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SPAN 3240 - Introduction to the Study of Spanish Linguistics

A course-specific guide created to aid students in the Spanish 3240 class.

What does an Empirical Study look like?

Use the graphic below to compare both the differences and the similarities between a Humanities paper (literature review) and a Social Sciences paper (Empirical/Case Study).

Comparing Different Discipline's Writing Styles:

 

How to read a scholarly article 

Different disciplines have different writing conventions. The social sciences (sociology, education, etc...) and the humanities (literature, philosophy, etc...) writing styles rely on a combination of

  • established and subjective information 
  • new, original information from the author(s)

Both structures typically include

  • summary
  • introduction
  • context
  • approach
  • discussion/analysis
  • conclusion

Differences can typically be found in

  • the abstract  (included or not)
  • methodological versus theoretical approach
  • citation style (APA versus MLA)

When reading and referring to  an article 

  • start with the abstract, introduction and conclusion to get an over all sense of the content. 
  • paraphrase from the objective sections
  • cite directly from the subjective sections