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Analysis of Literary Language · Advanced Professional Papers · The History of the English Language · Second Internship: Advanced Instruction: Tutoring Writing
Visual Literacy Seminar (A First Course in Methodology) · Theories of Communication & Technology (A Second Course in Methodology) · Language in Society (A Third Course in Methodology)
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Paper #1 · Paper #2 · Paper #3 · Weekly Journal Entries
Presently my focus is on completing my degree so I can search for employment in the field of Information Technology, possibly technical writing and continue my studies in graduate school. I only have three classes to graduate, but will continue for another year to earn several minors in writing and philosophy.
My future endeavors are quite complex. I would like to continue in the field of Information Technology while writing freelance about technology and political commentary, but I may end up writing for a small newspaper in the Midwest or a publishing company. My thrust is to combine my science and technology education with writing. By taking psychological profiles I have determined that I could make an effective counselor and work well with people on a one-to-one basis. Teaching may be another consideration for me in the future.
My positive experiences in writing have been: discovering who I am, how I relate to the rest of the world, the process of discovery, gathering facts and then processing that information watching it evolve into knowledge.
My negative experiences in writing have been during the research process. Due to the overwhelming amount of information available on the Internet it is becoming increasingly difficult to scan for the most important information I consider not common knowledge on a subject. For the purpose of meeting deadlines, on occasion I have been forced to turn in drafts that I consider less than complete. Case in point was my third argument paper in ENGL392.
While composing the second draft, I was still trying to determine where my research was leading in the argument. I had an established thesis in order to meet the deadline, but the conclusion was weak and did not support or refute the thesis. In the final draft, the thesis and the conclusion were modified to agree with my findings. Needless to say, my findings were completely different from the preconceived notions I entered the research with.
For myself, the most painful experience in writing, as for most students, is developing support of a thesis in a minimum of three pages and a maximum of six pages. The toughest part is getting to the point and getting off it.
I enjoy the iterative, recursive nature of the writing process. I enjoy the intellectual process of discovery. For me, it is a creative outlet and allows me to exchange ideas and thoughts with an audience. It's a way for me to connect with others and say, "Have you ever had this experience?" or "Do you agree with this or do you disagree with this and why?" Writing is a way to explore aspects of technology, philosophy, politics, and the human condition that I cannot normally explore without dialog. Writing also provides me with an avenue to explore my own thoughts and find the fallacies in my thinking. Writing provides me with a way of organizing my thoughts and conveying them to someone else (the reader).
Computers have been an aid for me in the writing process especially with the advances in computer programs in being able to insert diagrams, charts, graphs, tables, images, and sound bites to further enhance the communication process. Prior to computers, I had to type everything by typewriter, change entire pages and entire documents when something was to be inserted or removed, plus leave space to physically cut and paste images and figures. Computers have also sped up the entire process providing the ability to switch paragraph placement at will, searching to change words or phrases within a long document. Programs such as PageMaker and Quark have substantially sped up the process of formatting long documents and books for pre-press work reducing the typesetting process. Lastly, the computer allows me to isolate a single sentence, place it on a separate page, analyze it, edit it, and place the sentence back into the document strengthening my writing.
Computers are helpful aid for the process of a free write with their grammatical checkers and spell checkers, but one is easily misled into thinking that their first write is a final product. I find it extremely necessary to proof everything for wordiness, spelling and grammar.
Another drawback in the writing process using computers process is that computers have placed a greater burden on the writer to now be expected to perform more of the pre-press work that was normally done by typesetters.
I hope this course will assist me in becoming a better writer. I know from other writing classes and reviewing other classmates writing that I'm not a gifted writer, but a strong writer. I hope to strengthen my writing skills and to help others that think or know that they are not good writers to ease their anxiety with the writing process.
My personal anxieties or weaknesses in my own writing are wordiness, spelling and grammar. Knowing these are my weaknesses I constantly search for these problems in my revisions. My other anxiety is that I can recognize problems in grammar in my own writing and the writing of others, but may not be able to explain grammatically why the sentence is incorrect, yet I can rephrase the sentence in its correct grammatical form.
