is achieved by adequate evidence and sound reasoning about the
evidence
Common Genres:
—Reports of original research (using research report format used in sciences
—Literature reviews
—Summaries
—Case Studies
—Proposals
—Position Papers
—Critiques
Style: Style is a result of all the many choices a writer makes from subject matter to vocabulary to the construction of sentences, punctuation, and organizing the text. As a student, you will discover that there are various academic styles related to disciplines. The social sciences share some key similarities in style although there are differences. For example, an anthropologist may write quite differently from an economist. However, many of the social sciences do adhere to the conventions of the American Psychological Association (APA).
Features:
— The detached persona: "This study investigates" rather than "In this
study I will investigate"
— Use of Passive voice
— Prevalent use of jargon: Jargon or specialized vocabulary is common.
Sometimes writers use long noun strings to name a new concept. For example rather
than study how happy people are with their family, they will study "Life satisfaction." Another
might be attention deficit disorder.
— Use of Acronyms and Initialisms: AIDS for Acquired Immune Deficiency
Syndrome or CODA for children of deaf parents. Initialisms are similar but
unlike an acronym, they can't be pronounced as a word. For example, borderline
personality
disorder is shortened to BFD.
— Unbiased and inclusive language: gender neutral references for example
Conventions & Strategies
in the Sciences
Rhetoric: is using language to skillfully articulate and to advocate your
beliefs about something you assume to be true by addressing an audience whom
you want to persuade to consider your beliefs, by choice and not coercion, and
possibly to cooperate with you in achieving a shared goal (Hansen 6).
The Sciences: are the fields of learning and research that concern themselves with the physical and biological word and include physics, maths, geology, biology, botany, zoology, nutrition Some
Characteristics:
— Knowledge making begins with questions that once answered, can be anwered
similarly by future studies using the same methods
— Hypotheses are based on outside sources
— Hypotheses are tested following the scientific method
— Evidence comes from observation that is repeatable
— Validity is achieved by adequate repeatable evidence and sound reasoning
about the evidence
Common Genres:
— Reports of original research (using sections such as abstract, introduction,
experimental materials and methods, results, discussion)
— Summaries
— Proposals
— Position Papers
— Journal article critiques
Style: Style is a result of all the many choices a writer makes from subject matter to vocabulary to the construction of sentences, punctuation, and organizing the text. As a student, you will discover that there are various academic styles related to disciplines. The style manual you use in the sciences depends on which science you are studying. For example, biology uses CBE, engineering IEEE and so on.
Features:
— The detached persona: "This study investigates" rather than "In this
study I will investigate"
— Use of passive voice
— Prevalent use of jargon: Jargon or specialized vocabulary is common.
Sometimes writers use long noun strings to name a new concept. For example rather
than study how happy people are with their family, they will study "Life satisfaction." Another
might be attention deficit disorder.
— Use of Acronyms: AIDS for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome or CODA
for children of deaf parents.
— Unbiased and inclusive language: gender neutral references for example
Conventions & Strategies
in the Humanities
Rhetoric: is using language to skillfully articulate and to advocate
your beliefs about something you assume to be true by addressing an audience
whom you want to persuade to consider your beliefs, by choice and not coercion,
and possibly to cooperate with you in achieving a shared goal (Hansen 6)
The Humanities: are the fields of learning and research that concern themselves with human experiences and include English studies, the arts, philosophy, languages and so on. Humanists, in their writing, tend to reflect in some way on the culture of society
Some Characteristics:
— Knowledge can come from the self and the work or from what others have
written or said
— Evidence for an assertion or thesis comes from the work or text
— Validity or proof comes from the persuasive power of the examples or
textual evidence
Common Genres:
— Interpretation of a work
— Development of a new theory for interpretation
— Application of a theory to a new work
— Critical analysis of an article
— Research Paper
— Proposals
— Position Paper
Style: Style is a result of all the many choices a writer makes from subject matter to vocabulary to the construction of sentences, punctuation, and organizing the text. As a student, you will discover that there are various academic styles related to disciplines. The style manual you use in the humanities is the Modern Language Association or MLA
Features:
Use of "I"
Use of active voice
Use of jargon or specialized language in academic work
Use of informal vocabulary if appropriate for rhetorical situation
Use of colorful vocabulary