Advice
on
Writing
Roberts-Miller
Much
advice on
writing that you've been given is lore--that is, it is passed down
from
teacher to students (who go on to become teachers repeating the same lore)
without being checked against reality. When people started doing real
research
on how people actually write, they found that effective writers
break a lot of
the rules that lore hands down. This discrepancy between
the advice that
teachers give and the practices that actually work puts
students in several
binds.
First,
teachers
sometimes require students to do things that are actively harmful to
the
effectiveness of a paper (e.g., requiring that the introduction end with a
thesis--most teachers are perfectly satisfied with a thesis question or
hypo-thesis). Second, teachers often mis-describe their own standards. So,
for
example, teachers say that correctness
is tremendously important to them, but
study after study shows that
quality of argument is actually much more
important than grammatical
correctness (what happens is that readers don't
notice errors in
well-argued texts).
My
advice on
writing is grounded in what practices actually work for writers, so
it may
contradict much of what you have been told, but my point is that much of
what you have been told is not very helpful. While the following is
written
with our paper assignments in mind, my hope is that it will be
helpful in lots
of writing situations you face. The short version is: when
it comes to writing,
be flexible in your writing processes, start early,
make sure you understand
your rhetorical situation, and set reasonable
expectations.
A
large part of the
advice that follows is intended to make the writing
experience more fun,
more productive, and less prone to writing
blocks--although the occasional
writing block seems pretty much to come with
the territory. I'll begin by
talking about what creates writing blocks, just
because those things
typify the most painful things about writing in
general.
In
my experience
(as a writer and teacher), people are headed for lots of writing
blocks if
they set unreasonable expectations for themselves, or if they make
the
writing process so painful that their natural instinct is to put it
off.
There
are several
ways to set unreasonable expectations. The most common, and
probably most
destructive, is to try to write a perfect first draft. It's
interesting
that research on the subject suggests that people with writing
blocks know
too much about the writing process--they have too many rules in
their
heads about what the first sentence has to look like, how long every
sentence should be, what to do, what not to do. It's all those rules that
freeze them up. If they can let go of the rules, and just try to get their
point across, they can get a good draft out--then they can worry about
getting
an effective first sentence and so on. That confirms my
experience. So, much of
what follows will emphasize that you need to get a
first draft out. Just write.
Then worry about
revising.
But
another kind of
student often gets a writing block, and that's the student who
is trying
to write a paper that is much harder than the assignment requires. Of
course, no one chooses to do this--it comes from the student
misunderstanding
the assignment. That happens if students miss a lot of
class, when an
assignment resembles a kind of assignment with which the
student is familiar,
when a student has unintentionally gone about the
assignment in a way s/he
didn't know would be hard (as when the research
for the student's topic is
really difficult), and quite often from a vague
assignment sheet. Sometimes,
rereading the assignment will help you
realize that's what you're doing; more
often, the best solution is to talk
to the instructor. If you run your argument
by me, I can tell you if
you're taking on more than you can really handle in
these
papers.
According
to
research, effective writers have a complicated and recursive writing
process
with lots of breaks. When they review their work, they make
"global"
changes. "Global" changes are changes to the
entire piece. In other words, effective writers often change their
whole
argument, do additional
research, drop or add pages (not just sentences),
and
reorganize the entire
paper. Students, on the contrary (especially first
year college students), tend
to write the paper out in one sitting, review
it once, and make only
"lexical" changes. "Lexical"
changes are changes at the
sentence level--adding or deleting a few words
here and there. If they get a
submission back with comments, they will
only make changes (of a few words) to
places where the reader has made
marginal comments.
You need to understand
that minimal changes between
versions of a paper will mean minimal--if any
--change between grades on
submissions. Teachers often do not remark on every instance of a problem,
and generally expect students to make more changes than specified in
margin comments. (In other words, if a teacher writes an end comment that
says, "The assertions need more evidence," s/he expects the student to go
back through the paper and support assertions everywhere, not just where
there are margin comments.)
My
personal
hypothesis is that students have a truncated writing process because
they
are encouraged and often required to do so; students tell me that they
have been told that they should not change their theses between
submissions
(which I think is bizarre advice). Follow the evidence--if
your research shows
that your thesis is wrong, then change your
thesis.
There
are lots of
ways to make the writing process so painful that you put it off
hoping
that the paper fairy will magically write your paper for you. No one
intentionally makes the process painful, of course, but we do so in lots
of
unintentional ways. The most common way is to procrastinate until
guilt,
anxiety, and sheer adrenaline force you to sit down and do the
paper. While
that sometimes works, it often doesn't. Although students
often tell me that
they write better under pressure, it generally turns
out that's a false
comparison, as they haven't figured out any other way
to make themselves write
at all! Try starting before the pressure is
terrifying, and see what happens.
The paper won't be any worse, and the
process just might be less painful.
Sometimes
students
procrastinate because they think they will spend less time as a whole
on
the paper if they wait till the night before. On the contrary, because
much
of that time will be while you are brain-dead from lack of sleep, you
will
probably spend more time than if you had tried writing while awake.
People have
different rhythms, and you need to figure out yours. Some
people are most alert
late at night, some early in the morning, some in
the middle of the day--once
you've figured out your best times for
writing, try to schedule your days so
that is when you
write.
If
you
procrastinate, you limit your research opportunities. While doing research
from your home computer is wonderful, it isn't always adequate. There are
times
when you simply must go to the library, and, if you've waited till
the last
minute, that may not be possible. You cannot write a good paper
without good
evidence, so make sure that you give yourself time to get the
evidence. Start
early.