The more I read about the writing process the less unique I find myself to be. After reading chapter 4 of "The Practical Tutor," I have found that my writing process is an iterative and recursive process analogous to rapid application development (RAD) of software and also Professor Shon Vick's grading process. Professor Shon Vick, a teacher in UMBC's Computer Science curriculum uses a recursive algorithm to compute the final grade that is so complex that even though we were Comp. Sci. majors it left our heads reeling.
It is the very nature of digital writing that has created this process. One develops a thesis topic and paragraph, goes out on the Internet does some research, builds a bibliography, analyzes the research, refines the topic statement, copies and pastes a few sentences from someone else's work as support, writes around that citation to prove or disprove something, does some more research, cuts and pastes something else, surrounds it with more of one's thoughts, stops examines a few sentences, pains over the language, consults a dictionary, changes the language, checks the spelling and punctuation, starts developing an outline, does more research, adds more citations, synthesizes more of the material, decides the order is incorrect, cuts and pastes, sentences, paragraphs shoving them around on the pages, modifies the topic sentence once again, begins to jump to conclusions, does more research, determines the conclusion is wrong and modifies it to agree with the research, pains more over the language, separating out sentences, finds the language isn't coming, walks away, goes to class, work, sleep, eat, shower, come back read everything so far, completely hate what's written so far, search for more stuff, consult the dictionary some more, search for wordiness, reduce the number of words, finding the paper is too short resulting in more research, more synthesis, more consulting the dictionary, more fussing over the language until the publishing deadline arrives and hit print.
This is my writing process. One long stream of consciousness with multiple tasks going on at the same time with a tremendous amount of going back and forth between many activities at once.
When provided no guidance at all for a topic, I find that talk radio has a wealth of topics to explore. Not all of them are political if one listens often. There are so many varying programs on the weekend discussing topics such as automobiles, health and nutrition, medical malpractice, ethics, social interactions and if one turns to someone like Dr. Bob Hieronimus or Art Bell, I'm never at a loss of topics.
For me, on the matter of topics, the focus is really depends on what type of writing is required: academic, research, journalism, science writing, technical writing, arts and entertainment, fiction, non-fiction, ethics, philosophy, history, economics, technology, political science, mathematics, physics, biology, art critic, literary analysis.... It depends upon what is the message I'm trying to convey and who I am conveying the message to.
When explaining my writing process to a tutee, my process is iterative and recursive. I research, read, write, cite, review, edit, ask questions, and recite aloud continually repeating the tasks in whatever order I think is necessary at the time.
As I answer this post, I am also doing a free-write because my mind is filled with so many writing tasks that the only way I can focus on this one is just to write my thoughts and edit out the stuff which are just tangents. I do everything online at this point, even consulting grammar references.
Two other recent tools I have added to my toolbox are the diagram and an e-Prime parser. The diagram consists of just creating a circle and placing a person, place or thing in the center of it. Then draw line off the circle writing in things that are absurd. This is a useful tool for developing humor. Let's say I want to determine what's absurd or weird about ducks. I place the word duck in a circle. Then as I think of weird things about ducks, I draw a line off the circle and write, "the way they walk." I then come up with another thought say, "the way they sleep." I continue like this until I have exhausted all the strange things I can think about the topic ducks and then look at how I can take those thoughts and come up with strange analogies creating humor.
The e-Prime parser is a useful internet tool that can be found at One can take the text they have written copy it into the parser and the parser will show you all the places you have used a "to be" verb construct. This is a useful tool when composing creative non-fiction and fiction. When one has to remove the verb "to be" one is forced to create more creative constructs in order to avoid using forms of the "to be" verb.
Considering the language of these two explanations of my writing process, I would use paragraph one 99.9% of the time and save paragraph two for Information Systems majors and Computer Science majors.
There have been a few. Between yesterday and today, I finally got one to actually start flowing for Visual Literacy (ENGL488). For three weeks I grappled with coming up with a topic and finding research to support the argument. This is highly unusual for me because I usually easily can create a topic and follow through on an argument. I have to as a Philosophy minor.
After countless hours of research on digital literacy, three papers finally emerged that led me down a yellow brick road: An argument paper about arguments utilizing digital communications: Email, bulletin boards and listservs. That's when I came to realize, only a philosopher could write an argument about arguments.
