CD 328 - Hunt: Scholarly Conversations

Academic writing has predictable features and styles that vary only slightly across the different disciplines. Knowing these elements and the familiar "plot" of a scholarly article or book can help you to read and understand academic texts efficiently and effectively.

• For example, in the superhero movie genre, we expect to see characters in the roles of hero and villain, with elements of fantasy (i.e. superpowers) and action in the plot. Recognizing familiar elements of the genre can help us to follow the plot and relate to the characters.

 If academic writing was a superhero movie:

• The the problem or gap in knowledge is the villain
• The literature review is the villain's origin story (how the problem came about)
• The author is the hero who will solve the problem (i.e. defeat the villain)
• The methods are the hero's superpowers (how the problem will be solved)
• The author's conclusion is the dramatic final battle (the culmination of everything that came before)
• The author's citations and bibliography are the film credits (acknowledging everyone that aided in the author's victory)

This example was used in accordance with CC BY-NC 4.0 from Tulane University Libraries: https://libguides.tulane.edu/academicgenre/genre

This video, from Western University, quickly and efficiently describes how to read a scholarly article.