Setting
reasonable
expectations is a necessary part of starting early. Rather than
expect
that you'll write the whole paper at one sitting, set a goal of
accomplishing one chunk of the writing process. For instance, you might
set an
initial goal of doing the necessary research by a certain time, or
writing a
rough outline, a preliminary thesis statement, or an
introduction. Then, you
get a break and do something fun.
When
you review a
paper, it's a good idea to separate the editing and the revising
processes. By "editing" I mean the act of going through and
noting
where there are problems. "Revising" means trying to
solve the
problems. So, read the paper through (out loud usually works
best) and just
mark things that don't quite work or places you think need
improvement. Don't
try to make the changes; just indicate where you think
changes need to be made.
(This is particularly important if you're prone
to any kind of anxiety
problems.) After a break--ideally of a day or
more--try to make some of therevisions. Writing is sort of like making
bread--you need time to let the ideas
rise.
Writing
a
Draft
A
rough draft has
your main arguments, a reasonable organization, and most of
your evidence.
It's generally about the length that the assignment requires,
possibly on
the short side of the page (or word) range. A good process for
getting to
a reasonable draft is:
Read
the
assignment several times. That may seem like silly advice--why read
it more than once if you understood it the first time?--but it continually
surprises me how many papers fail because they were perfectly fine papers
for a
different assignment. (This is, apparently, also true of exams--lots
of
students do badly on them because they only answer part of the
question.)
Not
all college
papers are asking for the same kind of paper, and it gets even more
complicated when you are writing outside of academia. It's helpful to know
whether the assignment is asking you just to demonstrate your knowledge
(e.g.,
an essay exam that is asking that you repeat back to the teacher
what s/he has
said in lectures), or make an argument/interpretation of
your own (e.g., the
papers for this class). Some people recommend that you
mark up the assignment
sheet to make sure that you are clear just what is
required, recommended, or
possible.
I've
worked with a
lot of writing teachers, and I've discovered that there is a
confusion
almost built into many writing assignments. Some teachers' assignment
sheets describe the process you might use to do the paper, while other
teachers' describe what the product must look like. Those two very
different
kinds of assignments can look very similar (I often have to ask
instructors
what they have in mind). Imagine an assignment that looks like
this:
First, describe Chester. Next, describe
Hubert.
Then, argue which one is bigger.
It
isn't clear
whether that assignment requires that the paper have that
order--the first
paragraph will describe Chester, the second will describe
Hubert, and so
on--, or if it is telling you the process in which you would
think about
the topic. In the latter case, your paper might have a different
structure. I have found that the only way to know is to ask the teacher.
In the
case of this class, I describe what must happen in each paper
(generally with
the "must" in bold), but there's still a lot of
flexibility in the
questions. I am not describing the order in which ideas
will appear in the
final version, and you'll almost certainly have to
narrow the paper quite a
bit.
My
point is that
you often have to ask the teacher to clarify the assignment, and
few
teachers will mind that (the only question teachers really hate is,
"Will this be on the exam?") It is also a good idea to be clear
in
your own mind just what is required and what is recommended and what is
optional--some people say that marking up the assignment sheet (e.g.,
highlighting words like "must") will help keep that
clear.
(Re)Formulate
a
clear and fairly narrow question. Some assignment sheets pose a very clear
question, but some (such as the ones for this class) pose one that is
broader
in some way than what you'll use for your paper. Some teachers say
that you
have to have a clear thesis before writing the paper; that isn't
true. It is
true, though, that you should probably have a pretty clear
sense of the
question. (And you should have a pretty clear idea of just
what your answer is
when you've finished a paper.)
Set
out a plan
for writing the paper. I don't mean an outline--I mean a
calendar.
Some people find that this works very well for reducing anxiety
about writing,
but some people find it a waste of time. So, try it once,
and if doesn't help,
don't do it again. Block out a loose schedule for
writing the paper, setting
goals for yourself--that you'll do the research
on a certain day, get a draft
out another day, revise it another day, take
it to the Writing Center the next
day, and so on. Don¹t make it too detailed, and be reasonable about what a human
being
can do with limited time.
(Re)Read
the
necessary material. It's pretty hard to write a paper on material you
haven't
read at least twice, to write a good paper you should expect to
have to read it
three or four times, and many people read the material one
more time between
paper drafts. Thus, for instance, if you're writing a
paper on John Locke's Letter, read the text
several
times. You won't necessarily understand it perfectly, but you
ought to be able
to articulate what you don't understand about it. If
there are basic questions
that you have that are keeping you from
understanding the text--words you don't
know, passages that don't make
sense, unfamiliar references--ask someone.
If
you're writing
about material that you collect, be reasonable about what you
can get
read--so, for instance, if you're doing independent research, focus on
articles rather than books.
As
you read, take
notes and mark up the text in whatever way works best for you. I
have had
one student in twenty years who found it helpful to use three by five
cards (and I've used them exactly once in order to write something that
never
did get published). Some people use very complicated and intricate
methods of
marking texts--e.g., color-coded highlighters or
post-its--while some people
write out notes in long-hand or on the
computer. Do whatever works for you.
Just make sure that you keep track of
where you got your information--this is
not only important for being able
to do the Works Cited page, but also in case
you want to retrace your
research steps at some point.
