Writing-Spaces-Readings-On-Writing

Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing Series Editors, Charles Lowe and Pavel Zemliansky Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing Series Editors, Charles Lowe and Pavel Zemliansky Volumes in Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing offer multiple perspec- tives on a wide-range of topics about writing. In each chapter, authors present their unique views, insights, and strategies for writing by ad- dressing the undergraduate reader directly. Drawing on their own ex- periences, these teachers-as-writers invite students to join in the larger conversation about the craft of writing. Consequently, each essay func- tions as a standalone text that can easily complement other selected readings in writing or writing-intensive courses across the disciplines at any level. Writing Spaces Readings on Writing Volume 2 Edited by Charles Lowe and Pavel Zemliansky Parlor Press Anderson, South Carolina www.parlorpress.com Parlor Press LLC, Anderson, South Carolina, 29621. © 2011 by Parlor Press. Individual essays © 2011 by the respective authors. Unless otherwise stated, these works are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License and are subject to the Writing Spaces Terms of Use. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ us/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA. To view the Writing Spaces Terms of Use, visit http://writingspaces.org/terms-of-use. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America S A N: 2 5 4 - 8 8 7 9 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Writing spaces : readings on writing. Volume 1 / edited by Charles Lowe and Pavel Zemliansky. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-60235-184-4 (pbk. : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-1-60235-185-1 (adobe ebook) 1. College readers. 2. English language--Rhetoric. I. Lowe, Charles, 1965- II. Zemliansky, Pavel. PE1417.W 735 2010 808’.0427--dc22 2010019487 Cover design by Colin Charlton. This book is printed on acid-free paper. Parlor Press, LLC is an independent publisher of scholarly and trade titles in print and multimedia formats. This book is available in paperback and Adobe eBook formats from Parlor Press on the World Wide Web at http:// www.parlorpress.com and from the Writing Spaces website at http://writingspaces.org. For custom editions including selections of essays from all volumes, please contact Parlor Press. For submission information or to find out about Parlor Press publications, write to Parlor Press, 3015 Brackenberry Drive, Anderson, SC, 29621, or e-mail [email protected]. Contents Acknowledgments vii Ten Ways To Think About Writing: Metaphoric Musings for College Writing Students 3 E. Shelley Reid Composition as a Write of Passage 24 Nathalie Singh-Corcoran Critical Thinking in College Writing: From the Personal to the Academic 37 Gita DasBender Looking for Trouble: Finding Your Way into a Writing Assignment 52 Catherine Savini How to Read Like a Writer 71 Mike Bunn Murder! (Rhetorically Speaking) 87 Janet Boyd The Complexity of Simplicity: Invention Potentials for Writing Students 102 Colin Charlton Writing “Eyeball To Eyeball”: Building A Successful Collaboration 122 Rebecca Ingalls On the Other Hand: The Role of Antithetical Writing in First Year Composition Courses 141 Steven D. Krause v vi Contents Introduction to Primary Research: Observations, Surveys, and Interviews 153 Dana Lynn Driscoll Putting Ethnographic Writing in Context 175 Seth Kahn Walk, Talk, Cook, Eat: A Guide to Using Sources 193 Cynthia R. Haller Reading Games: Strategies for Reading Scholarly Sources 210 Karen Rosenberg Googlepedia: Turning Information Behaviors into Research Skills 221 Randall McClure Annoying Ways People Use Sources 242 Kyle D. Stedman Everything Changes, or Why MLA Isn’t (Always) Right 257 Janice R. Walker Storytelling, Narration, and the “Who I Am” Story 270 Catherine Ramsdell The Sixth Paragraph: A Re-Vision of the Essay 286 Paul Lynch Why Blog? Searching for Writing on the Web 302 Alex Reid A Student’s Guide to Collaborative Writing Technologies 320 Matt Barton and Karl Klint Beyond Black on White: Document Design and Formatting in the Writing Classroom 333 Michael J. Klein and Kristi L. Shackelford Contributors 351 Acknowledgments We would like to thank a lot of people who contributed to this project. First of all, we are very grateful to all the contributors for their hard work, their willingness to listen, and their ability to work with our reviewers who suggested numerous changes to their drafts. Without the enthusiasm and expertise of our contributors, this project would not exist. Next, we would like to thank the