Telling Stories

Telling stories is a basic English usage task that we use on a daily basis. Unfortunately, students sometimes get caught up in trying too hard to speak English 'correctly' and can get lost. This at the cost of the story becoming difficult to understand or even incoherent. This lesson plan is aimed at helping students give structure to their relating of true stories.
Aim: Learning the basic structure and expressions used when telling true stories
Activity: Listening to a story, text arrangement, questionnaire, structure study and final story telling segment
Level: Intermediate - Upper Intermediate
Outline:
Tell the class a true story about some experience that has happened to you. Make sure to follow the story telling structure outline used during the lesson:
Introduction: Introduce the story by telling what kind of story it is
Beginning: How the story started
The Story: The main events related in order
The End: What has changed or how things are now
Moral: Final comments or moral conclusions about the story
Follow up your story with some basic comprehension questions.
Ask the students to put the reading comprehension into the correct order.
Have students underline key vocabulary that introduce and relate the sequence of events.
Discuss this vocabulary as a class.
Ask students to fill out the questionnaire. You can also do this activity as a pair work exercise with students asking each other the questions.
Ask students to review the story telling structure. Point out how your story and the reading comprehension follow the structure layout.
Ask students to use the information from the questionnaire to write their own true story.
Have students get into pairs and read each other the story. Ask students to pay careful attention to the story as they will need to relate the story to another partner.
Ask students to find another partner and relate the story that they have just been told to the new partner.
For Homework: Ask students to plan and write another true story of about 100 words.
Answer the following questions:
Think of a story that has happened to you or a friend of yours that is remarkable. What happened?
Was this a happy or sad story? Why?
What were the main events of the story? In what order did they happen?
How have things changed because of this story? What are things like now?
What lessons did you learn from the story?

Sample Teacher Interview Questions

The teacher can provide this type of questions to students to conduct an interview in class and ask them to write their own questions on different topics.
Teacher Relationships with Students
1. What kind of students do you like to work with? What type of students could you teach most effectively?
2. You give an assignment, a student ridicules the assignment, saying it doesn’t make sense. What would you do?
3. How do you help students experience success?
4. How would you individualize instruction for students?
5. What procedures do you use to evaluate student progress besides using tests?
6. How would you challenge the slow learner and the advanced learner within the same class?
7. What would your students say about you?
8. What kind of teachers would you prefer to work with? Why?
9. Who should be responsible for discipline in a school? Why?
10. How do you collaborate with your colleagues?

English Dialogues: Beginner's Dialogues

Using dialogues to help students develop their conversation skills is common practice in most English classes. One of the main advantages to using dialogues is that students are given a rubric as a basis on which they can then build. Once they have become comfortable using a dialogue, students can then go on to have related conversations building on their familiarity with the dialogue and the vocabulary specific to the situation.
Dialogues can be used in many ways in a classroom. Here are a few suggestions for using dialogues in the classroom:
· To introduce new vocabulary and help students become familiar with standard formulas used when discussing various topics
· As gap fill exercises for students as a listening exercise
· Use dialogues for role-plays
· Have students write dialogues to test key vocabulary and language formulas
· Have students memorize simple dialogues as a way of helping them improve their vocabulary skills
· Ask students to finish a dialogue

SENTENCE FAULTS:

Comma Splices, Fused Sentences, and Sentence Fragments

Clause: group of words with a subject and verb.
Ex: students attend college
Independent clause: a clause that can stand alone as a full sentence.
Ex: Students attend college.
Dependent clause: a clause that cannot stand alone because it contains a subordinating conjunction.
Ex: While students attend college
Phrase: group of words lacking a subject and/or verb.
Ex: attending college
Comma splice: two sentences/independent clauses joined ONLY by a comma.
Ex: It’s not just a job, it’s an adventure.
Fused sentence: two sentences/independent clauses joined by nothing.
Ex: It’s not just a job it’s an adventure.
Five ways to correct a comma splice or fused sentence:
1. Separate the two independent clauses with a period and capital letter:
It’s not just a job. It’s an adventure.
2. Link the clauses with a comma AND a coordinating conjunction:
It’s not just a job, because it’s also an adventure.
3. Link the clauses with a semicolon:
It’s not just a job; it’s an adventure.
4. Make the two clauses into ONE independent clause:
It’s both a job and an adventure.
5. Make one clause DEPENDENT by using a subordinating conjunction:
It’s not just a job, since it’s also an adventure.
Coordinating conjunctions: and, but, for, nor, or, so, yet (exactly 7)
Subordinating conjunctions: [include] after, although, as, because, before, if, since, so that, that, unless, until, what, when, where, whether, which, while, who
Sentence fragment: an incomplete sentence that is punctuated like a sentence
Common types of sentence fragments:
1. Dependent clause fragment
Ex: When he decided to work part-time. He gave up some earning potential.
Methods of correcting a dependent clause fragment:
1. Attach the dependent clause to a nearby independent clause.
2. Delete the subordinating conjunction.
3. Rewrite the whole passage.
2. Phrase fragments
Exs: He wanted to make a point. To prove to everyone that he was capable. (infinitive phrase)
She worked hard every day. Trying to keep up with her boss’s demands. (-ing participle phrase)
Steve talked for hours. Elated by the company’s success.
(past participle phrase)
They kept dialing the boss’s phone number. With no luck.
(prepositional phrase)
The prize was awarded to Sheila. The best worker in the company. (appositive phrase)
Joan Didion has written on many subjects. Such as the Hoover Dam. (frags beginning with a transitional phrase, or ‘added detail’ fragments)

Methods of correcting a phrase fragment:
1. Attach the phrase to a nearby independent clause.
2. Change the phrase to an independent clause.
3. Rewrite the whole passage.
3. Phrases missing a subject
Ex: They sold their house. And moved into an apartment.

Reasoning to Writing

The pre-writing process for a critical paper
Read and summarize information on the issue you are considering.
Identify the important or recurring questions on the issue.
List as many answers to those questions as possible - on both (or more) sides of the issue (to avoid weak-sense critical thinking).
State those answers as positions.
For each position,
Identify all the reasons you have discovered in your research.
Write each reason in deductive argument form.
Evaluate whether the logical form of the argument is valid
Evaluate those arguments for soundness, using Modus Ponens and Modus Tollens argument strategies .
Clearly state the possible positions on the issue.
For each possible position, examine your argument structures to gather support for the position. Choose appropriate evidence that will produce the most powerful and coherent position.
Think about the objections or alternatives to the position (see #2 above).
Write a clear thesis statement (including the major objection or alternative, the position itself, and the reasons for that position.)
Develop a sentence outline based on that thesis statement.
Preparing to write a critical paper
College professors ask for critical evaluation of issues
How are we going to apply all this "stuff" we've been studying?
Practice strategies to
Identify issues on a topic
Identify alternative positions on an issue
Develop and evaluate arguments on a position
Write a thesis statement that summarizes the critical thinking process about the issue
Expand the thesis statement into a sentence outline that includes support for each argument
Follow a format to write the outline (first introduced in Chapter Three).
Use the sentence outline as a guide for writing an essay to articulate the critical process and judgment on the issue
A writing strategy helps in any writing assignment, no matter what the discipline.
The critical thinker’s strategy is a good one to fall back on.
Similar processes are useful for the types of writing assignments common in other disciplines.
Researching the issue
Definition of terms
Topic - general area of inquiry – usually given
Issue - specific question on a topic – may or may not require thought on the part of the student
Position - stand or view on an issue – the heart of the paper
The critical thinker’s writing strategy
Familiarize yourself with the thinking on the topic by reading and discussing with others.
Identify questions on the topic that might need to be answered (issues). Include even unusual or unpopular ones. Identifying the question to answer is crucial.
Answer the questions in various ways (generate positions). Consider all answers you can think of that have been or can be given to the questions.
State those positions in complete declarative sentences (position statements).
Consider whether a position might lead to further questions which also could be answered in a variety of ways.
Be specific (rather than broad or abstract) in stating positions (e.g., teenagers vs people). The more focused the question, the more specific can be the response and the easier it is to identify what type of evidence should be considered in its evaluation.
Reject positions that have no substance or are not worth arguing. Consider as many positions on the issue as possible.
Identify one or more promising positions and inventory your knowledge of the evidence for and against the position. A two-column list has the advantage (and disadvantage) of providing a visual evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of the position. If the list is really lopsided, you should recognize that it might be evidence that you are using weak-sense critical thinking!
Consider which items on the list are common knowledge and probably need no detailed research and which do need support (and of what kind).
Collect enough evidence and arguments for each position for an honest evaluation of the position.
Type of evidence will vary depending on subject matter and discipline.
Construct as many valid deductive arguments as possible both for and against each position.
Using the Modus Ponens, Modus Tollens, and Disjunctive Syllogism argument strategies
First, create valid arguments for and against each alternative position.
State the position as the conclusion of the argument (usually Modus Ponens or Modus Tollens).
Develop the major and minor premises using specific reasons found through research.
Second, examine the premises to determine how reasonable they are. Explore whether
the premises are relevant and at least probable.
there is a likely causal or conceptual connection between the antecedent and consequent of the conditional in a major premise.
there is sufficient evidence in support of the minor premise.
the premises entail the conclusion.
there are hidden unacceptable or questionable assumptions in the position.
there is an informal fallacy in the argument.
the language is clear enough that the reader can readily understand all claims.
Use the Arguments Worksheet to help in this process.
Choosing the most reasonable position
For each position you have examined, list the arguments in order of strength and relevance.
Choose the most defensible position.
Choose the strongest arguments both for and against the position.
Use the “Argument Strategies Template” to help make the decision.
Constructing a thesis
A simple three-part pattern for a thesis statement is the central part of this section.
Numerous examples in the chapter show that including these three parts in a thesis statement does not mean that the thesis statement has to be wooden.
Use the “Argument Strategies Template” to help formulate a thesis statement.
Expanding the thesis into a sentence outline
Four complete and briefly annotated outlines are included for evaluation.
Each outline is clearly connected with the results of applying the argument strategies.
The better the research and evaluation, the better the outline (and thus the paper) is likely to be.
Staying on target is important; straying off the main point is not good.
Use the “Sentence outline template” to convert your thesis statement and arguments into structured form that you can easily follow to write a paper that develops your thesis statement.
Review and planning sheets
The templates on pages 222-223 are available on this Web site (http://www.bakeru.edu/faculty/aspencer). Students can simply save each template to a file on their disk and provide their own substance.