I
tend to recommend
that you print up or photocopy your sources because then you
can mark the
text. Marking up the text helps you find things later, and it also
keeps
you in a critical frame of mind. Some textbooks have very complicated
schema for marking texts; I really don't think it matters much what method
you
use, as long as it works for you. One thing I do recommend is that you
note any
places where the author speaks directly to the reader--saying
things like
"My point is" or "In conclusion." I also
strongly recommend
that you mark passages that are confusing. One of the
best uses of class time
and office hours is to go over those passages.
(We'll generally begin class
with the question, "Did you have any
questions about the reading?"That's a great time to mention those
passages you thought were confusing. And
one of the functions of the
microthemes is for you to ask exactly those kinds
of
questions.)
Start
writing.
Some people like
to start with a clear idea of what they want to say, while
some people
find it more helpful just to start with a clear statement of the
paper's
question and no idea of their answer. That's fine. Some people use
writing
to discover the question and thesis, and that's fine, but they
generally
have a clear sense of audience (for instance, writing it as a journal
entry to themselves, letter to a specific person such as a friend or an
author,
or article for a specific magazine).
There
are lots of
ways of getting a draft out--free-writing, brainstorming,
letter-writing,
answering certain questions (who/what/when/where/why), writing
as though
it's an exam situation. It doesn't much matter what you use; what
does
seem to matter is that you put your emphasis on getting your thoughts
together, rather than making your sentences perfect.
One
way to come up
with ideas that students often don't know comes from Aristotle.
You take
the topic of your paper (e.g., "Chester's attitude toward the red
ball") and then define it, divide it into different categories,
describe a
larger category of which it is a part, describe its opposite,
come up with an
analogy, and list its good and bad consequences [1]. Once
you've written those
things down, you'll probably have a clearer sense
about your topic, as well as
some possible ways to make your
argument.
Some
people need a
clear outline before beginning a paper, but most people don't. A
rough
outline (a flow chart) suffices for lots of people; a clear statement of
the thesis or thesis question will often imply, if not the order of
topics, at
least just what has to get covered at some point in the paper.
It isn't
uncommon to come up with a good organization at the first shot,
but it's
probably more common to discover the organization as one
writes--my experience
suggests that most people who write really good
introductions write them as the
very last thing.
Just
to be clear:
not everyone has to decide how to organize the paper before
writing a
first draft, but some people do. And, in my experience, that can vary
from
assignment to assignment. If you don't start with some kind of plan or
outline
(rough or not), then you need to be willing to do lots of
revision.
If
you're the sort
of person who does need to have an organization in mind, then a
rough
outline can be helpful. (I've known a small number of students who used
the formal outline method, and they were singularly prone to writing
blocks, so
I'm not a big fan of it.)
Organizing
a
Paper
Keep
in mind that
there are lots of ways to organize your argument: list (building
or
declining), comparison, chronological, syllogistic,
ads/disads.
In
a
list
structure (the
kind with which you're almost certainly most familiar), you list
your
points. If your structure goes from your least to most important points,
the list builds, and if it goes from most to least important (as in
journalism), then it declines. There are other ways a list can build or
decline--how familiar the audience is with each point (going from most to
least
familiar is often recommended for teachers), the relative strength
of the
points, how abstract they are, how persuasive they're likely to be.
A list
doesn't necessarily build or decline; in many circumstances
(especially in
speeches), it's a good idea to put your weakest argument in
the middle. While
the list structure is great for lots of circumstances,
especially exams, you'll
find it not tremendously helpful in this
class.
You'll
probably use
a comparison structure in at least one paper in this
class
(but that is not a requirement). When you compare two things
(Chester and
Hubert), you do so in regard to several qualities (size,
intelligence, attitude
toward the red ball, age). An initial impulse that
writers have is to discuss
the first thing and then the second, so you
have a structure like this:
Chester's size
Chester's intelligence
Chester's attitude toward the red ball
Chester's age
Hubert's size
Hubert's intelligence
Hubert's attitude toward the red ball
Hubert's age
That
can work fine,
but it can also mean a lot of backtracking along the way (as you
remind
your reader of the contrast) and a fairly long conclusion (for the same
reason). It's often more effective to let the qualities organize the
paper:
Size: Chester, Hubert
Intelligence: Chester, Hubert
Attitude toward the red ball: Chester, Hubert
Age: Chester, Hubert
This
latter
organization is even more helpful when you're comparing three or more
things.
A
chronological structure just
follows time and goes from whatever happened first
to whatever happened
next. It's very helpful in lots of circumstances, but it's
easy to let the
chronology overtake one's argument. I've found that students
who use a
chronological structure will sometimes include material that isn't
necessary (just because it happened next), or will spend a lot of time on
whatever happened first and then run out of energy for whatever happened
later.
If you use this structure in a literature class, you can sometimes
fall into
plot summary. Still and all, it's often a very sensible way to
organize material[2].
The
syllogistic structure is the least familiar and most useful for
students. You
begin with whatever is the main premise of your argument and
move through the evidence to your conclusion. To write this structure, you
need a pretty good
sense of just what you're arguing and what your
audience believes. It helps if
you're able to state your thesis as
"your main assertion because your main
argument." A thesis
statement like that will enable you to figure out what
your main premise
is. Another way to do it, though, is to figure out what is
shared with
your audience--what is the common ground on which your persuasion
rests?
The paper starts there. Because it moves from common ground through
evidence, this structure is tremendously persuasive.
If
you've done any
debate, then the ads/disads structure will be
very
familiar to you. As implied by its name, this structure begins with
the
advantages and then the disadvantages of a proposed policy or (in this
class)
an interpretation. Obviously, you can reverse the order (going from
disads to
ads). It's very unusual for that structure to work in this kind
of class, but
it's a very common one in other writing situations.
