This is a site for discussion about writing sponsored by the Writing Center and the Writing Across the Curriculum program at Eastern Illinois University.
We look forward to working with you over the final two weeks of the semester, but we strongly advise you to make your appointments ahead of time because our consulting schedule will fill up quickly these last couple of weeks.
Although it's possible you might be able to get walk-in appointments, it's not probable. So schedule ahead of time.
Drop by the Writing Center (3110 Coleman Hall) or give us a call (581-5929) to schedule appointments. We're open 9am-3 pm and 6-9 pm on M, Tu, W, & Th and 9am-1pm on Friday. See you there.
One of the most vivid memories of my life occurred while I witnessed the behavior of a young man who had recently joined my gym. He was a tiny bloke. In fact, when I first saw him, I thought he was a jockey at Arlington.
What struck me about this young man, aside from his petite stature, was the way he was dressed. Every article of clothing on his body was new, but more than its shininess, was the strategic chromaticism that betokened the sartorial vanguard. Just looking at the outfit, I imagined the numerous meetings and discussions that must have been conducted, before it was finally decided to use crimson, instead of cerise, to dye the hem of the collar.
His shoes were branded with the Jumpman Logo and spotless. His shirt was knitted from fabric that was created in a lab not spun from the natural fibers of Mother Earth. He had an arm band that held his IPOD and a pair of ear buds that had an ergonomic design and a metallic brightness that indicated they may have been custom made. The young man apparently had big plans for the evening because he urgently removed from his pockets a pair of workout gloves. Some members of the gym might think this last appurtenance was something to be sneered at, but not me. After all, calluses hurt.
It got stranger from there. He placed his ear buds into his canals and manipulated the buttons on his IPOD until he found the right song. He rolled his neck in a circle a couple of times, flexed his narrow shoulders, and jumped up and down three or four times. But apparently all this warming-up had taxed his strength. Rather than actually lifting any weights or doing any physically strenuous exercise, he walked to the front of the gym and purchased two specially-formulated beverages: one, to build-muscle, the other, to quench his thirst.
After he returned, I watched him tilt each container daintily to his lips. Then he went through another series of complicated stretches. Eventually, he laid down on the bench and actually made contact with the knurls. He even gripped the bar firmly a few times as if bracing himself for an engagement.
It was going great for the young man until he noticed the laces of his shoes were hanging unevenly. This was a dishevelment not to be tolerated. But how could he get his laces to hang equidistant from each other when his hands were being restrained by his work-out gloves? His footwear standards were too scrupulous to sacrifice any of his dexterity, so he took the gloves off. The music must have been impeding his concentration because he removed his ear buds as well. Now he was in control. Now he had plenary power to manipulate those laces, and manipulate them he did.
I finished two sets of bench press before he finished tying his shoes.
When he was finally satisfied with his footwear, the ear buds were placed back into his canals, and he began to move his neck in a slow gyre. But all that bending and squatting he did while tying his shoes must have parched his throat. The two beverages in front of him that he'd just purchased were inappropriate for this particular species of thirst, so he went back to the front of the gym and purchased a bottle of water. He came back to the area of the gym where the free-weights were located. He resumed the spot he had earlier, only now he had three containers, three different beverages.
At this point, I'm done with my workout, I might have been dressed like a pauper in old rags and still using a Discman as my source of music, but I am sweating, my muscles are slightly twitching, joyously fatigued. I could leave the gym at this point, but my curiosity is piqued.
Will the young man actually lift a weight or will he, grab his three beverages, get in his car and go home? I want to see how this story ends. Or maybe to be more precise, I want to confirm my contempt; I don't want to ground my disdain in mere surmise--I bethe never even lifted a weight. No, I did't want to presume--I wanted to be sure.
It wasn't long after I finished my workout that the suspense ended. Not a single weight lifted. He gathered his beverages in his arms and left.
So what does this episode have to do with writing?
Writing, like lifting weights, is hard; it demands a certain amount of suffering to grow and improve. It is much easier to buy a new pen or buy a new desk or buy a new computer and tell yourself that these new instruments will make you a better writer than it is to actually put the work in to become a better writer.
It's fun buying new things; it's pleasurable to imagine how those new things will change your life.