Improving Foreign Language Writing Competence

Carmen Schlig
Georgia State University
Abstract
Process writing has long been used in English-language composition and English as a Second Language courses, and in recent years it has been adopted in foreign language classes as well. Nevertheless, many teachers and learners still see foreign language writing as an exercise in perfecting grammar and vocabulary. Explicit instruction on the process of insightful writing is unusual in the foreign language classroom. This article presents a study of third-year Spanish courses and addresses (1) whether the different modalities of error correction promote improvement of writing skills , and (2) whether students’ awareness of the processes of reading and writing favors the development of the necessary abilities that will be required in more advanced courses. This study identifies the processes that allow students to acknowledge and address strengths and weaknesses that are not necessarily tied to grammatical competence. Findings show that regardless of the explicitness of the corrections, students performed better when electronic feedback was used and when they were aware of both reading and writing processes.
Background
The field of second language (L2) writing has raised theoretical concerns about how students improve writing skills. While some authors have looked into process writing as the optimum way to improve the skill (Roca de Larios, et al, 2002; Susser, 1994; Scott, 1996; Zamel, 1983), others have explored the effects of error feedback on writing proficiency (Ferris, 1995, 1999; Truscott, 1996, 1999; Ferris and Roberts, 2001; Robb, Ross, and Shortreed, 1986; Semke, 1984; Lalande, 1982), and the processes involved in reading-to-write (Carson, 1993; Flower, et al., 1990; Ruiz-Funes, 2001).
Since the 1970s, studies present writing as a “recursive, nonlinear cognitive process in which the writer moves back and forth between prewriting, writing, revising, and editing until he/she is satisfied with his/her creation” (Flower and Hayes, 1981). Research in the last 10 years has moved towards a more comprehensive theory of L2 writing, and an examination of the notion that first language (L1) and L2 writing are the same “has led L2 writing specialists to rely for direction almost exclusively on L1 composition theories…” (Silva, 1993). Reichelt (1999) has found an increase in studies on foreign language (FL) writing—other than English—since 1990. She has also noticed that many of the researchers consider themselves language teachers rather than writing teachers, thus supporting the notion that “FL writing is currently seen more as ‘foreign language’ than ‘writing’” (p. 182).
This study contributes to the discussion by incorporating several strategies into an intermediate course of the language sequence at a large state university that has become—based on students’ observations collected over the past five years—a place where many undergo a difficult transition between lower- and upper-division courses. The observations of students’ struggle to improve their foreign language skills raised the questions of whether certain conditions favor or hinder the development of necessary abilities that are required in advanced courses.
Kern and Schultz (1992) indicate that preparation of students is crucial to promotion because “in the upper-level courses students are expected to read articles and literary selections and to react and respond to them in an insightful and critical manner” (p. 2). Ruiz-Funes (1999) also emphasizes the contrast in tasks in advanced courses where “reading and writing requirements begin to demand more higher-order cognitive skills, instruction tends to focus on the mastery of the linguistic elements; and teachers tend to use writing-process and reading-process instruction independently from each other” (p. 45). Explicit instruction in the processes of critical reading and insightful writing is unusual in the FL classroom. As Kern and Schultz point out, some teachers and learners still see FL writing as an exercise in perfecting grammar and vocabulary:
Writing in lower-division language courses traditionally consists of fill-in-the-blank workbook exercises and occasional descriptive essays about personal topics such as friends, family, and vacations. In these writing tasks, the focus is usually on surface feature accuracy rather than on the development, organization, and effective expression of the students’ own thoughts or ideas (p. 2).
This study investigates the conditions that favor the development of writing skills and questions whether some areas are not meant to be improved at this point.
The term process writing, as used in this project, refers to pre-writing, drafting, feedback, and revising, as part of a non-linear model. It follows the two tenets of process writing as described by Susser (1994): awareness and intervention. The concept also departs from the personal introspective paradigm prevalent in L1 and L2 writing courses that obviously addresses more advanced writers than those who participated in this study.
According to Ruiz-Funes (1999), research on reading-to-write in FL belongs to two categories: (a) narrowing the intermediate/advanced-level gap, and (b) teaching literature in order to develop higher cognitive skills. Students in advanced levels are often required to write essays for which previous work has not prepared them intellectually. Since intermediate writing is usually circumscribed to narration and description, students lack the necessary tools to approach writing an argumentative essay and “engage in a complex process that includes exploration of a problem, evaluation of facts and evidences, generation and testing of hypotheses in relation to new ideas an evidence” (p. 521). In order to overcome these problems, students need to be aware that good writing is not just grammatically accurate and that other factors, such as organization, coherence, and use of cohesive devices, are essential elements of good writing.
This study also compares the use of handwritten comments to electronic corrections and their effects on students revisions of composition errors. For the handwritten comments, two items were implemented: an adaptation of the Essay Correction Code (ECCO) and the Error Awareness Sheet (EASE) (Lalande, 1982). For the electronic corrections Ferris’ (2001) model of “treatable” and “untreatable” errors was adopted. (Appendix A)
Process writing
The adaptation of L1 process writing approach into FL writing practices seems to have taken one of its least pedagogical modalities, breaking down the process into stages that “not only violate[s] what we know about the recursive nature of writing, it distorts a responsible pedagogy into a didactic one” (Susser, 1994: 35). Although English as a Second Language (ESL) writing theory is already in the “post-process” era, addressing genre and social issues, it is still necessary to point out the controversy about process writing. In his detailed discussion of process approaches in L2 writing, Susser mentions that disagreement was caused by the association of process pedagogies with numerous writing theories, the gap between educational theory and practice and the fact that process became a synonym for theories of writing. Process writing emerged as a response to pedagogies that emphasized the composed product rather than the writing process. Process writing is characterized by the awareness of the writer of the writing process and the intervention of a teacher, or peers, at any time during the process of writing in order to improve writing skills instead of exclusively fixing mistakes (pp. 34-35). In foreign language studies (i.e., other than ESL or EFL [English as a Foreign Language]) writing progress has been measured by accuracy. Similarly, Dvorak (1986) concludes that beyond the intermediate level “composition skill has been defined primarily in terms of language development” demonstrated by the main preoccupation of research that focuses on “how to reduce and repair error damage” (p. 162).
Reading-to-write
Reading-to-write is defined as tasks that require students to write an essay based on the reading of an assigned source text. Such tasks may require students to read texts that have a variety of topics and orientations (Ruiz-Funes, 1999; Kern and Schultz, 1992). Stein’s (1990) reading-to-write-in-L1-hypothesis proposes the following steps: (1) Monitoring: the writer uses the original text to supervise his/her progress; (2) elaborating: the writer combines the source text with prior knowledge of the topic creating new ideas; (3) structuring: the writer reorganizes information from the source to the new text; and (4) planning: the writer moves from reading to writing. If reading-to-write were similar in L2 and L1, it would be necessary to look at the cognitive processes involved in the act of reading in order to understand it and help students develop the skill. In addition to all of the cognitive processes, however the FL student has to decode the text in order to interact with it.
Effects of error correction on FL Writing
Most students expect and value the feedback they receive in writing, and research has shown that there seems to be a connection between active correction of errors and improvement in writing skills. Ferris (1995) emphasizes the importance that students give to writing accurately and their perceived need to obtain corrections from the instructor. An important factor mentioned by Truscott (1996) —who, incidentally, opposes grammar correction—is the necessity of not treating every linguistic category (lexicon, syntax, and morphology) as equivalent since these categories represent separate learning domains that are acquired during different stages and through different processes. Nevertheless, most researchers (Ferris and Roberts, 2001; Robb, Ross, and Shortreed, 1986; Semke, 1984; Lalande, 1982) agree that corrections are useful for the students as long as they are consistent and systematic. In his study about the effects of graded versus ungraded compositions, Chastain (1990) found that although there was no significant difference between the number and types of errors, “in some ways the expectation of a grade may influence student’s writing in some positive ways…. Students in this study wrote longer papers containing longer sentences and a higher number of complex sentences” (p. 14). Corrections place an importance on what is corrected, thus exclusive surface-level error correction places emphasis on form.
Over the years, correction of written production has provoked some controversy. Several studies (Ferris and Roberts, 2001; Terry, 1989; Zamel, 1985; Lalande, 1982) endorse differing approaches to written correction, which can be separated into two main categories: (a) explicit (direct): the instructor indicates the error and provides the correct form and (b) non-explicit (indirect): the instructor marks the error in some fashion (underlined, highlighted, coded, etc.) and the student has to decide the correction. Some researchers (Chastain, 1990; Scott, 1996; Ruiz-Funes 2001) have adapted Lalande’s (1982) ECCO to provide students with an indication of the type of errors without giving the correct answer. This procedure has become a common classroom practice that encourages learning through problem-solving. Ferris and Roberts (2001) established five main categories of errors—verbs, noun-endings, articles, lexicon, and sentences structure (p. 169), and she has found that by using these five categories students are more successful at correcting errors even in such areas as word choice and sentence structure. In a different study Ferris (1999) classifies errors as treatable (patterned and rule-governed) or untreatable for which there is no set of rules that students can consult to avoid making mistakes. For these errors she recommends a combination of direct correction and a set of strategies exclusive to this type of error.
For language students it is very important to understand that there is no ideal model for writing and that they are not being compared to native speakers, or more proficient classmates. Instructors need to remember that one cannot expect the second language learner to be able to write like an educated native speaker. As Yates and Kenkel (2002) point out, “To compare the learners’ knowledge to native speaker knowledge commits the comparative fallacy and provides incomplete insight into what principles the learner had” (p. 34). Therefore, the scoring instrument should reflect the kinds of tasks that are done in the classroom.
The Project: Description and Method
This research examines the following research questions:
1. What effect do different modalities of error correction have on students’ self-editing abilities?2. What is the effect of awareness of the processes of reading and writing on quality of writing?
Participants
The participants are 35 university students enrolled in Intermediate Spanish III (fifth-semester). In order to ensure the homogeneity of the sample all participants: (a) were native speakers of English, (b) had received two to four semesters of formal instruction in Spanish at the university level, (c) had scored 80% or less on the listening comprehension pretest, and (d) scored less than 80% on a diagnostic composition. Participants in group A (n = 16) were selected out of 25 students who took the course; group B participants (n = 19) were selected out of 32 students. Only those participants who met all criteria above listed were included in the study. The score in the diagnostic test (less than 80%) was determined as representative of the average student’s writing at this institution. Both sections were taught by the researcher in consecutive semesters.
Procedures
The fifth-semester course places an emphasis on the development of the four skills necessary to succeed in advanced courses. Grammar is never explicitly discussed. Students are encouraged to identify structures with which they have problems and work on them either by talking to the professor, consulting a tutor, or downloading handouts from the online course management system Web Course Tools (WebCT).
This study examines 140 samples of a corpus of N = 280 (first draft and final version of the two compositions). The first composition is used for diagnostic purposes and is part of other diagnostic instruments that measure motivation, grammatical judgment, listening comprehension, and oral proficiency. Students are also asked to rank the importance of language skills (Appendix A) using a survey adapted from Alalou and Chamberlain (1999).
Students wrote all their compositions in a word processor in the language lab. The use of word-processing for the writing component of the course presents many benefits for students and instructors. Grennia (1992) reports that students using the word processor wrote three to seven times more than those who used traditional methods and that the instructors “always have a clean, legible copy and unlimited space for responses” (p. 35). Smith (1990) found that students engaged in writing as a process using computers developed more fluency and their writing was more expressive. Scott (1996) recognizes more advantages in the use of word-processors for teaching foreign language writing: First, “the computer environment provides a good opportunity for implementing a process-oriented approach to teaching FL writing” (p. 94); second, there is a notable improvement of textual coherence attained by revising and correcting ideas and surface-level features using the computer.
Out-of-Class Writing
During the semester, students in Group A (n = 16) turned in 15 journal entries in four installments, after the discussions of every three or four topics. The instructor made comments to indicate that the entries had been read. Grammar mistakes were not marked, but the instructor made observations regarding the comprehensibility of each entry. The use of the journals was meant to build fluency. Casanave’s (2004) students reported that they spent less time writing the same number of words at the end of the semester. Some wrote more accurately or wrote with more details and expressiveness. In contrast, in this study, most students wrote extremely short entries, in many instances no more that four sentences per entry. In the last entry students were asked to comment on their strategies for journal writing and on the perceived benefits of the tasks. Ten participants indicated that they would have liked to have their grammar corrected in order to develop accuracy. Nine mentioned that they wrote all the entries in one session, thus defeating the purpose of journal writing all together.
In contrast, students in Group B (n = 19) submitted 15 reading comprehension exercises corresponding to class assignments. The entries were marked for content, organization, and accuracy. Students turned in their writing portfolio twice during the semester for a grade. Full credit was given only if all corrections had been made. In the introduction to the final portfolio, students were asked to comment on their approach to revising errors, their use of the source text, and the perceived benefits of writing a portfolio. Twelve students reported to have used their first-year Spanish book instead of a dictionary or a grammar book as a reference because the explanations were clear and concise. Eight students mentioned the difficulty of writing their own sentences using a source text . These students had a tendency to copy sentences literally from the source text, sometimes using fragments that did not convey complete ideas. These problems were not encountered in the compositions because tasks were designed to create a new text using the source instead of demonstrating reading comprehension. Regarding the benefits of writing a portfolio, nine participants admitted they had waited until the deadline to make corrections for all the entries, which resulted in a progressive decline of successful corrections.
In-Class Activities
Prewriting. Both groups engaged in prewriting activities in the classroom, the success or failure of which depended mainly on the completion of the homework assignments. In order to provide models of writing, participants read three to four short essays from the textbook or other sources. After each reading, the class discussed the content of the selection as well as the characteristics of the genre, the tone, the theme, and so forth. Participants worked in groups on one or more of the following tasks: surveying classmates, expressing agreement or disagreement, expressing preferences, comparing and contrasting, and narrating a personal experience to illustrate a point of view. During this stage students shared ideas and tested hypotheses orally, and each group presented a summary of its findings to the class.
Participants in Group A received a prewriting worksheet that required them to write an outline of their composition and a list of words (nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, etc.) that they anticipated useful for the topic. Students were encouraged to compare their lists with their classmates and share information. The worksheets were evaluated for completion, and students were allowed to use them while writing their compositions as long as they had not written complete sentences on them.
Participants in Group B received a prewriting worksheet to be completed at home. They were instructed to organize ideas and vocabulary according to semantic categories. During the next meeting, students worked in groups and explained their choices to each other. Students who had not completed the tasks in advance did not sit with a group and finished the worksheet by themselves. By the end of class, each group presented its ideas and explained its choices, and the instructor answered questions about vocabulary and how to approach specific tasks (description, narration, comparisons, etc.). Participants were expected to note ideas during the discussion sessions. The last worksheet contained specific structures that were considered useful to the students according on the task (e.g., list advantages or disadvantages of tourism, list the positive and negative impacts of technology on every day life, list the characteristics of realist vs. surrealist art.)
Writing. The first sample (E 1) was written in the language lab the fourth week of classes for both groups. Participants had a 55-minute time limit to write and proofread, but there was not a required number of words. The last essay (E 4) was also written in the language lab the 13th week of classes. There was a 60-minute time limit to write, proofread, and print or send the essay via email. Both groups had a choice of three topics based on a source text. Group A printed copies and received handwritten feedback on their essays, while Group B dealt exclusively with electronic submissions and feedback.
Writing Assignments
Group A
E1: Source text: You have mail, Tienes un e-mail (Kiddle, et al., 2002: pp. 129-131). Argue if modern technology has more disadvantages or advantages, mention things you like and dislike about technology, and write a comparison of technology now and technology 50 years ago.
E 4: Source text: Thief of Minds, Ladrón de la mente (Muñoz, 2000a). Write an essay from the point of view of one of the characters (three choices).
Group B
E 1: Rain forests: The earth’s lungs should not die, Selvas tropicales: los pulmones del planeta no deben morir, (Kiddle, et al., 2002: pp. 23-26). Write an essay on a ecological problem, its causes, consequences, and possible solutions.
E 4: (1) Dangers of tongue piercing, El peligro de los piercings en la lengua (Saludmanía, 1998). Agree or disagree with a friend who wants to get piercings. Give advise on how to take care of it and how to deal with friends and family members who disapprove; (2) The Use of Animals in Scientific Experiments El uso de animales en los experimentos científicos, (Kiddle: p. 116). Argue in favor of or against the use of animals for food, medical research, defense, and so forth; or (3) TV Addiction, La teleadicción, (Kiddle: pp. 243-245). Argue that addiction to TV-watching is similar to or different from addiction to alcohol, tobacco, or other drugs.