Revising
a
Draft
As
I said, not
everyone needs to have a clear organization before writing the
paper, but
that's pretty much the first place to start in thinking about
revising.
Once you have a written draft, a formal outline can be helpful for
some
people, especially if your argument is complicated, but it is not
required. Slightly more helpful is this process:
Loosely,
paragraphs
will function as introductions, conclusions,
transitions,
narrations, or
proof.
The
introduction lets your reader know what the paper will be about, and
(ideally)
raises interest. It may be anywhere from one to four paragraphs
(depending upon
the length of your paper). The
conclusion provides closure. That's the most
common
place for a clear statement of your thesis. It's also where you
might tell your
reader what you are not saying ("I am not saying that
we should outlaw all
small dogs, but simply that we should bark at them
constantly.") It's not
uncommon to have a "double"
conclusion--one paragraph concludes your
argument, and the next paragraph
goes on to speculate, call for further
research, or draw out implications.
With that second part of the double
conclusion, you have to be careful to
be clear that you are speculating
("This suggests..." "One
might wonder if...") or your
reader will accuse you of "bringing
up new arguments in the conclusion."
Transition paragraphs are
common in complicated arguments, as in a
comparison/contrast. You might
have a two part argument, and you might need a
paragraph to conclude that
first part and signal the move to the second part
(this will become
clearer when we talk about sample papers). Some kinds of
arguments require
sections that
give a
narration of events--Supreme Court decisions always narrate what
has
happened with the case in the lower courts, a paper on a literary text
might
have a paragraph that summarizes the book, a paper on a proposed law
might
either summarize the incidents that led up to the law or give the
legislative
history. Proof paragraphs are
the ones where you really make your argument. In
argumentation, most of
your paragraphs should be proof
paragraphs.
This raises the
question
of just what the relation is between squirrels and small dogs,
and one might
pose that question in terms of how small dogs behave with
big dogs. Small dogs
always attack Chester. Small dogs sometimes think
about attacking Hubert, but
often end up playing with him. Abilene, a
large cat, whaps small dogs on the
nose, usually drawing blood. Keek, a
small cat, runs away from small dogs.
Once
you have a
good draft, go through the paper and decide what each paragraph is
doing.
Mark every major claim in the proof paragraphs. You
might
even number (or color code, if you're using highlighters) each
different kind
of claim (e.g., pink for ones that have to do with Hubert,
yellow for ones that
have to do with Chester, orange for ones that have to
do with Abilene, and blue
for ones that have to do with Keek). It's
generally pretty shaky to have more
than one major claim per proof
paragraph, so notice any paragraphs that have
more than one sentence
marked--you'll probably need to break those paragraphs
up. Make each claim
the main claim of its own paragraph.
In
my experience, a
first draft often has paragraphs in which every point is
reasserted--ones
that would have sentences highlighted in pink, and some in
yellow, and
others in orange, and others in blue--so you'll know you want to
reorganize the paper and regroup those various sentences together. That
is,
instead of having four paragraphs that each talk about every topic in
your
paper, you want four paragraphs that each talk about one of the
topics.
So, if you mark up the above sample paragraph that way, you'll notice that
the topic sentence suggests the topic of the paragraph will be the
relation of squirrels and small dogs, but the rest of the paragraph has to
do with other topics. The paper should be revised so that those examples
are elsewhere, or so that the paragraph has a better topic sentence.
In your first
draft, you will almost certainly find that you have a fair number of
major
claims standing alone without any supporting evidence. One of the
big differences between a first and second draft is that the latter one
has
evidence. Getting that evidence often requires going back to the material
and
re-reading (again) or doing additional research. (Remember that
"doing
research" doesn't necessarily mean finding quotes from
famous people that
support your point--one of the best kinds of research
to do can be finding out
what people say who disagree with you; doing
research can mean doing original
research, thinking carefully and
critically about your own experience, or any
one of a variety of
things.)
I
don't want you to
think that I'm telling you that there is always a one-to-one
correspondence between a point and a paragraph. Sometimes it takes two
paragraphs to support one major claim, and famous authors often get away
with a
ridiculous number of assertions in a single paragraph. But, as a
very, very
loose rule of thumb, you probably want to ensure that every
claim is supported
by evidence.
What
is
evidence? Another very loose rule of thumb is that
analogies, arguments from
authority (quotes), arguments from consequences, examples, reasoning from
the
rules of logic, and
syllogisms are pieces of evidence. These are not
mutually
exclusive categories--they generally work
together.
Analogies are very helpful,
as
long as you compare things that are genuinely similar, and as long as
you
compare to something your reader knows.
Small dogs irritate big dogs in the same
way
that squirrels do.
This
analogy only
works with an audience that believes that squirrels irritate big
dogs. For
this argument to work, the audience would either have to grant immediately
that small dogs do irritate big dogs in the same way, or the author would
have
to provide evidence to that effect (quotes or examples, for
instance).
Arguments
from
authority are very audience-bound--don't quote Scripture at an
atheist. And don't cite someone about whom you know
nothing--make sure you are citing reliable
authorities. When you are convinced that someone is
authority (and that your audience will respect the
credentials), you can credential them in different
ways.
Bufford says, "Small dogs are in the
squirrel conspiracy."
Bufford, a one hundred pound bloodhound,
says,
"Small dogs are in the squirrel
conspiracy."
Bufford, in his article in The New
England
Journal of Medicine, says "Small
dogs are in the squirrel conspiracy."