One argument/position paper in ENGL392 almost became incoherent in structure because of the different paths that developed. I was instructed to outline the paper just before the final draft. From reading The Practical Tutor, I gained insight as to how to straighten out the approach. A linear outline was no feasible in this paper. What was necessary was what computer scientist would recognize as a node tree or a statistician would recognize as a probability tree. The problem was one had to think the outline through visually and not linearly.
There was a type A which led to two branches B, C. B contained four more branches and C contained three. An argument of this structure became very difficult to maintain without being able to visualize its paths. Plus the tree was the only way to maintain a point and a counterpoint in order to construct a valid argument.
My biggest nightmare was ENGL380 Journalism. It didn't seem to matter what I wrote, I just could not write anything that would wow this professor. When I tried to be creative in forming a leade and the article I would be shot down for opinion. When I just stated the facts, the leade and the story were as bland as melba toast.
My last story was the enterprise story which we were given three weeks to create. I went to the Writing Center with a draft in hand. I met with Reshma Desai, senior news writer for the Retriever and classmate who had written for the paper for two years before even taking ENGL380 so I figured I had this paper would be the A. We went over it, the only thing she could glaring with it was how my quotes were not dispersed through the story. I sprinkled my quotes liberally in the places where they made sense in maintaining a cohesive story only to get the article back saying that my conclusion was opinion (even though it was based on six years of statistics and demonstrated a trend, 12 months x 6 years created 72 points of data, statisticians use 32 as the magic number for sampling) the story was difficult for the reader to follow. Nothing I wrote made this guy happy so I walked away with a C in the course and chalked it up to the fact that there were no peer reviews, no re-writes, no first, second or third drafts. The first draft was the last draft. I even did two extra papers and they came back with a C. At least Steven Glass got his articles thrown back from the editor full of red ink for a re-write. We didn't even get that much.
The remedy for this experience would be the same I learned in Mathematics and Engineering. When the first exam/paper/whatever comes back full of that much red ink and that low a grade, drop the course, take it with a different professor the next semester, if it's the only professor who teaches the course, see if you can take it at a different school and transfer in the credit, and if it's a required in the curriculum, the only place you can take it and the only person you can take it with, do the best you can and hope your marks are fall within the percentage of the average mean so you can receive credit and walk away.
Bottom Line, the worst had to be the whole writing process for ENGL380 because I got nowhere with it.
This post will be ordered in a journalistic writing style so the user may quickly obtain information necessary at glance and will follow a pyramid scheme of importance. Three important topics missed were missed during the research phase of the paper. They are a brief discussion on writing style in technical writing, the difficulties ESL students experience in technical writing, and Professor Porter’s grading rubric. I will post this information as an addendum as soon as it becomes available.
Tutor’s Concerns
The high-order troublesome areas in writing for ENGL 393 students as a whole are organization and lack of depth in paragraphs. To assist tutees in these areas, I recommend tutors show tutees various techniques of organization such as the use mapping, trees, and the heuristic HDWDWW. Tutors should introduce tutees to the glossing technique in order to strengthen the development of content within paragraphs.
Grammar and mechanics, which are normally considered low-order concerns in other forms of writing become high-order concerns in technical writing. As tutors, we need to remember that technical documents are not just read, but usually outline processes that someone intends to act upon. Porter stresses the proper use of standard written English with an emphasis on grammar because of the “life or death as well as, legal, ethical, and safety implications” technical writing may have on its audience.
Professor Porter’s assignments are designed to increase the writer’s awareness of the critical relationship between a document’s purpose and its intended audience, a key factor when designing technical communications.
The expanded definition is the most troublesome assignment for ENGL 393 students because it comes early in the semester when students are just beginning to develop a technical writing style, Professor Porter said. An expanded definition explains the details of a term in an encyclopedia style format. It may include the etymology of a term, the historical background describing the development and use of the term, in addition to, specific examples to illustrate the application of the term. The expanded definition may incorporate various types of visuals to clarify and explain the term. The complexity of an expanded definition will vary according to the intended audience. In ENGL 393, the users of the expanded definition will be a non-technical audience. The purpose in writing to a non-technical audience is because of the inherent difficulty in explaining technology in non-technical terms. The writers can use nomenclature as necessary, but must also explain it to the reader when used. The reason Professor Porter requires students to write an expanded definition to teach technical writers the critical relationship between a document’s purpose and the document’s targeted audience. Writing an expanded definition introduces the students to a term that will be required later in the analytical report.