Data collection and analysis
These essays were evaluated using an analytic scale that students received in advance. All students had an opportunity to submit two corrected versions, but only the last one was compared to the first draft in order to determine the number of successfully corrected errors. The essays were photocopied, and one copy was saved to be scored later in the semester. The essays were evaluated twice over a 4-month period in order to corroborate the validity of the instrument.
For group A, errors were identified according to an adaptation of Lalande’s (1982) ECCO (p. 148), and subsequently students had to record their mistakes on an error frequency chart also adapted from Lalande’s EASE (p.149). Errors for Group B were marked electronically using a code adapted from Ferris and Roberts (2001: p. 169) and students were instructed in the use of the editing tools in Microsoft Word in order to make corrections.

The results in Table 1 show errors made by group and by category in the first draft of Essay 4. Although participants successfully used new words from the source texts, the largest percentage of mistakes fall in the lexical category in both groups. Group A made a higher number of errors, but the average number of words for that group was 272 compared to Group B, which averaged 204 words. Although students in Group B made more mistakes in noun endings, many of them were agreement errors. Since grammatical gender and number are not salient features in Spanish, students tend to ignore them even when the gender assignment is semantic (e.g., mujer ‘woman,’ regardless of the ending, is a feminine noun) and not morphologically determined (e.g., artista refers to either a male or a female artist). Group A presented a higher mean of errors in sentence structure, and the majority of these mistakes were omitted prepositions and indirect object pronouns.
Table 1: Errors Essay 4, Draft 1—means/s.d.

V
N
A
L
SS
Total
Group A
(n =16)

mean
s.d.
%
8.8
2.9
(19.4)
5.9
3.9
(13)
4.0
2.4
(8.8)
16.8
7.5
(36.9)
9.9
7.2
(21.7)
46
17

Group B
(n = 19)

mean
s.d.
%
4.1
3.4
(17.42)
7.2
3.9
(26.49)
2.3
2.5
(10)
9.9
5.9
(39.14)
1.6
1.5
(6.9)
25
12

Note: V = all verb errors; N = errors in nouns, gender and number agreement, possessives; A = articles, demonstratives, adjectives, missing or used incorrectly; L = lexical errors, word choice, errors in pronouns and prepositions; SS = sentence structure, word order, omitted or unnecessary words.

Table 2 shows errors in the final version of Essay 4 after corrections. Students in Group A greatly reduce the mean of total errors after receiving feedback. Participants in this group, and those in Group B to a lesser extent, had difficulties correcting mistakes in the verb category. Participants in Group A corrected only 56% of them. The two areas that presented more problems were aspect (preterit vs. imperfect) and tense (present vs. past and future vs. conditional). Although students in Group A had a more detailed correction code, the mean of errors in the verb section is higher than that of Group B. The verb category, for example, has been condensed in these tables for the sake of comparison, but students in Group A received a more direct indication of the type of mistake they had made: VT = verb tense; VA = verb aspect; VM = verb mood; S-V = subject-verb agreement; VF = verb form. While students in Group B received the same marking for all verb errors (V = all errors in verbs), they were able to correct 71% of the mistakes.
Table 2: Errors Essay 4, Final Version—means/s.d.

V
N
A
L
SS
Total

Group A
(n =16)


mean
s.d.
%
5.0
2.9
(27.1)
1.5
1.5
(8.0)
0.93
1.0
(5.0)
7.0
4.2
(37.9)
4.0
2.9
(21.8)
18.6
2.9


Group B
(n = 19)


mean
s.d.
%
2.4
2.4
(21.2)
2.4
2.7
(20.7)
1.4
1.7
(11.6)
4.2
3.2
(36.3)
1.1
1.4
(10.1)
2.4
7.9


Table 3 shows the percentage of corrected errors. Students in Group A were more successful at correcting errors in the noun-ending and article categories, but these errors were also coded in a more specific manner: G = gender; N = number; F = word form for noun-endings; Art = missing article; AG = gender agreement; AN number agreement; AF = article form. We need also to consider that students have a 50% probability of successfully correcting gender and number agreement errors. It must be noted that students in Group B were more successful when correcting errors in what Ferris identifies as “untreatable” categories: sentence structure and word choice. For Group A the correction code indicated the following: L = wrong word; Pron. = error in pronoun; Prep. = error in preposition. It is recognized that students in Group B were somewhat more proficient than students in Group A from the onset.
Table 3: Correctly Identified Errors

V
N
A
L
SS
Total
Group A (n =16)
%

56.3

85.26

96.92

63.33

67.3

68.6

Group B (n = 19)
%

71.38

78.38

64.29

78.05

72.41

75.1

(percentage: number of errors corrected divided by number of errors in each category)
To further assess students’ perceptions about the importance of speaking and writing, they were given a survey (Appendix B) in which they were asked to rank their language skills. Students ranked speaking as the most important skill, followed by reading, listening, writing, grammar, and comprehension. Students saw writing as instrumental—a way to practice grammar but not to increase proficiency—rather than expressive. The participants in this study, who rated in the below-average range of overall scores, commented that they would have performed better had they known the grammatical emphasis of the assignments. They believed their lower scores were due to poor grammar knowledge.
Students also completed a survey on their reading and writing preferences and strategies (Appendix C). Most students who indicated that they like to read and write also avoided translation when writing and consulted the rules when correcting. These students reported that they spent more time working on assignments than the others. Regarding their primary concern in writing, 56% of students in Group A and 57% of students in Group B identified grammar as the most important, while organization and content were the least of their concerns (12.5% for Group A and 10.5% for Group B). These responses may be explained by the emphasis grammar instruction has in lower-division courses. In short, students expected to be corrected in the classroom; otherwise, they felt their language abilities would not improve.
Discussion
This study set out to answer the following research questions:
1. What effect do different modalities of error correction have on students’ self-editing abilities?2. What is the effect of awareness of the processes of reading and writing on quality of writing?
With regard to Research Question 1 there was substantial evidence that students in Group B, those who worked with a shorter code (five items), were more successful at correcting errors. Also the electronic modality allowed them to move within the text from error to error automatically, and it was easier to find corrections. Students in Group A used a 16-item correction code that was deemed rather cumbersome, and it seems the additional information carried on the code (i.e., what kind of error in the verb: tense, aspect, mood, etc.) was in some cases misinterpreted by students. Also, students who worked with hard copies had a harder time transferring the corrections to the computer. Several students in Group A (31%) indicated that they retyped the essays every time they had to make corrections an act that resulted in new mistakes, and in a few cases students opted to eliminate sentences rather than trying to fix them. The findings are consistent with Ferris and Roberts (2001) in regard to the treatment of lexical and sentence structure errors. Students in Group A were able to identify correctly 63.3% of lexical errors and 67% of sentence structure errors, while students in Group B correctly identified 78% of lexical and 72% of sentence structure errors. Students in both groups showed concerns about grammatical accuracy in writing and expected to have their errors marked. Students in Group A mentioned that the lack of grammar correction in their journal entries was as frustrating as the number of errors they had to correct in their essays.
While the debate regarding effectiveness of feedback continues, it is possible that students are motivated by the error –correction and that the effects will become evident over time (Ferris, 2004). The results also reveal that students show improvement from first draft to final version of the same essay and little improvement between first drafts of first and last essays; thus it is possible that feedback in this case has not had a long-lasting effect on writing. Nonetheless, students in both groups demonstrated an increased ability to successfully identify errors. As Casanave (2004) indicates, it is important that instructors define improvement for students and help them understand that the feedback is aimed at specific areas of improvement. The perceptions of students in Group A regarding the importance of grammar accuracy were reinforced by the correction code that emphasized what students did wrong. This outcome was not intended by the researcher and was partially rectified in the treatment of Group B.
Research Question 2 looks at the effects of awareness of reading and writing processes. Although both groups engaged in prewriting activities, the quality of their essays differed in content, organization, and completion. Students in Group A had brainstorming and planning sessions the objectives of which were to elicit useful vocabulary and to organize content. Nevertheless, they had trouble staying on task and often changed the function of the essay to one that seemed more comfortable for their proficiency level (i.e., description instead of narration, exposition instead of argumentation). Group B worked with brainstorming and planning as well, but the focus of the planning sessions was ideas and semantic grouping of vocabulary and concepts. This group also worked on discussing effective ways to describe, narrate, compare, and hypothesize, and the attention was drawn away from grammatical accuracy. Students who understood writing as a process and spent more time revising and editing were more successful at correctly identifying their errors. The use of electronic feedback coincides with Casanave’s observation that the instructor’s role can resemble the work of a professional editor more than that of a teacher, giving students a chance to reflect on their own meanings rather than adjusting to what the teacher thinks they mean ( p.95). The results of this study suggest that instructors need to find appropriate means to help students depart from translation to develop both proficiency and accuracy.
Conclusions
The findings of this study are similar to Chandler (2003) and Ferris and Roberts (2001) in the use of the corrections codes. The samples reveal that a longer, more detailed code lends itself to possible incorrect markings from the instructor. Also, the instructor spent more time marking the essays because the code had to be consulted regularly in order to maintain uniformity. Hand-written corrections also resulted in several mistakes that were not marked in the first drafts (these missed errors were not considered in the final tally). The simplified code was more efficient to use and clearer for the students. The researcher was aware of “the tenuous connections between their [the teachers’] labor-intensive work and real improvement in their students’ writing” (Casanave 2004, p. 95).
Although students’ preoccupations with grammatical accuracy in Group A possibly reflect a shortcoming of the correction code and the error chart, it is plausible that there is a need to address salient grammatical features in the classroom as a means of developing problem-solving techniques. Ferris (2004) recommends addressing grammatical problems on an as-needed basis and combining this grammar review with other aspects of error treatment like feedback. She also advocates the use of an error chart, which can help students to become aware of their weaknesses (p. 62). In this study the use of error charts only seemed to exacerbate the feelings of students who were already frustrated. A possible solution for the future may be the use of a simplified error chart that does not overwhelm students and helps them identify specific problem areas. Instead of focusing students’ attention on non-critical errors, such as gender agreement, instructors have to devise strategies that help students achieve better understanding of all the factors that are involved in FL writing. We must acknowledge that many instructors have little tolerance for mistakes in gender agreement or spelling since they are so common and thus interfere with fluency, but a better understanding of critical vs. non-critical mistakes among instructors may result in a better treatment of errors in writing.
Certainly the issue of error correction in FL writing is far from resolved. It is clear that more research needs to be undertaken in this area. With respect to foreign language teaching, researchers and instructors have to take into consideration the fact that students in intermediate courses may lack the motivation and focus of ESL students. Writing in the foreign language is often only done in the classroom, while ESL students may find numerous occasions for writing in English such as academic or professional uses. In addition, research in FL writing has yet to look into other issues for instance, the purposes of FL writing. Future research will have to follow Ferris’ suggestions of conducting longitudinal studies to document the long-term effects of error feedback (2004: p. 55). Keen observation of student behavior as well as the effects of treatment in the classroom must guide instruction and research in FL writing in order to be able to account for improvement.

References
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(Eds.), Reading in the composition classroom (pp. 85-104). Boston: Heinle
Casanave, C. P. (2004). Controversies in second language writing: Dilemmas and decisions in
research and instruction. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press.
Chandler, J. (2003). The efficacy of various kinds of error feedback for improvement in accuracy
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Chastain, K. (1990). Characteristics of graded and ungraded compositions. The Modern
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Ferris, D.R. (1995). Can advanced ESL students be taught to correct their most serious and
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Ferris, D. R. (1999). The case for grammar correction in L2 writing classes: A response to
Truscott (1996). Journal of Second Language Writing, 8, 1-10.
Ferris, D. R. (2004). The “grammar correction” debate in L2 writing: Where are we, and where
do we go from here? (and what do we do in the meantime…?). Journal of Second Language Writing, 13, 49-62.
Ferris, D., & Roberts, B. (2001). Error feedback in L2 writing classes. How explicit does it need
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Appendix A: ECCO, EASE, and SC (Ferris)
EECO/EASE
Essay1/rewrite
Essay 2/rewrite
Verbs (S-V agreement)
Aspect (A)
Mood (M)
Auxiliary verbs (Aux)
Form (VF)
Gender (G)
Number (N)
Form (F)
Article (agreement/form)
Lexical error (L)
Pronoun (omitted/incorrect)
Preposition (Pre)
Word order (WO)
Idiomatic Expression (EX)
Spelling (Sp)
Total



Short Code (Ferris)
V all verb errors, tense, mood, aspect, s-v agreement
N noun-endings, gender and number
A articles or other determiners, incorrectly used or omitted
L lexical errors, nouns, pronouns and prepositions
ES sentence structure, word order, idiomatic expressions, unnecessary words

Appendix B: Language Skills Ranked by Students N = 35

Least important
(%)
Somewhat important
(%)
Most important
(%)
N/A
(%)
Reading
5.7
11.4
80
2.8
Writing
20
22.8
42.8
11.4
Listening
2.8
25.7
68.5
2.8
Comprehension
28.5
22.8
28.5
2.1
Speaking
2.8
11.4
82.8
2.8
Grammar
5.7
34.2
51.4
8.5

Appendix C: Writing and Reading perceptions (N= 35)

