My Word!: Chapter 3, "Observing the Performance Self"

Susan Blum begins the third chapter with clear, if limited, definitions of two types of people. Authentic selves “insist that their words are theirs and theirs alone. . . . Nothing could make them pronounce what is not intended as an expression of their own thoughts and feelings. . . . [They] would never plagiarize because they believe to their core that all they say should be theirs and theirs alone” (60-61).

On the contrary, the behavior of “[performance selves] is mutable, depending on circumstances. All that matters is the effect of their actions. . . . They will say what is expected, whatever suits the occasion, whether it is their personal truth or not. . . . They don’t feel a tight connection between their words and their inner being, so they don’t sweat it if others use their words or if they use the words of others” (61).

Blum goes on to associate the authentic self with the ethos of the 1960s while claiming that the more recent emergence of a performance self stems from the 1980s. As broad trends, Blum’s observation may serve as a thumb thrust into the wind to determine its general direction, but as a guide to the behavior of individuals or, as Blum uses it, large groups of individuals, her characterizations are entirely too binary and limited.

The authentic self as she describes it is such a romantic ideal of a type that it would be almost impossible to find a representative example. (Moreover, it sounds like they are so committed to their own ideas, it seems unlikely they would even agree to do research.) Her descriptions of this type seem to derive from the romantic vision of Thoreau or sixties-style communal living. And therein is a flaw.

While she extols the virtues of this singular authentic self, she ignores a very important trait of the human species. Just as statistical trends tend to regress toward the mean, human beings, no matter how authentic, are pulled by the gravity of the group and tend to regress to the norm. In short, human beings tend much more regularly toward the behavior of the performance self that Blum tries to paint as an ethical blight.

Blum derides the performance self for its conformist nature, but she fails to recognize the conformity often found among authentic types as well. The sixties may have had a visible movement toward authenticity, but those very soul-searchers she lauds often pursued the authentic self in groups that formed their own norms of dress, hairstyle, music, drugs, and behavior. I would argue that the authentic self shares more in common with the performance self than Blum wants to admit.

Take Edward, one of the students interviewed as part of Blum’s research and someone offered up as an example of the new performance self. In his interview, Edward says, "personally . . . I would rather care less what people thought of me. . . . I will be my own person, . . . most of the time, . . . unless I'm in . . . a really uncomfortable situation . . ." (73). Edward doesn’t sound like someone unconcerned with authenticity. In fact, he shows a preference for it, but also understands that compromise is a social lubricant. He sounds reasonable enough to me. I’m not sure what cause he gives us to question his ethics.

Blum also misses the mark in suggesting that the performance self is something new. Sure, there have been individuals and cultural movements that stress authenticity, but a performance focus, which Blum seems to equate with a propensity toward duplicity, is historically common, even dominant. Dr. Blum, I’d like to introduce you to Nicolo Machiavelli. I think you two have much to discuss.

Blum has tortured her reasoning to reach the conclusions she's presented. She claims the performance self is obsessed with achievement and concludes, "[t]he performance self is more prone to cheat and plagiarize than the authentic self, given its focus on results rather than on the expression of a singular personal essence. Whose words are spoken is irrelevant; what matters is that the words fit the requirements" (89).

I have my doubts, but let's pretend for a moment that these two "selves" exist and that recognition of them is in fact useful. Her conclusion that the performance self is more likely to cheat because it means meeting the requirements strikes me as poor reasoning. After all, if the requirement is to cite your sources, why wouldn’t the requirement-obsessed performance self not just cite the sources? Come on Performance Self. You don't have to understand it. Just do it. Be like the rest of us. It's easier and we'll like you for it.

Blum demonstrates the danger of spending too much time immersed in research. It seems to me she has created her own echo chamber of ideas that make perfect sense as long as you don’t listen too closely. It's what allows her to make this statement with a straight face:

"The value of citation stems from the authentic self's focus on an individual's singularity: you give credit to the author, the unique person, because the book is 'the imprint of a living human soul.' But how can the performance self see the point of tracing the products of a unique self when it doesn't believe in the unique self?" (79)

As a scholar, I can see where Blum can make such a statement. It lines up with her research and deeper analysis about the roots of the concept of intellectual property. But my student self -- one that grappled with the issue of how to understand the need to document my sources for many years of undergraduate and graduate work (not to mention high school) -- never thought like this. I would bet good money today's students don't think like this either.

Moreover, I think it’s irrelevant whether they do or don’t. The authentic self, if it exists, is a type so pristine as to be virtually unattainable. It certainly does not now, nor has it ever described the mainstream of students, faculty, or humanity of any kind. We’re all more or less some version of the performance self in practice, and nothing about that characterization necessarily leads to unethical behavior. We’re still left with the difference between unintentional plagiarism (for whatever reason) and cheating.

The answer, then, to Blum’s last question about getting today's students to understand the point of tracing information to its source is "teach them." Understanding the need to cite your sources is no more difficult than understanding that your reader may want to look at those same sources. Or, if you prefer, that faculty need to be able to confirm your research. Either way, the performance self should be able to understand that, in order to succeed in their papers, they'll need to do this. Blum’s own argument suggests that students will want to conform to this expectation. It does not require any deeper navel gazing.

As for the cheaters among the plagiarists, Blum has already cited evidence that cheating on written work hasn't shown signs of increasing (2). Perhaps students have more options for cheating, but then again, there are more options for catching them. Certainly, today's cheaters are no more immune to the threat of being caught than a cheater of any generation. Any self should be able to understand that.

Quick aside: I'm sure you've done the math by now, as I have, and realize that there is no realistic way that I'm going to finish this book, let alone blog on the rest of it before the book group meeting on February 3 (which is next Wednesday). While this whole thread of posts is somewhat off topic for the blog, I might consider extending the conversation after the meeting as well. I'll leave that decision up to you. If you want me to continue, please leave a comment letting me know.

My Word!: Chapter 2

So I'm on to Susan Blum's second chapter entitled, "Intertextuality, Authorship, and Plagiarism." As the title suggests, there are a number of ideas in this chapter, but the one that I find most interesting relates to how students value and use quotes or citation in their social communication and their differing view of academic citation.

Blum posits, "that rather than being entirely ignorant of the principles of citation, students are often aware of them but do not entirely accept them" (29). It would seem that students intuitively know that, as Blum quotes Mark Rose (one of her primary sources on the history of the legal framework of authorship), "Copyright is not a transcendent moral idea, but a specifically modern formation produced by printing technology, marketplace economics, and the classical liberal culture of possessive individualism" (35).

This framework is being transformed by digital technology in much the same way as print technology helped to form it in the first place. This transformation is revealed in the ways that students use quotations in their social circles. The sources for their quotations are not books, but rather television shows, movies, and music. These sources are not, however, often attributed.

The source of the difference is that knowledge of the references is assumed. In fact, it is what marks you as part of the "in group." Quotations become a shorthand for a shared experience. More academically, they are metaphors, in some cases, for entire situations or conversations. And often, as the students in Blum's book point out, it's fun and humorous.

What Blum calls "[s]hared unspoken recognition of the source" is a very similar phenomenon to what students from countries like China bring with them. Students from similar academic cultures often struggle with our citation expectations because attribution is seen as unneccessary and even insulting to your readers and the source. The words of the masters are used precisely because they come from the masters and it is assumed all informed readers know their source. To document those sources would be like me saying to you, "Hey the sun is out. You know about the sun, right? That big orange disk in the sky that sheds light and heat?" You'd think I was joking or making fun of you.

