Differentiate the language, style, and format in sample writings for different disciplines

Objectives
Differentiate the language, style, and format in sample writings for different disciplines
Describe strategies for writing in the different disciplines

Assignment Overview
The student will write a paper identifying the similarities and differences in how articles on the same topic vary depending on the discipline.

Deliverables
A paper (1000-2000 words).
Follow MLA formatting to list your name, course name, and date on the top left of the first page and your last name and page number in the header on the top right of all pages (explore the Purdue OWL (Links to an external site.) website for examples and review the MLA checklist in Step 3).
Identifying information, page numbers, title, and ‘Works Cited’ page(s) are not included in the word count.
Your assignment will be graded according to the Course Grading Rubric. Please reference this rubric when completing each assignment.

Step 1: Conduct research and read a few paragraphs of each of your articles
Using a search engine, identify three academic or medical journal articles on the subject of marriage, with each article categorized as falling under either the conventions of the humanities, the social sciences, and the applied or natural sciences (find one article in each discipline).

Step 2: Answer each of the following questions in your paper
Besides the clues in the academic or medical journal titles, how can you tell which article belongs to the humanities disciplines? to social sciences? to applied or natural sciences?
Describe the overall organizational pattern in each article. How are these patterns different?
Select one article to study more closely. What can you learn from it as a writer? That is, what strategies can you borrow in your own writing?
How does the purpose of writing change across the disciplines?
What are the differences in citation style, language, and format?

Step 3: Edit
After you finish your draft, leave it alone for at least a few hours and preferably a full day. Copy and paste a third version of the draft and Works Cited in the same computer file; in this copy of your draft, make changes that improve:

sentence-construction (correct errors related to nouns, pronouns, verbs, modifiers, phrases, and clauses)
word-choice (tone, correct words, homophones [their/there/theyre, two/too/to, etc.], etc.)
punctuation use (commas, end marks, colons, semicolons)
mechanics (spelling, abbreviations, italics, capitalization, incorrect spacing between words or at the beginning/end of sentences, etc.)

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