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WRIT 1110: Seminar in Academic Writing: Scholarship As Conversation

The resources listed on this page will help you to become familiar with your University Libraries at BGSU.

Conversations in Scholarship

All disciplines have conversations, and those conversations can even cross disciplines. 

Some of these conversations may take the form of a public debate but often these conversations are woven through scholarly work -- such as journal articles and books -- as researchers refer to, respond to, and build on the work of others. Additionally, these scholarly conversations can take place in less formal forms of writing (e.g. blog posting) or through presentations (e.g. conference talk).

Your Role in the (Scholarly) Conversation

Use these reflection questions to determine if you have considered the idea that scholarship is a conversation, along with your role in the conversation.

Example

For an example of a scholarly conversation, consider composition scholars Peter Elbow and David Bartholomae who discussed different approaches and emphases (personal and academic writing) for basic writers in the late 1980s and 1990s. 

  • Their ongoing scholarly conversation is often referred to as the Elbow/Bartholomae debate as they made different claims as to how college students should be trained in writing at the undergraduate level.
  • If you are studying composition and writing, you will be likely to come across their names and their work in your studies.
  • See a sample from this conversation:

Articles in Conversation

1. Skim the following source citations, paying particular attention to article titles, journal titles, and book titles.

2. Questions:

  • What words or phrases appear most often?
  • What other patterns or themes do you recognize? 
  • What seems to be the key topic of conversation?

The repeated use of these words or phrases suggest that these articles are in conversation with each other -- responding to and building on each other's work.

Joining the (Scholarly) Conversation

Credit

The content on this guide is largely based on the Scholarship in Conversation portion of the Writing about Writing research guide published by Sara Davidson Squibb at the University of California Merced.