Blum ends the chapter by reiterating how students' social use of quotes differs from their attitudes about and the requirements of academic quoting. She talks about how the joy of social quoting comes from the shared influence of the source. "And when it is shared," she concludes, "there is no need to cite explicitly" (58).

I find it interesting that use of quotations in these social contexts is a form of inclusion. This actually mirrors much of the point of academic citation. The difference is that there is an opposite value assigned. In the social situation, not quoting invests value because it's a nod to the shared experience while in the academic sense citation adds the value, ironically, for the same reason. This suggests that the value of academic citation can be communicated.

I think this is a great opportunity to talk to students about the rhetorical context of academic writing. There is a kind of academic joy in sharing sources, but because we can't be certain who will read our work once it is published, even in the classroom, we must account in our writing for those readers who might not share the context or experience. This is why when we quote in writing, the reader who is familiar with our source has one experience of our work (a feeling of inclusion and being "in the know") and the reader who does not share the experience of the source has another (the feeling of exclusion and perhaps a sense that the writer is "putting on airs").

According to Blum, students already have an intuitive sense of the limitations of text. It's one of the reasons they don't quote from texts as much as other media -- because they can't be sure it's a shared experience. Our job, then, becomes to show them how to share the experience. This shared desire to share experience is at the heart of quotation in both social and academic contexts. Motivating students to cite properly should be relatively easy once we can show them this similarity. Then, of course, we need to show them how. That seems an easier step if they understand the why.

"My Word!": Intro and Chapter 1

So I've made my way through the Introduction and the first chapter of Susan Blum's My Word!: Plagiarism and College Culture. It's difficult to organize my response to what I have read so far.

On the one hand, Blum raises interesting and important questions and ideas about plagiarism and how we treat it in the academic and professional worlds. On the other hand, all she's really accomplished to this point is to note that there is a difference between cheating and improper documentation and to assert that we need to understand plagiarism better.

That's a good start, I suppose. After all, I'm only 28 pages into a book that tackles a very difficult issue. I am moved to comment about two specific bits here in the early going -- one each about cheating and poor citation.

Blum points out the growth in articles about plagiarism in the past ten years or so and says, "Many see this increase as evidence of a crisis; others see it as evidence of moral panic" (21). She soon makes it pretty clear that she is one of the latter by giving an interesting history of pervasive cheating for more than a millenium in imperial China.

Her point is not, of course, to pick on the Chinese or to justify cheating by American students. Rather, her story illustrates that given sufficiently high stakes, just about anyone is prone to stacking the odds in their favor, especially if the odds seem slim to begin with. While I'm not sure where she is going to take this idea, I'm intrigued by the implications it has on academia given our culture's growing awareness of the value of education (especially the economic value of it) and our insistence on providing "access" at almost any cost.

Her story also points out the futility of trying to stop such cheating, so clearly this is an issue that we'll need to apply some ingenuity to. (On a side note, her story also has interesting analogs to attempts by our growing security state to make us all "safe." I'll leave you to read her story and make of it what you will.)

Blum also shares some insights from Rebecca Moore Howard on what Howard calls "patchworking" (26-27). Patchworking, according to Howard, is the process by which novice academic writers re-work material from a source by changing its grammatical structure, word order, and word choice and then present the newly composed text as if their own.

Most academic faculty would view this as a form of plagiarism, but Howard sees it as an important step in a student's learning process. I agree.

The further we are from understanding, the more we have to rely on what some people call our "monkey brain." That is, in order to learn, we must first immitate. I have the great joy of watching my not-quite-two-year-old niece going through this process now.

My niece, you see, has a cat which she has learned, through imitation, to call "kitty." Of course, she isn't very sophisticated about language or animals yet so while she can correctly identify a kitty at 100 paces, she also identifies any four-legged and furry creature as a kitty. Luckily for her, she's very young and very cute so no one really cares that she doesn't know what she's talking about most of the time because, well, we expect it. We know it will be some time before she has catalogued enough furry, four-legged creatures to begin asking, "What's that?" when she encounters, say, a horse.

College students don't get the same pass as my niece. (Quick aside: In retrospect, isn't one of the most depressing moments in our lives the day people stop cheering because we can tie our shoes? Expectations go up so fast, don't they?)

We're often quite harsh about students who should have been taught something -- or so we still suppose -- but who either haven't been taught it or haven't learned it. We complain that our students don't intuitively understand our arcane documentation "standards" -- as Blum points out, standards that are anything but consistent or, in fact, actually standardized -- and then hold them accountable for knowing a whole host of assumed arcana that is never actually documented by the standardizing bodies (or, all too often, the faculty holding them accountable for it).

This is misplaced anger if ever there was such a thing. Shouldn't we be holding their previous teachers accountable? Or perhaps teaching them what we want them to do? Many of us do just that, but as Blum reveals, the standards applied to students are often not so uniformly applied to people at our own level of academic accomplishment.

In any case, Howard's point is that students need to pass through this imitative stage on their way to deeper understanding. This seems manifestly true. As we accrue knowledge about a subject, we are better able to make connections between and among various facts and even make intuitive leaps in our understanding of the subject. Our ability to navigate the subtler regions of a subject increases as we learn more. Once enough pieces are fit together, we can proceed without imitation and begin to create on our own.

There is much left to read, but it already seems clear that part of our challenge is going be meeting (with limited time) students where they are and guiding them to the place of academic understanding we'd like them to occupy with regard to source use. Perhaps we need to jetison some of our old assumptions in the process and learn a new process even as we seek to introduce our students to new territory.

The “P” Word

I hate plagiarism. Hate it. Don’t like the word. Don’t like how it sounds. Don’t like spelling it. Hate it. And I particularly hate when people ask me to come and talk to their students about plagiarism or how to avoid plagiarism. I don’t like having that word associated with our writing center. Why this visceral reaction?

First, the concept of plagiarism is messy. It is a word used imprecisely. It means the act of cheating or stealing (and those are perfectly accurate and usable words, so let’s call those forms of plagiarism what they are). It also means not documenting your sources correctly which covers a range of “sins” from not documenting your sources at all to forgetting to include the publisher in your reference list. It seems nonsensical to me that we have a word that means both an active deception and a lack of training.

I’m also irritated by the approach many people take to plagiarism. I’m often asked to present to students on how to avoid plagiarism. This seems counter-intuitive to me. It’s like asking someone not to think about purple frogs. As soon as you say it, all anyone can think about is purple frogs. How absurd! Let’s focus on discussing proper documentation procedures and advocating academic integrity (which, I should point out, many individuals and groups on campus do).

Another reason for my visceral reaction has to do with the writing center. Our center is a place where students need to feel safe. They need to trust that they can come to our center and make mistakes and not have to pay an academic price for those mistakes. My stance is that the cheating form of plagiarism hasn’t occurred until a paper is turned in for credit. Up until then, students can turn back. At our writing center, we’re very careful how to approach these situations. When our consultants see text that looks like it comes from a source other than the writer and that text isn’t documented, they begin to discuss proper documentation procedures. (By the way, for those students reading this: it’s a lot easier to pick out plagiarized material than you might think.)

