Four Reasons to Join (or Form) a Writing Group

Few settings can inspire writers more—or make them even more bitter and resentful—than a writing group. So, what do they have to offer that makes me say that writing groups are worth the risk?

1. Audience

Never mind the practical help you could receive—sometimes it’s nice just to have access to a second pair of eyes and ears. And knowing that you will have to face your audience can be a big motivator.

2. Affirmation

My first writing group experience was when I wrote bad knockoffs of bad fantasy in third grade. We shared in class every week, and I received glowing reviews . . . from my best friend, my teacher, and a girl with a crush on me.

All these people had plenty of reasons to lie to me or patronize me, but that little trinity really did help my writing. They motivated me and supported me when I wanted to call it quits. And, even more importantly, they made me believe I was a writer because that’s how they saw me.

3. Advice

You may not want advice at first, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned in the Writing Center, it’s that we all sometimes find ourselves stumped. When that bell tolls for you, remember that other writers can help you see opportunities for improvement. Let your readers know exactly what type of help you need, and you will walk away energized to write.

4. Deadline

The biggest benefit, to me, is just the fact that you have to turn something in. Deadlines help me focus on what desperately needs attention to make my document readable.

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Of course, a Writing Center consulting session appointment can also provide you with an audience, affirmation, advice, and a deadline. Give us a call (581.5929) or drop by Coleman Hall 3110 and let us know what you would like to focus on.

In Conclusion

Writers have such a complicated relationship with that tricky last paragraph, and conclusions probably tie with introductions for the most closely read sections of papers. Yet they’re so often unrevised. I’ve left many a conclusion stranded at a dead end, hit “Submit,” and then hidden behind a moat of Snickers wrappers.

But I gave up too soon, mostly because I felt like I didn't have anything more to say, so anything I added would be pure B.S. Turns out that's not true.

Here are some generally accepted forms of conclusions to help you squeeze an ending out of a topic that you think you have already bled dry:

• Ask some questions. It’s a classic technique to conclude a paper, particularly if the information and ideas in your body paragraphs don’t add up to a conclusive conclusion. Provide readers with a reasonable tentative conclusion, then talk about the next-step questions that your paper raises.
• Provide a call to action. Rally the troops! If your paper isn’t political and your argument doesn't suggest a clear battle plan, you can call for more research on this important topic.
• Use the Austin Powers Method. Describe some of the most interesting or important implications of the information and ideas you have provided. This is what a conclusion really is, not a restatement of your “three main points.” You’ve proven your thesis with all those killer quotes and examples, so what’s the larger point? Channel your inner Austin Powers.

Or just don’t write one. In some genres, you can let readers draw their own conclusions. Especially if you have nothing to add...

Regis, I'd Like to Use a Lifeline: Writing with Writer's Block

“I'm burnt out,” the thought of every writer who has ever experienced writer’s block.

I've been hovering around the topic of writer's block for a couple of weeks now like a helicopter unable to land safely. There is a reason for this. 

I've been experiencing it myself. And if I have to suffer, well, you know what they say. 

Misery loves company. 

And it does. It is true.

So what do I do when I sit there staring at the blank page in front of me waiting for inspiration or some divine intervention to come down and zap the words into my head? 

I sit there staring at the blank page for a while. I bounce ideas - however idiotic or irrelevant - around my head and hope that a word or a phrase will stick out of the lot of them.

And when that doesn't work?

I take a break. I walk away. I eat something since most likely I have forgotten to adhere to normal mealtimes – or to eat at all. I go for a run. Whatever I do, I step away from the blank paper or the empty Word document.

And when that doesn’t work?

I have a minor meltdown. Just kidding, but really I do. Sometimes I panic. What if I never have anything to say about this topic? What if I don’t get it done by my deadline? What if I don’t get it done at all? What if, what if, what if?

It happens, and then I mentally slap myself and tell myself, “Get it together! Just do it!” Meltdown over.

That sounds easy and clean enough. It is not. Believe me, it is not.

In fact, I just experienced it while thinking about writing this blog post and about a midterm paper I have due Thursday. So, what do I write about when the world is my oyster and I have a blog to write and cannot for the life of me think of what to write about? I write about not being able to write.

I am sure somebody who is or was somebody down the road did this as well and is crazy famous for it; in which case, I thank them for the subliminal idea I wrenched from somewhere in the depths of my long-term memory.

And when the world is not your oyster and you are limited to a topic or a prompt given by a teacher or a boss?

Brainstorm. Freewrite. Doodle. Watch TV. Brood. Phone a friend. Ask the audience (in most cases, a boss, a teacher, or a customer). Flip a coin to choose a side.