Chart-junk can mean statistical representations that rely on an abundance of clever or cute images to make their point. Chart-junk can also refer to ink that is not used for the purpose of creating the actual graphic such as background, boarders, containers, extra tick marks or anything that does not aid the reader in understanding the actual data. Such items are bells and whistles that only distract the viewer’s eye. Therefore, visuals must effectively communicate their explicit meaning to the reader at a glance. Hence, visuals must be chart-junk free in order for the reader to explicitly understand what the writer is explaining.
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Professor Porter designs the ENGL393 Technical Writing course with the primary goal of providing students with the ability to present technical information to semi-technical and non-technical audiences in a clear well organized manner. Porter focuses on enabling students to effectively communicate technical material through the use of written, oral, and visual formats. This is a major shift in focus from most other writing classes and is typical of writing styles within the disciplines of science and technology.
My 11/08 session went well. The tutee had a literary analysis paper in ENGL 243B Currents in American Literature: Native American Literature. The novel was, The Surrounded by D’Arcy McNickle for Professor Benson’s class. The tutee received help on the first paper with one of our tutors. The paper was a second revision with Professor Benson’s comments. I was looking at a first draft with comments and a clean second draft. Professor Benson was satisfied with the thesis statement and when the tutee read it aloud, I was also satisfied. Professor Benson said there was a problem with structure.
I showed the tutee the glossing technique. The order seemed fine to me. I asked her if she could justify the order to me and she could justify it to Professor Benson. The tutee was using a simple chronological order. The paragraphs consisted of one topic and they were ordered according to how they happened in the woman’s life. We then looked at the topic sentences s these were cited as having problems. I found no problems there. It was the transitional sentences from paragraph to paragraph that were a problem.
The tutee was not framing her quotes. In some cases, I found the tutee’s analysis of the quote before the quote itself and then the tutee would refer the reader to the quote. I explained to the tutee that she had to inform her reader as to why this particular quote was important. I said we quote things because they have meaning to us in some way, so how is this quote meaningful to you? The tutee would explain her reasoning and I asked her to write it down. Sometimes she would struggle with the language and would become hesitant to write down her thought and ask me what I thought. This wasn’t a question in reason, justification or analysis but a matter of language. I would politely say to her, “What do you think?” this would place the burden back on the tutee without my interference in the language.
At the end of the session I think I showed Katie how to gloss her own paragraphs to check the structure of the paper. I taught her when she chooses a quote she needs to inform us as readers why this phrase, sentence or paragraph is significant. I also think she learned that it’s not necessary to get your thoughts down in fluent prose, just that you get the thoughts down. Once the idea is in place, then the tutee can smooth out the language. At least I hope that’s what she learned.
In one of my observation tutoring logs, I recorded the conversation of the session where the tutee spoke very little and the tutor ended up doing all the talking. I was not tutoring but observing. Professor Hickernell commented on the lack of dialog by the tutee. I’ve become quite good at capturing dialog from writing for The Retriever so I know I recorded correctly.
The reason for the peculiarity in the dialog was not written into the journal. The tutee was African-American, the tutor was Caucasian and the paper topic was about bigotry. The tutee was reflecting how he handled bigots targeting him as a child and now as an adult how he now deals with bigots. As an observer, it seems that the African-American student was not quite sure how his analysis would be taken by the tutor.
My question is how do you get a tutee to conduct an intellectual dialog with you if the tutee is uncomfortable discussing controversial topic with you?
My second question is how to you prevent yourself from getting caught up in a tutee’s excitement of revelation? In other words, thoughts start to flow for them but you start to ask too many questions and haven’t realized its time to shut up?
N. Barsky's recommendations to P. C. Paul's tutoring questions:
In answer to how do you get a tutee to conduct an intellectual dialog with you if the tutee is uncomfortable discussing controversial topic with you?
