Workshop Guidelines for Writing Sarah Bay-Cheng Trebor Scholz Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 1
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WorkshopGuidelines for Writing
Sarah Bay-ChengTrebor Scholz
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0
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Recommended Books
A Pocket Style ManualDaine Hacker
On Writing WellWilliam K. Zinsser
The Elements of StyleWilliam Strunk and E.B. White
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download this presentation:
http://molodiez.org/rules_for_writing.pdf
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Who is writing?
Voice, Perspective
Artist, Social Scientist, Film Theorist, Anthropologist
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•Be clear. Clear writing comes from clear thinking.
• Avoid complicated words.
• Specificity will raise interest.
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What is at stake in your project?
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Know the rules of writing and learn when to break
them. Establish a schedule for writing and stick to it.
Write regularly. Practice, practice, practice.
Read good writers.
Q: What is a good time to write?
A: The same time.
How do I get better at writing?
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Writing Process
Plan
Rough Draft (Content)
Rewrite (Argument, Consistency)
Rewrite (Sentence Level)
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In your opening sentences, give readers some
background information about the issue you have
chosen to debate; as you do this, establish your own
credibility by showing that you are knowledgeable and
fair-minded.
At the end of your first paragraph, state your thesis—
your own stand on the debatable issue. Provide your
intellectual background.
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Build common ground with readers who may disagree
with your position on the issue.
Attempt to refute opposing arguments—or at least to
explain why they are less weighty than your own
arguments.
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• An argumentative paper will have a strong claim for which you can imagine an intelligent opposition.
• Define your central terms and stick to your definitions.
• You should support your claims with quotations from other texts. Take a stand on the issue and defend your position to a general audience of intelligent but skeptical readers. Evaluate a source carefully before deciding to use it. Anticipate objections to your thesis.
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Research
Literature ReviewEvaluating sources
online: author, dateonline vs. printpeer-reviewed
limit scopeCreate a bibliography
http://credibility.stanford.edu/resources.html
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Evaluating SourcesWeb search engines often amass vast results, from memos to scholarly documents. Many of the resulting items will be peripheral or useless for your research
Source. Author/producer is identifiable. Author/producer has expertise on the subject as indicated on a credentials page. You may need to trace back in the URL (Internet address) to view a page in a higher directory with background information sponsor/location of the site is appropriate to the material as shown in the URL.
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Content AccuracyDon't take the information presented at face valueLook for
point of viewevidence of bias
Source of the information should be clearly stated, whether original or borrowed from elsewhere
Prefer sources with named authors; do not rely heavily on unsigned articles or anonymous Web site material.
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Cut. Find the essence.Put it away for a day or two.Look it over and cut again.
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Pay equal attention to the first and last sentence.The perfect ending should take your readers slightly by surprise and yet seem right.
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http://tinyurl.com/yo3scl
People judge you based on your communication skills.
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Titles Every essay or report you ever write should have a
title, and that title should give prospective readers a sense not only of your topic, but also of your thesis. College-level papers are ideally essays that create
their own context, and not private correspondences between students and their professors. The title
should be centered on the first page.
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• Enforce a unity of pronoun (e.g., first person), unity of tense and mood.
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Quotation Marks vs. Apostrophes Never substitute an apostrophe, <’>, for a quotation mark, <”>, and never use a quotation mark unless
you’re really quoting. Students often use apostrophes when they are paraphrasing a
stereotypical view, or use apostrophes for what are often called “scare quotes”—an indication that one
is quoting an opinion which one does not really believe. Don’t make this mistake. The only time you
should use apostrophes to indicate a quotation is when you find yourself needing to present a
quotation within a quotation:
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Whom, Whose
With whom did Alan go out last night?
With whom do you think you’re speaking to?
Whom you know counts more than what you
know.
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The breakfast menu included ham and eggs, pancakes, omelets, and french toast.
Lists
an houran honorary degree
a hinta hospital, a hotel
Aspiration
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Avoid using passive constructions whenever possible. You all should know what a passive
construction looks like by now:
“A compositional error was committed”; as opposed to “Johnny committed several compositional
errors.” Passive constructions conceal questions of agency, precisely the questions with which critical
essays should be most concerned. Passive constructions most frequently appear when a writer
is generalizing.
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Samantha went to the store. She forgot to buy milk.
OR
Samantha went to the store; she forgot to buy milk.
NOT
Samantha went to the store, she forgot to buy milk.
Semicolon
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i.e."I.e." stands simply for "that is""I.e." is used in place of "in other words," or "it/that is." It specifies or makes more clear.
e.g."E.g." means "for example."
It is used in expressions similar to "including," when you are not intending to list everything that is being discussed.
i.e. versus e.g.
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Respect the difference between hyphens, <->, and dashes, <-->. They mean very different things. When you wish to use a dash, type the hyphen key twice.
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He versus him Do not assume that humanity can be universally described by the male pronouns. If you feel you must use pronouns in the abstract (i.e., not for a
specific person), do not use “he” and “him” exclusively. There are a number of stylistic
substitutions you can use. You can use “him/her,” “s/he,” or, “him or her.” You may also alternate
pronouns from one usage to the next.
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HoweverFineThe roads were almost impassable. However, we at last succeeded in reaching the camp.
BetterThe roads were almost impassable. At last, however, we succeeded in reaching the camp.
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You should avoid presenting quotations as independent sentences, unless you are block
quoting. Introduce a quotation, and then set it off with a comma or a colon.
Ellipses, < . . . >, are unnecessary at the beginning or end of quotations—it is assumed that you are
excerpting when you quote. Use ellipses when you interrupt a quotation.
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The word “this” is not a pronoun: it cannot be used as the subject of a sentence without an
accompanying noun or noun-phrase. The only exception to this rule is when “this” is immediately followed by a verb of being. “This is a case in point.”
But, for your purposes, it is better to avoid the impulse altogether.
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The punctuating of quotations. Periods and commas, in American convention always go inside quotation marks; colons and semi-colons go outside
(if you use a book published in Britain you’ll find that different conventions pertain). Consider the
sentence below:In Eliot’s view, poetry cannot be written without a
sufficiently developed “historical sense,” a sense he finds “indispensable to any one who would
continue to be a poet beyond his twenty-fifth year” (Selected Essays, 4).
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Its and It’s.The possessive for a non-gendered object is “its.” For example, “When opening the peanut butter, I
lost its cap.” The contraction for “it is” is “it’s.”
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Online Research Tools
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