Course Description
As the foundational seminar within the S.T.B. program’s sequence of four seminars, this seminar will provide students with a basic introduction to the academic resources the University has to offer, in view of the scholarly pursuits they will be required to engage in throughout their studies. The course will: (1) provide students with in-depth tutorials on how to utilize the services of the Library in an effective and efficient way, in view of a proper research methodology; (2) guide students in the proper habits of personal and professional organization and time management; (3) provide the basic theory and praxis behind the four levels of reading difficult texts, and the critical thinking processes necessary to get the most out of such readings; (4) how to construct a divisio textus in preparation for course lectures, and the writing of long academic essays; (5) provide students with a review of the basic structure of any academic writing, along with a presentation of intermediate writing techniques that students will be expected to employ in the three subsequent seminars of the S.T.B. program; and (6) train students in the approved conventions of academic citations, footnotes, and other essential rules of the Faculty’s Methodological Guidelines; and (7) the implications of academic writing with the advent of artificial intelligence.
Bibliography
ADLER, MORTIMER J., and CHARLES VAN DOREN. How to Read a Book. Touchstone ed. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2014.
BOOTHE, WAYNE C., GREGORY G. COLOMB, JOSEPH M. WILLIAMS, JOSEPH BIZUP, and WILLIAM T. FITZGERALD. The Craft of Research. Fourth Edition. Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2016.
CRIDER, SCOTT F. The Office of Assertion: An Art of Rhetoric for the Academic Essay. Wilmington, Delaware: ISI Books, 2005.
TURABIAN, KATE L. A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations: Chicago Style for Students and Researchers. Ninth Edition. Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing. Chicago ; London: The University of Chicago Press, 2018.
YAGHJIAN, LUCRETIA B. Writing Theology Well: A Rhetoric for Theological and Biblical Writers. Second Edition. London ; New York: T&T Clark / Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2015.