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Writing is a major component of the Core Humanities program. It is also an essential skill that will help you to succeed in other courses and in your life beyond college. People who can express themselves clearly in writing have definite advantages over those who cannot, so take advantage of the writing opportunities provided in each course to practice getting better at this.
To write well, you must first have a sound grasp of the rules of grammar, but this alone is not enough to ensure good writing. You also need to think about the way you organize your ideas, how you present your argument, how you incorporate evidence and how you move from one idea to another in your essay. The following guidelines will help you to produce clearly written, well-supported, persuasive essays and to hone your communication skills.
Start early . Unless you are incredibly brilliant, you will not be able to write a really good essay the night before it is due. Insightful, well-organized papers result from careful thinking, re-reading of texts and re-writing of rough drafts, all of which take time.
Decide on a thesis . Good essays are more than just collections of facts or quotations from the readings. They are written with a clear point in mind - something the author wants to say. If the assignment is in the form of a question, your thesis will be your answer to the question. Make sure you have an answer before you begin to write. Do not simply write down everything you know about a topic without addressing the question.
Make an outline . Once you have decided what you are going to say, think about how you are going to say it. What evidence will you use to support your thesis? How will you arrange the evidence? How will you make sure your reader sees the same connections between your evidence and argument that you see? Making an outline forces you to think in an organized manner and arrange your thoughts in a sequence that makes sense. You can always change the organization of your essay later if you think of a better way to arrange your material, but you should always draw up some kind of plan before you begin to write.
Pay attention to structure . The "classic" essay structure (introduction, body paragraphs and conclusion) is classic for a reason: it works. Your introduction should set out clearly and succinctly the thesis of your essay, each body paragraph should provide evidence and/or analysis relating to the main point, the conclusion should summarize (again, succinctly but in different words from the ones you use in your introduction) what you have said.
Use graceful transitions . Your essay should flow logically and coherently from one paragraph to the next. Start a new paragraph for each new idea and try to make the first line of each paragraph relate in some way to the point you made in the preceding one. This is called a transition, or how you get from one idea to another. Just like changing gears, accelerating, or braking in a car, your transitions should be smooth, so that the reader hardly notices them. Good transitions can turn an above-average paper into one that is really classy.
Acknowledge any words and ideas that are not your own . You must properly recognize other people's words by enclosing any phrases taken directly from another source in quotation marks and providing the source information (author's last name, followed by the page number) in parentheses at the end of the sentence in which the quotation appears [e.g.: (Casper and Davies, 49)]. Ideas taken from outside sources and paraphrased in your own words, as well as little-known facts and statistics, must be acknowledged in the same way as direct quotations. See the advice about avoiding plagiarism for more information about how to acknowledge and cite sources.
A first draft does not mean you are finished . Read over, correct and re-write your first draft to eliminate bad grammar and syntax, unclear sentences, clumsy transitions, typing errors and spelling mistakes. Keep in mind that the spelling and grammar-check functions on your computer, although useful for a first run through, are no substitute for reading your paper carefully yourself.
Keep to the page limit . Being able to express your ideas clearly and succinctly is a valuable skill and revising an over-long paper to keep within a defined limit helps you to get better at this. If your first draft exceeds the page limit, go back and cut out any unnecessary words or sentences. Finding ways to restate your ideas more directly usually results in a better paper.
Think you are done? Not quite. Proofread your paper again before you submit it to eliminate any new mistakes that might have crept in when you were revising it. It is often helpful to ask a friend or family member to read your paper before submitting it to make sure it all makes sense and to pick up any errors you may have missed.
Ask for help if you need it . Remember that your instructors are here to help you if you get stuck. If you are having trouble understanding the readings or lectures, email or make an appointment to see your discussion leader or professor. Your discussion section meeting each week is also a good time to ask any questions you have about the material.
Home — Essay Samples — Science — Humanities — The Importance of Studying Humanities
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Published: Sep 12, 2023
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Understanding the human experience, appreciating cultural diversity, engaging with complex social issues, developing a well-rounded education, promoting lifelong learning, challenges and opportunities.
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The Humanities: Quo Vadis? Presented here are studies and arguments in favor of the humanities, as well as works highlighting their contributions to society and their deep meaning for us.
Frederick Luis Aldama, Why the Humanities Matter: A Commonsense Approach (2008) Aldama considers whether or not postmodernism is indeed the death of the humanities or a rebirth of their relevance for the 21st century. Recalling the core pursuits of the humanities as beauty, truth and goodness, Aldama presents how the humanities are still our best approach to explore these values in the modern era.
The Heart of the Matter (Report) In 2011 the Commission on the Humanities and Social Sciences was established to investigate a question posed by Congress: how can America maintain excellence in humanities and social sciences teaching and research? The Heart of the Matter is the Commission’s report looking at the significance of scholarship in the humanities and social sciences.
