Upcoming Workshop

"Winning Proposals: Half the Sky Writing Contest Workshop"

 

Monday, September 19 @ 3:30 and 4:30

 

The Writing Center is offering a workshop to assist students interested in the EIU Reads contest: "Winning Proposals: Half the Sky Writing Contest Workshop." The workshop will be held on Monday, September 19, from 3:30-4:00pm and from 4:30-5:00pm. In these interactive sessions you will explore ways to make your proposals more persuasive. If you plan to attend either workshop, please provide your name and the workshop start time by emailing eiuwritingcenter@gmail.com or by calling the Writing Center (581-5929).

For more information about EIU Reads and the contest, visit http://castle.eiu.edu/~eiureads/index.php.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Audience

"Filmed before a live studio audience." It's a phrase that introduced several sitcoms during the 1980's and '90's. The audience sitting in the sound stage of Cheers watched as the romantic tension unfolded between Ted Danson and Kirstie Alley or they listen to the philosophies of the beer-guzzling patrons of the Boston bar. The audience laughed when Cliff made a joke or childishly ooooo-ed when Sam and Rebecca exchanged flirtatious banter. The audience listened; the audience responded.

As writers, we have the responsibility to take note of the audience. The misconception for most students is that the only audience is their instructor. It's unsurprising, considering the main objective for the paper composer is not a clear concise paper, only one that provides a sufficient grade. It's difficult not to fall into that trap; we wish to appease the instructor so we write what he or she would like, or at least what we think he or she would like.

In truth, we never know what he or she would like for sure, save for the skeletal prescription offered by some syllabuses and writing assignment prompts, but sadly we limit ourselves to those parameters. While, yes, it is absolutely necessary to follow the instructions of a syllabus or prompt (there's more help there than you might think), we should strive to go a step further when writing a paper. We should think beyond the person at the podium and who else might read this. The initial thought may be that there is no one else who might read this, but that couldn't be further from the truth. A thoughtful paper will often be made an example for future writers, while the paper composed with less concerted effort will be forgotten or, in the rare worst case scenario, be made a cautionary example.

The easiest way to this may be to picture the reader before we begin composing, specifically when we're brainstorming ideas. If our first thought is our instructor, we must dash that image right out and start from scratch. Our audience will be dependent on our discipline--an economics paper will be intended for fellow economists, while a literary paper will be written with literature specialists in mind. While making such associations might be easy enough, the next part is easier said than done: we must think of a topic that will interest a large body of readers. While it will require more effort on our part, treating a paper less like an assignment and more like a work to be read by more than just our instructor will put us in a mindset for researching more and developing an unique and thoughtful argument about which to write.

Writing & You: How to Succeed at EIU

This workshop, part of the New Students Program workshop series, is aimed toward new students.  Attend on Tuesday or Wednesday to see what tips the writing consultants of the EIU Writing Center have for you!

• Tuesday, September 13 at 7 p.m. in the Andrews Hall Basement
• Wednesday, September 14 at 7 p.m. in the Copa Room in the basement of Carman Hall

I Misplaced My Modifier in San Francisco

Misplaced modifiers are words or phrases that alter the meaning of a sentence. When we say that a modifier has been misplaced, we mean that the word or phrase that the modifier is altering has been changed. We are dealing with sentence ambiguity when we have sentences with misplaced modifiers. A great example of a misplaced modifier comes from a quote by Groucho Marx. He says "One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got into my pajamas, I'll never know" (Bartlett).

When you're done writing your paper, check for any sentence level ambiguity. One way of doing this is to start from the end of your paper and focus on one sentence at a time, starting with the very last one. This takes the sentence out of the larger context, so that you can focus on the clarity of the sentence.

Another example of a misplaced modifier is: "I like to listen to music doing my homework."

Is music doing your homework, or do you like to listen to music while you are doing your homework? One simple word can change the meaning of your sentence.

Another method of ridding your sentences of misplaced modifiers is to have somebody else look over your paper. Other people may catch ambiguity that you missed!

Bartlett, John. Kaplan, Justin, Ed. Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, 16th Edition. Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1992, p 693.

Research, Research, Research!

Research has a different meaning than it did even ten years ago. Today we can jump on the internet and type something into the goggle search engine and find many different resources. Years past that wasn’t the case when trying to compile information, thus life is a little easier today. Libraries still flourish as the main source of information. Now we have databases online with scholarly articles as well as the ability to obtain hard copies of many printed materials.

Through the first years of college, research is a word that you’ll hear repetitively. While at first it may seem like a daunting task to sift through piles of information many tools are in place to make this process easier.

Booth Library is a great tool that should be utilized regardless of the type of research that you’re planning to do. Along with the hard copies of books, magazines, newspapers and journal articles, Booth has a link to many scholarly websites online that are free for all students to use.

TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THEM!

These resources are provided to the students as tools to help with the process of writing. Along with being able to access the databases at Booth Library, students and faculty can also access the databases through the library when they’re off campus. Using the library number off your Panther Card, you are still open to the wide range of search engines that Eastern has provided through Booth Library.