Group A
(n = 16)
Group B
(n = 19)
1. Do you like to write?
(%)
(%)

yes
68.8
68.4

no
31.3
26.3
2. Do you consider yourself a good writer?

yes
31.3
57.9

no
68.6
42.1
3. What is your primary concern when writing?

vocabulary and grammar
56.3
57.9

organization and content
12.5
10.5

meaning
31.3
31.6
4. How do you approach writing in a foreign language?

start in English and translate
75
47.4

start in Spanish and avoid translation
25
52.6
5. How do you approach composition corrections?



consult rules
25
42.1

intuition
75
57.9
6. Do you like to read?

yes
75
63.2

no
25
36.8
7. What do you do when you do not know the meaning
of a word?

consult a dictionary
56.3
47.4

ignore it
25
36.8

try to deduce meaning from context
18.8
15.8

Online Guide to Writing and Research

A
abstract—A summary students write for their assignments, especially for longer papers, designed to provide an accurate description of the original source
academic research—The complex, investigative research students produce in college
academic writing—Writing that students and others perform; emphasis is on the writing and research process as well as the written product; usually written to demonstrate learning
analysis—Breaking some idea or concept into its parts to understand it better
annotated bibliography—A special bibliography where entries include added information about the sources
APA—Shorthand name for the style guide used by the American Psychological Association; used most commonly in documenting research in social sciences and humanities
application—The experiential operation of knowledge
argumentative techniques—Formal rhetorical and logical techniques to argue your point of view
audience analysis—Detailed examination of the significant characteristics of an audience so that you can tailor your writing to meet its needs
audience profile—A tool writers use that describes the significant characteristics of the audience for whom they are writing
B
barcode—The 14-digit number on the back of your UMUC student identification card
bibliography—A list of works a writer presents for background or further reading
brainstorming—Prewriting technique used to generate ideas
C
causes and effects (causal analysis)—Establishing a relationship between two things or among more than two things where there is a motive and a consequence; a thinking and organization pattern used in writing
CD-ROM (Compact Disk, Read-Only Memory)—A disk that contains information that is "read" using a CD-ROM drive and microcomputer
chaining—A structured, visual free association of ideas to help you start writing
citation—A reference note that includes the title, author, publisher, year, and page number of a source; both MLA and APA use this term to refer to "in-text" citations; a note used after quotations and paraphrases that gives the author, year, and page number of the source
cognitive objectives—The desired learning outcomes of specific thinking tasks
collaborative writing—Writing a paper as a team where the learning and writing processes are emphasized, as well as the final product
college writing—The writing students do while attending college; see academic writing
comparing and contrasting—A way of organizing a paper to compare two or more things; explains likenesses and differences
conscious writing techniques—Systematic and structured strategies to generate ideas and get your writing started
content—The substance of writing; the subject matter of a paper
controlling idea—The primary idea of your topic sentence or thesis; expresses your attitude and approach toward your topic
copyright laws—Laws written to protect the writer and his or her written product
D
database—A collection of logically stored information that can be accessed by computer
deductive reasoning—Logical reasoning pattern where the conclusion follows from the premises
diction—Choice of words and the informality or formality of a style based on the kinds of words chosen
discourse community—Sometimes called a knowledge community; the community of scholars and other voices who carry on discussions of a particular subject
documentation—Acknowledgment through proper citation of your indebtedness to certain sources for particular ideas and quotations used in your writing
E
editing—Process of revising a written paper to improve clarity, correctness, and consistency
electronic resources—Research resources that are stored using electronic devices
endnotes—The references or list of works cited located at the end of a chapter or article
evidence—Facts, examples, statistics, and expert testimony that are used to support claims
expert testimony—Opinion from someone whose education, training, and experience establish his or her expertise in the objective analysis of data
expository—Relating to explanatory, informative, or scientific speech or writing
F
feedback—Objective comments you give to or receive from others that you and they can use in revising writing assignments
final draft—The final written product turned in for a grade or other evaluation
first draft—The first prose conception of the written paper; used to discover the writer’s ideas and direction
flush and hanging—See hanging indent
footnote—The bibliographical or content note that appears at the bottom of the page in traditional note-citation styles such as Turabian or Chicago.
format—How the written product looks; includes headings, subheadings, type fonts, text, graphics style, page layout, and white space
free association—Prewriting technique to generate ideas; writer starts with an idea and connects other ideas by brainstorming
freewriting—Nonstop, free-associational informal writing; writing to think that taps into your individual perspective, knowledge, memory, and intuition
H
hanging indent—Bibliography style where second and subsequent lines of a bibliographic entry are indented; also called "flush and hanging"
hold/recall—A feature of the VICTOR online catalog that permits a user to request the delivery of print materials from one USM library to another
human resources—The sources used for research that originate with people, such as interviews, surveys, and solicitations of expert opinions; examples of human resources are your teachers and librarians
I
inductive reasoning—Logical reasoning pattern where facts and observations are evaluated to determine whether a generalization can be made
information plan—A planning tool for a longer writing assignment that includes a statement of purpose, audience, scope, and objectives; a tentative outline of the content; and a schedule for completing the tasks
intellectual property—The product of a person’s thinking; may be protected by intellectual property laws
interlibrary loan (ILL)—A library service in which, upon request, one library lends an item to another library that does not have it
Internet—The globally interconnected "network of networks" that provides access to a wide variety of information sources
in-text style—Refers to a documentation style in which references to sources are placed in parentheses within the text itself rather than in footnotes and endnotes; also called "parenthetical style"
introduction—Refers to the structured way to begin a research paper; presents the problem, purpose, and focus of the paper and summarizes the writer’s position
J
journal—Writing technique used to generate ideas and practice thinking in writing; may be structured or unstructured
journalist’s questions—Questions to ask and answer to generate ideas to get your writing started, such as who, what, where, when, why, and how
K
knowledge community—The community of scholars in a particular discipline or field of study
L
literature review—See review of the literature
M
mechanics—Elements of writing such as grammar, spelling, and punctuation
MLA—The style guide for the Modern Language Association, used commonly in documenting sources for literature and languages
N
note citations—Traditional documentation style that uses footnotes or endnotes, and superscripts; sometimes used in humanities
O
organization—The way in which ideas are tied together to flow logically
outline (or outlining)—A type of format for showing the relationships of major and minor ideas; an informal or formal way to organize your ideas in the planning stages of writing
P
paragraph—A unit of self-contained writing that has a topic sentence and that explains one major idea in support of the thesis
paraphrase—Saying what someone else has said in your own words; contrast with summary and quote
parenthetical style—See in-text style
peer reviewers—Your classmates and others who may review your writing
persuasion—The art and skill of convincing someone of the credibility of your argument
plagiarism—Presenting other people’s ideas, words, and products as your own; not properly citing your sources when you use other people’s words
planning outline—An informal outline or list of points in the planning stage of writing that shows your thinking process and organization of your ideas
prewriting—The discovery and composing tasks writers perform before they actually start writing
primary audience—The audience for whom something is written
primary sources—The original sources of materials, such as interviews, eyewitness accounts, and original works of art
print sources—Sources that appear in a printed format
proofreading—Reviewing your final copy of a paper for accuracy; checking your latest version of a paper against the version with editorial changes marked to ensure that you have inserted all corrections
purpose—the reason for writing; what the author hopes to accomplish in the writing (contrast with writing strategy)
Q
qualitative information—Descriptive or explanatory information based on and expressed using value judgments, opinions, and arguments
quantitative information—Statistical and numerical data
quote—Using the exact wording of an author or interviewee; when a writer wishes to invoke authority or preserve an author’s or speaker’s language, he or she may quote from the author or speaker
R
record—Information contained in the library catalog that includes the title, author, subject, location, and call number of a printed or electronic resource
recursive—Describes the writing process; refers to the repeated application of the steps of the writing process
reference—Notation of a source of a quotation, figure, or paraphrase using conventional bibliographic information that includes the author, title, publisher, city of publication, and year or other data for books, journal articles, and online sources
reference list—A list of references you create while researching and writing your paper
research—The process of finding, evaluating, and using information on a given subject; the body of information about a given subject; writers may quote from, summarize, or paraphrase information they have found through their own research in primary and secondary sources
research question—The question a researcher asks that guides his or her inquiry into a topic
review of the literature—A survey of the scholarly work in a particular subject area; also called "literature review"
revision strategy—A systematic approach to revising your writing
revising—A systematic approach to improving writing that may include changes to subject matter, organization, phrasing, or all of these
rewriting—See revising
rhetoric [as in rhetorical style]—The techniques for effectively using language in writing
S
SAILOR—A Web site librarians designed for the state of Maryland. SAILOR makes it possible for Maryland citizens and students to access the Internet at no charge and examine the holdings of the public and academic libraries in Maryland.
secondary audience—The audience who might read a piece of writing but for whom the piece is not primarily intended
secondary sources—Writings and discussions about the primary sources, such as works of history or criticism found in books and journals
source—Origin of material used in writing and research, such as a book, interview, or article
style—The impressions, such as gracefulness, fluency, and seriousness, of a piece of writing; style can also refer to the sound of a piece of writing, whether formal (with long sentences, many balanced constructions, or erudite vocabulary) or informal (that is, conversational or colloquial)
style guide—A set of rules for formatting and presenting information in written work; most commonly used in college are MLA and APA style guides
summary—Information condensed into a brief format using the major ideas of the original source
supporting idea—An idea that lends credibility to a writer’s thesis
synthesis—Bringing two or more ideas together to show their relationships
T
templates—Predesigned formats used in professional workplace writing
thesis—A summary statement of the writer’s main point; sometimes called "thesis statement"
tone—The overall expression in writing of a writer’s attitude
U
URL (Uniform Resource Locator) —address for a Web site
V
VICTOR—The online catalog of the USM libraries; VICTOR contains the book and journal holdings of the 11 degree-granting USM institutions
vocabulary—Refers to the specific words of a subject; related to diction
voice—The individual way in which writers or narrators express tone
W
webbing—An unstructured, visual idea-generating technique that uses association to explore relationships to get your writing started
WorldCat—The largest database of library holdings in the world, it contains the holdings of libraries around the globe
working thesis—The drafted thesis a writer uses to research and begin writing the assignment; this thesis changes as the writer revises the draft to make it final
workplace writing—The professional kinds of writing used on the job, e.g., progress reports, proposals, memos, and task descriptions
World Wide Web (WWW or Web)—A global hypermedia-based system that provides the graphic, audio, and video interface to the Internet; referred to as the WWW or, more commonly, the Web
writer's block—The elusive mental distraction some writers experience that makes it difficult for them to write
writing strategy—The organizing and thinking strategy you use to write a paper, such as analysis, definition, synthesis, cause and effect, and comparison and contrast