Bufford, when he was on The Oprah
Winfrey
Show,
said, "Small
dogs are in the squirrel conspiracy."
For
these arguments
to be effective, the authority has to be one that your audience
will grant
is an authority on that issue. So, either use a source your audience
will
immediately grant is an authority, or demonstrate that s/he is. This is
one of the functions of citing sources (and one of the reasons you should
always be suspicious of arguments that don't cite sources).
It's
unusual to use
arguments from consequences in college papers, but they're very
common in policy papers and business writing. They're generally fairly
straightforward--the author argues that something should be done because
it
will have good consequences, or it should not be done because it will
have bad
consequences.
Barking
at all small dogs will show them we know what they're up
to.
Failing
to bark at small dogs will let them get away with their
evil plot.
For
this line of
argument to work, the audience has to assess the consequences the
same way
as the author. For instance, imagine the different reactions to
"Lowering the drinking age will result in wild orgies in the
streets."
A
slightly more
complicated version is one that argues that two things with the
same
consequences should be categorized together.
Small dogs make big dogs miserable;
squirrels
make big dogs miserable; therefore, small dogs and squirrels are
both anti-big
dog.
This
line of
argument is common in legal writing (since A and B both have the
consequences of inhibiting free speech, they should be treated the same
way).
[Notice that we're now edging on analogy--as I said, these
categories blend
into one another in the real world of actual
arguments.]
Examples are very, very
helpful.
They clarify, help to define important terms, and are persuasive,
especially if
they are vivid. The examples might be incidents or people
with which the
audience is already familiar or not. If the latter, then
the source of the
example needs to be reliable (this is where personal
experience is relevant).
Reasoning
from
the rules of logic is a kind of catchall category. Aristotle noticed that
there are certain recurrent ways that people argue, and various
philosophers
and logicians have made different lists over the years. These
rules vary from
discipline to discipline (in a paper heavily reliant on
statistics, for
instance, the rules of statistics apply in ways that might
never come up in a
legal argument) and culture to culture (some cultures
find etymological
arguments persuasive, for example). That variation is
one thing that makes
reading in different cultures and disciplines
challenging (my head always
starts to get foggy when I try to follow
Aquinas on issues of substance). To be
persuasive, you need to use rules
that your audience will grant are valid, or
you need to persuade them that
they should.
One
logical form of
argument is the syllogism. (All men are mortal; Socrates is a
man;
therefore, Socrates is mortal.) While it's very rare for you to use a
true
syllogism with a universally valid major premise in your writing,
it's very,
very effective to begin with whatever your audience will grant.
This is
sometimes called "moving from known to new." You start
with the
"common ground" with your audience, which should be the
premise to your
argument, and then move through the evidence to your
conclusion.
Within
proof
paragraphs, sentences tend to function as evidence, claims (major
claims or sub-claims), analysis, topic sentences, and/or transition
sentences (it's very common
for a
sentence to serve more than one function at once). In class, we'll
talk more
about what these kinds of sentences are and how to arrange them
effectively in
a paragraph. In my experience, a first draft lacks
evidence, and a second draft
lacks analysis. So, checking to see that you
have evidence and analysis is
another good thing to do when
revising.
Once
you think you
have things fairly well organized, then go through and write a
word or two
in the margin of each paragraph saying what that paragraph is
about. Make
sure that you're spending most of the time on whatever really needs
to be
shown--sometimes writers will spend a lot of time going over material
that's already familiar to the reader and then assert exactly what is in
question. That's never persuasive. Spend the most time on the points that
most
need proving, that are most controversial.
Writing the
Introduction
A
good introduction
establishes certain clear expectations with the
reader--specifically the
topic and genre of the piece and your ethos. When the
reader finishes the
introduction (which may or may not be one paragraph) s/he
should be clear
just what the paper will be about, what kind of paper it will
be (e.g., a
policy proposal, a history, a literary interpretation, a comparison
of
various theories), and your ethos (well-read, fair-minded, closed-minded,
sloppy, careful, dishonest).
Some
teachers
insist that you have your thesis in your introduction as one way to
ensure
that the topic, genre, and ethos are clearly established. I discourage
you
from doing that, as it's bad preparation for most kinds of writing (in
which putting your thesis in the introduction is a serious misstep). It
tends
to lock you into an ethos of someone who is closed-minded on the
subject--you're announcing the answer to a question that's only barely
been
posed.
And
that raises
what is really the best way to think about an introduction. The
introduction should persuade your reader that there is a real question
that the
reader should want answered, and that you are the person to
answer it.
I
generally
recommend that you write the introduction after you have a good
draft--that is, the introduction that will really be the first paragraph
or
three of the paper--but some very effective writers swear by writing a
perfect
introduction first. They say the rest of the paper then zips
along. Try both
ways, and see what works for you.
Despite
what you
have probably been told, there are many different kinds of
introductions.
The most common for student purposes are: summary, funnel, focussing
incident, thesis, history of controversy, some say
(prolepsis).
Summary:
There
is considerable controversy about whether small dogs are
implicated in the
squirrel controversy, but a comparison between squirrels
and small dogs
suggests that they are. Squirrels and small dogs are both
about the same size.
Squirrels and small dogs all have
"Napoleonic" complexes. This
complex causes them to hate larger
dogs, and try to attack them at every
opportunity. Although squirrels do
not yip like small dogs, they do make sounds
that are equally irritating.
It is, therefore, clear that small dogs are
conspiring with squirrels to
get the red ball.
