Includes index and references.

Contents: 1. An introduction to academic prose: What is academic writing? -- General features of academic writing --he purposes of academic writing -- The influence of the academic community -- 2. Conventions of academic writing: Authors -- Length -- Research -- Voice and style -- Strategies for approaching academic essays -- 3. There common kinds of academic essays: Qualitative -- Quantitative -- Synthesis and critical evaluation -- Tables, graphs and other visuals -- Academic essay formats -- 4. Critical thinking: When do you use critical thinking? -- Inferences and critical thinking -- Critical thinking and skepticism -- Drawing conclusions -- 5. Reading strategies: Interacting with texts -- Reading strategies -- 6. An overview of the essay: he stages of writing -- The structure of the essay -- 7. Writing summaries: times and places for summaries -- The stand-alone summary -- 8. Using critical thinking to analyze essays: The rhetorical analysis: explaining the how and the why -- 9 Writing argumentative essays: Argumentative purpose -- Claims in argument --Connecting claim to evidence -- Kinds of evidence in argumentative essays -- Two kinds of reasoning -- Using reason in arguments -- Failures in reasoning -- Giving life to logic -- Refutation strategies -- 10. Writing research papers -- The reader: University issues -- Canada in the world -- Voices within Canada -- Media and image -- Aggression and society -- Intersections with science -- Appendix A: A note on statistics -- Appendix B: Characteristics of type A, type B, and type C essays