Do you know what isn't so fun? To sit down in quiet room (yes, this means you turn your phone off) and write. Writing, like lifting weights, will have its moments of reward and achievement, but these moments are almost never located at the beginning of the endeavor. The fun comes after the pain, not before it.
Careful going to those coffee shops. Yeah, I know it stimulates your muse, but it also leads to a whole lot of distractions and wasted time. Getting serious, working up a sweat, pushing yourself into joyous fatigue--it's the only way
You get your assignment. You have to write ten pages in X
amount of days to finish it.
You stare at the prompt and have no
idea where to start. You’re overwhelmed and don’t know how you’re going to get
it all done, especially when you take into consideration all of your other
homework.
So how do you do it?
The solution is much simpler than
you might think. Take the number of pages and the number of days you have to get
it done and distribute the work accordingly.
If you have five pages due in five
days, do a page a day and it will be done. If you have ten pages and five days
to write them, do two pages a day and it will be done.
Of course, this doesn’t include
time for research. So in the case of a research paper or project, spend a day
doing all your research and organizing your data, then start on the writing.
By doing a
little at a time, it will ease your guilty conscience for putting it off until
the last possible moment and allow you to:
1) be productive and allow you to
say you’ve at least started and
2) have a life outside of school
The moral
of this story here is this one: doing a little bit at a time eases the mind and allows
time to be managed and distributed among other homework and for you to
participate in whatever social activities you deem worthy of a homework break.
Many of you will find yourselves graduating this semester and likely on the long arduous search for work. Some may have jobs that you held during the semesters while others might’ve focused solely on academics in lieu of a steady paycheck. Whatever the case, once you get your fancy-shmancy degree, you’re going to have to make it look like you’re a pro. I mean, you are a pro, but you gotta make them believe it. Your prospective employers.
Yeah, you got some wicked awesome grades. 3.5 GPA? Not everybody can boast that. Heck, it might even be just what your employer’s looking for. Your resume? It was pretty boss. It could just snag you that job.
But wait. I can see it now:
Mr. Future-Boss is thumbing through his latest wave of applications to position of Senior Fancy-Pants. He’s looking for a particular background with a particular set of skills, and, by George, you have all those particulars down like you’ve planned it all these years.
But you know what? He never sees your application. In fact, he tosses in the “Send to Incinerator” bin, the contents of which will be sent immediately to the incinerator where it will be converted into ashes and then returned to Mr. Future-Boss’s office where Mr. Future-Boss and his assistant will sip ginger ale and dance on the ashes.
I’ll answer your first question: I don’t know what kind of dance they’re doing, but if I had to guess I’d say the Charleston. To respond to your second query, I’d have to say that the reason why it got sent to the incinerator was because missing a key element. Not a crisp hundred-dollar bill paperclipped to the back of your application, but instead a cover letter.
Now I know nobody writes letters anymore except foppish dukes in powdered wigs, but that’s why this is called a cover letter. You don’t need to write a letter, but you sure as heck need a cover letter.
What does that entail? Well according to the Purdue OWL, you want to begin with a little bit of this:
State the university you attend, your major, and what position you are applying for (if you are a student).
Mention where you heard about the job.
Mention the name of a professor or other contact who has a positive connection with the company.
Bring up any previous conversations you have had with your reader (i.e., at a job fair).
Intros consist of some name dropping and fond reminiscence, or at least pretend fond reminiscence. Name dropping shows how connected you are and how enthusiastic you might be to get this job. Word of the wise: DO NOT GET WORDY. You want to be concise, to the point. It's fast paced world we live in folks and you don't want to get bogged down by wordy introductions and poorly-paced lead-ins that involve unnecessary information and--
Next, you want to kick it up a notch in the body, or the argument. This isn't where you argue that the one time you met your employer he was wearing two different color socks (it was a bad day for Mr. Future-Boss), but rather why you deserve this job, nay, why they deserve you. You're going to want to mention a few of these:
Special projects
Awards
Accomplishments
Talk yourself up. Big time. But don't lie or exaggerate. Mr. Future-Boss might have a pretty good idea whether or not you're in Mensa because he's the secretary at their meetings. He takes darn good attendance.