Finally, it really irritates me how pedantic some people are about documentation. They seem to want to claim plagiarism or at the very least drop the grading hammer any time a comma is out of place in the reference list or a date is missing from an APA in-text citation. Most of the worst sticklers are people who aren’t even that knowledgeable about the style they’ve required.

So imagine my reaction when the American Psychological Association (APA) released its 6th edition of their Publication Manual complete with numerous errors of just the type likely to set off pedantic professors. Most of the errors were cosmetic, but several were substantive and have caused genuine confusion and concern for students. The APA’s subsequent refusal to issue more than web updates seemed to fly in the face of the rigor they try to impose with their standards. After all, if errors don’t really matter to the APA, why should we care? Finally, however, the APA has relented and agreed to reprint the edition with corrections.

In an article discussing this fiasco in The Chronicle of Higher Education, I found a sister from another mother in the person of Barbara Fister, academic librarian at Gustavus Adolphus College. As quoted in the article, Fister asserts that plagiarism pedants should “stop spending hours trying to correct student work using new style manuals as unfamiliar to them as to their students and go play with the baby or take a walk instead." Hooray! According to the article, Fister believes “being correct [in the minutiae of style] is not that important, but that understanding the rhetorical reasons for bringing good sources into your argument is.” I couldn’t have said it better myself.

All of this coincides with the recent announcement of a Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) book discussion group set to meet on February 3 to discuss Susan Blum’s latest book, My Word! Plagiarism and College Culture. I’ve signed up for the group and received my complimentary copy of the book. If you’re a member of the Wright State University community, you can too. Contact the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) at 775-4522 to reserve a spot at the discussion and to arrange for your free copy of the book. I’ll be blogging my reactions to the book in this space as I read it. Please read along with me and share your comments here.

Dismissed

One of the most annoying traits of public debate in recent years is how often people dismiss one another’s views out of hand. Too often I hear people proclaim, “Well, that’s just your opinion” or “Well, you’re biased.” These dismissals ignore the possibility that an opinion has been arrived at through deep reflection and are a way of not having to engage in any real thought about a subject.

The inaccurate charge of bias is one that particularly annoys me. Bias is a real issue in academic debate. It is something that scholars and students are urged to avoid. We’re also taught to look for it in the sources we use for our research. It really does exist, but too often in public debate it is assumed from someone’s viewpoint. Ironically, though not surprisingly, it is often present in the very people who charge others with this argumentative fault. People's own biases can so blind them to the facts that the only reason they can see for someone else to draw different conclusions must be bias.

The academic definition of bias is “A preference or an inclination, esp[ecially] one that inhibits impartial judgment” (American Heritage College Dictionary). So, for example, a Democrat might be prone to support President Obama’s policies since he, too, is a Democrat. Similarly, a Democrat may have been more critical of a Republican President such as George W. Bush. That kind of partisan bias occurs all the time, and it is wise to be on the lookout for it. However, it is possible for someone to support a member of their own party, to stay with the political example, without exhibiting bias.

So, how do we tell the difference between an opinion that is overly influenced by bias and one that is not?

The real answer to this question is that we can’t always tell; however, we can take steps to help us find out. Research is a key tool in helping to determine a person’s bias.

For example, let’s say you read an article by a particular political pundit. By reading this article you find out that when the Republicans were in charge, the pundit supported certain key policies. If you only read this one article, you might assume that he has a Republican bias. But if you read another article by the pundit -- one written as a new Democratic administration announces that it will continue those same policies -- and the pundit continues to support them, then we can be pretty sure that he wasn’t supporting those policies just because they were proposed by Republicans. Of course, the pundit might have other biases that contribute to his support of those policies, but through our research we’ve eliminated one of them.

Detecting true bias is very difficult. We all have biases that influence how we develop opinions. The key to honest debate is to try to recognize bias (our own and that of others) and mitigate it by keeping an open mind. We must remain open to new information that might change our opinion of a subject. This is very difficult to do even when we are aware.

What we can do rather easily is stop using the charge of bias as a cheap way of dismissing what others think. If your opinions are so fragile that you can’t bear to hear what someone else has to say, perhaps they aren’t worth keeping.

Seriously?

Last week we talked about how argumentation is at the core of academic writing. I was going to attempt to spell out how to make an argument, but that is too complex a subject for a mere blog post. There are a number of good sources to help you learn how to create a good argumentative paper. Dartmouth’s Writing Program has created this very worthwhile source for making the transition from high school writing to college writing. More specifically, Wright State’s Writing Center has this guide to creating thesis statements. In fact, our wiki has a number of useful links to help you with making the transition to academic writing.

We talked last week about how the process of argumentation is geared toward building an understanding of a subject. Still, it’s difficult to get past the connotation that the goal of an argument is to win. So what is a “win” in an academic argument?

There are a number of definitions I can think of, including the obvious one: winning an argument means making readers change their minds about the subject. I think this is a valid definition, but it can be difficult to achieve. It also can lead to bad scholarly habits. If our goal in an argument is always to convince someone that we are right, we create the temptation to cheat toward that goal. We might hide relevant information that might not support our conclusion. We might misrepresent the viewpoints of certain experts. In short, we might not be honest with our readers. That’s bad.

I think a better goal in an academic paper is to get your audience to take you seriously. This goal is well-aligned with other goals you might have. In a very personal way, much of your life to this point may have been devoted to getting people to take you seriously. After all, you’re not a kid anymore.

The key to being taken seriously in an academic environment is to demonstrate reason and objectivity. Biases born of prejudice or emotional reactions are not well thought of in college. Your readers (e.g., mostly your professors) are going to be far more impressed and persuaded by your dispassionate discussion of a subject.

So how do you achieve this tone of objectivity?

First, find out as much as you can about the subject. This is the reason professors assign research. Their requirements for the number of sources you should look at are the minimum they think you will need to review to begin to understand the subject well enough to discuss it intelligently. Don’t limit yourself to the minimum; read everything you have the time for. Remember, though, not all sources are of equal value.

In your reading, you are looking for factual data about the subject and informed opinion from other scholars and experts on the subject. Sources that deal honestly with counterarguments and differences of opinion will generally be of value. The side benefit to your research is that as you discover valid sources of information on a subject, you will also be exposing yourself to the types of writing and the tone that you will be trying to achieve for your readers.

Most importantly, be open to learning something. Try not to cling too tightly to your preconceived notions about the subject. By being open minded about the subject, you will more naturally seek out opinions on both sides of the argument. Being one sided is the perfect way to convince people that you are NOT serious.

By avoiding bias, addressing potential counterarguments, and generally trying to create an aura of competence, you will appear reasonable, and get your readers to take you seriously. It isn’t always important to win the debate – you will not always convince your reader that you are right. But if you can get your reader to take you seriously, to consider what you have said and think about it seriously, then you will have gone a long way toward being successful in your academic writing.

Why Is Everything An Argument With You?

When most students hear the word “argument,” they think of angry people yelling at one another. When you tell them that academic writing is about making an argument, they picture those uncomfortable moments with family and friends where they fought with one another. No wonder students have so little enthusiasm for “making an argument” in their classes.

