Class activity, Feb. 10

Hey guys -

It sounds like most of you viewed the peer review process as largely positive, and for that I am very glad.

One comment that I was glad somebody shared, however, is that it can be difficult to peer review when you are all in the same class to learn how to write in the first place; how can you, then, recognize a mistake that someone else doesn't?

For today's class, I want to go over a few common mistakes that many, sometimes even most, beginning writers make that are easy to avoid, and then I want to give you guys a chance to practice using these as you might in your paper. Through this exercise I want to encourage you guys to see what's already going on in your paper, and think about how those areas affect the final impact of your writing.

3 COMMON PROBLEMS OF THE BEGINNING WRITING PROCESS

1. Helicopter author syndrome

Everyone has known someone whose mother (or father) is way, WAY too concerned with the well-being of her (or his) child; you may, in fact, have one of those mothers (or fathers). College administrators HATE parents like this, and call them "helicopter parents," because they just sort of hover around their children and hold their hand through every little bump in the road.

Many times when writers first get started composing, they experience a relationship with their text very similar to what a helicopter mom feels for their child. They primp and pamper and hold its hand, and the result is a very prolonged and weakened establishment of authority.

To avoid being a helicopter author:

- Be confident when introducing your point. If you have more than 2 introductory sentences AT THE ABSOLUTE MOST before you get to content unique to yourself, you are hovering too much.

- Don't just restate the expectations in the paper prompt. I wrote the damn thing; I know what you're writing about and how you're going to do it. I expect you to have an introduction to your papers; I also expect that introduction to be your words and your thoughts, not just my guidelines. If your introduction merely restates the information found in the essay prompt, you're hovering too much.

- Don't second guess the intelligence of your reader. Sometimes when you're writing something and you ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO get a specific message across, it can be tempting to hit the reader over the head with what he/she should take away from your text. This obvious manipulation can be very off-putting at times. Instead, have faith that your reader experiences emotions the way every normal human does, and leave it to him/her to decide that Bambi's mother dying is sad.

2. Marty McFly syndrome

Whether you knew it or not, you think the title of the movie "Back to the Future" is hilarious. Everybody does. It's because there's a weird little twist in your expected mental chronology there. You can't go BACK to the future, because the future, by its very definition, is IN FRONT OF US. Ha ha ha.

When you're reading a paper, however, it isn't funny if your understanding of time gets jumbled up like Marty's thoughts when his future mom kisses him in the past. To avoid the confusing metaphor, it detracts significantly from an organic enjoyment of writing if you keep switching tenses without a genius-level creative reason for doing so.

To avoid being a Marty McFly:

- DON'T JUST RELY ON SPELLCHECK. Have a human being read over your writing. Have a couple, in fact. As you read over your writing, ask yourself: AM I KEEPING MY READER IN A CONSTANT TIME, OR IS MY READER ABOUT TO KISS HIS MOTHER IN THE PAST?

- Let me put that another way. If you are telling a story that happened to you in the past, as you most often will, you have three options:

(A) Tell it ALL in the past tense. This mimics typical storytelling and is usually what a reader expects in the average story. Example: I went to the store. I bought popcorn, and then I watched Back to the Future.

(B) Tell it ALL in the present tense. This can make a story seem more immediate and engaging, but at the expense of making it more difficult to separate WHEN things are happening. Example: I go into the store. I buy popcorn, and then I watched Back to the Future.

(C) Tell it in a HODGEPODGE OF TENSES THAT LEAVE MY READER CONFUSED. This is an excellent choice if you dislike your readers and want to keep secrets from them. Example: I went to the store. I buy popcorn, and then I watched Garth sob in the corner about my tense misuse.

3. Michael Scott syndrome

Everyone knows somebody who can't really tell the difference between a great time to tell the story of their uncle's hernia exam and a terrible time to tell the story of their uncle's hernia exam. A useful hint is that it's never a good time to tell the story of your uncle's hernia exam.

In academic writing, this comes across as a misuse of voice. There is a wide range of subjects that I am sure you would discuss with your roommate/best friend/dear diary that you simply wouldn't discuss with your mother/me/the little old lady waiting for the bus. Though your mother, the old lady, and I are all very eager to know who you are and what you're all about, it would be a mistake to just launch into a curse-laden tirade about how much crack you snorted this weekend.

To avoid being a Michael Scott:

- Understand WHO you're writing to (if you want to be absolutely correct: Understand TO WHOM you are writing). In academic writing, it is best to imagine saying everything you've just written while wearing a suit and tie and applying for the job of your dreams at the ice cream factory (or wherever the job of your dreams may be).

- Understand WHAT you're writing about. Some topics may be difficult to write about without horrifying an academic audience. These can be obvious, like the time you kidnapped the crown prince of Somalia, or more subtle, like when you use personal anecdotes in a situation that isn't appropriate. Ask yourself whether the topic you're writing about lends itself to a Michael Scott moment, and then steer clear.

- Be yourself. Nobody wants to read robot writing. By the same token, I expect you guys to imbue your writing with some of the flavor of your individual lives. Just make sure that you don't share more than you intend to get graded on.

ACTIVITY TIME!

To put these three subjects in practice, we're going to do a little writing exercise. Below are links to three songs:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDm_ZHyYTrg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhRRWwH3Fro

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsClnVfJwHA&feature=fvw

Each song tells a clear story. I want you each to pick one song (your choice; please don't all just pick the first link) and treat it as if it happened to you and you're including it as the first story in your paper.

To complete this exercise, you need to:

1. Introduce your story in a way that sets up our understanding of it without holding our hand.

2. Describe the story in a consistent and appropriate way. Each of these songs will have some element that is probably not appropriate to turn in for a grade; it's your job to decide what to include and what not to include.

3. Reflect on this story AS THE PERSON SINGING IT. That is, analyze the ethos of this song so as to decide why it would be relevant to include in a paper like this.

Write this as a comment to this post. BE PREPARED TO SHARE YOUR WRITING.