Online Guide to Writing and Research

Thinking Strategies and Writing Patterns
During your college career, you will write a variety of assignments. Some will be based on your beliefs and opinions; others will require you to report on and evaluate existing research. You may be asked to write any number of business documents, such as proposals, reports, feasibility studies, strategic planning documents, and even lab reports and other scientific research. You may design and conduct surveys or perform other data-gathering tasks that must be written up. You may write speeches, advertising and marketing copy, and white papers as assignments. You may even write fiction, such as short stories and poetry. Most certainly during your college career, you will write research papers and be expected to take essay examinations.
Whatever you write, you will need strategies to help you apply your critical thinking skills to the writing process. There is no neat crossover between assignments and thinking strategies. In some cases, these strategies will be clear to you, e.g., when you are asked to analyze a problem and propose a solution. In other cases, the assignment will be expressed more abstractly and call for a variety of critical thinking and writing strategies.
This chapter looks at some strategies and how they apply to your academic assignments, from research assignments to essay exams. Although we cannot provide models for every kind of writing assignment you will receive, we can explore how thinking about your writing can lead to stronger, more effective writing.
Kinds of Assignments You Will Write
Most college writing consists of assignments tailored to help you think about the subjects you are learning, learn about and explore new subjects, discover what your ideas are, and demonstrate what you have learned. In other words, your assignments are opportunities for you to pose probing questions that your writing will answer. In learning to pose the questions and answer them, you will discover how writing serves as a thinking tool.
Many students think of writing as what they produce after they have thought through the assignment or the question at hand. In general, if they study the material, students don’t have much difficulty writing about the content of the courses. Student writing problems usually originate from misunderstanding the ways in which writing can be used to think through a problem, task, or question. By understanding that you can use writing to explore and discover ideas for your assignments, you can generate ideas, discover what you think about your topic, explore approaches to it, and demonstrate critical thinking about it, all of which constitute what your teacher hopes to accomplish in assigning writing tasks.
Assignments usually embody certain learning objectives called cognitive objectives. Table 3.1 shows cognitive objectives in relation to the types of assignments you may receive. Just knowing what learning objective is intended for an assignment can head you in the right direction.
Table 3.1Assignment Expectations and Cognitive Objectives
Assignment uses the following directive wording:
When your teacher expects you to do the following:
Cognitiveobjective
Define, label, list, name, repeat, order, arrange, memorize
Memorize, recall, or present information
Knowledgerecall
Describe, indicate, restate, explain, review, summarize, classify
Interpret information in your own words
Comprehension
Apply, illustrate, prepare, solve, use, sketch, operate, practice, calculate
Apply knowledge to new situations
Application
Analyze, categorize, compare, test, distinguish, examine, contrast
Break down knowledge into parts and show relationships among them
Analysis
Arrange, compose, formulate, organize, plan, assemble, construct
Bring together parts of knowledge to form a whole; build relationships for new situations
Synthesis
Appraise, evaluate, conclude, judge, predict, compare, score
Make judgments based on criteria; support or confirm preferences; be persuasive
Evaluation
Use supporting examples, cite passages from the text, paraphrase, summarize
Quote or paraphrase to support what you have written; be persuasive
Support by allusion/example
Provide corroborating evidence, reference other works, research, cite examples from case studies
Use outside research to support your thesis or hypothesis; be persuasive
Support by research
In the first three levels of cognitive objectives, you are expected to demonstrate your knowledge and mastery of course information. You show that you remember facts and can recall them (knowledge recall), comprehend the information by being able to interpret and present it in your own words (comprehension), and apply what you are learning to new situations (application). The remaining cognitive objectives—analysis, synthesis, and evaluation—are more complex and represent the kinds of learning objectives fostered in the college experience. The last two mentioned in the table, supporting by allusion, example, and research, describe using evidence to explain or support your arguments.
Critical Strategies and Writing
As we said in chapter 2, the writing process is messy. Experienced writers do not follow a neat set of procedures to achieve their writing goals. They use writing to discover and explore. Asking questions and writing go together; writing is about thinking. Only after the writer thoroughly examines the subject through writing and is satisfied with the ideas discovered, does he or she polish the writing for the reader. Here is where the writer decides on the organization and style. Here is where he or she also decides which critical strategies to use for writing the final draft.
Critical thinking yields several strategies you are likely to use in your college writing. Your writing assignments may primarily reflect just one of the strategies or a combination of them. We have arranged these strategies in the order of complexity of the critical thinking they require. Keep in mind that these strategies often overlap. You may use comparison and contrast when you are synthesizing information; you may synthesize the results of a causal analysis. But you will use several of these analytical strategies when you write an evaluation. You should look at the discussion here as a way to explore and discover your ideas about your subject so that you can write your assignment.
The strategies discussed here are those most commonly used in college writing. The first three— (1) analyzing, (2) comparing and contrasting, and (3) explaining causes and effects—are among the most practiced forms of analysis. The next two strategies—(1) stating your opinion and supporting it and (2) proposing a solution—are the forms of synthesis most commonly found in college writing. Evaluation is the most complex of the thinking strategies and usually employs other reasoning strategies. The last strategy, persuasion, is used with the other strategies to lend credibility to your stated position and to bolster acceptance of your thinking. Refer to table 3.1 for more details on the critical thinking and writing assignments.
Critical Strategies and Writing
Analysis
Analysis, the basis of many other strategies, is the process of breaking something into its parts and putting the parts back together so that you can better understand the whole.
When you focus on understanding something better by comparing and contrasting it to something else, you identify and analyze the similarities and differences. As you discuss these in your writing, keep your working thesis with its controlling idea in mind. Let your thesis guide what details you select to establish your criteria for comparison. Your overall purpose in writing this kind of analysis—comparing and contrasting—always guides what you write.
When you seek to explain the causes and effects of an action, event, or situation, you are trying to identify their origins and understand their results. You may discover a chain of events that explain the causes and effects. How you decide where the boundaries of causal analysis are depends on your thesis and your purpose for writing.
Example of Writing Using Analysis
Critical thinking has been defined in a variety of ways for a variety of purposes. In a narrow sense, it means using the strategies of informal logic to analyze and evaluate arguments, expose logical fallacies, and form your own logical arguments that will hold up under scrutiny of another critical thinker . . . But in a wider sense, critical thinking can mean any thinking that is assessed by criteria intended to result in good thinking. Thinking can be shallow, poor, one-sided, self-deceiving, and ego-protecting. Critical thinking means examining your own and others’ thinking to be sure that it is good thinking. (University of Maryland University College, 1996, pp. 1–4)

Critical Strategies and Writing
Synthesis
Synthesis is a bit more complex than the analytical strategies just discussed. In synthesizing information, you must bring together all your opinions and research in support of your thesis. You integrate the relevant facts, statistics, expert opinion, and whatever can directly be observed with your own opinion and conclusions to persuade your audience that your thesis is correct. Indeed, you use synthesis in supporting a thesis and assembling a paper.
Here is an example, where the writer synthesized his ideas about how your prejudices and cultural orientation transform your voice as a writer at different stages of the writing process:
Example of Synthesis
Gender, race, and class prejudices can affect the development of a sense of self and voice. Likewise, the rhetorical conventions discourse communities require can overwhelm the personal voices of individual writers. But despite these pressures, a combination of spontaneous and deliberate strategies for writing and revising can help you capture your authentic personal voice when you write. In the planning and outlining stage of the writing process, clustering and nonstop freewriting can let you emotionally connect with the seemingly impersonal information absorbed from your reading. At the draft-writing stage, open-ended freewriting can help you as you struggle to express your own understanding and engagement with the subjects you write about. At the revising stage, several deliberate strategies methodically applied can improve the tone, emphasis, and readability of the rough draft. (University of Maryland University College, 1996, pp. 5-21–5-22)