An academic argument isn’t an angry fight, though. When you hear the term “argument” in an academic context think about two people having a reasonable conversation. Envision two people who aren’t emotionally attached to the subject. Instead, these two people are actually curious about what the answers to a question might be. As each proposes a possible answer, the other gently tests the proposition with questions and offers new facts to be discussed.

Even given this slightly less combative vision of arguing, students are bound to ask, “Why do I have to argue at all? What’s the point?” It’s a good question.

The point of arguing is to help us better understand something. Anyone can have an opinion. In fact, opinions are among the most common things around. But what is the value of those opinions? Many opinions only have real value to the person who holds them. Typically, these are opinions based on an emotional response to something. For example, I can say, “The Oakland Raiders are my favorite team.” That statement reflects my opinion, and it is factual. But so what? It isn’t really an arguable statement, in part because it has no real value outside of my own personal preference. It doesn’t matter to anyone but me. The fact that I like the Raiders doesn’t preclude you from liking another team.

But what if I claim, “The Oakland Raiders are the best team in the NFL.” That statement is also an opinion. Furthermore, it might matter to you (if you care about football) because if I am right, then your favorite team isn’t the best team in football and maybe you think they are. We don’t have to fight about it, though, because my opinion is arguable and, therefore, potentially provable in a meaningful way. We can actually establish criteria for evaluation, look at data, gather the informed opinions of experts, and evaluate the facts to make a reasonable assessment about which team actually is the best team in football.

We can have a heated argument – the personal kind – about whether the Raiders are my favorite team, but why would we? It doesn’t matter. We can also have an academic argument – though it need not be heated – about whether the Raiders are the best team in football. That argument, though, actually has a good possibility of yielding a factual conclusion. We might not discover who the best team really is, but we are sure to discover that, in fact, the Raiders are not the best team in football (actually, over the past several years, they are one of the worst teams – if not the worst team – in football).

For an opinion to have broader value, for us to have a chance to establish it as fact or truth, we have to take a more intellectual, critical approach. The process of challenging assumptions or opinions; of asking critical questions; of looking for data, facts, expert opinion; and analyzing a subject is a process that can lead us to the truth or at least a better understanding of the subject. It can lead us to better answers about all sorts of things like what you can do about global warming, who you should vote for to be President, even what kind of car you should buy.

Argument – even internal argument – is how we come to understand the world around us. It is a form of critical thinking, one of the most valuable skills you can possess. And academic writing is one of the surest ways to learn that skill.

Start Me Up

I had the pleasure of talking to some freshmen in their UVC classes last week. I asked them what they wanted to know about college writing. During our conversation, a theme emerged. Most of the students I spoke with told me that the hardest part about writing was getting started.

There are a number of techniques for getting started. Experts recommend doing some brainstorming, free-writing, creating a web, or making an outline. All of these techniques have value, and I concur with the experts: try one or more of these techniques and see what works best for you. But as the conversation with these students unfolded, I was struck by a thought that I’d like to explore.

Almost every creation story I’ve ever seen emphasizes that creation came from the organization of chaos. The Creator in these stories always brings order to the chaos. This same story is fundamentally true of “small c” creators as well and, thus, it is true for writers (and Writers).

When we write, we rarely know exactly what we want to write until we write it. We must work hard to shape our formless thoughts into a point, something sharp and focused. This shaping often takes place on the page itself, but it just as often takes place in our heads. In fact, there is a definite back and forth relationship between what appears in our head (the image of our creation) and what ends up on the paper (the final form of the creation). In short, writers make order out of the chaos of their thoughts.

My point is that the very act of thinking “Where do I start?” is, in fact, a start. We have begun the process of creating order out of the chaos of our thoughts. Is it difficult? Yes, often times. But it is also clearly the beginning of writing.

This is the point I’d like for those students among you to take: don’t confine your definition of writing to the act of putting pen to paper or fingertips to keyboard. The page is merely a container for your thoughts. Typing merely propels your words to the page. Thinking is part of the writing process. In fact, it is the real essence of writing. To continue the creation analogy, it is the spirit that inhabits and energizes the flesh.

Thinking is the work of writing. The rest is just packaging. This fact is why writing has such a critical role in education. It is the primary reason (of two reasons) why writing is so important: college is about learning how to think. Not what to think, but how to think, the process of thinking. (The second reason that writing is important is that it is still the best way to communicate complex ideas to a large number of people over an extended period of time so, it is critical that you learn how to communicate clearly in writing.)

The kind of deep thinking you are learning to do in college can’t be rushed. It takes patience. Because writing is thinking, the same is true of writing: it can’t be rushed, and it takes patience. If you’ve started grappling with the chaos of your thoughts, you’ve started to write. Does that make it any easier or more fun? Probably not, but at least we’ve now accurately located the real problem, and that’s the first step toward solving it.

There is a reason (learn, learn, learn)

Starting college is a heady feeling. New school, new people, newfound freedoms, all of these things make starting college an exciting time. One of the first shocks most students receive is how much writing is required in college. If you haven’t seen this reflected on your course syllabuses or heard it from your instructors yet, you will before the first year is over.

The nature of college writing is vastly different than you may have experienced in high school. It is certainly different from the types of communication you see on a daily basis. In college, you will be required to make a claim or statement (called a thesis statement) and defend it with logic, facts, and expert opinion. It is unlikely that you had to do this, or do it as thoroughly, in your high school English classes.

Much writing in high school involves your personal response to other people’s writing and opinions. Similarly, most public communication strives to appear reasonable and well-supported, but it often falls short. We’re bombarded by advertising claims that seem to offer a supported argument (“Is gas mileage important to you? Our car gets 24 miles per gallon on the highway. You should buy our car.”), but those appeals to our pocketbooks are far more shallow and narrow than the types of writing and issues you will be asked to consider throughout your college career.

Why is there so much emphasis on writing in college? There are two primary reasons. The first is that writing is a great way to demonstrate your understanding of a topic. The slow, in-depth nature of the process gives you time to develop a clear, coherent response to an issue or topic. The second reason is that writing is a way of learning. Writing is far more than just putting words on paper. In college, when we speak of writing, we’re talking about the entire process from researching a topic and working to understand it to developing a clear, well-supported response to the issues involved in that topic.

Helping you navigate the requirements of writing in college and understand the value of writing beyond school is one of the main purposes of this blog. In the coming weeks, we’ll address some of the issues that make college writing such a challenge and such a rewarding experience. We’ll investigate what academic writing is, why everything seems to be an argument, and why this isn’t such a bad thing after all. We’ll look at how to evaluate sources and discuss some of the differences between what you are being taught about writing and arguing in college and how things happen in “the real world.”

Future posts aren’t written yet, so feel free to use the comments section of this blog to ask questions and propose ideas for discussion. Being engaged in the conversation is another exciting and important aspect of being in college.

Evaluate Your Sources with CRAAP!

Hi, I'm Piper, the resident librarian at the Writing Center. I'll be posting here from time to time, and while my posts might not be directly about writing per se, they will be about library-related aspects of the writing process. Most of my time is spent upstairs in the Dunbar Library, where--among other things--I and my fellow librarians help students find books, articles, and other materials for their research papers. Although we spend a lot of time searching with students in our catalog and in article databases (and if you don't know what those are, get yourself upstairs and ask! we're cheerful and helpful and we love questions!), another big part of what we do is help teach students to evaluate all the information that they find.