Feel ready to finish? Keep these things in mind:
Close with a strong reminder of why you are a good match for the job position and the organization.
Request an interview in some way.
Provide contact information.
Thank them!
Sign your name and print it underneath.
Mr. Future-Boss has what they call the short-term memory loss. He swears he's like Guy Pearce in Memento, but his assistant (and most people know better). Regardless, he's going to forget why you're a top candidate for Senior Fancy-Pants after he gets done reading the body. You also want to talk to him in the future--you know, to convince him further why you'd be the best Senior Fancy-Pants to come through in the last twenty years. You'll want to leave your name, number, and address in case he wants to don his powdered wig and write you back, and while you're at it sign the bottom so he can see how good of penmanship you have. Or see how good the handwriting is of your close friend who has good handwriting. Again, he might forget your name so a signature should remind him of it.
And thank him because Mr. Future-Boss is a busy man with little time to dawdle.
The writing process is different for everyone, but writing for a particular class can evoke a different voice or tone that’s present. Regardless of the writing itself, whether it’s creative, research, synthesis or any other style, your voice is present within the paper.
When writing a creative piece (fiction, play, poem, or essay based on personal experience), the voice of the writer can be examined insofar as the point of view of the characters or the type of creative piece overall. For example, the sentence, “I went home this past weekend for my brother’s birthday,” is a sentence in first person. Most of the time this is acceptable when writing creative pieces unless the assignment calls for something different. Also, when creating stories, having a steady narrator will allow for an avenue for readers to identify with the characters. While composing, the author has to make sure to maintain the voice in style and point of view in order to create cohesion of the piece itself.
In contrast to personal and creative writing, when writing research papers a lot of people don’t think their voices can be heard amongst the research. Sometimes this process causes difficulties for writers because they are struggling to make their voice heard since the use of “I,” “you,” and “we” are less common when composing a research paper. When writing a research-based paper, students should be composing mostly in third person, such as the use of “a lot of people” in the first sentence of this paragraph. Some commonly used phrases in research papers are “one,” “the results show…,” and “the conclusions are…” in contrast to pronouns such as “I” and “we.” For example, though this post doesn’t contain any pronoun indicators of being in first person, my voice shows by how my point is presented as well as by the tone of my post.
Being conscious of the assignment and what type of writing is required for a paper can help you use strategies to make sure your voice is present within a paper.
Books, journal articles and online databases are the tools that we normally use when doing research. However, there are many other sources of information that can be useful to anyone writing a paper. Here are just a few other options that can be considered.
One lost art of research is using actual hard copies of newspapers as a source for a paper. When I was speaking with a history major, she reminisced on the days that she was stuck in the library sifting through old newspaper articles because they alone provided the information that was useful in her paper. Somehow this form of research has become somewhat of a history artifact in and of itself.
If you’re an education major observing can provide insight when reflecting on strategies that have been learned in the classroom setting. Sitting in on professional meeting can also benefit business majors, administration majors or anyone involved in professional major. When observing, make sure to always take notes, not only on the setting and reactions of those involved in your observation but also on your reactions to the experience.
Along these same lines, interviewing someone with experience within your discipline can provide inside information and expertise. Like observing in a professional setting, conducting an interview should be well planned and executed in a professional manner. When compiling questions to ask, make sure they are leading to the points that you are trying to gain from the encounter. Also be sure to include questions that are also open ended, which can lead to more explanation or deeper conversations. As always, make sure to take detailed notes while conducting the interview. Then when compiling all of your information, make sure to reflect on what you’ve learned and how using the interview is beneficial to your project.
Using questionnaires or surveys can also provide detailed information that will be useful to a paper or project. The focus and design of a survey will depend on what information you’re trying to gather, as well as the characteristics of the group you are surveying. This form of research can provide a wide range of information and could be very useful when drafting a paper based on a gap of information that you’re trying to address.
Though these aren’t the only other forms of research besides books and journal articles, they can provide information research avenues for many projects and your professional development.
Brainstorming ideas and outlining are strategies that can help in organizing a paper. But how do you even get there in the first place? When reviewing multiple sources for a paper of any kind, taking careful, detailed notes will not only help you find the support that you’ll need in your paper, but also help with the organization of a draft. Here are a few helpful ideas on note taking when dealing with source material.
