Placing an issue in context

A-49

Academic readers expect the context for arguments to be clear. They want to know that the writer is grounded in the ongoing debates and is aware of the issues.

The debate over nuclear power, for example, takes place within complex and competing contexts:

A college paper needs to be of manageable scope and cannot tackle all of these contexts at once.

An effective writing strategy is to state clearly the scope of an argument up front, identifying the context that will frame the argument.