“Well,” you might think, “I already know how to do that.” I'm sure that you do, to some degree, but just think of the vast amount of information out there. For example, when you do a Google search, how do you know which sites will have reliable information? What are the kinds of things you look for in a good, authoritative site? These are not just questions that you should ask yourself when you're doing research for a class assignment (and if you are working on an assignment, you should probably be using the library's catalog and article databases ;)), they are questions that you should ask when you are looking up health information, or buying something, or just looking up a fact on which you made a bet with someone.

Some of the librarians here use a handy checklist developed by librarians at Cal State Chico called the CRAAP test for evaluating websites and other information. CRAAP is an acronym for Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, Purpose. These are all things that you should look for, whether on the TV news, in a book, or on a website that pops to the top of your search results. Take a look and use the CRAAP test: it’s brief, it’s useful, and it could save you from making a big mistake in either school—“Whoops, that web page I cited on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was produced by white supremacists”— or the rest of your busy life—“Oh no, that shopping site put a virus in my computer! “

Analyzing Analysis

As a tutor and as a student, I think it is safe to say that text analysis is my least favorite English 101 assignment. However, it is also more useful than it appears at first glance. Speaking as someone who spent many years in the workforce prior to returning to college, I can say that if I had possessed the skills achieved by formulating a successful text analysis back then, it would have served me well.

Instructors assign text analysis for a variety of reasons. However, one of the most important is to assess students’ ability to truly comprehend the message that is being delivered. This goes beyond the ability to look at an advertisement and know what the company is trying to sell, or the ability look an article and accurately summarizing its contents. It is a dissection of language and images that inevitably tells us more than we could possibly glean from a simple summary.

Generally, I suggest that my clients approach analysis as a mechanic might. I recommend that they examine the text as though it is a motor that can be taken apart and examined piece by piece, then put back together to comprise a whole, working machine. Examining each portion of the text gives the student an in depth understanding of why the author used certain words or images, and how those individual components contribute to the success or failure of the piece as a whole.

Not only does this approach serve as method of creating a successful text analysis for an instructor, it provides the student with tools that will serve him or her in a business setting. An understanding of text analysis can lay the groundwork for better communication in the workplace.

Though it will rarely be a favorite assignment, text analysis will inevitably strengthen a student's skill as a writer. Successful completion of this assignment can strengthen a writer’s confidence and improve his or her reading comprehension in preparation for further collegiate endeavors, as well as undertakings beyond the world of academia.

Six Degrees of Greatness

One of the fun, pop culture games we used to play at parties when I was in college was called "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon." The game is, I believe, still known, if not popular. The premise of the game was to name an actor and trace a path of other actors with whom that actor had appeared in movies all the way back to Kevin Bacon and do so in six or fewer names. The game was based on the conceit that Kevin Bacon was such a popular actor, appearing in numerous films, that you could trace almost anyone back to him. I'm not sure how Kevin Bacon got swept up in all of this, but the fact is that most of us live within six degrees of one another. (I'm particularly thrilled to be within three degrees of Jennifer Aniston, but she still doesn't return my calls.)

At the heart of the "six degrees" concept is the idea of connection, or for those who like to complicate matters, interconnection -- it's probably all the same thing. The point is that people are connected in ways they often don't suspect. The same is true of ideas. Our form of government, for example, can be traced from our founders back to thinkers like John Locke and, ultimately, Plato. The roots of our democracy lie in the ruins of ancient Greek civilization. But when it comes to the realm of ideas, how are these connections made? Most often, it is through writing.

In the same way that the technology I'm using to write and publish this to you is closely connected to the first printing press that produced the Gutenberg Bible and revolutionized the dissemination of ideas, those very ideas are connected with one another. As a student, you are at the heart of this connection. Everything you read, every lecture you attend, every question you ask is part of the great adventure of discovery that our species has been on since the very day we appeared on the planet. In a very real way, you have access to a connection with the entire sweep of human history. Furthermore, while you may not realize it yet, you have a connection to the far reaches of the future. That connection may be tenuous or great depending on what you do with your life, but the connection exists just as surely as you do.

Why am I telling you all this? Because it remains as true today as it was in the distant past: the most effective and long-lasting way to communicate your ideas is through writing. That may not seem like much, but consider that almost everything you enjoy springs from an idea. Your i-Pod? It didn't exist until someone had the idea to invent it. Television? Radio? Music itself? All ideas. In fact, if you attend Wright State University, you go to school at a place named after two people who had many ideas, several of which led to the invention of the aeroplane.

"Cogito, ergo sum." That's the Latin for, "I think, therefore I am," René Descartes' insightful proof of existence. In a very real way, to think is to live. Ralph Waldo Emerson echoed this idea when he wrote that the unexamined life isn't worth living. What he meant, I think, is that the depth and quality of our lives comes from examining it, from using our critical and creative faculties to understand ourselves and the world we live in. That's the underlying reason for academic inquiry. It is only one way to understand ourselves, but it is a serious and important way to do so. Whatever else you may want to accomplish while you're in school, don't miss the opportunity to learn all you can about yourself, others, and the world in which we all live. Intentional pursuit of that goal may well lead to greatness.

Have you WAC-ed your WID today?

In theory, students who pass ENG101 and 102 (or their equivalents) have the foundation to make it through their remaining writing intensive courses. But in practice, many students hit writing assignments in the GenEd and their major and discover that what worked in English 101 and 102 doesn’t fly. They swear they did what the professor asked and yet they earned a D. What’s the deal?

As one of the people at WSU whose job it is to help faculty teach writing in the major, I spend a good deal of my time trying to keep this from happening. What I’ve discovered is that the problem often occurs when writers mistranslate WAC (that’s Writing Across the Curriculum) into WID (Writing in the Disciplines).

I just got back from the International WAC Conference in Austin, Texas where, along with three other WSU faculty members, I presented a panel on the challenges of translating WAC to WID. This panel grew out of work that began in Fall 2007 with Sarah Twill in the Department of Social Work and reviewing its key points here might help you understand what I mean by the need to translate WAC into WID.

When I first met with Sarah, she was feeling frustrated by her students’ writing. She felt her instructions were clear but she simply wasn’t getting what she asked for. Essentially, Sarah wanted students to describe a visit to a social work agency and respond to what they observed, comparing their practical experience to the textbooks’ treatment of similar situations. And her instructions were quite clear for someone familiar with the discipline. For the description, she wanted an objective report of what happened – details of the observation that could stand up in court as straight, clear fact. No judgments. No personal opinion. No extraneous detail. For the response, she wanted some evidence that the students were making connections between what they read, what they witnessed, and what that meant for them as a social worker.

The trouble lay in the language used. In discussing the assignment with students, Sarah asked for narrative and reflection, terms familiar to many students from their first year writing courses. But in first year composition classes, narrative typically means writing a story. Students are encouraged to include detail and dialogue to convey emotions and attitude. Reflection assignments in first year writing often ask students for a very personal response, one that doesn’t include outside sources. That’s not quite the narratives or reflections Sarah imagined.

The disconnect occurred because students were (understandably) focused on duplicating the ASSIGNMENTS they’d had in 101 and 102 rather than duplicating the THINKING they’d done in 101 and 102. Despite a difference in style, Sarah’s request for narrative and reflection still asked students to think in the same ways that 101 and 102 instructors ask their students to think. Her use of these terms wasn’t wrong. They were discipline-specific to social work, just as the use of them in 101 and 102 is discipline-specific to English composition.

