Writing in the majors

Writing principles in the arts and humanities are very similar. Your English classes are part of the humanities, so you might find that many of the requirements are similar to writing that you used in English and other humanities courses.

For the fine arts, interpretive writing is a common assignment that asks students to see art as representing, expressing, or doing something. Some art historians may see the meaning of art as solely coming from the artist, while other art historians see art as having several meanings for several audiences:

• The artists
• The initial audience who saw the art shortly after it was created (contemporaries of the artist)
• The audience who saw the art at a later time (decades or centuries later)

Most writing about art is either meant to inform (“David is an example of renaissance sculpture …”) or to persuade (“While David is one of Michelangelo’s best work, his masterpiece is La Pieta.”).

Your assignment instructions determine what your writing will cover (an analysis? A catalog entry? A review of an exhibition?). In all cases, you need to define:

• Purpose for the writing
• Intended audience (a teaching guide for high school youth; an artist’s profile for the public; an article for art historians)
• Research needs (Are you ready? Do you need to learn more about the historical context that the art is part of? Do you need to research the materials?)
• Document design (are you expected to write an essay? Are you writing for a pamphlet? A webpage? A blog?) The document’s design is influenced by the purpose and the intended audience.

When you write in the humanities (for example, English, History, Philosophy), your writing changes based on the purpose (the assignment). Some assignments ask you to:

• Analyze a book, play, or article without using outside sources. This tells you that your professor wants you to make meaning from the text itself.
• Analyze a book, play, or article in its larger context. This means that your professor wants you to look for expanded meaning by learning about the larger context in which a book, play, or article was written.

Next steps and additional information

It is always a good idea to talk through your ideas as you review and revise your arts and humanities writing assignments. Here are some suggestions for you:

• There is always a purpose for writing. Make sure you know what the purpose is by reading the assignment instruction, talking to classmates, or asking your professor.
• Find out who the intended audience is. Is it another person in your major, the public (kids, patrons, art lovers, people new to the art community)?
• Always make time to revise and refine your writing before submitting.

Check with a Writing Assistant at the University Writing Commons.

• Start early!

Writing in the health professions is such a specialized skill that the field of health professions has a “Plain Writing Act of 2010” that requires federal agencies to train staff to use plain language when they communicate with the public. It’s the law!

If you are a student in the health professions, you need to:

• Learn the major’s specific language (jargon)
• Adjust writing to specific conventions.
• Use words precisely

Choosing exact words and understanding what those words mean is key for writing in the health professions. This means that sentence structure and punctuation are two elements that require constant revision and editing.

Feedback on your writing is especially important – whether you are a student or whether you are already in the field. The words you choose have a large impact on how a procedure will be conducted.

When you are introduced to writing in the health professions, make sure that you review your text, talk to your professor, graduate assistants, or your class peers about new topics and especially about new procedures. Try to visualize the procedure, sketch the processes and use the jargon that is associated with any definitions and steps taken. Write so that someone in your class can visualize the information you are providing.

Writing in the health professions is a combination of:

• Using your major’s conventions and language.
• Writing so that your paragraphs make a specific point.
• Editing your sentences so that they are concise, direct, refined, organized, and absolutely specific.

Next steps and additional information

Writing in the health professions can influence how a procedure is conducted, what a therapist tries first, and how much time is spent on understanding the procedure. Here are some suggestions for you:

• Learn the class materials well so that you know exactly what specific terms mean.
• Use exact language and follow basic grammar and punctuation rules.
• Always talk your professors about which style guide to follow (AMA? ACS? BCE? APA?)
• Check with a Writing Assistant at the University Writing Commons.
• Start early!

Learning about learning and teaching often requires reflection. It’s common to have journals or reflection papers to submit for Education courses. While these kinds of writing assignments encourage informal writing, practice revising and editing with all assignments.

You will need to write in your capstone courses, and you will also need to write lengthy documents as part of curriculum unit-plans. It is a good idea to practice following a few steps for all of your writing assignments:

• Critically read your assignment. If it’s a journal entry, what’s the purpose for the entry? Are you asked to include your perspectives on a topic? Are you asked to include your reaction to a video or text?
• Plan your writing. Use outlines, storyboards, or any kind of organizational tool that helps you stay organized!
• Find out from your professor what kinds of formats you can use. Can you use subheads, bullets, numbers, or images?
• Review your writing. Don’t let any writing go forward without a review. If you have time, get outside feedback even if the writing is a discussion post.
• Always capitalize and use proper grammar and punctuation. Informal writing does not mean incorrect writing. Always be professional.
• Read more than your homework. As a future educator, you want to have a mastery of language and of writing. Your future students and society will appreciate it.
• Your audience is never solely your professor. Write for the person who may need to step in and see what you’re up to.

As a future educator, think about how you will present information to your students. Because your students will be different kinds of learners, (visual, audio, kinesthetic), your lesson plans and unit plans need to reflect different kinds of learners. Your unit and lesson plans also need to be written so that another teacher can use them when you need a substitute.

Next steps and additional information

Writing is very important for future teachers. You have to know how to communicate with your principal, with parents, with politicians, and of course with the kids that you will be teaching. They will see you as a model and will use your strategies for their own writing. Here are some strategies for practicing your writing:

• Don’t wait for your senior year to work on your writing. If it is your senior year, start now.
• Don’t allow yourself to see “Journal Entry” or “Discussion Post” as writing that can be written in 10-20 minutes. Revise and edit before you submit.
• Define free writing as the ability to choose any topic but not a time to ignore grammar and punctuation rules.
• Read about your field outside of your homework.
• Learn about document design from multimedia design and from technical writing.
• Check with a Writing Assistant at the University Writing Commons.
• Start early!