How Do You Take Notes From a Text You Can’t Write On?
- Sticky notes: Sticky notes can help mark useful passages that you want to later reference in your paper. Along with marking a particular point within the book, writing a word or phrase on sticky notes can help you connect and summarize the points that are important. I don’t want to spend actual money on sticky notes so I use small pieces of paper to mark the spot in a book. See, you don’t have to buy them if you don’t want to!
- Taking notes on paper: It’s helpful to take detailed notes of main points that you might later use when drafting your paper. If you’re not a detailed note taker, then just writing a page number on paper or a particular quote will help jog your memory.
- Note cards: Jotting down quotes and main ideas along with the reference information on notecards can make ideas easier to locate when drafting a paper. This way, the information is all in one place, and can even be useful when deciding how to organize the ideas for a draft. Note cards allow you to visually shuffle information.
Taking Notes On Printed Sources
- Highlighting and underlining: Highlighting and underlining can help you reference particular words or phrases that you plan to expand upon in a draft. Making notes in the margins will make it easier for you to pick out points that you want to use in your paper. These notes can later become points that you want to make in your paper.
Starting the search for sources early can only benefit your paper in the end because you’ll have time to effectively take notes. Though the process can take more time, making sure that you pick out points within research to support your ideas will only help when beginning to draft your paper.
The EIU Writing Center doesn’t only provide feedback about academic papers or scholarship essays. Writing consultants there can help you with any document you've drafted, or they can help you get the writing process started by having a conversation about the assignment and brainstorming ideas.
As the DEN has informed readers about recently, to be accepted into any teacher education programs at Eastern, students must first take and pass all parts of the Basic Skills Test. Because most programs have become more rigid with class scheduling during the sophomore and junior years of college, people recommend that students take the test in their first year or sophomore year of college.
What does this have to do with writing, you might ask?
A lot since there are writing assignments on the exam.
The Basic Skills test is required for all Education majors because it is used to asses that prospective teachers have the analytical and communication skills that they can implement in the classroom. This test consists mainly of essay tests. So being prepared and knowing the process of writing a timed essay is crucial for success on the Basic Skills Test. Getting ample practice before the big day of the test is very important, especially since students can take the test no more than five times.
On Thursday, October 6, 2011, the Writing Center will provide a workshop titled "Writing on the Spot: Essay Exams" at 3:30 p.m. in the Writing Center (3110 Coleman Hall). This interactive session will focus on strategies that will help students on the typical essay exams they write in college, and it also could help Education majors who are concerned about the Basic Skills Test.
In addition, last spring this blog provided some advice about the challenge of in-class/timed essays in the post "Essay Exam Writing Tips."
Mid-term exams are approaching and the Basic Skills Test is important if you're an Ed major, so checking out the link above and attending the workshop tomorrow will better prepare you for what's ahead.
Much of the time people think about how to start papers and worry if they will meet professor’s expectations and the like. Writing rough drafts is very important and an aspect of writing a paper that doesn’t get as much of attention as it should, especially when you’re just starting out in the college experience. My advice, draft!
The idea of drafting can be very daunting and quite scary. It does involve starting early, brainstorming in advance, and doing research right off the bat. All of this combined can be really overwhelming. This is something that your professors understand. So most of the time, you’ll get assignments for bigger papers early. Once that happens, it’s all in your hands from there.
Once you get an assignment, do whatever form of brainstorming that works for you. Whether it is actually writing a draft, composing bullet points, cubing, or another brainstorming method, starting this process early will help your final draft down the road.
Once you have done some brainstorming, take the time to actually outline and plan out a draft. If starting on a rough draft right away works, then do that first.
After drafting, if time allows, step away from the draft. Work on other homework and do something relaxing before revisiting the draft for editing or adding to the paper. Before you feel like you have your finished product, make sure and go through the process of editing and revising.
Hopefully the idea of creating multiple drafts of your paper before it is due will help with the process of solidifying the paper and making sure that you follow the assignment. My best advice is START EARLY!