So what’s a student to do? How can anyone possibly know every discipline’s specific meanings? The key is to focus less on remembering particular first year writing assignments and more on remembering the thinking you did to fulfill those assignments.

A good resource for helping you do this is Rich Bullock’s The Norton Field Guide to Writing, a common text in first year writing at WSU. It lists the most common genres in academic writing. Each genre chapter includes a section on key features – the elements expected when writing in this genre, regardless of the assignment. When Sarah and I reviewed the chapters on narrative and reflection, we saw that she wanted these same features in her students’ writing. But because of the difference in discipline, she needed students to express the information differently than they would in an English class. By pointing this out to her students and providing some examples of what she was expecting, she saw instant improvement in student performance.

For example, both my ENG101 literacy narrative assignment and Sarah’s request for narrative ask for ‘vivid detail.’ We both want students to include clear and specific detail to help readers picture who, what, where, when and how. But how we define ‘vivid’ is a little different. In my world, it means to add emotion and color; in Sarah’s it’s about painting a clear picture of the facts.

So if you’ve got a paper to revise by the end of this quarter and are feeling confused about why what worked before isn’t working this time, it might be useful to stop thinking about 101 and 102 as courses that helped you learn writing across the curriculum and consider them in terms of thinking across the curriculum. Take the WAC foundation in thinking gained in 101 and 102 and apply it to your WID. How are writing assignments in different disciplines beyond 101 and 102 asking for those same types of thinking even though the final product may be expressed differently?

What is revision?

As a first-year teaching assistant, a fourth-year writing tutor, and what feels like a gazillionth-year student, I have my own opinions about what revision is. As a freshman in college, I’m positive those ideas were very different. As I read my first year composition students’ papers, I’m also positive their ideas about revision are different than what mine are now. So, I guess that leaves this question - what is revision, really?

Thanks to Peggy Lindsey, a fellow English teacher with much more experience than I, I now have a handout about revision that I use in all of my first year composition classes, be it English 101 or 102. This handout is divided into two main sections: one with inexperienced writers’ definitions of revision (which many of them call by different names, such as “reviewing”) and one with experienced writers’ definitions of revision. Here’s one sample of each:

Inexperienced writer’s definition: “Reviewing means just using better words and eliminating words that are not needed. I go over and change words around.”

Experienced writer’s definition: “It is a matter of looking at the kernel of what I have written, the content, and then thinking about it, responding to it, making decisions, and actually restructuring it.”

In case you didn’t notice, there’s quite a big difference between those opinions. Something I have realized over my years as a writer, which is something I try to stress to my students now, is that revising does not mean just using the synonym finder or copying and pasting a sentence into a different part of the paper. And it definitely does not mean just fixing the grammatical errors your teacher has marked.

When I give my students comments on their rough drafts, drafts I expect them to revise at least once more, I usually make some marginal comments throughout the paper, and I tend to mark the grammatical mistakes I see them making repeatedly. However, I’m much more interested in larger, overall comments, which I usually write at the beginning or the end of the paper. These are comments about big problems I see with organization or logical fallacies or an unsupported or unidentifiable thesis. These are the big things I really want students to work on for the next draft, but they tend to ignore them and head straight for any comments about little things, like grammar.

Even though it can seem like writing a draft was enough hard work, it’s important to remember that a draft is probably just the first step and should be followed by an equally important step: revision. And to me, revision sometimes means writing an entirely different second draft based on what I learned from my first draft. I will at least alter my thesis if not change it entirely. I merge paragraphs together, delete some entirely, add a few, and move others around. When I write a first draft, I figure out exactly what I’m trying to say (or I at least get a better idea), so it only makes sense I would still have some big changes to make.

If you really want to take advantage of the revision process, do more than just change a word or two around or fix a comma here and there. Take a step back and look at the big picture, think about what works and what doesn’t work in a draft. If you have a lot of big changes to make, when you begin to revise, you might want to start with a blank page. Other times you will be able to work within the document you started for your first draft, but don’t get caught up in the words that are already there or the teacher’s comments about little things, like spelling and grammar, when there are bigger problems to deal with.

A link to a helpful document about revision (from the UNC writing center's webpage)

Pet Peeve with Writing Assignments #1

My students HATE strict guidelines for their written reports . . . well, some of them do anyway. They wonder why I impose them. Three of the main reasons for my strict guidelines are (1) uniformity of grading, (2) encouraging correct analyses, and (3) teaching the students how to write like businesspeople for businesspeople. Read through my rationales and let me know whether you buy them.

The strict guidelines help take some of the subjectivity out of my grading. If everyone turns in the same type of paper, consistency of grading is easier. If you were a student who submitted the paper without an element (for instance, an executive summary), and got a lower score for not including it--but that element was not in the guidelines for the assignment--would you consider the grading fair? With strict guidelines, I hope I can clearly convey expectations and thereby help students understand what they need to do to get favorable scores.

Second, some of my guidelines encourage my students to write (and thus think) systematically about their topic. To a degree, there are “best practices” for conducting the strategy analyses I assign to students in my business strategy classes, and I use strict guidelines for the write-ups on those analyses as a way to encourage students to do the analyses the right way. By dictating how ideas in my students’ papers are to be written up, I push students to organize their thoughts, not just their papers.

A third reason for the strict guidelines is that I’m training students to write reports in a way that businesspeople will like. There are certain formats that business audiences for written reports are familiar with, and it often helps students/graduates to learn and work within those formats when composing reports.

Now that I’ve given the reasons for my strict guidelines, I have to confess that I often wonder whether my approach is flawed. In fact, my approach has a couple of risks that I’m aware of (and probably numerous risks I’m not seeing).

Strict guidelines can stifle worthwhile innovation. Why would a student try another approach to writing a paper if it ran counter to my guidelines? If you were the student with a creative idea for fulfilling my assignment, you could do the extra work of clearing your idea with me before submitting your paper, but it’s easier to simply conform. Consequently, I don’t see much variety, and I miss out on opportunities to see potentially useful originality. Still, I’m COMFORTABLE taking this risk. Most of the papers I’ve collected that differ from my guidelines do NOT reflect creative genius.

Another concern is that, given the way I’ve compiled them, my guidelines could be a disorganized hodgepodge. Many of the guidelines were added to the list as a result of shortcomings I’ve seen in papers from prior quarters. Particularly when I see the same mistake in more than one student’s papers, I’m inclined to made additions to my list of guidelines in order to avoid seeing those deficiencies again. There’s a risk that the list of requirements will start to lack organization. Just like any writer, I need to ensure that there’s a logical organization to my guidelines to promote their readability and usability (I admit I haven’t done that in awhile). Similarly, there’s a risk of the list becoming too long and onerous (I’ve never really analyzed that).

What do you think? Do you buy my rationales for having strict instructions? Are there other important rationales? What do you think the downsides to strict guidelines are?

Now What?

I'm sure that just about all of us who have ever written anything longer than 2-3 pages have faced those moments when the wellspring of ideas dries up and we are left halfway through a story or research paper not knowing where to go or what to do. In moments like these, we throw down our pens, pencils, computer keyboards, or other writing implements, grab our hair, or bald scalps, and scream audibly or silently, "Now what?"

