For the final document, click here → Disciplinary Writing Style.
“Current-traditional” style as we know it today first appeared in the 18th century with the publication of The Philosophy of Rhetoric, written by George Campbell. The criteria were first, it was in English, second, the words were not idiomatic or originally from another language. Lastly, the author was to be precise to avoid any misconceptions by the reader. These three rules were the building blocks for the conversation that arose predominantly in the 19th century concerning English grammar and composition. Richard Green Parker adds to the criteria by narrowing the topic to the sentence: he defines a perfect sentence as having clearness, unity, strength, and harmony.
Alexander Bain was the “creator” of the modern paragraph; it was not until his publication that the paragraph became more recognized and credible. His criteria were: the proper paragraph has a central topic, but it can have more than one. Development of the topic is limited to that one paragraph except it can continue to another. The topic sentence should explain the subject but it can span several sentences or it can take only a fraction of a sentence. In addition, there is always a topic sentence, but sometimes it is not explicitly stated. A paragraph is a series of sentences but sometimes it is only one sentence. Sometimes it can be divided into several paragraphs for unity. Lastly, there are several types of paragraphs: transitional, introductory, directive, summary, and concluding paragraphs.
A. S. Hill, Barrett Wendell, and Fred Newton Scott were the three pioneers of English composition studies and writing style courses for undergraduate students. Fred Newton Scott and his coauthor of Paragraph Writing, Joseph V. Denney, argued for a more relaxed view of the paragraph. The paragraph serves as a reminder for the reader that the current point has been wrapped up and that the reader should ponder what was just discussed before moving on.
The conversation of current-traditional rhetoric concerning the paragraph has been stagnant recently because the topic was lessening in importance. The consensus is that paragraph writing has become so normalized that discussing it defeats its position as “current-traditional” (Adams and Adams, 1987; Crowley, 1986; Duncan, 2007; Rodgers, 1966). Mike Duncan argues that composition studies should return to discussing paragraph theory because it is a mixture of prescriptive and descriptive writing, which should be amended. He defines prescriptive paragraph writing as having explicit structure and good topic sentences while descriptive paragraph writing argues that Bain’s structural method of paragraph writing is too limiting.
Paragraph, and essay, writing may be normalized to an extent, but the details of writing processes and products differ between academic disciplines. Nora Bacon, who is a professor of English at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, summarizes Swords analyses of disciplinary articles:
In presenting the findings from her analysis of journal articles, Sword gets to the heart of her argument. Disciplinary conventions vary. In the sciences, for example, first-person pronouns are used frequently; they appeared in 92 percent of the articles in medicine, 100 percent in evolutionary biology, 84 percent in psychology- whereas only 40 percent of articles in history journals used “I” or “we” (Bacon 294).
The paragraph structure may remain the same throughout academic disciplines, but the stylistic elements that define disciplinary writings differ based on the values of the discourse community. Scientific writing values analysis and observations while history and other social sciences value summarization and facts.
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It is invaluable that more undergraduate students learn the defining characteristics of disciplinary writing. Switching between the discourse communities is difficult, and it becomes even more arduous when the changing of roles is accompanied by a new set of rules. I have created a handout that outlines the main differences between the styles of the most common academic disciplines. The information could be used as a tool in CTW classes so that the new students have access to the correct disciplinary writing formats before they continue their academic careers.
Because undergraduate students must take introductory courses in almost all disciplines, it is important that they are given the opportunity to excel in each one. In high school, students are taught to write in an English writing style and sometimes in a biological, or natural science, writing style. Unless he or she went to a religious school, it is unlikely that he or she was taught to write in a religious writing style. A student’s writing capabilities are influenced by their academic background; therefore, students do not always have an equal playing field when it comes to writing as an incoming Freshman.
The document that I have created just barely breaches the topic of writing styles, but it allows students who have never encountered certain writing styles to have an idea of which discourse community they are entering. To put it simply, it evens the playing field for students entering the conversation with no prior experience.
Works Cited
Adams, Katherine H., and John L. Adams. “The Paradox within: Origins of the Current-Traditional Paradigm.” Rhetoric Society Quarterly, vol. 17, no. 4, 1987, pp. 421–431. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3885915. (Exhibit)
Bacon, Nora. “Cross-Disciplinary Approaches to Style.” College Composition and Communication 67.2 (2015): 290
Crowley, Sharon. “The Current-Traditional Theory of Style: An Informal History.” Rhetoric Society Quarterly, vol. 16, no. 4, 1986, pp. 233–250. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3885542.
Duncan, Mike. “Whatever Happened to the Paragraph?” College English, vol. 69, no. 5, 2007, pp. 470–495. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25472231. (Argument)
Olinger, Andrea. Styling academic discourse: A sociocultural account of writing styles across disciplines. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2014.
Rodgers Jr, Paul C. “Alexander Bain and the rise of the organic paragraph.” Quarterly Journal of Speech 51.4 (1965): 399-408.
Rodgers, Paul C. “A Discourse-Centered Rhetoric of the Paragraph.” College Composition and Communication, vol. 17, no. 1, 1966, pp. 2–11. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/354051. (Background)