Research may not be the end all be all of your college experience, but don’t be afraid to ask questions of the reference librarians or utilize the resources available to you while you’re attending Eastern. Professors don’t want the goggle definition for your main research topic, and they aren’t going to want you to rely on wikkipedia.com as your main source in a paper. The databases and resources to be found in the library are you’re best bet when writing academic papers!

Here’s a link to Booth Library’s website.

http://www.library.eiu.edu/

Going Primitive

As students of the digital age, the temptation is strong for us to want to draft our essays directly onto the computer. The instructor said she wants the final draft typed up, 12-point font, double-spaced with 1-inch margins. Mom and Dad dropped a stack of bills for that shiny new laptop with the latest word processing software on it, so you might as well use it, right?

Absolutely. The word processor is no doubt the single greatest invention since the wheel, offering a healthy alternative to deciphering the chicken scratchings of incoming freshmen writers so the instructor's eyesight stays in tact for a few more years and his sanity for almost as long. But should it be the first thing we go to when we get that assignment sheet? No, I think not.

Once upon a time, before the dawn of the Apple II or the advent of the typewriter, people used to write. Using everything from fountain pen to pencil, quill to chisel, folks would write their composition assignments using the most basic of implements.

Has physical writing fallen out of practice? Sadly, yes. Is it obsolete? Good heavens, no.

Maybe you're sitting at lunch with your notebook and pen sketching out a rough plan for your next essay. Great, you're nearly there. Don't pull out that silvery Macbook you got for graduation just yet. Leave that aside and do the unthinkable: write your draft.

The very thought might send your writing hand into a painful cramp, but trust me, there's something to this. Since high school and maybe even junior high school, we've been trained to not only type but type at blinding speeds. Instant messaging our friends at other universities has only made our fingers more limber to the point where we might be typing faster than we can produce thoughts.

By drafting your essay using pen and paper, you sever that connection between the computer and your brain that forces your fingers into hyperspeed. You are more careful and deliberate. You're reading it in your head as you write each word. You catch things that you won't have to catch when proofreading later. Most importantly, you have no Facebook or Youtube to distract you in a spiral college-ruled notebook.

We've fallen into the ease of composing assignments directly to the page, eliminating any extra steps so that we may maximize our free time to work on the multitude of assignments in our other classes. It only makes sense. But if you draft your essay by hand before your hands touch a keyboard, you'll cut down on time in the future when proofreading it. Why, you might even have a more perfect paper to turn in than if you hadn't written out with primitive pen and paper.

The OWL Purdue

The OWL Purdue is a wonderful writing tool for those of us getting acquainted with APA and MLA, and for those of us who continue to write in these styles. Contrary to what the name connotes, the OWL Purdue is not an owl that serves chicken. Rather, the OWL is an Online Writing Lab offered by the Purdue University English Department that walks you through the MLA and APA writing processes.

The OWL has a website that is easy to navigate. You can start by choosing MLA or APA and then search the OWL by the headings on the left side of the web page. These headings will explain the conventions of each writing style, whether you're trying to figure out how to cite within the text or how to format your Works Cited page.

The headings on the left also give you in-depth explanations on how to cite web pages, books, periodicals, and other common sources such as emails or podcasts. For those of you who are visual and tactical learners, there is also a sample paper for each style, which is especially helpful with APA.

Another benefit of using this website is that it remains up-to-date whereas the MLA and APA handbooks must be replaced every couple of years.

Just follow the link below and get started writing!

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/

Beginning Brainstorming

Once students have a thesis, finding a direction and goals for a paper could be the most daunting task at hand. From a young age the words “brainstorming” and “developing” were used in the classroom when teachers describe how to start writing a paper. What differs from writing at a college level instead of high school is that papers can flow and change with the information that the author finds through research or that begins to redefine their overall focus for the paper.

The first thing that comes to mind after figuring out a topic or thesis statement is “how am I going to fill all of this blank space on the page?” That’s a question that writers of every level in the educational process face. As a master’s student, brainstorming is still a very important part of the writing process when I sit in front of the blank page.

In the essay from Tutoring Writing: A Practical Guide for Conferences called “Tutoring Is: Models and Strategies,” McAndrew and Reigstad present a multitude of strategies to help students move along the necessary steps of the writing process. One strategy that McAndrew and Reigstad mention is oral composing (46). This strategy is actually something that I used before starting to include anything within the text of this post. 

Talking a paper over with a friend or teacher can be very helpful in figuring out what a student wants to be the main idea or focus of the body of that particular paper. While talking through the possibilities, McAndrew and Reigstad also mention taking notes while talking through the process as a helpful way for students to see where their thoughts for a paper might lead them (46). 

Another helpful strategy that McAndrew and Reigstad suggest is mapping. Mapping is a more visual tool to help students figure out how to connect the main ideas that they want to make sure are present in a paper. Bubbling a pertinent word or phrase and using lines to connect each of them, can help a student get the feel for the flow of how they eventually want their paper to develop (47). 

McAndrew and Reigstad’s essay brings to the table many more strategies than just mapping and talking through a paper. These strategies I’ve found to be very helpful in the early stages of brainstorming. Hopefully the helpful hints I’ve included within this post with leave students and other writers a like better prepared to turn that blank page staring them in the face, into a wonderful work.