I was recently faced with this exact situation as I struggled to write a short piece--which was based on a true story. You'd think that, being based on a true story, it would be as easy as pie. I did, but that's where I was wrong. Knowing how the story ends doesn't make writing it any easier. There are always decisions along the way. What details should be included? What should be skipped over? What's really important? Had I taken the time to ask and answer these and a few other simple questions, the story--which, in its final form, turned out to be 4 pages--could have been written in one night rather than over the course of 2 weeks.

If we compare that instance with another from earlier this year, the point will be clear. A few months ago, I had an assignment to write a 10-12 page paper on a chapter from a book by James Joyce. What was different was that though I'd written nothing, I'd answer the crucial questions in my mind. A full draft was required in class the following day, and with a thesis decided on and points outlined, at 10:00 PM, I sat down to write. Within 10 hours I'd written a full, 11-page draft.

There is a clear difference between 4 pages in 2 weeks and 11 pages in one night. What is the difference? While writing the 11-page paper, I never once had to stop and think, "Now what?" Having those "now what" moments is detrimental to writing efficiently. Those moments literally force you to stop writing. So what can you do to prevent those "now what" moments? Outline. It doesn't have to be a beautifully formatted list of points, sub-points, ideas, and possibilities. Keep it simple. Know what you want to say. Know how much you need to say. Know where to start and where to end.

Your outline can be as simple as a list of ideas or as carefully planned as a list of what points need to be made in each paragraph. Basically, there's this exchange: The more you figure out before you start writing, the less you'll have to figure out while you're writing. Asking yourself questions beforehand is the best way to combat and eliminate those "now what" moments.

Toe tapping or busting a move… SOC200 2nd Paper

Regardless the genre, music stirs people emotionally or moves them physically (and in some cases, does both). The soon due (May 16th) SOC200 writing project for my Social Life classes involves examining a song that relates to a social issue or social problem. If you recall, the first project essentially was a “compare and contrast” between personal and social issues and problems involving terms like “self-efficacy” and “locus of control.” Now, we step beyond the basics and try our hand at an everyday practical application: hearing social issues and problems in music.

The choice of song is yours: select one that describes/illustrates a social issue or problem (or one of its causes or consequences). The style or type of music is also your choice, with the only restriction being that it must have lyrics; environmental sounds, clapping thunder, or a tree frog symphony at midnite are not acceptable for this project. If you want to flex your foreign language skills, you may select a non-Anglophone song; just be sure to include original and English translation of the lyrics. Regardless your musical bent, now you have an opportunity to explore music you never ventured into... and get credit for it!

Song information necessary includes artist/band, writer, title, album, year of production, and your reason for selecting this song. I urge you NOT to select a favorite love song or relationship song because students who do so get caught up in the personal level of issues and problems and are often are unable to get beyond the psychology of it (after all, this is a sociology course).

Name ONE social issue or problem in the song. You already know what makes an issue or problem social (rather than merely personal). Keep that distinction in mind as you are thinking about and writing this paper. Some issues and problems “could” be either personal or social, but your duty is to notch it up to the social level. To do that effectively, think about the ripple effect that situation creates for the larger society if enough people experience or are part of the problem or issue (as either victims or perpetrators).

Discography or biographical information about the song writer, performer, band, or lead singer can be found on line by Google-ing the person’s name or song title. Unless it is an unknown garage band, there will likely be official and unofficial sites popping up from your search engine. This part of your paper requires at least 250 words AND must be paraphrased (NO DIRECT QUOTATIONS -- but in-text citations are still required).

Lyrics can usually be found by running an internet search of the song title. The same title might be two different songs; be sure to get the one you really want. If you copy and paste it, be sure to convert it to the font of the rest of your paper. While you are there, be sure to get the album cover graphic (required for your cover page).

So far, so good… Now we get theoretical. Based on the tone and perspective of the song, determine which of the 4 sociological theories best explains the song: functionalism, social-conflict, SI, or feminist. State why you think it fits.

Conclude your paper with lessons learned by completing this project.

The assignment sheet and grading rubric (posted in the Course Studio) provide the details of this project. I have discussed most of them in this blog, but other requirements are use of MLA formatting, in-text citations, and cover page elements.

Pegah and I are available to look over your draft to let you know how on-target you are, but you must bring us a hardcopy to class or during office hours prior to the due day (no e-mail submissions please). Also, if you plan to make use of the Writing Center, make an appointment soon. This is their busy time of the quarter and un-arranged walk-ins will likely be unserviced immediately. Plan ahead. Remember Parkinson’s Law!

Please respond or acknowledge the usefulness of this blog in understanding or completing your project. Thank you for your time.

The Truncated Writing Process, or... Do as I say and not as I do

Last quarter I wrote an eight-page paper in 3+ hours. And the thing is, the next day I actually turned said paper into my professor. Why would I, a perennial student of writing and a tutor who espouses the many virtues of using a well-paced writing process, write in such a seemingly reckless manner?

Four reasons:

1) I'm insane

2) I'm insane

3) I was able to employ a truncated version of the writing process that helped me endlessly in my pursuit to churn out a strong paper in a short period of time.

4) I'm insane

So, the bottom line is, do not do what I did.

But I imagine we have all been there...for whatever reason, many times of our own doing, and other times not, we find ourselves in a crunch and have to produce something pronto. And while we all talk about the importance of the writing process, few classes other than English 101 or 102 actually allot students adequate time to process themselves into strong writing. Most classes set a due date for a paper and that's that...no second, third, or eighth chances.

Or perhaps it is not even a lengthy paper that is hanging over our heads but rather something as simple (and as potentially daunting) as an essay exam, where we have to produce cogent, thoughtful, well-written responses within a clear time limit.  Whatever the pressure cooker is and however high the temperature is set, it is never a good idea to throw the writing process out the window. And if one is able to adequately truncate said process, then it need not be defenestrated.

The hallmarks of a strong writing process involve brainstorming for the strongest idea, free- writing or outlining to get a general feel for what the paper needs to/will include, drafting to form a rough sketch of the paper, then getting feedback from a friend, teacher, tutor, or even yourself once you've removed yourself from the writing for a while, and then revising. And then revising again. It has the potential to go on for a while...

But again, it is not always realistic that a typical college student could go through that long a process. So what is the solution? How does one (if necessary) attempt to pack process into such a shortened time span?

Well, the simplest form of the answer is, "Do what you can." The longer answer goes like this:

• Let's assume you have your topic already selected. If it truly is crunch time, you will want to be writing, not thinking about what you should write about. Some teachers even shape the paper topics themselves. And in the case of an essay exam, the question is obviously right in from you.
• Get to the point...fast. I have yet to post on the virtues of the thesis statement, but let me talk about it for just a sec. The thesis statement--that wonderful sentence that you can usually find towards the end of the introductory paragraph of most strong essays--has the potential to be your savior, even in a bind. Clearly stating what major points your paper will cover and then allowing those points to keep you on track as you write will guide you through the remainder of your drafting. And the wonderful thing is, it will also guide your reader, and papers that flow are papers that are easy to love.
• Leave yourself time to stop and think...even a few minutes. One you've finished the quickest, roughest draft of your life, hopefully you can step away even for a little while, just to separate yourself from the writing you have just emerged from. This rest will give you time to reboot ever-so-slightly before jumping back into the abyss and refining what you've just written.
• Revision is still important, especially if you are short-shrifting the rest of your process. If you are able to read through your work a few times, you will most likely pin-point some areas you want to expand, delete, reword, or rethink. You obviously will not be able to write three more full drafts, but you might have time to read through the paper three more times and make a few changes that will make your work all the stronger.