I think I've made my share of professors squirm by writing a paper advancing a viewpoint they disagreed with. I believe that most professors try their best to be fair, and to judge each argumentative paper based on its effectiveness, regardless of what it's arguing. That's what we as tutors need to do also. If we take on a fair, objective (but not impersonal) tone, tutees will feel more comfortable discussing the topic with us. We should understand what they are arguing, whom they are trying to persuade, and what's the best way for them to achieve that purpose. At the same time, we should look for questions that challenge the tutees to expand on what they have. I missed that opportunity yesterday when I was examining a paper defending the use of robotic technology in surgery. I should have asked him to talk a little about how the technology has improved and will continue to improve, an angle that his paper did not address. We can challenge our tutees without sounding like the enemy. Of course, the tutees can always look for particular tutors.
E. Ostrofsky's recommendations to P. C. Paul's tutoring questions:
S. Brantley's tutoring questions:
P. C. Paul's recommendations to S. Brantley's tutoring questions:
Log Entry Used For This Assessment:
Session Date: 12/06/2005
Tutee's name: Yiu Ho
Course and Professor's Name: PHIL 100 with Professor Dickson
Specific paper/problem tutee came to work on: Position paper/ Tutee came in to work the structure of the paper
Provide detailed answers to the questions in this self-assessment from one of the log entries for the third group.
Choose a recent session to assess.
1) What is the proportion of tutor talk? What kind of talking did you do?
Open-ended Questions
I asked the tutee open-ended questions inquiring about the voice in the paper such as if he had previous problems with papers he wrote for Professor Dickson and if he was satisfied with his grades on his papers. I asked this question because the student’s voice was quite frank and informal. The paper was not riddled with contractions, rather his voice sounded exactly as one would expect that he speaks. The voice sounded as though he was having a barroom discussion with a few friends about the positions of two people he read in a newspaper editorial and then discussed who he agreed with and why. I wasn’t alarmed, but rather curious. My professor in PHIL 100 was not formal either and just wanted us to be able to take a position and logically support the position in whatever voice we were comfortable with. The tutee said he wrote two in-class exam essays and received the grades he wanted so I did not push the issue. His professor’s view may have been the same as mine. I than asked the tutee what his major was and he said “Art.” For me, this helped to clarify the oddity of the informal voice in the paper. If he was a Philosophy major I would have been alarmed.
Content-clarifying Questions
I used content-clarifying questions about writing a thesis statement or a topic sentence because the paper had none. He didn’t understand thesis statement but he understood topic sentence and said that there was nothing stated like that in the assignment sheet. The tutee had his assignment sheet and we checked the assignment together. He was right, the professor never formally said he wanted a topic or thesis statement. This I found a little peculiar because when one does even an in-class essay exam question, one formulates a topic sentence by restating the question in the form of a statement for a topic sentence. Without the topic sentence it is difficult to maintain the focus of the essay. I decided to err on the side of caution and instructed him to insert one, two or three sentences at the end of his introduction stating the two men’s positions he was reading and then to state his own position. The structure he used for his paper was to first discuss the person with the Utilitarian view, then the man with the Ethical Egoism view and then himself so I suggested he do the same with the topic sentence: state the first man’s name and position, the second man’s name and position and then write a sentence stating his position. Even though the assignment sheet did not formally state he should have a thesis statement, it may have been implied and he did not catch that implication when the guidelines for the assignment were reviewed.
Directive Questions
Most of my questions were directive statements guiding him through with an idea of what a first semester Philosophy professor would be expecting in a freshman paper. The tutee had numbers in place to demonstrate where he was answering the three essential sections that were required by the professor and I reminded him to remove the numbers when he intended to print the final draft. He began with a structure that stated the Utilitarian position, once done he would talk about the Ethical Egoist position. In the second and third sections he lost this structure and was floating back and forth between the two. I suggested he gloss the paper and illustrated this by pointing out sentences having him draw a line out to the right margin and mark it with so and so’s name and position. I explained once he did this it would be a simple matter of reorganizing his sentences in the paragraph. I then suggested once that was done to re-read the paragraph and make sure that the sentences flowed correctly from one sentence to the next.