Critical Strategies and Writing
Evaluation
Evaluation is the most complex of all analytical strategies and uses many of the other analytical techniques. In applying this strategy, you first establish the criteria you will use to evaluate your subject, apply them to the specific parts of the subject you are judging, and draw conclusions about whether your subject meets those criteria. In the process of evaluating a subject, you will usually be called upon to render some analysis and synthesis and even use persuasive or argumentative techniques. In humanities and literature courses, you may write evaluations of art, literature, drama, and music. In communications classes, you may evaluate user manuals, technical reports, or business proposals. In management classes, you may evaluate particular management techniques and their effectiveness in organizations of a certain size. In each case, the process is the same: first, establish the evaluation criteria; select what characteristics you will apply those criteria to; evaluate how well the selected characteristics meet the criteria; and present your results, along with examples, to support your premise.
Critical Strategies and Writing
Persuasion
Persuasion is aimed at changing readers’ opinions or beliefs or encouraging them to accept the credibility or possibility of your opinion or belief. At some level, all writing has a persuasive element. You may simply be persuading your reader to continue reading your writing or even to accept in your credibility, that you know your subject area. Or you may be persuading your reader that your complex theory about the causes of the crash of the Asian market are credible and probable.
You can make your writing persuasive by responding to your reader’s needs. When you keep your reader in mind, you can identify with his or her point of view and attitudes. Use your style and tone to show respect for your reader. Offer your reader arguments and evidence—the examples, textual allusions, or research—to support your opinion or belief. For more information on using persuasion and formal argument, take a look at one of the writing references listed in appendix A, "Books to Help You Improve Your Writing."
Whatever critical strategy you use to write your paper, you will be supporting your thesis statement. Indeed, a well-developed thesis statement will often suggest the writing strategy you should use.
Developing a Paper Using Strategies
After you have discovered and explored your ideas by writing and are satisfied with your content, you can begin organizing your ideas for your reader. The key to well-organized writing is to use a strong thesis statement that suggests a key writing strategy to guide your organization. (You may find it helpful if you review the discussion about thesis statements in chapter 2.) For each strategy, its use, the reasoning that guides it, and the details that support it are described. Any good writing text, such as those listed in appendix A, can give you more details. In this guide, we want to acquaint you briefly with this process.
For example, if your assignment calls for you to compare the benefits of one cost analysis system over another and show how system A is superior to system B, your paper will be organized as a comparison and contrast paper. Your thesis might look like this:
Example of a Comparison/Contrast Thesis
System A is superior to system B in efficiency, in the amount of computational time required, and in ease of understanding, all of which aids training.
A causal analysis assignment might call for you to identify and classify the motives and submotives associated with recidivism among criminal offenders. Your thesis may be:
Example of a Cause and Effect Thesis
Recidivism among criminal offenders is caused by five contributing factors: (1) repeated patterns of behavior, (2) lack of institutional training, (3) unstable home conditions, (4) perception that jobs are unavailable, and (5) lack of stringent penalties for repeated crimes.
In this example, the writer might discuss each of the listed causes by defining them, showing their effects, and supporting his opinion with statistics and examples.
This is a good time to review the examples of thesis statements shown in table 2.2 of chapter 2. By realizing that the thinking strategies overlap, you can see for yourself how different thesis statements might yield different thinking and writing strategies. The strategies you use should always be guided by your purpose and your audience. Many of the writing texts listed in appendix A of this guide discuss in greater detail how to develop a paper using a thesis statement.
Your introduction and conclusion frame your writing and give it a sense of connection and resolution. The introduction establishes your idea and purpose, whereas the conclusion affirms your thesis and resolves your thinking process. Acting as a bridge, the middle of the paper expounds and explains your idea and purpose, leading the reader inevitably to the conclusion. For many students, having a clear introduction with its thesis statement and major supporting statements is enough to guide their writing.
With a clear thesis statement to guide you, you can write your introduction, one of the key sections of your assignment. Your introduction sets the stage, telling your reader what your thesis is and often what your major supporting statements will be and suggests the strategy for the writing. Here is an example of an introduction written from a thesis statement from table 2.2 that does just this.
Example of an Analysis and Definition Thesis with Introduction
Thesis statement: Reader-centered writing techniques will make your writing clear, effective, and engaging.
Major supporting statements: Reader-centered writing speaks directly to the reader in a language and style that gives him or her the best chance of hearing the message. Reader-centered writing is clearly organized, with its main ideas easy to find and coherent. Each section moves smoothly to the next. Reader-centered writing uses active voice and strong verbs whose action keeps the reader moving. Finally, reader-centered writing respects the reader, involving him or her in the content.
The remaining parts of the assignment will explain the thesis, define the listed techniques, give examples of them, and show how using them will make your writing clear, effective, and engaging.
Sometimes, just knowing that paragraphs consist of a topic sentence with its controlling idea, details, reasons, and illustrations is enough to get a student writing.
Example of a Paragraph Using Topic Sentence, Details, Reasons, and Illustration
Topic sentence with controlling idea: Reader-centered writing is not authoritarian or dictatorial.
Reason: It reflects acceptance of the reader’s free will and dignity.
Detail: For the reader-centered author, writing becomes a way to transfer information while serving the reader’s needs.
Reason: It is not a "dumbing down," but an honest, straightforward way to present complex ideas and requests in a simple and painless way.
Detail with reason: Writing this way often takes more effort than conventional writing because it emphasizes service and the building of relationships.
Illustration: Using you to address your readers makes them the center of the message and tells them that the message is for them, thus eliminating the distance between writer and reader.
Here’s a possible conclusion for this hypothetical assignment:
Example of a Conclusion
Reader-centered writing techniques build communication relationships between the writer and the reader. They bridge the gap between business and customer and ensure that your message clearly and effectively serves the customer.
This conclusion actually synthesizes the discussion of specific writing techniques with their results—building effective communication relationships.
Patterns for Presenting Information
College students face a variety of writing tasks in their course work. Although these tasks vary from course to course and discipline to discipline, the ways to present information are similar. As your papers grow in complexity, so will your presentation strategies, with the research paper often synthesizing several patterns.
Patterns for Presenting Information
General-to-Specific Pattern
The general-to-specific pattern is probably one of the more common patterns in college writing. It may be used in any of these familiar places:
introduction to a paper
background in a research paper
opening paragraphs for a discussion or an analysis
essay examination answers
As the name suggests, this pattern is characterized by a movement in your thinking from a generalization to specific details. Your opening paragraph would begin with a general statement and then add details that explain it. The details may continue to become increasingly more specific. The pattern ends with a broad statement that summarizes your thinking that resulted from the details.
Example of a General-to-Specific Pattern
Writing is a complex sociocognitive process involving the construction of recorded messages on paper or on some other material, and, more recently, on a computer screen. The skills needed to write range from making the appropriate graphic marks, through utilizing the resources of the chosen language, to anticipating the reactions of the intended readers. The first skill area involves acquiring a writing system, which may be alphabetic (as in European languages) or nonalphabetic (as in many Asian languages). The second skill area requires selecting the appropriate grammar and vocabulary to form acceptable sentences and then arranging them in paragraphs. Third, writing involves thinking about the purpose of the text to be composed and about its possible effects on the intended readership. One important aspect of this last feature is the choice of a suitable style. Because of these characteristics, writing is not an innate natural ability like speaking but has to be acquired through years of training or schooling. (Swales and Feak, 1994, p. 34)
In this example, the first sentence presents the general statement about the writing process. The succeeding statements consist of details and examples, introduced by the transitions first, second, and third. Finally, the pattern ends with a broad or general statement that summarizes what the writer wishes to conclude about the meaning of the details.
This paragraph could have introduced a longer paper in which the writer discusses the kinds of training needed to learn to write, analyzes the results of a study about learning to write, or even introduces a topical literature review about teaching writing. You can see that the general-to-specific pattern is one you will use frequently because of its versatility as well as its obvious ability to quickly and effectively introduce your readers to your ideas.
You might find this pattern useful for writing mission and vision statements, definitions, marketing analyses, reports of scientific investigations, topical literature reviews, feature articles, editorials, and formal arguments from principle. Also, this mode of writing reflects deductive reasoning, where your conclusion follows necessarily from your premises.
Patterns for Presenting Information
Specific-to-General Pattern
The specific-to-general pattern reverses the one we just discussed. A paragraph written in this order begins with the details and leads the reader to the generalization, which may be the thesis or the conclusion. We can use the previous example to show how this order reverses the general-to-specific pattern:
Example of a Specific-to-General Pattern
The skills needed to write range from making the appropriate graphic marks, through utilizing the resources of the chosen language, to anticipating the reactions of the intended readers. The first skill area involves acquiring a writing system, which may be alphabetic (as in European languages) or nonalphabetic (as in many Asian languages). The second skill area requires selecting the appropriate grammar and vocabulary to form acceptable sentences and then arranging them in paragraphs. Third, writing involves thinking about the purpose of the text to be composed and about its possible effects on the intended readership. One important aspect of this last feature is the choice of a suitable style. Unlike speaking, writing is a complex sociocognitive process that has to be acquired through years of training or schooling. (Swales and Feak, 1994, p. 34)
This pattern is as compelling as the general-to-specific pattern. As you lead the reader through your thinking, you can build some suspense before your concluding statement. Writers often use this pattern to persuade their audience about the writer’s generalization or conclusion and when he or she isn’t sure about the audience’s attitude toward his or her conclusions.
This pattern is especially useful for writing that seeks to discover the nature of the problem and the possible solutions by carefully analyzing their details. For example, in writing a diagnosis of organizational problems, the writer might use inductive reasoning to find the major problems by examining the symptoms. These results may be presented in a specific-to-general order. In scientific reasoning, this pattern is often used with inductive reasoning, where facts or observations about a situation are evaluated to determine whether a generalization can be made.
Patterns for Presenting Information
Problem-Cause-Solution Pattern
The problem and solution pattern reflects a form of critical thinking that tends to be more argumentative and evaluative. You may find this pattern useful in writing case studies, critiques, introductions, reports of scientific investigations, literary reviews, political and social discourse, white papers, proposals, many kinds of reports, and essay examinations.
The most common forms of this pattern sequence the information in one of two ways: (1) problem-process-solution or (2) problem-cause-solution. Both patterns first describe the problem and then proceed through diagnosis and analysis to propose a solution. The diagnosis and analysis may include an evaluation of processes or procedures or a discussion of causes contributing to the problem.
For example, you might use this pattern to write a paper discussing how diabetes is being treated through diet, drugs, exercise, and surgery. Your process analysis would examine the progression of the disease and the different ways to treat it. The solution you propose might include one or more of the current treatment modalities, and you would evaluate the merits of your solution in light of the life-saving procedures you discussed. In the problem-cause-solution pattern, you might describe why diabetes is a serious health problem and the known causes of diabetes, such as diet, genetics, biochemical processes, and obesity. Your proposed solution for preventing diabetes or mitigating its effects would then be based on what you know about these causes.
Here is an example of the problem-cause-solution pattern:
Example of a Problem-Cause-Solution Pattern
Why do artists draw graphics that lie? Why do the world’s major newspapers and magazines publish them?
Although bias and stereotyping are the origin of more than a few graphical distortions, the primary causes of inept graphical work are to be found in the skills, attitudes, and organizational structure prevailing among those who design and edit statistical graphics.
Lack of Quantitative Skills of Professional Artists
Lurking behind the inept graphic is a lack of judgment about quantitative evidence. Nearly all those who produce graphics for mass publication are trained exclusively in the fine arts and have had little experience with the analysis of data. Such experience is essential for achieving precision and grace in the presence of statistics, but even textbooks of graphical design are silent on how to think about numbers. Illustrators too often see their work as an exclusively artistic enterprise . . . Those who get ahead are those who beautify data, never mind statistical integrity. (Tufte, 1983, p. 79)
[The chapter continues to discuss the causes and effects of graphic distortion and examines the sources of integrity and sophistication in the processes of graphic design.]
Conclusion
The conditions under which many data graphics are produced—the lack of substantive and quantitative skills of the illustrators, dislike of quantitative evidence, and contempt for the intelligence of the audience—guarantee graphic mediocrity. These conditions engender graphics that (1) lie; (2) employ only the simplest designs, often unstandardized time-series based on a small handful of data points; and (3) miss the real news actually in the data . . .
How can graphic mediocrity be remedied? . . .
Graphical competence demands three quite different skills: the substantive, statistical, and artistic. Yet now most graphical work, is under the direction of but a single expertise—the artistic. Allowing artist-illustrators to control the design and content of statistical graphics is almost like allowing typographers to control the content, style, and editing of prose. Substantive and quantitative expertise must also participate in the design of data graphics, at least if statistical integrity and graphical sophistication are to be achieved. (Tufte, 1983, p. 87)
Professor Tufte describes the problem of incompetence in graphical presentations of quantitative information and discusses the causes. His solution, to include content and statistical experts in designing graphics, is evaluated throughout the chapter. He uses descriptions and examples of graphical distortion, integrity, and sophistication to support his conclusion.
Patterns for Presenting Information
Discussing Raw Data
Some college writing requires that you interpret and discuss raw data presented in a nontextual form, such as a table, graph, figure, or illustration. You may have conducted a survey and now have to report on the results. Your teacher may ask you to review the data on unemployment and discuss whether there is a correlation between national debt and unemployment data. Or you may be asked to support your position on capital punishment by citing data on recidivism in your state. In any case, your discussion of the data may be as short as the interpretation of data presented in a table or as long as the research report itself.
The organization of a data discussion usually follows the general-to-specific pattern. First, you present the main claim supported by the data. Then, you discuss the details as they support or deny the main claim. Your discussion might include the problems, implications, exceptions, methodologies, and so on. Interpreting and commenting on data require clear thinking on your part, reflected in a clear thesis with specific supporting ideas for your interpretation of the data.
When asked to write this kind of an assignment, some students make the mistake of just describing what the data say, rather than interpreting the data. Another mistake is to read too much into the data and draw unreasonable conclusions. The key is "to find the right strength of claim for the data and then order your statements in some appropriate way (such as from the more significant to the less significant)" (Swales and Feak, 1994, p. 77) or from the most emphatic to the least emphatic. Each discipline has its own methods, theories, beliefs, and common practices for working with data. Talk with your teacher or review your texts for more information on interpreting data in your discipline.
Patterns for Presenting Information
Summaries and Abstracts
Very likely, you will be asked sometime during your college career to write a summary of research sources, a procedure, a book, an article, or some other piece of information. Your summary may be presented orally, in writing, informally, formally, or for an exam. You may even be asked to summarize information in a graphical format. Summaries can be simple, using just a few key words, or they may be more complex, depending on your purpose for writing them.
Writing a summary is an opportunity for you to demonstrate your understanding of course material. Many students mistakenly think that simply repeating the key words from the material suffices. In summarizing, not only are you asked to repeat in your own words what you know (demonstrate comprehension), but you may be asked to evaluate the summarized information or draw several ideas together in a summary (evaluate and synthesize).
Here are some tips for summarizing:
Always present a balanced view of your material.
Always give equal coverage to all parts of the material.
Always use a neutral tone in your writing.
Always keep the author’s material distortion-free.
Always summarize in your own words.
Opening summaries give just the essential content, results, and conclusions and may be brief. Formal summaries, such as an executive summary, may be 1–5 percent of the original material in length and reflect the organization of the original source. Remember that your purpose is to present faithfully the contents of the original source.