In
my experience,
students are very good at the summary introduction. That
introduction
tells 'em what you're gonna tell 'em. It summarizes the whole
argument of
the paper. While this kind of introduction has its uses, I cannot
figure
out why teachers put so much emphasis on it; it's just one of many ways
to
begin a paper, and generally not the most effective.
Students
who are
good at this kind of introduction usually write them last. Lots of
students try to write them first, but it often doesn't work for one of two
reasons. First, most of us figure out what we think by trying to write it
down,
so trying to write a summary introduction first is trying to
summarize an
argument you haven't yet figured out. You can't summarize it
because you don't
know what it is. That first shot at a summary
introduction is, therefore, often
a summary of a much more simplistic
argument than a later version would be. The
second problem is that it
tends to be very unpersuasive to an informed and
intelligent opposition
audience. They are alienated by the list of arguments,
more often than
not.
Having
said what's
wrong with a summary introduction, I'll say what's good about it.
It's a
great kind of introduction for circumstances in which the reader is not
open to persuasion--an essay exam, for instance, in which the reader just
wants
to see that you've given the correct answer. (My personal suspicion
is that
teachers who teach this kind of introduction exclusively treat all
student
writing as exam answers.) In such writing circumstances (e.g.,
exams), the
summary introduction can serve as a blueprint. Just as a
blueprint keeps the
builder from doing something unplanned and therefore
potentially dangerous, so
a summary introduction will keep you to the plan
that you've already figured
out. Also, there are circumstances in which
you are expected to summarize your
argument--in an abstract or precis, for
instance--so knowing how to write a
brief summary of a complicated
argument is a good skill to develop. Finally, if
you're good at writing
summary introductions and bad at conclusions, one
solution is to take your
summary introduction and make it your conclusion, then
write a different
kind of introduction.
Just
to be clear:
the summary introduction is good in some writing situations, and
far from
forbidden in this class, but you'll probably find other forms more
useful.
Thus, it is not so much that the summary introduction is forbidden, as
it
is that you are required to use the history of controversy and prolepsis
on
at least one paper.
Funnel:
There are many
animosities in nature. In the animal kingdom, these take several forms.
Orb
spiders hate sea lions, koalas hate Canadian Geese, and, perhaps most
important
of all, squirrels hate big dogs, and are in a conspiracy to get
the red ball.
Small dogs are also involved in the squirrel
conspiracy.
The
summary
introduction has some merits, but that can't be said for the funnel,
the
second most common kind of introduction that students are taught. The
funnel introduction moves from abstract generalizations to the most
specific
statement, which is assumed to be the thesis statement [3]. This
is very much
"student" writing--while it is very common in
school (and even
required by many teachers)--it's very unusual to see any
non-student writing
that uses this kind of introduction. It is very, very
unpersuasive.
It's
also
potentially damaging for students. The funnel is often far too broad, so
the student is invited to ramble off into generalizations. If this kind of
paragraph is the first one you write, then you will re-read it every time
you
get stuck writing. If the first paragraph raises what are, ultimately,
abstract
generalizations, the paper can end up talking about
them.
Focussing
incident:
On
March 22, 2002, Hubert Sumlin was at Anderson Mill Park when a
Pomeranian ran
away from its owner and bit Hubert on the nose. This was
simply one example of
innumerable incidents of small dogs brutally
attacking big dogs. There are at
least one thousand every year of such
horrific acts. Why? What is the goal of
such behavior on the part of small
dogs?
Much
published
writing, especially journalism, relies on the focussing incident , a
real
or hypothetical example of the paper's issue. While it can be cloying, and
too much of it gets irritating (almost every article in Newsweek and Time
begins this way), it's so widespread in journalism because it is
effective. It
focuses the attention of the reader and writer on something
specific; if well
done, it means that the reader has a vivid image of the
issue.
Thesis:
Small
dogs are conspiring with squirrels. Embittered by their small
size, permanently
embarrassed by their foolish yippiness, and hoping to
get their owners to stop
putting ribbons in the hair, small dogs have
chosen to join the squirrel
conspiracy to get the red
ball.
Editorials sometimes use the thesis introduction, in which the
first
sentence is the author's thesis. It is generally not appropriate in
academic
writing (except exams), and it is usually not very persuasive. If
the thesis is
quirky or unexpected (were George Will to begin an editorial
"I love
liberals!", for instance) then it can be
attention-getting, but that's
about the limits of its merits. It's mostly
used in writing where the author is
not trying to persuade an informed and
intelligent opposition audience, but
entertain an "in"
audience.
History
of
controversy:
In
1988, Hoover wrote his famous muckraking article,
"Chihuahuas Look Like
Squirrels--Coincidence?" in which he
argued that Chihuahuas are implicated
in several important acts in the
squirrel conspiracy. The next year, Charlie
published his three volume
work, The Squirrel Conspiracy, 1876-1985, in which he
demonstrated squirrel collaboration on the part of Boston Terriers,
Corgis, and
Westmorelands, raising the issue of whether small dogs in
general are
implicated. Jet responded with three studies showing
consistent hostility
between Cockapoos and squirrels ("I Hate
Squirrels" 1989, "My
Friends Hate Squirrels" 1990, and
"All Cockapoos Hate Squirrels"
1991), while Daisy pointed to
several memoirs of famous Miniature Schnauzers
that emphasized their
barking at squirrels ("Their Lives as Dogs: A Review
Essay"
1992). The question remains: is it a question of a few small dog
breeds,
or are all small dogs involved in the squirrel
conspiracy?
