The following appeared in a College English article entitled "Writing as Moral and Civic Thinking," written by Sandra Stotsky. The list's title is self-explanatory.
A Proposed Categorization of the Academic Writer's Responsibilities
A. With respect to the purposes of academic language
- To define key terms
- To write clearly
B. With respect to other writers
- To consider other writers as intelligent as oneself
- To present another writer’s views fairly
- To attribute ideas only to their authors.
C. With respect to the integrity of the subject
- To gather all seemingly relevant information on a topic
- To evaluate the relevance and quality of gathered information
- To address all relevant information
- To account for all significant components in an analogy
- To provide adequate evidence for assertions directly or through accessible references
- To use facts accurately
- Not to make blanket generalizations
- To use representative examples of a phenomenon
- To create texts with no erroneous implications
- To provide correct examples for reasonable generalizations
- To create consistent categories for classifying information
- To create coherent texts.
D. With respect to the integrity of the reader
- To assume an open-minded reader
- To use effectively balanced terms
- Not to stereotype possible readers.