members of our editorial board who also served as chapter reviewers. No doubt, you have put countless hours into the job of helping the authors make their chapters better. We know that the contributors have really enjoyed the collaborative and supportive review environment which you created. We also want to acknowledge the immense amount of work of the editorial staff. Matt Barton, Colin Charlton, Craig Hulst, Terra Wil- liams, and Elizabeth Woodworth—you did everything from copyedit- ing chapters to graphic design and visual editing, to editing and proof reading contributors’ bios and chapter descriptions. Your contribu- tions have been vital to this second volume of Writing Spaces, and it would not have been possible without you. Finally, a thanks to our partners at Parlor Press and the WAC Clearinghouse for their continued support of this open textbook series for first year composition. vii Writing Spaces 1 Ten Ways To Think About Writing: Metaphoric Musings for College Writing Students E. Shelley Reid 1. A Thousand Rules and Three Principles Writing is hard.* I’m a writer and a writing professor, the daughter and granddaugh- ter of writers and writing professors, and I still sit down at my keyboard every week and think, writing is hard. I also think, though, that writing is made harder than it has to be when we try to follow too many rules for writing. Which rules have you heard? Here are some I was taught: Always have a thesis. I before E except after C. No one-sentence paragraphs. Use concrete nouns. A semi-colon joins two complete sentences. A conclusion restates the thesis and the topic sentences. Don’t use “I,” check your spelling, make three main points, and don’t repeat yourself. Don’t use contrac- tions. Cite at least three sources, capitalize proper nouns, and don’t use “you.” Don’t start a sentence with “And” or “But,” don’t end a sentence with a preposition, give two examples in * This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution- Noncommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License and is subject to the Writing Spaces’ Terms of Use. To view a copy of this license, visit http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA. To view the Writing Spaces’ Terms of Use, visit http://writingspaces. org/terms-of-use. 3 4 E. Shelley Reid every paragraph, and use transition words. Don’t use transition words too much. When we write to the rules, writing seems more like a chore than a living process that connects people and moves the world forward. I find it particularly hard to cope with all those “Don’ts.” It’s no wonder we get writer’s block, hands poised above the keyboard, worried about all the ways we could go wrong, suddenly wondering if we have new messages or whether there’s another soda in the fridge. We can start to unblock the live, negotiated process of writing for real people by cutting the thousand rules down to three broader principles: 1. Write about what you know about, are curious about, are pas- sionate about (or what you can find a way to be curious about or interested in). 2. Show, don’t just tell. 3. Adapt to the audience and purpose you’re writing for. When we write this way, we write rhetorically: that is, we pay attention to the needs of the author and the needs of the reader rather than the needs of the teacher—or the rules in the textbook. Everything that matters from the preceding list of rules can be con- nected to one of those three rhetorical principles, and the principles address lots of aspects of writing that aren’t on the list but that are central to why humans struggle to express themselves through written language. Write about what you know about so that you can show not just tell in order to adapt to your audience’s needs and accomplish your goals. (Unless you do a good job showing what you mean, your audience will not understand your message. You will not meet their expec- tations or accomplish your goals.) Make clear points early so that your audience can spot your expertise or passion right from the start. Write multi-sentence paragraphs in which you show key ideas in enough de- tail that your audience doesn’t have to guess what you mean. Use a semi-colon correctly in order to show how your carefully thought out ideas relate to one another—and to win your reader’s confidence. Writing will still be hard because these are some of the hardest principles in college; they may be some of the hardest principles in the galaxy. But if you write from those three principles, and use some of the strategies listed below, your writing will finally have a fighting Ten Ways To Think About Writing 5 chance of being real, not just rules.

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