Abstracts, on the other hand, are used by readers to decide whether to read a source in full. They are compressed versions of the essential content of a source. Those who catalog information and create research reference materials also use abstracts. Most information-retrieval systems can scan the key words in an abstract and retrieve the source it is based on. You may be asked to write an abstract for a research report and certainly for a seminar paper or a scholarly paper. Most assuredly, you will write an abstract for a graduate thesis or dissertation.
Because abstracts help readers decide whether they want to read the original, the content is quite compressed. Your abstract will contain only a few sentences, perhaps only three to five. You should include the key words that reveal the major idea of the original material to identify the field of study involved.
Patterns for Presenting Information
Critiques
Many teachers regularly use critiques to find out whether you have read the material and to prepare you for exams. You could be asked to write critiques in any class. You may be asked to critique someone else's ideas, an excerpt, a book, a poem, a work of art, even a mathematical solution. Writing critiques improves your critical and analytical thinking and hones your evaluative skills. Where summaries are meant to represent the original source faithfully, critiques are meant to be a critical assessment of the reading material in light of your own understanding.
When you write a critique, you must do justice to your material. The objective is to present the material fairly and then apply critical thinking and judgment to its ideas. Each discipline commonly uses its own methodology and language for critiquing, so you should review critiques in your field and discuss them with your classmates or teacher to find good models. In fact, as part of your course work, you will probably learn the art of critiquing in your specialization.
In general, when you prepare to write a critique, you first read through the material. You'll want to decide the basis for your critique. What criteria and standards are you using to judge the material? Jot them down, spell them out clearly, and keep them in front of you while you draft your critique. Don't forget your thesis statement, or the main conclusion you draw in judging the material; the criteria, or the main aspects of the material to be evaluated; and the standards, or the ideals or principles, against which you are judging the material. Your critique may naturally take a general-to-specific organization or even a problem-solution pattern.
Supporting with Research and Examples
When you express an opinion or make a statement, you improve your credibility with your reader by supporting what you say with research findings and examples. Using these findings along with other outside sources lends credence to your point of view. When you research topics, you will need to find out who the reliable sources are in the area of study. Some signs of reliability will be apparent to you when you first start your project. In the sciences and in technology especially, older sources should be given less credence than new ones because the older sources tend to be less reliable in areas where new discoveries are continually being made.
Chapter 4, "The Research Process," discusses the research process for writing research papers. As you learn more in a subject area, however, you will begin to cite research findings even in less formal writing assignments. You may, for example, refer to a book on cryogenics you have read recently in answering a question on an ethics exam. You can use your research to strengthen your writing and provide credibility whenever it seems appropriate. In general, when you casually cite such references in exams or course assignments, teachers may not expect you to offer full documentation. If you are unsure how formal your citation of sources should be, ask your teacher to clarify his or her expectations.
The following example shows how one economics student integrated references to support her point of view in an informal assignment.
Why I Believe in Enterprise Zones
In this assignment, I will defend the statement that "enterprise zones are a viable method for creating growth sectors in urban economies where they would not otherwise appear." My defense is based on the premise that enterprise zones recover the costs of lost tax revenue by generating growth and expanding the business tax base in urban centers.
Enterprise zones are specially protected areas of a city reserved for business growth. They are traditionally created in areas of low growth and offer incentives to businesses locating there. The critics’ argument that the loss of potential tax revenue negates their value is specious. Enterprise zones offer the potential for growth where it had not previously been realized, thereby offering real, as opposed to speculative, opportunity for growth.
Last week’s Post article on growth in Washington, DC’s Adams Morgan neighborhood offers tangible proof that the concept of enterprise zones can work for cities. The Post related that this area, once inhabited by prostitutes and drug dealers, was set aside as an enterprise zone after the 1960s riots and has continued to attract small businesses and entrepreneurs. Enterprise zone status has spurred a new wave of investment there and has attracted many middle-class residents.
Writing Essay Examinations
In addition to research papers, essay exams are among the more common college writing assignments. These exams not only call on most of your writing skills, they also test your ability to read carefully, understand the question, and write purposively within a limited time. Weak essay exam answers are caused not so much by ignorance of the subject matter but by a lack of planning and strategy.
Many students complain that they perform their worst on essay exams, and the pressure of this forced and timed writing doesn’t encourage a polished and well-thought out product. The difficulty for the student lies not with grammatical awkwardness, but with lack of attention to the writing. Often, students believe they must sacrifice planning time to a "data dump" to demonstrate what they know.
Too often students begin writing without first thinking about what they want to say and then developing their intentions into an adequate answer. They write without clear purpose. The results are answers that are inadequate, unclear, often illogical, and irrelevant.
Successful essay exam responses depend on your ability to develop and use the critical thinking skills with the writing processes described in this guide. Now is a good time to review table 3.1. Notice the specific key words in your teacher’s assignments to identify a thinking strategy that will then suggest a writing strategy. Understanding how these two ideas—(1) thinking about the topic and (2) the writing strategy—are related can help you understand the question and plan for purposive writing.
The following three sections offer some suggestions for improving your essay exam responses.
Writing Essay Examinations
Read and Understand the Question
First, read the question carefully. If you misunderstand or misinterpret the question, your entire answer may miss the mark. Notice what the question requires you to do. Notice whether it asks you to explain, discuss, summarize, define, evaluate, compare, analyze, or synthesize. These key words help you to understand the question.
Essay questions are often broad questions that ask you to work with abstract terms, concepts, tendencies, or sweeping events or trends. They differ from short-answer questions in the level of specificity required in their answers. Short-answer questions usually ask that you recall information by providing facts, definitions, or examples.
Another way to understand essay questions is by understanding how they ask you to apply your knowledge, what rules and concepts you are being asked to use. If you are asked to list, describe, explain, summarize, classify, apply, illustrate, use, calculate, sketch, or perform an operation, you are being asked to apply particular knowledge you have acquired. If you are asked to analyze, compare, contrast, evaluate, predict, determine cause and effect, synthesize, or evaluate, you are being asked to select from the knowledge you have gained.
Essay questions usually call for some sort of application, analysis, synthesis, or evaluation of information, or some combination of these. Many students mistakenly summarize a plot or recapitulate the topic from the texts or class lectures in place of doing an analysis. If you are asked to analyze a key concept in relation to a specific situation, simply summarizing it, describing it, or paraphrasing it won’t work. If you are asked to compare and contrast two systems, describing each of them and their characteristics alone won’t develop the comparison. Always try to understand clearly what kind of answer you are expected to write.
The following essay assignment calls for a broad understanding of literary concepts, a specific period of literature, and some history, in addition to the ability to cite from the works of several writers of the period. The short-answer question, on the other hand, requires specific knowledge of a particular kind of programming language.
Example of a Long-Answer Essay Question
Harold Bloom, in his book, The American Religion, asserts that the American religion is an expression of individualism. Discuss this concept as it pertains to the transcendentalist literature of Emerson and Thoreau.
Example of a Short-Answer Question
Define fourth-generation language and give an example.
Writing Essay Examinations
Organize Thinking Before Writing
Essay questions often fall into types calling for specific organizational strategies. For example, a question that asks you to compare and contrast two different architectural styles requires that you describe both styles and then discuss their similarities and differences. To do this, decide which characteristics to compare and contrast and what criteria to use for selecting them. Then discuss the similarities and differences.
On the other hand, a question that asks you to contrast these two architectural styles as expressions of the beliefs of the architects about what a house should be is asking you to look at the similarities and differences as aesthetic expressions of the philosophies of the two architects. In this case, you might discuss the characteristics of the different styles, one at a time, and then describe how these characteristics arise from the different views of what a house should be.
The types of questions presented here are typical of the kinds of essay questions on examinations or in course assignments. Notice that these assignments suggest certain strategies for developing your essay.
Essay Question Types
Cause/effect: What are the causes of the current crisis in the Asian market, and what effects will the crisis have on the European Economic Community?
Discussion: Identify three of Kant’s categorical imperatives and discuss them in relation to twentieth-century life.
Demonstration: Demonstrate the feasibility of enterprise zones in cities with under 300,000 population and crumbling infrastructure.
Evaluation: Evaluate Leakey’s contribution to anthropology in light of at least two major criticisms leveled against him.
Explication: Explain (explicate) the importance of the line "Turning and turning in the widening gyre" in Yeats’s poem "Second Coming."
Process analysis: Describe the process associated with regenerating tissue after surgery to correct mitrovalve prolapse.
Compare/contrast: Contrast the architectural styles of Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier as expressions of their beliefs of what a house should be.
Synthesis: How does the individualism of Thoreau and Emerson differ? How do their notions of individualism differ from today’s individualism?
Think through your general answer before you begin to develop your essay. Identify the strategy that is suggested or directed. If you cannot figure out exactly what your teacher is asking of you, ask for an explanation. If an explanation is not possible, then try rephrasing the essay question using wording that suggests a strategy. When you decide on a specific rephrasing of the question, then write that down in the form of a thesis statement or topic sentence. Express your thesis as a probing question, if necessary, to begin exploring and discovering your ideas.
This is the time to rely on some of the idea-generating techniques we discussed in chapter 2. Make lists of related ideas that suggest themselves to you from your thesis statement. Ask yourself the journalist’s questions to get your ideas flowing. Use the multiple perspectives strategy to look at the subject from different points of view. For most students, making lists, brainstorming, or using one of the formal idea-generating techniques will be enough to suggest a direction. For others, framing a topic sentence or thesis statement will get them started writing. Keep your working thesis statement in front of you to check periodically that you are staying on target, but don’t hesitate to refine or change your thesis when your thinking and writing have led your thoughts in a somewhat different direction.
Writing Essay Examinations
Make Answer Relevant and Complete
Writing a complete and relevant answer means that you addressed the question and organized your thoughts so that you included the information you needed to write during the time given to you. A short-answer question tests knowledge of the facts. An essay exam, on the other hand, requires a discussion of the question to show your ability to select and organize information to support your thesis.
A Word About Style, Voice, and Tone
Style, voice, and tone in writing express the attitude of a writer at that moment and in relation to a particular subject and audience. Students often confuse writing style with some vague sense of personal style, or personality. But style is a technical term for the effect a writer can create through attitude, language, and the mechanics of writing. If the writing reflects a consistent choice of patterns, then it is perceived as coherent and harmonious, the style supporting the content. The writer’s purpose and style clearly have a cause-and-effect relationship. Because style is distinct for each discipline, you should discuss with your teacher what is appropriate for your writing assignments.
Voice and tone reflect your attitude about your subject and your readers. Voice is who the readers hear talking in your paper, and tone is the way in which you are doing the writing. Voice can be institutional or academic—that is, objective and formal. Or voice can be personal—in fact, your distinct voice. You will need to decide whether you want your tone to be informative or affective. Do you want to inform your readers or to persuade them in some way? Your style and attitude toward your subject combine to create your voice and tone.
Your goal in college writing is to understand the material of your discipline and be able to discuss it effectively in writing. Your teachers want facts as well as opinions, and they want to be able to assess, through your writing, how well you synthesize your thinking and learning in the course. Your goal in most academic writing is to convey facts about a subject, integrate opinions based on facts, and synthesize what you have learned as you go along. You will discover, however, that some academic writing is persuasive and that your teachers will expect you to know the language of persuasion as well.
This discussion does not give you enough information for you to control voice, tone, style, and persuasion. It is intended to remind you that these are important considerations and should not be overlooked. For more information on voice, tone, style, and persuasion, see Appendix A, "Books to Help You Improve Your Writing," for other resources.
A Word About Style, Voice, and Tone
Style Through Vocabulary and Diction
Many disciplines have their own vocabulary of special terms that you learn as you study each discipline. The way you use a special vocabulary affects the style and tone of your writing. The longer you study the discipline and the more you read, the better you will become at mastering its vocabulary.
Students may get into trouble because they do not know the vocabulary of a discipline. They may use ordinary words where special words are needed, or their writing may simply become vague. Teachers may identify such writing by inserting in the margin comments, such as vague diction, poor word choice, or even inappropriate style.
The following hypothetical examples from two papers on reducing defects in software development show you what a difference vocabulary can make in establishing style, tone, and credibility for each writer. Note that even though the first writer understands some basic principles taught in the technical management course, she lacks the vocabulary to express what she has learned. To make up for her lack of appropriate words, and thus of clear thought, she uses vague terms to establish criteria, such as bad and worse, and falls back on clichés, such as rocket science. The second writer, on the other hand, has mastered the few special words he needs to express the concepts taught in class and to draw conclusions from what he has learned. His writing is clear and focused, his style and tone appropriate.
L Below-Average Paper
Most defects are bad but some are worse than others. Software developers have to know how to identify the defects that will cause the biggest problems and correct these first. This isn’t rocket science—people just have to discipline themselves to look for errors as they occur. Technical managers also have to know how to keep track of the defects (through some of the ways we discussed in class). They also have to know how to make decisions based on their findings and tracings.
J Above-Average Paper
Not all defects in software products are created equal, and not all have the same effects on the shipment decisions that a technical manager must make. When a project manager or software development team tracks the severity levels of problems in the code, shipment decisions become easier. Severity levels can be established as part of the overall plan for testing the product, which generally includes function testing as well as integrated system testing. Severity levels may be set, for example, on a scale of 1 to 4, where Sev-1 errors cause the program to abort, Sev-2 errors impede user progress, Sev-3 errors cause a particular function not to work, and Sev-4 errors represent cosmetic changes that will make the software better but will not have any of the effects of the other three severity types. Using the severity system of classification and an automated tracking system, technical managers have the data they need to make the important decisions about whether to ship a product. For example, a product with three Sev-4 errors remaining in it will probably be shipped, whereas one with four Sev-1 errors will not.
Vocabulary is related to diction, another important element of style. Where vocabulary refers to the specific words in a discipline, diction refers to the overall selection of language for your writing. Words are not right and wrong in and of themselves. They are appropriate and inappropriate in terms of whether they support your purpose. If your purpose is to present your thesis and research so that your reader will find your position credible, then your diction should be appropriate—objective, concrete, and specific.
Finally, style rests on language. Poor style and unacceptable tone do impede communication and may affect your grade. They can make group work difficult. You should cultivate a style that shows your knowledge and command of course material and that enables you to convey opinions about what you have learned in a manner that audiences, including your teacher, will appreciate.
Here are some practical suggestions for developing a style that supports your content and your thinking:
Let your purpose guide your writing. Your style is the result of your control over your content, not added later to give your writing "personality." Know what you want to accomplish with your content, and your style will take care of itself.
In general, choose a style between colloquial and formal. This moderate style will work in most cases where your assignment does not specifically call for a colloquial or formal style.
Keep your style consistent in tone and diction by carefully choosing the patterns of writing and vocabulary that best serve your purpose.
Try to anticipate how your reader will understand your writing. Be specific and concrete and avoid wordiness.
In summary, writing is thinking. As you improve your thinking skills, your writing skills will improve; as your writing improves, your language will become more articulate and reflect your evolving critical thinking. If you would like to improve these skills formally, consider taking COMM 396: Critical Analysis in Reading and Writing.