Probably
the most
common kind of introduction in academia is one that gives the history
of
the controversy. Scientific papers, for instance, begin by relating other
studies on the same topic, philosophical essays begin by discussing the
history
of the issue, and even literary essays often begin by discussing
the recent
scholarship on the specific piece or topic. This is a very
useful model for
students to use, and probably one of the two most useful
kinds of introductions
for papers in this class, but students should keep
two things in mind.
First,
it's
possible (at least in this class) to discuss the history of the
controversy for you personally or for the class--to begin by describing
how the
class discussion went, or how your own views evolved (in fact,
that can be a
useful structure for a paper).
WhenI was a young puppy, I was attacked by a Pekingese for no
particular reason. In
obedience school, a Basset Hound kept trying to
steal my treats. There were two
Scotties who kept peeing on my mailbox,
and who snarled at me on walks. At
parks I've been attacked by Cocker
Spaniels, Chihuahuas, Dauschunds, Miniature
Dobermans, and various small
mutts. After this had happened more times than I
could count, I started to
wonder--why are small dogs always attacking me?
Second,
given that
you have limited time, don't try to start too far back on the history
of
the controversy. When this kind of introduction goes wrong, it turns into
the "dawn of time" introduction. ("Since the dawn of time,
people have been discussing Chester's obsession with the red ball.")
Start
your history with where your audience and argument need it to
start.
Some
say
According
to Jet, small dogs, especially Cockapoos, hate squirrels
as much as the big
breeds. As he says,
We hate them. WE HATE THEM. We think
they're
evil. We want to eat them.
All.
("All Cockapoos Hate Squirrels" 1991)
Jet's main
evidence is the tendency Cockapoos
have to bark at squirrels in trees, for
hours on end, if necessary. At the end
of his article, he suggests that
this evidence applies to many other breeds of
small dogs, who also bark at
squirrels. He concludes that this loathing
demonstrates that small dogs
could not possibly be involved in the squirrel
conspiracy. Does this
demonstrate that small dogs hate squirrels? If they do
hate squirrels,
does that mean that they could not be part of the
conspiracy?
The
some say or
prolepsis introduction is a lot like the history of controversy
introduction, except you only discuss one side of the controversy--the
side
with which you will take issue. That is, it is the opposite point of
view from
yours. This is very, very effective when you have a hostile
audience that you
are trying to persuade. It generates a tremendous amount
of goodwill with your
opposition readers to begin by summarizing their
argument. It shows that you
are fair-minded and that you have listened.
(If you take any management or
interpersonal communications courses,
you'll find that scholars in those fields
make a big point about beginning
a discussion, especially a potentially heated
one, by confirming what the
other person has said.) In other words, it's
virtually the opposite of the
summary introduction. Rather than begin by
summarizing your argument, you
begin by summarizing the opposition. For this to
work, however, it has to
be genuinely fair-minded--beginning by summarizing a
stupid version of
your audience's argument just persuades them you're too much
of a dork to
get their point.
There
are also some
gimmicks you can use in your introduction, such as beginning with
a quote,
a definition, or a personal narrative. Those are perfectly fine (although
general usage dictionary definitions are of limited utility in
college--discipline specific ones are better), but they're not different
kind
of introductions because they can be used with any of the above.
(That is, a
some say introduction might begin with a quote, definition, or
personal
narrative, as might a history of controversy or a funnel.)
Sentence
Level
Revision
When
the
organization and evidence seem strong (and that may take four or five
drafts) you can look at sentence level problems. Personally, I've disabled
most
of the "rules" on the grammar checker in my word processing
program,
but I do find it helpful for catching spelling errors and
fragment sentences.
More helpful for catching grammar and style problems
is reading the piece out
loud, and even more helpful is listening to
someone else read it out loud (as
with the above, don¹t try to correct the problems as you listen--just note where
there
are problems). Some people suggest that you read the paper out loud
one
sentence at a time starting with the last sentence. That way, you
don't get
caught up in the ideas (and mentally correct
errors).
Unless
you have
dialect or second language interference, one of the best ways to
revise
your sentences is simply to ask yourself: what am I really trying to say
here? Errors in usage and grammar often pop up when writers are unclear in
their own minds about what they're trying to say.
I've
given you a
sheet that shows my marks and has some quick examples. Make sure
that you
understand my marks. If you don't understand my marks or the
explanations,
come see me, consult a handbook, or go to the Writing
Center.
If
there is some
recurrent grammar and usage problem on which I or other readers
have
remarked, once you have a second or third draft is the time to try to
identify instances of that problem. I don't recommend worrying about them
very
much on a first draft, as you're likely to be dropping entire chunks
of that
version--why worry about the correctness of language you won't
even end up
using?
If
people have
complained that your writing is choppy, count your sentence length.
If
your sentences are almost all under eleven words, you'll want to
"embed" some sentences together[4]. Effective writing tends to
have
variation in sentence length, as well as sentence structure
(something we'll
talk about in class).
Another
way to
check for choppiness is to see how often you're using subordination
rather
than coordination. Subordinate conjunctions often tell the logical
relations between clauses (when, how, or why), so using more subordination
can
actually make your argument much more powerful. (We'll also talk about
this
more in class.)
In
some disciplines
(e.g., the social sciences), passive voice and passive agency
are
absolutely required [5]. In most circumstances, passive voice and passive
agency are confusing; it takes considerable writing skill not to fall into
various errors when using them. In this class, you should avoid passive
voice
and passive agency--the handbook has some excellent advice as to how
to go
about that task.