Humanities Graduates and the British Economy: The Hidden Impact (Report) The findings of this study of 11,000 Oxford humanities graduates suggest that humanities students are not pigeonholed to the humanities forever thereafter. Significant proportions entered other careers, including finance, law and management positions, beyond the expected media, education and artistic career paths. Humanities students who entered these other fields were recruited for their ability to analyze problems, write persuasively and succinctly and consider the morality and ethics of practices.
The Role of the Humanities (Interview) Northrop Frye, esteemed literary critic and scholar, identifies the emergence of the humanities, distinct from science and from theology, in the age of the Renaissance, when what made us human was given a category of its own study. The ability to articulate what makes us human, he argues, is at the foundation of the civilizations we build. By direct effect, the humanities allow us to build and maintain our societies, and suppression thereof would begin a societal regression.
The Value and Importance of the Arts and the Humanities in Education and Life (Interview) Dr. Mitchell B. Reiss, President and CEO of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, recounts the importance of the humanities in education when as the head of Washington College he recalled how studying these topics developed “analytical thinking, clarity in written and spoken expression, collaboration, and creativity.” He believes students should be exposed to interdisciplinary studies no matter their focus, just as Einstein grew up studying piano and music, which later helped him think through his scientific career.
What Is The Value Of An Education In The Humanities? (Commentary)
Astrophysics professor Adam Frank argues that a combination of humanities-based and STEM education is what’s necessary for students interested in just one field or another. Big-data is changing the way that history research is being done, just as much as technology is developed to meet human needs, he observes.
ACLS Fellows: Focus on Research Fellows of the American Council of Learned Societies write about their research, including how knowledge is created and how it benefits our understanding of the world.
Assessing the Impact of Arts and Humanities Research at the University of Cambridge (Report) This RAND Corporation report studied Cambridge researchers and external users of humanities research. The authors developed an analytical framework (“Payback Framework”), and found that humanities research contributed to public knowledge creation, professional legal practice, and understanding and reporting of current events (to name just a few impacts).
Humanities Research is Groundbreaking, Life-Changing...and Ignored (Essay) Gretchen Busl argues that the value of the humanities extends beyond teaching students to think critically. Humanities scholarship, especially what Busl terms “public humanities scholarship” has wide impact in technology, business, and culture.
Q&A with NEH Public Scholars NEH Public Scholars answer questions about their books, including a description of the book why the project will have broad appeal.
Patricia Meyer Spacks is the Edgar F. Shannon Professor Emerita of English at the University of Virginia and chair of the Visiting Scholars Program at the American Academy. A Fellow of the American Academy since 1994, she served as its president from 2001–2006. Her recent books include Novel Beginnings: Experiments in Eighteenth-Century English Fiction (2006) and Reading Eighteenth- Century Poetry (forthcoming, 2009). She is vice chair of the National Humanities Center trustees.
Leslie Berlowitz, a Fellow of the American Academy since 2004, is the Academy’s Chief Executive Officer and William T. Golden Chair. She formerly served as vice president at New York University and was the founding director of the NYU Humanities Council. Her publications include America in Theory (with Denis Donoghue and Louis Menand, 1988) and Greenwich Village: Culture and Counterculture (with Rick Beard, 1993). She contributed a chapter to the recently published Letters to the Next President: Strengthening America’s Foundation in Higher Education (2008).
The essays assembled here enact as well as reflect the humanities. As they explore the twenty-first-century state of humanistic study and humanistic commitment, they exemplify historical awareness,analytic power, and critical consciousness. In all their variety and energy, these essays demonstrate that the humanities remain alive and well – despite inadequate funding, insufficient jobs, and widespread misunderstanding of what, exactly, humanistic study involves and offers to society: all topics that appear in this collection.
The confidence marking these reflections combines with a sense of urgency. The essayists project confidence not because they believe that everyone understands the importance of the humanities or because they think that all problems have been solved: quite the contrary. They delineate a set of ongoing issues, both practical and theoretical. Their confidence comes from conviction of their enterprise’s value; their urgency at least partly from the need to make that value more apparent.
Humanists now have a new sense of their undertaking. Acknowledging problems in their situation and their practices, they discover and embrace fresh possibilities. Accustomed to asking large questions, humanists requested to reflect on their enterprise ask them. They offer provocative answers that often lead to further questions.
We read that humanistic knowledge is the necessary foundation of a democratic society; it can even provide a valuable basis for a career in business. We learn that the humanities reflect their times, even as they bring the past to bear on the present. To think of the “extreme imaginative poverty” of a world without literature reveals something of what the humanities do. Historians continue to find themselves under great pressure, but an evolving “postmodern” perspective might help them. Such observations suggest the range of concerns touched on here.