Do whatever is going to get your mind off of what you have to do enough to let it sit in the back of your mind and stew there for a while. Later, you can come back to it refreshed and rejuvenated.

Writing something witty or persuasive or argumentative enough to capture your audience is not that easy. Just ask anyone who has ever had to write a speech or a proposal, they’ll tell you.

Some people do not realize how hard it can be, especially if writing has always come easy to them. That is the case until they get blocked, and then they search for that “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” lifeline in the hopes that something will come to them.

However, using these strategies or lifelines, if you will, can help get out all the extra fluff (read, “crap”) out of your head and onto the page so you can get the things you really want and need to say to fulfill your duties.

So when you get blocked, remember, you can always say, “Regis, I’d like to use a lifeline.” The best part of this deal is: there is no limit on the number of lifelines you can use. The worst part is, of course, most likely you aren’t going to win excessive amounts of money for doing your homework.

Strengthening Sentences: Good Repetition, Bad Repetition

All the fancy folks who get paid to play elaborate hoaxes on folks in the name of neurological science have told us time and time again that repetition is key to learning.  Neural pathways are dug deeper and deeper, allowing the brain to access them more quickly.  Et cetera, et cetera.

So why do composition teachers rail on repetition within writing?  If it's something that is truly helpful to a reader, why are points being deducted?  There's a very good reason for that, dear reader (sheesh, now I sound like a Victorian novel).  You ready for this?

It's not.  Repetition is good.  Redundancy, however, isn't.  So what's the flipping difference?

Repetition is repeating an element or elements within your writing to emphasize their meaning within the text. The information (or word) is repeated to cast information in a new light, add rhetorical emphasis, or draw connections within the larger scope of the work.  Redundancy occurs when these repetitions have no meaning, when you're simply "spinning your wheels" rather than expanding, emphasizing, or connecting pieces of an argument.

Culprit numero uno?  Word counts.  When you start purposefully stretching out your argument to fill pages, you're almost certain to repeat yourself ... and not in a good way, either.  Let's take a look at some examples, shall we?

Winston Churchill was known for being one sharp public speaker (as well as a complete drunkard), and one of his most famous speeches includes a little bit that goes something like this:

We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender ...

The repetition of the phrase "we shall fight" is purposeful.  It reinforces the idea behind the speech -- no quarter, no surrender.  The rallying cry reinforces the strength of the message, giving it a poignancy that would have been lost had he gone synonym happy.  Can you imagine how a "thesaurused" version of that speech would sound?

We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, there shall be an altercation on the seas and oceans, we shall rumble with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall scrap on the beaches, we shall make a ruckus on the landing grounds, we shall quarrel in the fields and in the streets, we shall scuffle in the hills; we shall never surrender ...

Not exactly the kind of thing that goes down in history.  But hey, JFK got away with calling himself a jelly doughnut.  Maybe Churchill would have been remembered for his scrappy beaches and hilly scuffles.

Now that we've looked at some powerful rhetorical repetition, let's take a look at some redundancy.  This is a terrible sentence overall, but the redundancy is especially noticeable:

Corporations in today's society drain American families dry by forcing them to spend all their money through inflation of prices and unfair costs that most people can't afford.


First off, this sentence could probably be cut down into just a few words: "Corporate inflation drains many Americans dry."  If you can make such a drastic cut to a sentence without altering its meaning, then you're likely dealing with redundancy.  Contrarily, Churchill's speech technically been cut down to fewer words, but it would not have had the same impact.  Just saying, "We'll fight them no matter where they show up," is effective, but forgettable.  And the fact that such a cut negatively impacts the writing is an indication of effective repetition.

So what's an aspiring student to do?

First off, put your thesaurus away.  It can be a useful tool, but don't feel like every single iteration of your main point needs to use a different synonym.  Sometimes synonyms carry different connotations, which will subtly change the meaning of what you're saying.  Thin, slender, and skinny are not the same thing.  All of them will be clustered together in a thesaurus, but the subtext behind them is vastly different.

Instead, ask yourself why you're repeating these elements.  Sometimes you'll find that there really is no better word to accurately depict what you're saying.  Using the word "corporation" a dozen times in your paper may not be a bad thing -- a corporation is a corporation.  If you're repeating crap because you need to fill another page and a half, then you've got a completely different set of problems to worry about.

Strengthening Sentences: Parallelism

There are two very important issues on the table today:

1.) Going to "blooger.com" will not get you anywhere near the blogosphere.  My fingers and brain were apparently at a disconnect this morning -- I wanted to write a blog while they wanted to purchase a new domain name.  I'm not even sure what one would use "blooger.com" for anyway.  It sounds illicit.  And unwashed.

2.) Parallelism.  We're going to spend the majority of our time on this one today, mostly because it's the more important of the two.  And also because I'll feel the urge to shower if I say "blooger" too many times.

