Mary Jane Barnett, Ph.D.

From the Writing and Culture Seminar to Writing in the MajorWhat students carry forward

Categories of interrelated skills

Process Technique

Distancing?

The Writing Process

• Getting Started• Organization (especially topic sentences) • Theses• Development• Revision

This course is fundamentally about writing and researching. Writing is an art, of course, a way to organize and clarify thoughts for yourself and a way to present ideas and information to others in a form to which they can respond. In other words, it is thinking (and feeling) through language. That’s big! And the very best writing, of course, requires inspiration, creativity, even genius. That part is entirely up to you!

Technique vs. Inspiration

3 techniques for getting started1) Rhetorical Invention:

Definition Division Comparison Relationships Testimony 2) Free Writing:

Start writing. Allow yourself to investigate your subject without pausing to edit. If a thought peters out, that’s OK. If a sentence remains incomplete or goes grammatically askew, that’s OK. Don’t stop! If a thought does seem to give out, break off. Skip a space or two. Start again from a different direction. If you don’t know how to start again, try circling a word in what you have already written. Start from there. Still cannot begin again? Try interrogating what you have already written. How? Why? In what way? How does that work? So what?

3) Asking Good Questions

Here are a few comments that students posted on the course blog:

For me, starting a writing assignment is always the hardest part. When attempting to start, often times I would find myself procrastinating because I would have no idea what to write about. And when I would come up with an idea, I would write the idea on a word document as the thoughts would come to me. The final product would almost always be a disorganized mess. I would then spend hours trying to reformat my ideas into a logical essay.

Fortunately, I have found free writing to be an extremely useful tool because it forces me to put my ideas down on paper. Once I have a rough idea of what exactly I will be writing about it makes it so much easier to start writing. The structure of the essay comes so much more naturally than it ever did before.

The challenge of getting started

Many people think goodbyes are hardest part of a relationship, but I disagree with this. I think getting to know someone is more difficult than anything. Similarly, I find starting a new paper extremely difficult. Like all college students I procrastinate. I think coming up with ideas in the shower or on walks between classes and starting my paper the night before class is good enough. But I could not be more wrong. Ideas come and go; one minute you have a great one and the next minute you can’t remember it. I need to write my ideas down on paper and explore them further before they vanish. Once it's on paper I may realize that it’s not a very good idea, but it is not going anywhere. To often I think I have a great topic for a paper, but when I finally sit down to write I realize there is nothing interesting to write about. By writing everything down however, I can work with the idea and make sure there is plenty for me to write about. Even if my pre-writing is not logical, I can at least find the path my writing should follow. Making sense and clarity can come later.

One more . . .

As much as I wish I could procrastinate and write my paper the night before. I cant. I make too many grammar and spelling mistakes. Plus, after some time to reflect on my writing, I change a lot of what I wrote. I normally start a couple days before a paper is due and try to create at least an outline or a thesis for my paper. Then, I write a really bad draft! I revise my draft about three times before I turn it in. Form there I revise my paper based on peer and professor input. Revision is crucial to a paper, so I try not to worry if my draft is not good. As long as I have ideas to work with, the paper will come together.

And one more … (note that these blog entries don’t need to be perfect or polished to be wonderful):

Beginning with the scratch outline rather than the formal outline

One organizational technique:

Democracy is the next to the last form of “warped society” that Socrates describes.  Socrates argues that democracy is an inferior form of government for many reasons. For Socrates a democracy is a society in which a false if universal equality has displaced that moral division of civic function on which the Ideal City must be founded.

“Interstellar,” an outer-space survivalist epic created by the director Christopher Nolan and his brother Jonathan, with whom he co-wrote the screenplay, is ardently, even fervently incomprehensible, a movie designed to separate the civilians from the geeks, with the geeks apparently the target audience. Review by David Denby, The New YorkerA SQUAT grey building of only thirty-four stories. Over the main entrance the words, CENTRAL LONDON HATCHERY AND CONDITIONING CENTRE, and, in a shield, the World State’s motto, COMMUNITY, IDENTITY, STABILITY.

Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

Modeling Theses

Development: Cues from the peer review guide

1. In a single sentence, paraphrase the thesis of the paper. 2. Is the thesis clear to you? If not, why not? 3. Is the thesis focused, and substantial? In other words does it offer a general view of the issue but also a view with some substance? Does it need a little more how? Does it need a little more why? (The analytical edge!) 4. Ask two questions of the thesis. (This will give the writer an idea of what you as the reader expect. Your questions might also provoke the writer to develop the idea in a new way.) But just ask two honest questions:

Revision, perhaps the most important processof all:

• Drafts • Peer editing days• Individual conferences• Feedback to papers from me includes editing suggestions, marginal

notes, and an often extended, typed endnote• Revised submissions

• Grade of submission averaged with that original to guarantee sufficient interest in the original

• Response to my feedback must include attention to organization, content, and sentence, rather than simply small errors

Why I assign a research paper:

1. Students will have to write them in future courses.2. It is a project in which technique and process become paramount.3. It allows them to pursue their own curiosities, always a virtue. 4. It usually moves us clearly into the realm of nonfictional topics.5. It is interesting to me because of the great variety of possible topics6. It lets students rehearse skills they will use in future classes

The Research Process (and associated techniques):

1. Choosing a topic2. Writing a prospectus3. Finding and using resources (Library Day)4. Writing an Annotated Bibliography5. Paraphrasing and quoting (Avoiding plagiarism)6. Presenting your initial work: group conferences,

3-to-4 pages of the draft due7. Final Submission

The Prospectus

• Each student submits online a prospective research question and 3-to-5 subsidiary questions.

• I reply with marginal comments and a side note. My almost invariable response is “You need to get more specific.”

• They try to get more specific and often fail the first time around.

• I reply again, usually pushing them to get even more specific and to ask questions that can be answered through research and presented in 8-to-10 pages.

• Some prospectuses go through 3 or 4 rounds of this procedure before full quota of points is awarded.

Finding and Using Resources, Library DayAsk your department’s library liaison to create a research guideThe Purdue OWL (online writing lab) also provides guidance on research and citations, and it’s a good resource for students in the future as well.

For all course readings and papers, we consider not just what something means, but also on how it means.

• Why do you like it! • What’s good about it?• How is the meaning supported by the style of the piece? • How is it organized? • How does it get a lot of information into a clearly

structured sentences? Does it vary sentence length and if so, to what end?

• How would you characterize the word choice in the piece, especially the verbs?

Distancing, or becoming alert to style an structure

In the end, students may not take everything they have learned with them from our Writing and Culture courses, but they will take something--maybe process, maybe technique, or maybeeven a new relation to their own writing.

But the process is cumulative—and Georgetown students do generally become very good writers.

As I was once told by the now retired Leona Fisher, the teaching of writing is a group project. It doesn’t happen all at once or even in one class. Those words stuck with me.

Learning to write: a mega-process