Arguably as significant and as important as the content of these essays is their tone. The sense of assurance conveyed by the reflections here contrasts with the atmosphere of the memorable volume published in 1997, What’s Happened to the Humanities?, edited by Alvin Kernan, which suggested how much had gone wrong. Some of the difficulties identified by the writers in Kernan’s book have actually worsened. Thus Harriet Zuckerman and Ronald Ehrenberg, examining the current state of funding for the humanities in a thoughtful, well-documented essay, conclude that there is “some [cause] for pessimism, and much that leads to uneasiness” in the chronic underfunding experienced by the humanistic disciplines. They do not expect matters to improve any time soon, given that “the benefits the academic humanities confer on society are not understood well enough, by a sufficient number” – a problem that the present collection tries to address. Libraries face crises not only of funding but of space, of use, and of accessibility. Young academics have difficulty finding publishers and distinguishing themselves in a crowded profession. Those professing the digital humanities find conventional departments reluctant to use scarce resources to explore potential new directions.
Nonetheless, the writers of these reflections, from various professional perspectives (philanthropist, university president, provost, former college president, foundation executives, leading members of the professoriate), look to the future with hope and with imagination. James O’Donnell points out that there is every reason for pessimism about the future – but also every reason for optimism. He raises many questions, pointing out the need for “a combination of original work and imaginative presentation”; and he clearly believes such combination possible. Edward Ayers calls on the humanities to “put themselves in play, at risk, in the world.” Caroline Bynum imagines a way to combat excessive pressure on young academics by using insights gained from the recent studies of history as a discipline. Kathleen Woodward describes the ways serious scholarship is brought to the wider public.
Communicating the excitement of intellectual possibility, these essays dramatize the humanities’ inclusiveness: the diversity of individual contributions suggests the range of approaches within the broad category of humanistic enterprise. Don Randel claims as a domain of the humanities “the study of, contemplation of, and exploration of what it means to be a human being.” To engage in such study demands a broad spectrum of resources. The present collection deploys many of them.
Contributors to this group of essays had available to them a collection of new data documenting the state of the humanities in our nation. The American Academy has recently introduced the Humanities Indicators prototype, an online resource containing seventy-four indicators and over two hundred graphs and charts tracking trends in five areas: primary and secondary education; undergraduate and graduate education; the humanities workforce; humanities research and funding; and the humanities in American life. This prototype was inspired by the thirty-six-year-old Science and Engineering Indicators of the National Science Foundation, which has been indispensable to educators and policy-makers interested in America’s competitiveness in science and technology. Until now, no comparable compendium of data about the state of the humanities has existed. As a result, Francis Oakley has noted:
Generalizations made about the humanities, whether critical or supportive, have tended to be characterized by a genial species of disheveled anecdotalism, punctuated unhelpfully from time to time by moments of cranky but attention-catching dyspepsia. 1
The Academy’s efforts to remedy this situation have proceeded along two parallel tracks: the development of the Humanities Indicators, based on existing data, and the Humanities Departmental Survey project, the collection of new data. The Humanities Departmental Survey was sent to 1,485 departments in seven humanities disciplines: history, religion, English, foreign language, history of science, art history, and linguistics. The survey covers such topics as faculty hiring patterns, faculty teaching loads, faculty policies, tenure policies, teaching and instruction, and aspects of the student experience.
The American Academy has played a pivotal role in establishing such important institutions as the American Council of Learned Societies, the Independent Research Libraries Association, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Council of American Overseas Research Centers, and the National Humanities Center. The Initiative for Humanities and Culture, launched in 1998, continues the Academy’s effort to advance and advocate for the humanities.
Projects under the auspices of the Initiative have involved hundreds of participants, sponsored original research, and produced several published volumes of essays exploring the state of the humanities and the evolution of its disciplines and institutions. We anticipate that ongoing projects of the Initiative, like the Humanities Indicators, along with public forums including this special issue of Dædalus , will continue to provide serious reflections on the humanities, inspire new ideas, and generate new conversations about the vital role the humanities play in American life.
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Part of the trick in defining "data" in regards to the humanities is that data can be just about anything. The books and letters we read are data as are the pictures we look sat and the videos we watch. We synthesize data for the essays and articles that we write. Those essays and articles are also data. One ends up with the question "what isn ...
The humanities include the study of all languages and literatures, the arts, history, and philosophy. The humanities are sometimes organized as a school or administrative division in many colleges and universities in the United States. The modern conception of the humanities has its origin in the Classical Greek paideia, a course of general ...
The humanities refer to subjects that study people, their ideas, history, and literature. To put that another way, the humanities are those branches of learning regarding primarily as having a cultural character. For example, one of the UK's academic funding bodies, the Arts & Humanities Research Board or AHRB, tends to concentrate on the ...