So what the heck is parallelism, anyway?  I mean, sure, everyone learns the difference between parallel and perpendicular lines in third grade, but how does that have anything to do with writing?

Parallelism as related to writing (according to the smart folks over at American Heritage Dictionary) is "the use of identical or equivalent syntactic constructions in corresponding clauses or phrases." 

Sweet.  A bunch of fancy-pants English major jargon.  Put simply, parallel structures in writing are sentences with multiple parts (usually a list of clauses) that are put together with the same kinds of pieces.  Usually parallel sentences flow rather nicely.  In fact, one of 'em snuck into the beginning of this blog post:

"I wanted to write a blog while they wanted to purchase a new domain name."

If we throw on the x-ray goggles and take a look at how these individual parts play out, it would look something like this:

[subject] + [infinitive verb] + [direct object] while [subject] + [infinitive verb] + [direct object]

See how the structure is identical on both sides of the "while"?  That's parallelism.  The same basic premise applies when you're working with a list of activities.  Let's take a look at two quick excursions into Bob's morning, one built with a parallel construction and the other without:

Not-So-Parallel: Bob threw a poodle out the window, is going to the store, and he might slash the tires on Stephen's Celica.

Ew.  Not only is he a jerk (and apparently apt to damage my property), Bob can't build parallel sentences to save his life.  It checks out something like this with the grammar glasses on:

[subject] + [past-tense verb] + [prepositional phrase] /// [infinitive verb] + [prepositional phrase] /// [subject] + [auxiliary verb phrase] + [object]

Now let's take another foray into Bob's cruel existence, this time spiced up with a dash of parallelism:

Parallel: Bob punched a kitten in the throat, threw an old lady into traffic, and purchased weapons at WalMart.

Geez ... he's still a jerk, but at least this sentence flows a little nicer.  That's because all three of those share the same grammatical construction:

[subject] + [past-tense verb] + [direct object] + [prepositional phrase]

Now, even if you're not so familiar with the specific parts of grammar, you can still check sentences for parallelism by asking yourself a few questions.  The guilty party is most often the verb.  Keep them in line by considering the following:

Are my verbs the same tense?
Are all of my verbs doing the same job in the sentence?
Am I using the same kinds of verbs?
Does it sound odd or choppy when read aloud?


Read this out loud to yourself.  No, I don't care that your roommate is staring at you.  Throw a shoe at him (or her) and do it anyway: I enjoy long walks on the beach, eating gourmet food, and to stargaze on a clear night.

Doesn't that sound funny?  Obviously "it sounds right" won't always going to lead you to the correct answer, but often times it will help you nail sentences with parallelism issues.  So go, grasshopper, off into the fields of writing, never to be perplexed by parallelism again.  And while you're at it, come up with a good use for blooger.com.  That's going to bother me all day.

The Finale

Like any good tv show, this semester is coming to an end and it's almost time for the season finale. Will it end with a cliffhanger? Will your favorite character get cast off? Does the relationship end with question marks and polka dots? Does Dawson fall into the creek? Now is the time for our brains to run the marathon. We all know how awful people look when they run (it's just unnatural!), but we've got to plow through, red face and silly swishy-pants or not. Some people achieve a type of peace after they run for a prolonged period of time (I wouldn't know). That's what I've been trying to find. Now is the time for all of the final papers when it seems like my brain is just as barren as the cornfields that engulf me. Although the game is on, we've got to remain calm. Remember rule # 6. What is rule #6, you ask? Rule #6 is "Don't take yourself too seriously." What are all of the other rules, you ask? There aren't any. Just keep on truckin'.

On a semi-related topic:
After writing several millions of research papers, I've found a method that seems to generally work for me. First, I pick a topic. It is always something that I'm really interested in. If there isn't anything that you're interested in, make it into something that you are interested in. Be creative with it. Second comes the research. You don't need to have a thesis at this point, because chances are you don't know what you're going to say. You will most likely realize what you're going to say after you've read about what everyone else has said. I find all of my sources from the library and the interweb. Next, I read through my sources and take thorough notes on my computer. Be sure to include page numbers, works cited, and quotes within your notes so that the writing process is less difficult. Then, abra-cadabra! You formulate your thesis after reviewing your notes, outline, and write your paper! And you think to yourself 'What a wonderful world?'


DISCLAIMER: Also, please make sure to eat lots of brain food. If I'm working at school, I always make sure to have some change for my most-loved vending machine slot, D2 (not to be confused with the movie, which I also like). Finally, when you start seeing strange people coming out of your computer, talking to your computer, or find that your eyes haven't blinked in three hours, and possibly are physically not able to blink, take a break.