The third section had some dramatic problems for a philosophy paper. This section he was to discuss the position he agreed with and why. Once again, I suggested first state your position. The problem was he sided with the Ethical Egoist and he started his paper with the Utilitarian position. He would talk about the Utilitarian position first then the Ethical Egoist position. I suggested after he stated his position, discuss why he disagreed with the Utilitarian position. Once done, then discuss why he agreed with the Ethical Egoist position or why he was an Ethical Egoist. The tutee was correct, he was having trouble with the structure of the paper. I didn’t beat him over the head about an outline because the paper was short and was already done. He just happened to get lucky this time not using an outline because the paper was so short restructuring the paper was not difficult. The structure definitely needed work but for a philosophy paper there were two major flaws.
The first flaw he had a habit when stating his position of using introductory phrases to state his own position such as “I believe…” or “It is my belief…” I told him to just get rid of the introductory phrases because if you word the sentence correctly “I”, as a reader will understand “you”, the author is speaking and “I” the reader will understand who is speaking. I said to him just state what you position is and then write why you agree with the position.
The second major flaw was the word “believe.” He used the word in the middle of some of his sentences. I knew if he left that word in the Philosophy professor would have slaughtered him. I’m sure there was a lengthy discussion one day in that class as to why philosophers never use the word believe or belief. I asked him if there was even a discussion about using the word “believe” and he said no. That I found hard to believe. I believe he either didn’t go to class that day or he fell asleep. I tried to get him to change to a stronger word by using directive questions, but he didn’t catch on so I had to just come right out and explain why he should not use the word “believe” in a philosophy paper. I told him he had to come from a position of strength and the position of strength in philosophy was through logic. That didn’t get through either so I fell back on my lesson on why not to use the word “believe.” I explained we associate the word “believe” with the word “belief” and we associate the word “belief” with “God.” The problem is we cannot prove the existence or non-existence of God, therefore because there is no logical proof or definitive truth to the question. Therefore we “believe” or we hold the “opinion” that God does or does not exist. The word “believe” in philosophy is synonymous with “opinion.” At this point I forgot the correct word I told him to use, but we associate the word with the word fact.” I just gave him the 30 second lesson on why not to use the word “believe” in a philosophical argument.
2) Did you ever find yourself interpreting the writer, or did you listen and then wait a second before joining in?
I did not find myself interpreting this particular tutor. His language was frank and succinct. He was easy to understand. When we dialoged, I gave him ample time to answer and I would read his body language to see if I was getting my points across. If I received a blank stare or if there was a long moment of dead silence with the tutor staring at the paper, I knew my question wasn’t making sense so I would rephrase the question. If the response was the same, I’d just ask, “Hmm, you’re not getting it…” in a question/statement tone and he would either say “no” or shake his head. At that point I’d just give him the answer because he had been quite responsive throughout most of the session. I didn’t mind giving him an answer now and then because he was attempting to work through the questions.
3) Did you encourage and/or praise the writer’s work?
I did encourage his work and also praised his work. I especially liked the voice in his paper because of its frankness. It was good to hear someone state something clearly without strings of language to simply say, “I disagree.” Offering praise is one of my strong points, probably because I never received any at home so I know all too well what its like to receive a barrage of negative criticism.
4) Did the writer try to get you to do the writing?
How did you get around that?
This tutor didn’t try to get me to write surprisingly. He kept the one and only paper he had in front of him and I happened to sit on the opposite side of his dominant hand. When the tutee has tried to get me to write I have played the game of pushing the paper back to the tutee regardless of how many times it crept back to me. I have also noticed in order to resist I may even put my hands under my thighs in order to resist during the tutoring session and rock slightly in the chair.
5) Afterwards, did you help the writer to see what had gone on in the session?
Did you ask what his or her plans were for moving the project forward?
I think it was obvious to the tutee where we had been and what were his next steps for revision because he wrote his notes in the margin or wrote right on the paper as I made suggestions. I didn’t bother to ask him his plans for moving forward. I did ask him before he left if he had any other questions or concerns that I may have missed or didn’t address and he said no there was nothing else he needed so I think he was satisfied. I know I was satisfied with the outcome in his case.