Polishing the
Paper
Once
you've got a
good paper done, with a strong argument, good organization, and a
lots of
evidence, then take the time to polish it. (People prone to writing
blocks
usually begin by trying to have every sentence perfect.) You always need
to know your audience (although sometimes it's very difficult, as when
writing
a job application letter), and your knowledge of your audience
should determine
how much time you spend polishing. For instance, some
audiences care a huge
amount about getting every detail right on citation
format. Some don't. (But I
do have to say that almost every college
instructor--and especially me--cares
that you use some format. Whether or
not you get the comma in the right place,
you must give the necessary
citation information, or you're in the land of
plagiarism.) Using a huge
font or wide margins in order to lengthen the paper
won't fool anyone, and
some teachers will grade students down for varying from
the established
format. With some teachers and in some classes, it is worth
your time and
money to fuss over PowerPoint presentations and what should be in
bold
versus italics; with other teachers and classes (e.g., me and this one)
that's a waste of time.
Because
it's so
easy to check spelling, teachers expect it, and readers get actively
irritated by a lot of spelling errors. It's very difficult to catch your
own
errors, as you tend to see what you meant to write rather than you
actually did
write. I depend heavily on other people for proofreading (but
do not expect the
Writing Center to proofread!) While the spell checkers
on most word processing
programs are pretty good, the grammar checkers
tend to be pretty bad. So, run
spell check. If you run grammar check, just
make sure to disregard certain
kinds of advice it gives (such as the rule
regarding long sentences.)
The
most important
kind of proofreading involves the Works Cited material. Make
sure that
everything you cite is on your Works Cited page and everything on
your
Works Cited page is in your paper somewhere. (Some computer programs will
do that for you, but I have no idea how well.) In this class, you can
use
MLA, APA, or Chicago (all are in the handbook), but you must use one
of them. American Chemistry
Society and various other methods are neither appropriate or acceptable,
so do
not simply rely on what some other teacher told you. GET A HANDBOOK
IF YOU DO
NOT ALREADY OWN ONE. Citation methods change all the time, so do
not rely on
what another teacher told you to do--rely on a recent
handbook.
Once
your paper
is written and proofread, then reread the assignment
sheet. You should have
reread
it several times while writing the paper, so there should not be
any big
surprises at this point. Some instructors have very specific
requirements for
presentation--e.g., I ask that you mark your thesis
statement, and I ask that
you include all your previous papers in your
packet--, and this is the moment
to get them right. Make sure your name
and your instructor's name are on the paper;
the class and section number
are also a good idea. I strongly advise against
putting your social
security number on the paper--that's very private
information--but I know
some instructors require it.
And,
last but
not least, get a virus protector and back up often. Use the
university-provided webspace--it's a life saver. College campuses are to
computer viruses what 1660's London was to the bubonic plague--a very
amenable
host. Never give your college teachers your only copy of a
paper.
Conclusion
Writing
isn't
especially easy, at least not for me and most people I know, but it is
rewarding. If you've had trouble with writing in the past, that doesn't
necessarily mean that you are a Bad Writer--some of the best writers
struggle
very, very hard--but it may mean that you're trying to use a
writing process
that doesn't work for you. Experiment with different ways
of writing papers
(even different places can sometimes help), and come see
me if you need help.
But, mainly, just try to think rhetorically about
your writing--what are you
trying to do? Who is your audience? What is the
context? How is this like or
unlike other writing situations? And, how can
you make this
writing
assignment
enjoyable?
NOTES
[1] Define it: "How he thinks about the red ball, what he thinks it is
like, how important he thinks it is relative to other balls." Divide it
into different categories: "When a squirrel is nearby, in the snow, at
night, when Hubert is chasing the ball." Describe a larger category of
which it is a part: "His attitude toward important things." Describe its
opposite: "Chester's attitude to the blue ball." Come up with an analogy:
"His attitude toward the red ball is like Hubert's attitude toward the
stuffed monkey." List its good and bad consequences: "Good--it's very
entertaining, chasing the ball and carrying it around gives him exercise,
he doesn't get bored, he feels more comfortable at the vet or on trips if
it is around. Bad--he knocks it into things, it gets covered in mud and
then he brings it in the house, he is mournful if it breaks."
[2] One version of the chronological structure with which students are not
always familiar is the research version of a lab report. That is, the
author narrates the development of his/her thinking on the topic.
[3] Here you're in a bind. American writing instructors, and many
textbooks, mis-use the term "thesis statement." The thesis statement is a
summary of the main point of the paper; it is not the same as the topic
statement. Empirical research shows that most paragraphs end with a
statement of topic, not the thesis. But, our students are taught to
mis-identify the topic sentence as the thesis statement (e.g., so they
think that "What are the consequences of small dogs conspiring with
squirrels?" is a thesis statement). This is not a trivial problem, and I
would suggest is one reason that students have so much trouble with
reasoning and critical reading. I'm not kidding when I say that I also
think it contributes significantly to how bad public argument is. You can
insist on the correct usage (which is pretty nearly spitting into the
wind), or you can come up with other terms--proposal statement, main
claim, main point.
[4]
Chester is a big dog. Chester chases the red ball. The squirrels want the
red ball. Squirrels are evil. Squirrels desire world domination. Getting
the red ball will enable squirrels to dominate the world.
[5]Active voice: Chester chased the red ball.
Chester, a big dog, chases the red ball that the squirrels want because it
will enable them to dominate the world.
Passive voice: The red ball was chased by Chester.
Active agency: Chester chased the red ball.
Passive agency: Chasing happened between the red ball and Chester.
Notice that the last sentence is active voice, but passive agency. (Agency
and voice are not the same thing.)