Report broken links or any other problems on this page to writingcenter@umuc.edu. Be sure to include the title of the chapter and section in your e-mail.
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Online Guide to Writing and Research
Appendix A: Books to Help Improve Your Writing
Writing Handbooks
· Alred, G., Oliu, W., & Brusaw, C. (1992). The professional writer. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
· Cook, C. K. (1987). Line by line: the MLA’s guide to improving your writing. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
· Damer, T. E. (1995). Attacking faulty reasoning: A practical guide to fallacy-free argument (3rd ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
· Diamond, H. (1989). Barron’s grammar in plain English (2nd ed.). New York: Barron's Educational Series.
· Fahnestock, J., Secor, M. (1982). A rhetoric of argument. New York: Random House.
· Feldman, R. (1993). Reason and argument. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
· Fiske, R. H. (1989). Webster’s new world guide to concise writing. New York: Webster’s New World.
· Gordon, K. (1993) The deluxe transitive vampire. New York: Times Books.
· Gordon, K. (1993). The new well-tempered sentence. New York: Ticknor & Fields.
· Gunning, R., & Kallan, R. (1994). How to take the fog out of business writing. Chicago: Dartnell.
· Hacker, D. (1999). A writer’s reference (4th ed.). Boston: St. Martin’s Press.
· Kennedy, X. J., Kennedy, D. M., & Holladay, S. A. (1999). The Bedford guide for college writers (5th ed.). Boston: St. Martin’s Press.
· Langan, J. (1992). College writing skills (3rd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
· Leggett, G., Mead, C. D., & Kramer, M. G. (1994). The Prentice-Hall handbook for writers (12th ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
· Newby, R. (1987). The structure of English: A handbook of English grammar. New York: Cambridge University Press.
· Pinckert, R. C. (1991). Pinckert’s practical grammar: A lively, unintimidating guide to usage, punctuation, and style. Cincinnati: F & W Publications.
· Sabin, W. A. (1996). The Gregg reference manual (8th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co.
· Safire, W. (1990). Fumblerules. New York: Doubleday.
· Scherga, M. (1991). Practical English writing skills. Lincolnwood, IL: National Textbook Company.
· Sorenson, S. (1997). Webster’s new world student writing handbook. New York: Macmillan Publishing
· Waddell, M. L., Esch, R. M., Walker, R. R. (1993). The art of styling sentences: 20 patterns for success (3rd ed.). New York: Barron’s Educational Series.
· Zinsser, W. (1998). On writing well: An informal guide to writing nonfiction (6th ed.). New York: HarperCollins.
· Zinsser, W. (1989). Writing to learn: How to write and think clearly about any subject at all. New York: Harper & Row.
Dictionaries
General Dictionaries
· The American heritage dictionary: College edition. (1994). Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
· McCutcheon, M. (1995). Roget’s super thesaurus: The ultimate thesaurus and word-finder. Cincinnati: F & W Publications.
· Merriam-Webster’s collegiate dictionary: Tenth edition. (1993). Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster.
· Webster’s new world dictionary. (1995). New York: Simon & Schuster.
Special Dictionaries
· Black, H. C. (1991). Black’s law dictionary. (6th ed.). St. Paul, MN: West Publishing.
· Connors, T. D. (Ed.). (1982). Longman’s dictionary of mass media and communication. New York: Longman.
· Harre, R., & Lamb, R. (Eds.). (4th ed.). (1991). The encyclopedic dictionary of psychology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
· McGraw-Hill dictionary of scientific and technical terms. (1993). (5th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
· Mitchell, G. D. (Ed.). (1979). A new dictionary of the social sciences (2nd ed.). New York: Aldine, Hawthorne.
· Nemmers, E. E. (1997). Dictionary of economics and business: A thousand key terms and people. Totowa, NJ: Sipes Publishing.
· Pfaffenberger, B. (Ed.). (1994). Que’s computer user’s dictionary (5th ed.). Indianapolis: Que® Corporation.
· South, D. W. (Ed.). (1994). Computer and information science and technology abbreviations andacronyms dictionary. New York: CRC Press.
· Toffler, B., & Imber, J. (1994). Dictionary of marketing terms (2nd ed.). New York: Barron’s Educational Series.
· Weimer, R. (1996). Webster’s new world dictionary of media and communication. New York: Macmillan Publishing.
General Style Manuals
· American national standard for bibliographic references. (1977). New York: American National Standards Institute.
· Gibaldi, J. (1995). MLA handbook for writers of research papers (4th ed.). New York: The Modern Language Association.
· Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (4th ed.). (1994). Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association.
· The Chicago manual of style (14th ed.). (1993). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
· U.S. Government Printing Office style manual (Rev. ed.). (1984). Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
· Winkler, A. C., & McCuen, J. R. (1994). Writing the research paper: A handbook with both the MLA and APA documentation styles. Orlando: Harcourt Brace Company.
Special Style Manuals
Behavioral and Social Sciences
· Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA) (5th ed.). (2001). Washington, D.C.: American PsychologicalAssociation.
· The Chicago manual of style (14th ed.). (1993). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Biology
· CBE style manual: A guide for authors, editors, and publishers in the biological sciences (5th ed.). (1983). Bethesda, MD: Council of Biology Editors.
Chemistry
· Handbook for authors of papers in American Chemical Society publications. (1978). Washington, DC: American Chemical Society.
English and Communication Studies
· Gibaldi, J. (1999). MLA handbook for writers of research papers (5th ed.). New York: The Modern Language Association.
· Winkler, A. C., McCuen, J. R. (1994). Writing the research paper: A handbook with both the MLA and APA documentation styles. Orlando: Harcourt Brace Company.
Journalism
· French, C. W. (Ed.). (1996). The Associated Press stylebook and libel manual (6th ed.). New York: Addison-Wesley Publications.
Law and Paralegal Studies
· The bluebook: A uniform system of citation (15th ed.). (1991). Cambridge: The Harvard Law ReviewAssociation.
Mathematics
· A manual for authors of mathematical papers(7th ed.). (1980). Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society.
Physics
· American Institutes of Physics. (1978). Style manual for guidance in the preparation of papers (3rd ed.). New York: American Institutes of Physics.
Science
· American national standard for the preparation of scientific papers for written or oral presentation. (1979). New York: American National Standards Institute.
Graphics
· Tufte, E. R. (1983). The visual display of quantitative information. Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press.
· Tufte, E. R. (1990). Envisioning information. Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press.
· Tufte, E. R. (1997). Visual explanations: Images and quantities, evidence and narrative. Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press.
Researching on the Internet
· Ackermann, E., & Hartman, K. (1997). Searching and researching on the Internet and the World Wide Web. New York: Bantam/Franklin Square Press.
· Maloy, T. K. (1996). The Internet research guide: A concise, friendly, and practical handbook for anyone researching in the wide world of cyberspace. New York: Allworth Publishing.
· Rowland, R., & Kinnaman, D. (1995). Researching on the Internet: The complete guide to organizing, searching, and qualifying. New York: Berkley Group/Prime Publishing.
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Online Guide to Writing and Research
Appendix A: Books to Help Improve Your Writing
Writing Handbooks
· Alred, G., Oliu, W., & Brusaw, C. (1992). The professional writer. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
· Cook, C. K. (1987). Line by line: the MLA’s guide to improving your writing. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
· Damer, T. E. (1995). Attacking faulty reasoning: A practical guide to fallacy-free argument (3rd ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
· Diamond, H. (1989). Barron’s grammar in plain English (2nd ed.). New York: Barron's Educational Series.
· Fahnestock, J., Secor, M. (1982). A rhetoric of argument. New York: Random House.
· Feldman, R. (1993). Reason and argument. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
· Fiske, R. H. (1989). Webster’s new world guide to concise writing. New York: Webster’s New World.
· Gordon, K. (1993) The deluxe transitive vampire. New York: Times Books.
· Gordon, K. (1993). The new well-tempered sentence. New York: Ticknor & Fields.
· Gunning, R., & Kallan, R. (1994). How to take the fog out of business writing. Chicago: Dartnell.
· Hacker, D. (1999). A writer’s reference (4th ed.). Boston: St. Martin’s Press.
· Kennedy, X. J., Kennedy, D. M., & Holladay, S. A. (1999). The Bedford guide for college writers (5th ed.). Boston: St. Martin’s Press.
· Langan, J. (1992). College writing skills (3rd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
· Leggett, G., Mead, C. D., & Kramer, M. G. (1994). The Prentice-Hall handbook for writers (12th ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
· Newby, R. (1987). The structure of English: A handbook of English grammar. New York: Cambridge University Press.
· Pinckert, R. C. (1991). Pinckert’s practical grammar: A lively, unintimidating guide to usage, punctuation, and style. Cincinnati: F & W Publications.
· Sabin, W. A. (1996). The Gregg reference manual (8th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co.
· Safire, W. (1990). Fumblerules. New York: Doubleday.
· Scherga, M. (1991). Practical English writing skills. Lincolnwood, IL: National Textbook Company.
· Sorenson, S. (1997). Webster’s new world student writing handbook. New York: Macmillan Publishing
· Waddell, M. L., Esch, R. M., Walker, R. R. (1993). The art of styling sentences: 20 patterns for success (3rd ed.). New York: Barron’s Educational Series.
· Zinsser, W. (1998). On writing well: An informal guide to writing nonfiction (6th ed.). New York: HarperCollins.
· Zinsser, W. (1989). Writing to learn: How to write and think clearly about any subject at all. New York: Harper & Row.
Dictionaries
General Dictionaries
· The American heritage dictionary: College edition. (1994). Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
· McCutcheon, M. (1995). Roget’s super thesaurus: The ultimate thesaurus and word-finder. Cincinnati: F & W Publications.
· Merriam-Webster’s collegiate dictionary: Tenth edition. (1993). Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster.
· Webster’s new world dictionary. (1995). New York: Simon & Schuster.
Special Dictionaries
· Black, H. C. (1991). Black’s law dictionary. (6th ed.). St. Paul, MN: West Publishing.
· Connors, T. D. (Ed.). (1982). Longman’s dictionary of mass media and communication. New York: Longman.
· Harre, R., & Lamb, R. (Eds.). (4th ed.). (1991). The encyclopedic dictionary of psychology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
· McGraw-Hill dictionary of scientific and technical terms. (1993). (5th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
· Mitchell, G. D. (Ed.). (1979). A new dictionary of the social sciences (2nd ed.). New York: Aldine, Hawthorne.
· Nemmers, E. E. (1997). Dictionary of economics and business: A thousand key terms and people. Totowa, NJ: Sipes Publishing.
· Pfaffenberger, B. (Ed.). (1994). Que’s computer user’s dictionary (5th ed.). Indianapolis: Que® Corporation.
· South, D. W. (Ed.). (1994). Computer and information science and technology abbreviations andacronyms dictionary. New York: CRC Press.
· Toffler, B., & Imber, J. (1994). Dictionary of marketing terms (2nd ed.). New York: Barron’s Educational Series.
· Weimer, R. (1996). Webster’s new world dictionary of media and communication. New York: Macmillan Publishing.
General Style Manuals
· American national standard for bibliographic references. (1977). New York: American National Standards Institute.
· Gibaldi, J. (1995). MLA handbook for writers of research papers (4th ed.). New York: The Modern Language Association.
· Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (4th ed.). (1994). Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association.
· The Chicago manual of style (14th ed.). (1993). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
· U.S. Government Printing Office style manual (Rev. ed.). (1984). Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
· Winkler, A. C., & McCuen, J. R. (1994). Writing the research paper: A handbook with both the MLA and APA documentation styles. Orlando: Harcourt Brace Company.
Special Style Manuals
Behavioral and Social Sciences
· Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA) (5th ed.). (2001). Washington, D.C.: American PsychologicalAssociation.
· The Chicago manual of style (14th ed.). (1993). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Biology
· CBE style manual: A guide for authors, editors, and publishers in the biological sciences (5th ed.). (1983). Bethesda, MD: Council of Biology Editors.
Chemistry
· Handbook for authors of papers in American Chemical Society publications. (1978). Washington, DC: American Chemical Society.
English and Communication Studies
· Gibaldi, J. (1999). MLA handbook for writers of research papers (5th ed.). New York: The Modern Language Association.
· Winkler, A. C., McCuen, J. R. (1994). Writing the research paper: A handbook with both the MLA and APA documentation styles. Orlando: Harcourt Brace Company.
Journalism
· French, C. W. (Ed.). (1996). The Associated Press stylebook and libel manual (6th ed.). New York: Addison-Wesley Publications.
Law and Paralegal Studies
· The bluebook: A uniform system of citation (15th ed.). (1991). Cambridge: The Harvard Law ReviewAssociation.
Mathematics
· A manual for authors of mathematical papers(7th ed.). (1980). Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society.
Physics
· American Institutes of Physics. (1978). Style manual for guidance in the preparation of papers (3rd ed.). New York: American Institutes of Physics.
Science
· American national standard for the preparation of scientific papers for written or oral presentation. (1979). New York: American National Standards Institute.
Graphics
· Tufte, E. R. (1983). The visual display of quantitative information. Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press.
· Tufte, E. R. (1990). Envisioning information. Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press.
· Tufte, E. R. (1997). Visual explanations: Images and quantities, evidence and narrative. Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press.
Researching on the Internet
· Ackermann, E., & Hartman, K. (1997). Searching and researching on the Internet and the World Wide Web. New York: Bantam/Franklin Square Press.
· Maloy, T. K. (1996). The Internet research guide: A concise, friendly, and practical handbook for anyone researching in the wide world of cyberspace. New York: Allworth Publishing.
· Rowland, R., & Kinnaman, D. (1995). Researching on the Internet: The complete guide to organizing, searching, and qualifying. New York: Berkley Group/Prime Publishing.
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Go back to:
·Writing at Dartmouth
·Online Writing Materials
·Materials for Faculty
Teaching Writing in the First Year
·Teaching Writing in the First Year
·Teaching the First-Year Seminar
·Teaching Writing 5
·Teaching Writing 2-3
Teaching Writing 5
On this page:
·What can you expect of your students?
·What does the Writing Program expect of you?
·What do your students expect of you?
What can you expect of your students?
Writing 5 is, for most Dartmouth students, the first exposure to the demands of college writing. While many students are competent high school writers, most do not yet understand the demands and conventions of academic prose.
Most students entering your Writing 5 understand what a thesis sentence is. They grasp the general rules of paragraphing. They understand the sentence and its boundaries—though they sometimes run on, and they often make the mistake of putting their most important ideas into dependent clauses. Incoming students make grammar errors that we might classify as annoying—that is, errors that don't interfere with a reader's understanding but that reflect a less-than-careful writer. Although your students shouldn't need formal grammar instruction, they will need you to point to persistent errors and to insist that these errors be addressed.
Your students will also come into Writing 5 with certain habits that you'll want to break. Most common among these is the dreaded five-paragraph theme, in which students begin with a generalization, posit a thesis that has three points, craft three paragraphs to illustrate these points, and then conclude by making another generalization (or reiterating the one with which they began). Instructors beware: even longer papers of ten or fifteen paragraphs may be based on the five-paragraph-theme model. This approach to writing doesn't often produce good papers as students let the form dictate their thinking, rather than letting their thinking dictate the form.
A second habit that you'll want to break is your students tendency to nominalize—that is, to turn verbs into abstract nouns in order to sound more academic. Students might write "It was not the intention of the Russian ambassador to bring the negotiations to a conclusion," when "The Russian ambassador did not intend to end negotiations" might be better. Nominalizations make sentences less clear because the bury actions—which should be in verbs—within nouns, making it difficult to pick out the actors in sentences. Moreover, nominalizing leads to several bad habits, including a tendency to use the passive voice or to overuse "There are/It is" constructions. Students mimic this habit because they have seen it in academic writing, but we should break this lamentable cycle. A few lessons in the elements of style will help students to build sentences with actors as subjects and with good, strong verbs.
What does the Writing Program expect of you?
The list of goals for Writing 5 is long. Instructors are expected to introduce students to the conventions of academic discourse. They will sharpen students' critical thinking skills. They will introduce students to research by creating an assignment that requires students to find, evaluate, use, and cite secondary sources. Most important, they will teach their students to write.
As in the other first-year writing courses, teaching writing will not depend simply on assigning writing—though writing will be assigned, and often. Instructors will frequently conduct writing workshops, confer regularly with students about their writing, provide careful and thoughtful feedback, and make good use of the collaborative learning and active learning ideas described throughout this website. For a more thorough description of the program's expectations, please see Writing 5: Guidelines for Faculty. We hope that you will especially note the following:
· Plan to spend substantial class time on student writing. Don't allow course readings to crowd out discussion of student work. Treat student work as another text for the class, using it as the basis for in-class writing workshops. See Conducting Writing Workshops for proven strategies.
· Require (and allow ample time for) revision. Most experienced writing teachers know that students learn to write not simply by writing, but by rewriting. Studies show that student writing improves when they are asked to work out the problems in an existing paper, rather than applying the instructor's comments to a new writing task.
What do your students expect of you?
Most students are enthusiastic about Writing 5—after all, they selected your section from the many listed online. Accordingly, their expectations are high.
· Students expect the classroom format to be discussion-based, rather than lecture-based. They want a class that is intimate not only in size but in character.
· Students want feedback from you on their writing. You should respond not only to the content of the writing, but also to its structure, form, and style.
· Students expect that you will return their papers to them in a timely manner, so that they have sufficient time to absorb and incorporate your comments before the next paper is due.
· Students expect that you will be accessible to them. They expect you to be available to meet with them in conference and in office hours throughout the term to discuss their progress. They also hope that you will respond to their emails.
· They don't realize it, but your students need you to show them where their existing models of research and writing, which they have inherited from high school, fail. Until you can demonstrate to them that their existing models are inadequate for academic purposes, they may resist your efforts.
· Once you've shown them that their existing models won't work, students will want you to inspire them to explore new models and to support them while they do. They'll want you to remain engaged with them as writers and as thinkers, so that they in turn can do their best work in your course.
If you have questions about teaching Writing 5, please contact Karen Gocsik, Executive Director of the Writing Program.
Written by Karen GocsikLast modified: Sunday, 30-Sep-2007 12:42:27 EDTCopyright © 2004 Dartmouth Collegewww.dartmouth.edu/~writing/materials/faculty/firstyear/writing5.shtml
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