Papers, papers, papers. They come in all different forms and styles, especially while you’re in your undergrad program at EIU. I remember thinking that just English majors wrote papers, and everyone else was home free, but I was very wrong. So I wanted to make sure that everyone realized how important the skill of writing is to your future career.
Regardless of your major the Writing Center here at EIU is here to help!
We don’t edit papers, but rather those of us that work in the Writing Center want to help writer’s gain skills that will help them create skills to help with other classes and the careers that you so choose. Because regardless of the place of employment that you end up in, writing will be an aspect of your job, even if it’s engineering or working maintenance.
At the Writing Center we will help you with any assignment that you may have that’s writing related. Here are some examples of the array of things we can help students with.
Narratives
Lesson Plans
Case Studys
Research Papers in any area
Business Proposals
Aspects of writhing a thesis in a masters program
Grad School Application Essays
Essays for scholarship
Lab Reports
APA, MLA, Chicago citations
These are just few of the many areas of writing that you can get help with at the Writing Center.
So don’t be afraid or scared if you hear you have a lot of writing to do in a science class or any other class. Lab reports also require a lot of writing and analysis, and people at the Writing Center can help if you get confused on format or citing or just figuring out where to begin! The biggest help at times may be to also know that you aren’t alone. There are many other students out there who need help on their writing.
Writing can be a difficult process—hence the existence of this blog. Even more challenging, at times, is writing in groups—sharing the creation of a paper or assignment with others.
In a perfect world, every single person in a collaborative writing assignment would share equal responsibility in the writing process. Everyone would do the same amount of research and write the same number of pages. But let's face it: this isn't a perfect world.
George Mason University's Online Writing Guide for Students (part of their New Century University program) has a nice section on Collaborative Writing. It offers definitions of various roles, some helpful tips, and even ethical points to keep in mind. I strongly recommend checking out this website. In addition, I've included a few suggestions of my own below:
1) Compromise. You'll have to. If there are three people working on a paper, that means there are three different personalities, schedules, ideas, etc. In a collaborative assignment, everyone is equal. Your peers' suggestions carry as much weight as your own.
2) Be firm. If your peers aren't doing their share of the work, discuss it with them. They may have reasons other than sheer laziness, though if that is the case, then discuss the issue with your other peers, or your instructor.
3) Divide the work as evenly as possible. Are you usually in charge? In a collaborative environment, you'll have to relinquish some control. Are you used to doing what you're told? In collaborative writing, you'll have to take your own initiative.
4) Listen. This goes right along with compromising, but I feel its worth reinforcing. Listen to your peers.
5) Don't stress out. Really. Collaborative writing is highly rewarding, and is a great skill (almost a requirement) when entering the workforce, or extending your education. That doesn't mean it's a bummer, though. It's a great way to get to know people, and to evaluate your own writing process.
The thing to remember is, collaborative writing is worth it. It really is. Two heads are better than one, as the saying goes. When you work closely with others, you gain new experience and new points of view—this is why so many instructors utilize group work in their classrooms. Collaborative writing is a great opportunity to learn from your peers, and for your peers to learn from you.
"It's through writing, I believe, that you do start to understand yourself."
[Hebeler]
You’ve kind of addressed the next questions I was going to ask you about procrastination, and I really liked the way that you put of all that, so I think I’ll let Dan ask his questions.
[Davis]
Okay.
[Davis]
You’ve told us about different applications of writing, and you’ve told us about different steps in your writing process. Is there any one process or any one aspect of your writing that you particularly like, and conversely is there one aspect that you just absolutely dread?
[Perry]
Well, okay so let’s take the different kinds of writing—the part I like for the writing has to do with the job and all that. The part I like there is defining on the front end: Audience, message. Because that clarifies a lot for you right there.
And once I get that clear in my head and that’s not always clear because you’re meaning. Let’s say you’re going to be meeting with the Mattoon Rotary, and you’re going to be talking about something. The audience isn’t the Mattoon Rotary.
You’ve got to look at who’s all in there, the different segments of the community, and then you’ve got to think what are the common threads there, so you may end up knowing you’re going to be addressing, you know, one audience when you’re talking about the Renewable Energy Center, another audience when you’re talking about enrollment, and another audience when you’re talking about community service. And so I that’s the part I like, it’s getting that identified.