500 Words Essay On Humanity. When we say humanity, we can look at it from a lot of different perspectives. One of the most common ways of understanding is that it is a value of kindness and compassion towards other beings. If you look back at history, you will find many acts of cruelty by humans but at the same time, there are also numerous acts of humanity.
The humanities preserve our valued traditions and transmit them from generation to generation. The humanities listen to the voices of many generations and share them through history, literature, philosophy, ethics, religion, languages, archaeology, and all the other areas of thought and culture that make up the record of human activity. ...
Therefore, humanities are the many characteristics and branches of humanities such as theater, human being, art, culture, literature, food, music and the stories that try to bring out the sense in the world as we see it. Get a custom essay on Defining the Humanities. It is a discipline that introduces us into place and ideas that otherwise ...
Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture, including certain fundamental questions asked by humans. During the Renaissance, the term 'humanities' referred to the study of classical literature and language, as opposed to the study of religion or ' divinity .'. The study of the humanities was a key part ...
In the text "A Short Handbook for Writing Essays in the Humanities and Social Sciences" by Salvatore and Dan Allosso the authors present a simple, easy to follow guide for students to use when organizing, planning, researching, and writing an essay. In addition to essay structure, the authors also provide help with the "basics of effective ...
In this case, the big idea is a reconceptualization of the humanities — a shift away from a simple grouping of disciplines and toward an interdisciplinary study of different ways human groups ...
The humanities are important because they offer students opportunities to discover, understand and evaluate society's values at various points in history and across every culture. The fields of study in the humanities include the following: Literature —the study of the written word, including fiction, poetry and drama.
The conclusion leaves the reader with the information and/or impact that the writer wants; it is often what the reader remembers most by providing the final discharge of energy that the paper has built up. It is the writer's last chance to convince the reader. A conclusion often suggests larger implications now that the evidence has been ...
The humanities help us understand the core aspects of human life in context to the world around us. The study of humanities also helps us better prepare for a better future. They teach you skills in the areas of critical thinking, creativity, reasoning, and compassion. Whatever your focus, you'll learn the stories that shape our world, helping ...
The study of the humanities can also be used to realize differing interpretations of life and history. Studying facts of the past helps to understand literature of the past. Art reflects the cultures of the past, and shows how we achieved what we have today. For example, the Song of Roland was very biased about the Saracens (Muslims).
In "The Power of the Humanities and a Challenge to Humanists," Richard J. Franke argues that humanistic interpretation "contributes to a tradition of interpretation.". Franke posits that human emotions and values are at the core of humanistic study, offering the ability to explore domains that "animate the human experience.".
Humanities majors in the Class of 2022 may choose to write their Senior Essays following any of three basic schedules. You may elect to write (1) a full-year Essay, to be written over the course of both Fall 2021 and Spring 2022; or (2) a one-term Essay to be completed during Fall 2021; or (3) a one-term Essay to be completed during Spring 2022.
Learning about ourselves - through the various humanities - helps us to create a better world. "It's the human in humanities that is worth studying. Humanities can tell us about ourselves, how we interact and get along and why we sometimes don't!". "Studying the humanities helps us to better understand who we are, our identity as ...
Writing for Humanities. The ultimate goal in writing in the humanities is to explain or understand the human experience and human values. The humanities—also called the liberal arts—include philosophy, religion, art, music, literature, history, and language. These fields are a broad way of studying and understanding how people express ideas ...
Writing Core Humanities essays. Writing is a major component of the Core Humanities program. It is also an essential skill that will help you to succeed in other courses and in your life beyond college. People who can express themselves clearly in writing have definite advantages over those who cannot, so take advantage of the writing ...
This essay delves into the importance of studying humanities, including its capacity to foster a profound understanding of humanity, appreciation for cultural diversity, and the ability to engage with complex social issues. Moreover, it explores how the study of humanities contributes to the development of a well-rounded education and promotes ...
A humanities degree can prepare you for careers in writing, teaching, and advertising. Humanities students learn about the rise and fall of empires, ancient and modern languages, and poetry of the Romantic era. As a core part of a liberal arts education, the humanities investigate literature, the past, culture, and human values.
Writing in the humanities includes posing questions dealing with human values. The ultimate goal in writing in the humanities is to explain/share the human experience, to use writing as a tool to reflect upon life, and to tell how life should, or should not, be lived. ... An essay dealing with literature should not be a summary of the text. It ...
Shaughnessy's work is a collection of 12 essays authored by other academics attempting to resurrect the humanities and defend their relevance in the modern era. Topics include humanizing non-humanist fields, such as engineering, multicultural education and "The High School History Term Paper As an Introduction to the Humanities and Academic ...
Edward Ayers calls on the humanities to "put themselves in play, at risk, in the world.". Caroline Bynum imagines a way to combat excessive pressure on young academics by using insights gained from the recent studies of history as a discipline. Kathleen Woodward describes the ways serious scholarship is brought to the wider public.