6) What did you think the writer got out of the session?
I am not really clear as to what the tutee got out of the session as an Art major other than he got what he needed as far as reordering the structure of the paper. I’m sure if he writes another paper he won’t use an outline and do the same thing all over again. I hope he at least understood why one does not use the word “believe” in an argument or state in a paper or even in an oral discussion “I believe….”
7) What was most positive for you in the session?
What was most positive for me in the session was that the tutee was willing to do the work necessary and that I satisfied his needs in the paper. Some sessions for me were a disaster because the solution to the tutee’s problem would occur to me after they had left such as the Computer Science major with the 20-page report, the girl who refused to do any work in the session, and the older ESL student who didn’t understand the concept of “issue” representing a concept in the ordering of release dates within a journal publication versus “issue” referring to a “problem.”
8) What would you do differently if you had more time?
For this tutee, I probably would have showed him how to construct a formal outline for his paper and any other paper he would write in the future.
After completing the self-assessment of a session, think about your tutoring throughout the semester and then discuss the following questions. (Remember the usefulness of specific examples to make generalizations
more meaningful.)
1) What are your strengths as a writing tutor?
My main strength is patience. When I took a physics lab class on a Friday night, one of the members remarked, “I want clean data to analyze. Let Chris take the data, he makes saints look impatient!” It takes a great deal to work me up and I try very hard to work with people especially when they are genuinely making an effort to learn concepts.
Another of my strengths is analysis. For me it doesn’t matter what we’re analyzing, the methods of analysis are basically the same. Some of the concepts and names in the particular discipline may be different, but I have been in and out of so many classrooms, I am comfortable enough to talk with people on various topics.
Age even though in some ways a divider also acts as reinforcement for me as I have spent years working with many types of people with various backgrounds that from experience with working with people you learn to listen not only to verbal language but also body language. You also learn when to take and when to give and when you may be pushing a little too hard to know when to back off and provide space.
I know how to listen closely to someone else’s concerns without judgment. This is especially helpful in argument and position papers. I don’t feel that my opinion or position on the matter at hand is important and I think that comes through when I talk to tutees. It’s an intellectual discussion and we’re all looking for the same thing for the most part, the truth.
My diverse background in the sciences and technical writing places me in a position where I’m most comfortable working with the subject matter. I have no problem with the humanities either. The only subject that gives me problems is literary analysis, especially when I am unfamiliar with the book or if the tutee comes in with an interpretation that is far from the conventional interpretations.
2) What should you work on to improve? (You might think of this as a way to identify goals for your continued work as a writing tutor.)
One of my weaknesses is trying too hard sometimes. I don’t realize the tutee is not getting the concept and I need to learn when to just let it go and give them the answer. It just burns time trying to get them to think.
Another weakness is not finding out early in the session if the tutee is an ESL. For the most part, it seems like a waste of time asking then to read the paper aloud because they don’t speak English as a native language. The ESL tutee doesn’t pick up on the audio clues of missing articles, noun-verb agreement, pauses or awkward sentence structures the way a native speaker does.
Another problem I have found with ESL’s is trying to get them to dialog with you. They are afraid because (assumption) I’m an English major and (opinion) they think I’m going to judge their conversational English. I’m not sure what dialog or body language will help put them at ease and get them to dialog with me. I sense the ESL’s fear is he or she knows he or she is not good speakers, but even native English speaking, English graduates aren’t necessarily good speakers. I would like to help them to learn the language because knowing how to be able to communicate without being so soft-spoken will only help them in the long run whether in the work place or in life in general. This is a puzzle for me and I’m not sure where to search for techniques to draw them out.
Thinking on my feet instead of the solution coming to me later in the day would help. This problem I think will come only be revolved with time and experience because it’s just like any other problem solving. Once you encounter the problem over and over, you recognize what to do in the future. This is where discussing problems with other tutors is effective as we’re not islands in an ocean of disciplines. Again, communication is the most important aspect. Talking about what works, what doesn’t work, and what we’ll try in the future as an effective solution.