In terms of more personal, really personal writing, I like it when I find the right word.
In haiku, you know you’ve got these syllables, and I know of course if you in different languages of course the syllables change and meaning changes and all that, but I just do English okay? So, getting it right, at least what I think is right, is very satisfying because sometimes you’ll write it and you’ll have the write number of syllables and you’ll be getting almost the intent you want. But changing one of the words sometimes can really make things fall into place, kind of like a jigsaw puzzle, you know. You do a jigsaw puzzle, and you’re down to just a few spots left, and boy this looks like it goes right there, you know, it almost does, but it doesn’t quite. So it’s the same with words. So that’s very satisfying. I like that. A lot of enjoyment out of that.
[Davis]
Well splitting it up again into your professional and personal writing, what would you say have been your most successful or favorite writing experiences?
[Perry]
Well, I’d say maybe a couple of the mathematics papers I wrote. I felt like, you know, when it was all done, I felt very good about the way I had put together. A lot of the stuff that I wrote was in applied mathematics, so I was wanting to strike the right balance, you know, between theory and application, you know.
Proofs but also computational examples that show that the theorem not only is true because you proved it, but you actually can use it to compute solutions to certain kinds of equations. So that’s been very satisfying.
But I think my personal writing, I think students already know. They get to us and they’ve already gone through a lot in their life. And there’s going to be more of that to come, and I think to the extent that they can see writing as a way to deal with issues. It’s not like their writing for anybody else. They’re not going to publish it. Some people keep diaries. Some people just every now and then say I’ve got to write about this. Sometimes they tear it up. Sometimes they keep it in a book.
But, I think words have such power for us. That’s why we have to be careful, you know, in using speech with other people. I mean, yes, we have freedom of speech, but we can sure hurt people with our speech. But the power of words enables us to deal with our own emotions too and deal with the things that are happening to us in our lives. So it’s been satisfying when I’ve been able to face some of those things, deal with some of those things in that way.
[Kory]
Well, to take it back into maybe your professional writing, when you see other people doing the kind of writing you do, so you read a speech, or, you know, you see some of that, when do you think like “Oh, I wish I said that.”
[Perry]
I wish I’d said that.
[Kory]
What do you really admire in that you see people doing well in the kind of writing that you also do?
[Perry]
Well, I see brevity and imagery.
Someone will write something, and it will bring something to mind. I think that’s very valuable. You know, you think about examples: with malice toward none, charity for all, ask not what your country can do for you but what you, I know there are names for that kind of construction.
[Kory]
Right.
[Perry]
But wording that connects you to the speaker and to the speech.
I think one of the great things about Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech is its, we all know the part about I have a dream, but you look at the whole speech, and you see imagery in many, many places, very powerful imagery and it’s not with a lot of words.
It’s just, you know, a few words you get this imagery towards you. Franklin Roosevelt, and of course a lot, you’re shaped, I’m shaped by what I studied, what I’ve heard. Those are the kind of things that get me: just short, powerful words with imagery and a call to action. You see this as something more than just some words sitting on the page. It’s something that’s reaching out to you, saying, you know, you need to do something.
[Kory]
So it’s about when you see writing that works, or sort of that sort of good writing that sort of you know it when you see it. Has anyone ever, to take a sort of more intellectualized version of that, is there, has anyone said anything to you about writing that you said like “Yes!”? Have you gotten good advice about writing?
[Perry]
Oh well, the best advice I ever had, got was “Know your audience.”
"If you say, okay I can spare 10 minutes and I’ll just start writing,
and it creates momentum and the next thing you know,
you got something pretty good to work on."
[Houchens]
Well, going along with the writing, is there anything unique about your process that you would like to share?
[Perry]
I don’t think, I don’t know if there is anything unique, but what I tend to do is let things roll around in my head for a long, long time. I’ll know that I want to have something written by a certain date, so I know that’s out there. Maybe that’s my demon, my first demon, okay?
And I think the first thing I do always is: Who’s the audience? What’s my intention? What’s my message? And use plain language. Does this need to inspire in some way? How do I put words together to be inspirational? And, I don’t think if you start putting things on paper immediately you, the inspiration—I’m not sure you’d get it.
