A Note to Student Writers

Don’t undervalue your own voice, perspective and industry.

A source that seems good online may be dated and tired—don’t be tempted to plagiarize by reproducing it as your own. You bring your own history and experiences—yourself—to every topic. Faculty members can “hear” your voice and fresh energy as they read your prose; they also can hear shifts in tone when dusty sentences that have been circulating on the Internet or in academic journals are dropped into your paper.

And remember that sometimes the best topics and answers aren’t about what you’ve mastered but about what confuses or surprises you—the messy, interesting stuff. You don’t need to be an expert before the writing process begins—a huge part of writing is figuring out just what it is you think about something. Work with your professors and peer tutors in the Writing Lab to find topics and arguments you’re actually interested in getting to learn more about through the writing process.

Citing sources often makes a paper seem more impressive, not less. English Professor Gerald Graff says that the foundational gesture of much academic writing, particularly in the humanities and social sciences, is “They say X, I say Y.” It’s great to enter a conversation with other scholars and agree with them, disagree with them, or split the difference.

For example, he offers templates that help academic writers practice joining the conversation with other critics and thinkers:

‘X’s theory of ____ is extremely useful because it sheds light on the difficult problem of _____.’ (They Say/I Say 57)

‘By focusing on ____, X overlooks the deeper problem of ____.’ (55)

‘Although I agree with X up to a point, I cannot accept his overall conclusion that _________.’ (60).

Look how Iida Pollanen enters a critical conversation her essay published in the Oregon Undergraduate Research Journal (or the OUR Journal, as it’s known on campus). Can you summarize what “they” say, and what she’s going to contribute?

Because of this background, Wide Sargasso Sea has often been discussed in its relationship to Bronte’s novel. As a ‘writing back to Jane Eyre done before such intertextuality became identified as a widespread postcolonial response to colonial literary canons’ (Savory 80), it has thus ‘challenged easy definition and has invited intense debate’ (Raiskin, xi). Research on the novel has often dealt with both the relationship between Wide Sargasso Sea and Jane Eyre and the characters of Jane and Antoinette, Rhys as a West Indian writer in the Caribbean tradition, or questions of race, colonial domination, gender, and female subjectivity. This paper, focusing entirely on Antoinette as an individual character separate from Jane, ties together issues of race and gender as oppressive categories in the context of forming one’s identity. (10)

As you read for class, look at how published writers present research and make arguments in the disciplines you’re studying, and talk to your instructors about just what they’re looking for when they assign writing projects. No matter how strong a writer you are coming into the University, continuing to improve will be one of the most difficult and rewarding parts of your education—be patient with yourself and aware of the ways you’re improving over time.

Works Cited
Graff, Gerald and Cathy Birkenstein.“They Say/ I Say”: The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing. New York: Norton, 2006. Print.

Pollanen, Iida. “Abject by Gender and Race: The Loss of Antoinette’s Identity in Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea.” Oregon Undergraduate Research Journal 2.1 (2012): 9-17. Online.

—by Lee Rumbarger