WRD 104 focuses on the kind of academic writing that uses information drawn from research to shape convincing, defensible arguments. As the second part of the two-course sequence in first-year writing, WRD 104 reinforces and extends students’ ability to deal with the variable relationships between writer, reader, and subject in the specific context of academic research and argumentation.
WRD 104 has the following specific goals:
Students should further develop their conception of writing as an interaction between writer and reader and their ability to analyze their audience’s knowledge, assumptions, and disposition.
Students should develop the ability to read and evaluate the writing of others with accuracy, understanding, and insight.
Students should develop strategies of effective research, note taking, summarizing, and paraphrasing.
Students should learn to develop and support convincing arguments from their research.
Students should learn to incorporate quotations and paraphrased passages into their writing and to document such material with standard scholarly apparatus.
Students should refine their skill in using the language of academic writing shaped with greater stylistic sophistication, especially in the context of argumentative strategies.
What that means for you
We will spend some time linking DePaul University’s mission to research — especially our emphases on social justice, serving those less privileged than us, and working with community members and organizations — by seeking out and working with the different kinds of research possible in those contexts.
And there are many kinds.
The types of primary, secondary, and tertiary sources we work with will help you marshal your ideas and resources into productive and persuasive action in community, professional, academic, and creative environments. If you have a project from another course that you would like to continue, or a community project that would benefit from rigorous research, or a professional aspiration that needs research-based support, this is the course for you.
“We are what we find, not what we search for.”
— Piero Scaruffi