But when you work things around in your mind and your thinking about it, sometimes words come together in ways that wouldn’t on the page. And then at some point I’ll know it’s time to start putting things down.
Now this isn’t good advice for a student, you know. Oh, I’ll just roll around in your mind until something comes to you. I think, well back to your question. So that’s the way it works, and usually what happens is when I write it down, it’ll either be the penultimate or the final—one or the other. I tend to, when I do that, I go right to a word processor.
But, I think for other kinds of writing. Sometimes for writing I find the best thing you do is to take 10 minutes and say, “Okay, Bill. Just start writing. Okay. Just 10 minutes, that’s all you got to do. Just 10 minutes,” and then you have a place where you will keep that.
And sometimes that creates momentum, and sometimes the 10 minutes will be up and okay 10 minutes are up, but sometimes I’ll just keep going, that momentum will keep me going. Next thing I know, it’s been 20 or 30 minutes.
But I think in terms of students and their writing, I think if you just, you see this huge project. It looks mountainous to you. It’s like that garage you know you got to clean out, and you think it’s floor to ceiling with junk and furniture and all this kind of stuff.
And finally when you go to the garage, all there is in there is a couch, right? Because you imagined it to be worse than it is. So but if you say okay I can spare 10 minutes and I’ll just start writing, assuming in know what I’m supposed to writing about, and it creates momentum and the next thing you know, you got something pretty good to work on.
[Houchens]
So how do you know, like you said, how do you know it’s the final draft? How do you get there?
[Perry]
Well. For me, I’m consciously doing this, working in my head. And then I’ll just say, “Okay, it’s time.” And just something will come because its time. I’ll just drop whatever I’m doing, and I’ll go and hammer out, and sometimes it’s the final, and sometimes it’s next to final, and that’s worked out pretty well over time.
What I’ve found is also since a lot of the writing I do is to prepare to like give a speech or something like that, that by doing that way, once I write it down the only reason to write it down really is if someone in university relations needs the text of it. I don’t like to read speeches. And so that’s why sometimes what I say and what I wrote will differ in some ways.
But I think in terms of students, you know you’ve got public speaking and communications, and you’ve got English and writing, and you’ve got rhetoric, and these things fit together in different ways. And so if the assignment is to give a talk about something, that’s quite different than handing a paper over to some people about something. But I think the thing is everybody works their own style.
Now, obviously I will never be a novelist or anything like that, because I don’t think you get there by letting it roll around in your mind. So many novelists I read about, they’re very disciplined, and they write. They sit down, and they write. It’s work, I mean, they love it, but you know, it’s work. It’s kind of like, you know, as professor, if mathematics is your area, you’ve got a set time you’re going to be doing mathematics. You’ve got to set a time you’re going to be preparing for class and so forth and so on.
[Kory]
I mean, it’s not that different in some ways from rolling it around on the page versus rolling it around in your head?
[Perry]
Yeah and I think technology makes it easier on the page than hand writing absolutely.
And, you know, I think one thing I’d say to students is block out once you know who your audience is and what the message is to be, sometimes you can block it out. And of course the writing instructors are going to say okay there’s some certain things that need to be in here and so forth and so on.
It’s like in public speaking: tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them, and tell them you told them. That’s kind of the general set up.
But in writing, maybe there’s some of that the same, right? But you know sometimes what you can do is say, okay you can write block one x, block 2 y, block 3 z and that just gives you comfort. Sometimes you say, “Okay now I know what it’s kind of going to look like,” and then you can go in and work each block and I think word processors are a great aid, but they don’t replace the creative process obviously, which is the most important part.
No doubt you've seen advertisements about readings being held throughout campus. Perhaps you've gone to a few that relate to your class work, or whose topics interested you. But have you ever considered how attending readings and presentations may impact your own writing?
The truth is, hearing a paper read aloud is completely different from reading it silently to yourself. (This is, in fact, a great proofreading skill.) When listening to someone read aloud, you get a sense of flow and rhythm, an idea of how words sound. If you pay close attention, this can affect how you yourself put words and sentences together—pattern yourself off of the patterns of others. It's okay to take inspiration from others, as long as you avoid outright plagiarism.