Writing in engineering needs to include a specific purpose, follow a logical presentation, follow your major’s formatting conventions, and address a targeted audience. Writing in the sciences is specialized and is commonly meant to present information that is easy to retrieve. It is also meant to provide enough information so that a scientific study can be duplicated.

The key components of technical writing are to:

• Communicate technical or specialized topics
• Describe procedures
• Provide instructions

The key components of science writing are to:

• Communicate scientific data to scientists
• Communicate scientific data to nonscientists

Here is a standard format:

• Title—subject and what aspect of the subject was studied.
• Abstract—summary of paper: The main reason for the study, the primary results, the main conclusions
• Introduction—why the study was undertaken
• Methods and Materials—how the study was undertaken
• Results—what was found
• Discussion—why these results could be significant (what the reasons might be for the patterns found or not found)

Please see above note about active vs. passive voice.

All writing needs to be geared towards addressing a specific purpose and a specific audience. In the sciences, your purpose is to be clear and specific. Figurative language, for example, should not be part of your writing unless your assignment says so.

• Not good: “The Cyathea was gargantuan in height and width.”
• Much better: “The Cyathea was over 7 meters high (23 feet) and 6 meters wide (19.5 feet), proving to be unusually large for a tree fern.”

When numbers are used (quantitative), it is easier to visualize the size. Using precise and concise language helps your reader know exactly what you mean.

Next steps and additional information

Technical and scientific writing shares a focus on purpose and audience with writing in other majors. Because the purpose for writing a technical or scientific paper is very different from a humanities paper, you’ll be writing in a different genre, and you’ll be using a different style. Here are some suggestions to get you started.

• Make sure that you understand the assignment details, and how your professor defines technical and scientific writing.
• The assignment determines the genre (report, analysis, description, research write-up). Check with your professor if you are not sure how to design the paper.
• If you have a lab report to write, stay in the lab and outline your paper before leaving. Visualize the process that you took, remember the results and findings, and write down keywords, phrases, and sentences. That way, you are not away from the lab, attempting to recollect exactly what you did.
• Editing and revision is best managed with an outside reader. Focus on several paragraphs at one time instead of the entire document.
• Check with a Writing Assistant at the University Writing Commons.
• Start early!

Writing in the Social Sciences is similar to writing in the humanities. You need to:

• Have a purpose
• Write for a specific audience
• Understand the theory and include evidence to support your claims.

Evidence in the Social Sciences often includes primary sources. In anthropology, for example, you’ll be asked to do case study research or ethnographic research. You will need to learn how to write about research that includes:

• Interviews
• Surveys
• Archival Information
• Artifacts

While there is room for quantitative research, writing in the social sciences is largely qualitative due to its focus on studying human behaviors. Citation style is often APA.

Journalism, sometimes included in the social sciences, is closer to technical writing because of its strict expectations on length and word choice. Stories are often measured in inches, characters, word limits or graphs (paragraphs). Quotes are used to advance the story. A Lead is what other disciplines call a thesis. Journalism often uses an inverted pyramid format that requires important information up front, and ends with minor information at the end of the story. Use the AP (associated press) style guide for citations.

Next steps and additional information

When you take courses in anthropology, sociology, political science, or social work, your professors will provide you with assignment details that tell you what they expect from the writing assignment. To help you get ready, we suggest:

• Approach writing in the social sciences similarly to writing in the humanities.
• Start early because the topics are often on humans, human behavior, or current events. These topics are very large and can get out of hand if you don’t take time to focus.
• Use an outline to focus your overall ideas.
• Write down each section of your paper so that you don’t forget what you need to include in your final write-up
• Work on a specific section at a time.
• Practice talking about the methodologies used in your research before writing about them.
• Your writing is largely persuasive, so get feedback from a reader throughout the writing process. Do not wait for a final draft.
• Check with a Writing Assistant at the University Writing Commons.

Business writing is diverse and largely dependent on the purpose, intended audience. Business writing can be conversational to legalese. There is no one way to write for business. Writing assignments can include:

• Business email
• Business memo
• Business proposal
• Business report
• Business plan
• Executive summaries

The purpose will also tell you if you should use active or passive voice. Letters, memos, and email are often in the first-person, but be careful when your writing includes we because this implies that you are speaking for your division, department, or company. Make sure your boss knows that.

Similar to writing in the health professions and writing in technical and scientific fields, precise words and concise sentences are very important because what you write can be legally binding. Grammatically correct sentences that are punctuated correctly are especially important because even an email can be used in a suit against your company. Review grammar and punctuation rules that are implicit for you, and relearn rules that you simply forgot. Learn about handbooks and online resources to strengthen your writing.

Sometimes, you will write according to a template. This will help you include all necessary sections into a report. Following a template is not difficult if you start early. Read over your assignment, review the templates, and plan to have writing done 5-7 days before the deadline. You’ll need this time to focus on your sentences.

Next steps and additional information

Business writing may seem easy, but remember that a lot rides on a written document that can be used to hold you accountable. Here are some suggestions to develop good writing practices.

• Find out what the the conventions are that you need to follow. For example, which kind of letter format is expected from you?
• Plan to have your draft done early. Working on sentence level editing is slow and requires focus and patience.
• Familiarize yourself with grammar and punctuation handbooks and online resources before you commit to writing. Otherwise, you’ll get frustrated trying to find resources while writing your paper.
• Get feedback early, and during the writing process. Learn about your writing and how to improve and refine your writing.
• Check with a Writing Assistant at the University Writing Commons.
• Start early!