I like to think I know a lot about writing, but I am not infallible. I wrote a paper in just over 3 hours. It was not a good idea for me, and it's not a good for you, either. But instead of hours, maybe you are trying to write a finished paper in 3 days. A truncated writing process could help you out immensely. If you get in a bind, are facing an in-class essay assignment, or are taking an essay exam, there is way to avoid sacrificing your entire writing process. It is not an ideal situation to find yourself in, to be sure. It can, however, help you create the best work you can under the circumstances.

Interesting post-script to my little anecdote: Since my prof was obviously not as fast a grader as I was a writer, I received my paper back about a month after I turned it in. Lo and behold, I was bestowed an A-. Go figure...my truncated writing process paid off. ***

*** = Results may vary. This example is not necessarily indicative of typical 3-hour essay outcomes. 

When time doesn’t fly

On my first day here at Wright State, I remember thinking that I would NEVER graduate. Not because I’m unmotivated, but just because four more years seemed like such a horribly long time to spend in classrooms.

Now, I have about five or six weeks left until those four years come to an end. Quite honestly, it scares me. In high school, the next four years were really the only part of my future I ever worried about, but they went by SO fast. Until now.

Usually, the spring is a time when every week is filled with countless activities, and this spring is no exception. But this time, busyness isn’t helping the time go by any faster. Instead, the clock seems frozen. This quarter just will not end. Each assignment looms over my head and taunts me. And when I actually sit down to do that dreaded studying or homework, I feel like I’m sitting at the computer or staring at the same book for days. Minutes seem like hours. It’s excruciating.

Especially when it comes to writing. I’m an English major and a writing tutor. I should enjoy this stuff, but recently, it’s just been one more thing on the to-do list. The only good thing is that I think I can finally identify with the students who come into the Writing Center complaining of their hatred for anything to do with writing. For the longest time, I just couldn’t see how it could be that bad, but I think I’m starting to get a glimpse of their perspective.

Luckily, having spent the last three years coming up with suggestions for others about how to make writing less painful, I’ve had at least a bit of success by taking my own advice. What works for me?

1. Doing the research first. Researching and writing are two very different things. In academic writing, the point is to add your own, fresh ideas to already existing research. How can you write about your new ideas if you don’t even know what the research already says? And worse, researching as you write can make it awfully tempting to plagiarize. We’ve all heard about plagiarism a hundred times, and we all know the consequences. Avoid the headache and know your topic before you even open Word.

2. Planning it out. The worst, most agonizing way to write is to sit down and do it all at once. If you absolutely must wait until the last minute to write your essay, at least spend a significant amount of time beforehand THINKING about what you’re going to write. Just having ideas can make the process run much more smoothly.

3. Taking breaks. Don’t force yourself to sit in front of a computer screen for hours on end. Your writing will start to sound terrible, and you’ll no doubt end up with carpal tunnel.

4. Getting myself to care. When I can make myself care about what I’m writing, the process is usually a lot less painful. If your topic is really that bad, perhaps you ought to choose a better one. And if you can’t choose another topic, at least try to find something endearing about your topic and run with it.

5. Giving myself rewards. A lot of times, I’ll think to myself, “Just finish this page, and then you can eat that candy bar.” Do whatever works for you.

So now, I’ll click post, I’ll stand up and stretch, and then I’ll go eat my Milky Way.

I Am Doing This Instead Of Things I Should Be Doing

So. It's one o'clock going on two in the morning and I've put off two different writing assignments. Massive, 8-12 page stories that require thought and attention and love and care. But no. I'm watching Falco music videos and getting ready to play video games with my friend from Texas. I'm a procrastinator. None of this amateur-crastination stuff for me. I've considered majoring in the subject, and it's hurt me in a number of ways over the years.

An anecdote: I almost failed out of the sixth-grade. An elaboration: Every time my Social Studies class would assign a project, I would usually (read: always) put the project off until the day after it was due. There would be a lot of "I'm just putting the last few details on it, Mrs. Social Studies Teacher" going on when asked where my results were. It got to the point where my best friend (the one who's going to play games with me via the internet in a minute) wouldn't be my partner when project time came around. It was bad.

Luckily, I got over it. Projects still came around, but I realized that I wouldn't win any friends nor keep up my normally laudable grades if I kept putting off projects. When assigned a group, I became the jovial, awesome guy who came up with great ideas and sweet talked others into doing the majority of the work. Alone, I got used to turning in sub-par projects. Projects, mind you. Not papers. Three dimensional, physical objects used to show off one idea or another. Papers were something I put off too, and I'm going to parlay the one into the other in a reasonable way in the following papers.

Mainly, I learned that no matter how awesome and spectacular you may be ( and I am totally and completely awesome and spectacular), putting assignments off is a horrible, horrible, instantly rewarding but ultimately damning idea. If you have something that needs done, for the love of all that is good and holy in this world, do it. If you think that you can do it tomorrow, you can't. It will not work. Because tomorrow you will think you can put it off till the next day. Tomorrow, I will probably study for a Geology test and play Guitar Hero. The day after that I will work on stuff for my other job and maybe write a few creative words. The day after that will be...Friday? Thursday? Regardless, I will not be working on my writing. Then the weekend will come and I will sleep and do laundry and do just about everything except write. Then Sunday night will roll around and I will type like the devil. I will type like there is no tomorrow because, for all intents and purposes, there IS no tomorrow. And my work will be really, really bad. I will know that I can do better, and it will be even worse because I claim to be a creative writer. Which means I plan on writing, creatively, for a living at one point in my life. And I cannot bring myself to write creatively. Instead I'm writing this blog entry about procrastinating.

There's not a whole lot that needs to be said about procrastination. It's a bad habit and it needs to be broken. So you, procrastinating reader, can break it with me. Dedicate your time. Say that after x amount of time on one project, assuming you do your normal, day-to-day assignments on time, you can spend y amount of time doing something enjoyable. This is a tried and true writer's block cure, and it works for basic projects and papers as well. Spend a few hours in the library researching or in front of the computer typing knowing that you have an hour or two or guilt free bliss waiting for you and you will find the work comes a lot easier. The same principle applies to hiking (I like hiking). Hike for an hour knowing that you have a ten minute break waiting for you and you'll find that it seems like a lot less effort than wondering when the next break will be. Allot your time as needed.

Another thing to do is write notes. Post-It notes. Lots and lots of them. If you put off papers, you probably put off other things. So what I do, usually, is write a Post-It note that says something informative, like "Massive paper. You should probably be writing that and not playing Super Nintendo." (I know myself pretty well) or something inspiring like "You will fail college and live in a box if you do not write something. You will be a disappointment to you family. Open Word and type or no one will ever love you." They help a lot more than you would think. I put these notes on my computer monitor so I see them every day and when I become disenchanted by them I take it down and re-write it so that I know that I WILL fail and I WILL be a loser if I don't get those papers written.

You know, I think I'm going to go write those papers now. You probably have something you should being too. Just saying.