It also helps to attend readings and presentations that you otherwise wouldn't attend. For example: if you are an Education major with an English concentration, perhaps you should attend a reading about plate tectonics. Sounds boring, right? But just think—not all of the writing in the world revolves around teaching English. There's a lot you can take away from a geology essay. Use of terminology, for example; or the way the presenter may take information that is otherwise boring to you, and make it fun and engaging (believe me, this actually happens). If you're going to be teaching English to a room full of high schoolers who don't care about the symbology of the letter "A" in The Scarlet Letter, you'll need to engage them somehow.
Voilà! Any reading, any presentation, can help you with your own writing. You just have to pay attention—if not to the subject matter, then to the way it's read, or the way the presenter delivers the information. This may mean adding a few more "to-do's" onto your already-busy schedule, but believe me, it pays off in the long run. And who knows—you just may have some fun. (Really!)
If it is true, as Dan Davis says, that “Procrastination is Evil,” (see Using Your Syllabi to Plan Out Your Writing Assignments) then perhaps those of us possessed by this tendency might find relief from its malevolence by following the advice of EIU President Perry, whose interview with EIU Writes is coming soon to our blog. He advises writers who suffer from the symptoms of procrastination to “take ten minutes” and just write.
Likewise, Dr. Tim Taylor, Director of the EIU Writing Center, has offered strategies for combating the demon procrastination. He, like Mr. Davis, advocates establishing a writing schedule as well as doing mortal combat with the notion that words must come out perfectly the first time, citing poet William Stafford’s idea that sometimes we have to “lower [our] standards” in the initial stages of generating material.
In the spirit of embracing the messiness of first drafts and early efforts, I suggest the cinematic metaphor of Linda Blair’s performance in The Exorcist, infamous for its graphic scene of projectile illness. It is a disgusting allusion, but somehow apt. I have seen other fecund expressions of the need for loosening textual effusion. See, for example, a recent post by Ben Myers on the WVU Writing Center Blog , notable for its erudition as well as its figurations of bodily function. It can be found here
Like me, some of our readers might be inspired by those named above to give up procrastination for Lent.
Coming Soon…Robert De Niro’s Texty Driver: “One of these days I’m gonna get myself organized.”
Using Your Syllabi to Plan Your Writing Assignments
So, that time of the semester is fast approaching: the point at which you realize that, holy crap, your professors expect you to write something! And not only that, but multiple professors are asking you to write! The bad news is, you have to do the writing; there's no way around that, I'm afraid. However, here comes the good (great) news: you don't have to do it all at once!
The key to managing your assignments is the syllabus that your professor handed to you at the beginning of the semester. (If you didn't receive a syllabus, you can always ask your professor when things are due; don't worry, they'll probably be happy to tell you.) Not only do syllabi give a tentative list of when assignments are due, but quite often they give details about what is expected from those assignments. (Again, if such info isn't available, ask your professor; they'll be pleased that you're taking an interest in future assignments.)
Quite often, major writing assignments are due near the end of the semester—which means that they're all going to be due around the same time. Which should you start first, then? There are two primary factors at work here. The first is, of course, what you know: don't start writing a paper about advanced quantum mechanics if you haven't the faintest clue yet as to what quantum mechanics is. That doesn't mean that you can't do advance research, especially if you get to choose your own topic. Research always comes before writing; if you get your research done early, you'll get your writing done sooner as well.
The second factor is how much you have to do for which assignments. Ideally, the more complicated assignments—those involving thorough research, interviews, etc.—should be started A.S.A.P. This doesn't mean that non-research assignments (like a personal narrative about your summer, or a book report) should be put off until the last minute. PROCRASTINATION IS EVIL!!! However, let's be realistic—it's best to start the harder stuff early. Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither is a polished piece of writing.
For both of these factors, your syllabus is necessary. Don't be afraid to look ahead; it's kind of like being able to see the future. Check your syllabi, compare them, figure out what is due when, how much work is required for each assignment, and plan accordingly. Trust me, when it comes down to crunch time and all of your classmates are cramming all of their assignments together, you'll be able to relax, laugh at them, and say, "Good luck, chumps!"