I’m not sure as to how to get tutee’s to bring two copies of their papers. All too often they only come with one. When they read aloud, they hold the one paper and the problem for me is I am not an audio learner but a visual learner. As they read I listen and read along which helps me to grasp the concepts in their paper faster and to spot errors more quickly. Also it provides me with something to mark up as we go along and I can jot questions in the margin as they arise instead of having to hunt through the text to find my questions again. Many of the students are not good orators so it’s difficult to understand their linguistic patterns. I think I will have to insist on two papers because it doesn’t help me to help them.
Many of us are accustomed to specific topics being handed to us in writing assignments. Our first paper here in ENGL 395 is an example. We know exactly what to write about.
Some assignments are open-ended, but still limited. The paper I just completed yesterday for my Visual Literacy class with Professor Carpenter is a prime example. The assignment read, “Write an argument paper in any topic in Visual Literacy Tyner has discussed in our readings. The paper should be 6-8 pages long with a minimum of 12 sources, half of which must be books or journals.”
Predication and Intellectual Commitment
A concept-
Why Open-Ended Assignments Make Commitment Especially Difficult
The Wording of Open-ended Assignments
The tutor could recommend the tutee to go back to the professor and tactfully ask, “Would you tell us what you had in mind for this
assignment?” In some cases, the tutee may want to present an example of what the writer has in mind for a topic. This way it shows the
professor that the writer has at least made an attempt to design a topic.
The Writer’s Diffidence
Writer’s diffidence is reluctance to take a stand. The writer is trying to ride on the fence of the topic. They are not defining a definite position
and supporting it.
Writer’s diffidence can be due to any of the following reasons:
Writers will avoid taking a position by using any of the following methods:
Salvaging an As-Yet-Uncommitted Draft
As tutors, unless the paper is really off base, we going to try and salvage some of the ideas the writer has already expressed. I am sure we all
have had papers like this and usually we can find something worthwhile to go forward with. We can help the tutee to do this by
demonstrating glossing, dramatizing or sentence-paradigms.
Glossing
Have the tutee write in the margin what is the main idea in each paragraph. If there is more than one idea, then have them write those out also.
Then ask the tutee if they can find ways in which the ideas are related. Ask the tutee if they can identify a major or several major
propositions. Last, ask the tutee to commit to a proposition they choose.
Dramatizing
The technique of dramatizing is to get the writer to imagine what people, institutions or nations might think presented with a particular
situation. This helps the tutee “test hypotheses about interests and motives and about the probable results of alternative actions.” This
helps a writer take a position.
Glossing and dramatizing can be used reciprocally to assist the writer in arriving at a commitment. As always, the goal is not to fix a particular product for the writer, but help the writer to become independent in the writing process.
Taking a Stand by Using Sentence-Paradigms
“Sentence-paradigms or ‘seed sentences’ can help writers reach decisions on issues about which they are deeply perplexed.”
Sentence-paradigms
Here are some examples of sentence-paradigms:
“Once I was ______________________, but now I am __________________________.”
“They say that ___________________, but my experience shows that______________.”
“Once I ______________, but now I ________________, because ________________.”
“Two people/creatures were having this dialogue ____________, when this change/crisis interrupted them ______________; afterwards, their dialogue continued______________: the moral of the story is _________________.”
“When I saw this fork in the road ______, I saw this_______, instead of that_________.”
Here are some examples of logical “workhorse sentences”:
List and Rename: “___________, ___________, _________: ___________.”
Cause/Effect: “If ____________________, then __________________.”
“Because _______________, ______________________.”
Compare/Contrast: “Just as _______________, so ______________; but if you consider _________________, then _________________.”
Difference/Likeness: “However _________________, ___________________.”
Specific/General: “______________________; ______________________.”
Addition/Augmentation: “Not only _________________, but also _____________.”
"Everything is an argument! Everything!"
Dr. Nuel Belnap
A.R. Anderson Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, University of Pittsburgh
Categorical Proposition (CP- what is a thing?) is a statement about the nature of things fixed in time and is a sentence that places the subject in the category of its predicate.
Agency (An agent causes an effect) -cause and effect add the dimension of time-what causes what and effects what
The specific proposal recommends an exact course of action and requires a special combination of smaller CP and casual arguments
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