How to
Write Papers
for
MHM408/508
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CONTENTS
GENERAL
GUIDELINES
Although this is a discussion based
class, writing is essential to the course. It is through
writing that your thought becomes visible, both to the
instructor, to your peers and even, in a sense, to youself.
For me, writing is more process than result. Writing is
thought, because when you are forced to put your thoughts
onto paper they must be clear and convincing, not just to
yourself, but to the reader. This is why rewrites are an
important part of the writing process. When an author
reaches the end of a paper and drafts a conclusion, he or
she should understand the argument better than when he or
she began. This new understanding more often than not
requires a reworking of the introductory
material.
Teaching writing is extremely
difficult. If it were easy or straightforward, there would
not be so many discrepancies in the way it is taught and
evaluated. This creates a precarious situation for you as a
student because the standards upon which your work will be
judged are murky and inconsistent. This environment makes it
even more difficult to learn. This document is intended to
improve this situation by giving you the criteria with which
I will evaluate and grade your written work. Some of these
criteria reflect my own biases and foibles I'm certain, yet
they are offered in a spirit of objectivity and
collaborative learning.
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Professional
Writing
The standard upon which I measure
written assignments is a standard of professional writing.
By professional writing, I mean work for hire&endash;prose
that someone might pay you to write. Imagine that you are a
busy lawyer and you have hired someone to write a legal
brief for you. You assign this writer to research and
analyze a problem and you pay them to communicate the
results to you in writing. What criteria will you use to
evaluate this employee's job performance? What about:
clarity, concision, accuracy, thoroughness, and finally
creativity.
Clarity is important because you are
paying the writer to tell you something that you do not
already know. If the information is to be useful, you must
understand it completely. Examples and analytical detail aid
this process of understanding. Concision is important
because time is money. The more efficiently you can glean
information from the prose you have commissioned, the more
valuable it is to you. Accuracy is fundamentally important,
because if the facts are wrong it will be at best a waste of
your time and money and, at worst, a professional liability.
Imagine that you are a trial lawyer and your client is found
guilty or an appeal is denied because your argument was
based upon false information.
You might be surprised by the final
item, creativity, but in some ways I find this to be of
equal or even greater importance to the standard measuring
criteria above. Creativity becomes important in two ways: 1)
in the ability of the professional writer to take the
assignment beyond its original scope in interesting and
informative ways and 2) in the writer's ability to present
material in entertaining and memorable ways thus maximizing
reader attention and retention. A charming or witty turn of
phrase can make up for a variety of authorial sins. It also
has a practical side. Remember, if one is writing for hire,
it is her or his responsibility to communicate effectively.
For this class, excellence is not possible without
creativity.
For the purposes of this class which
uses generally short writing assignments, the appropriate
model is a newspaper or magazine that is directed at an
educated and informed reader. In the case of periodicals,
the reader pays with their time and subscription. If an
essay is not valuable because of its informational or
entertainment value (or a combination), then the reader goes
to another article or puts the publication down. If the
publication does not reward the reader, then this consumer
drops his or her subscription and the organization loses
money. If the organization loses money, then the
professional writer loses his or her job. My grading
responds to a similar system of reader economics and value.
When writing, you will benefit by keeping your reader in
mind.
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Although there are always exceptions,
generally speaking, two types of papers have been successful
in past assignments: the rhetorical paper and the narrative
paper.
THE
RHETORICAL PAPER
The Rhetorical paper places an
emphasis on information through a cogent argument based upon
close analysis of a problem or issue, for this class it is
often a piece of music. This type of paper has a concise and
clear introduction that sets the stage for an argument by
stating background information, a question or problem, a
proposed solution (thesis statement), and a payoff to the
reader&endash;i.e., the value of solving this
problem.
The
Introduction
Imagine that the bomb that destroyed
the U.S. embassy in Kenya had been a nuclear weapon. Despite
the end of the Cold War, the threat of nuclear weaponry
continues because of the aging armaments of the traditional
powers as well as the increasing access to nuclear power by
untraditional powers&endash;especially terrorist groups.
Spent weapons-grade fuel rods from nuclear power plants are
more than just dangerous waste; they provide the raw
material needed to create weapons of mass destruction.
Nuclear power regulatory agencies throughout the world must
develop a comprehensive plan to monitor and track the
production and disposal of weapons-grade nuclear waste. Such
a plan will not make the world a safe place, but it will
reduce the threat of nuclear terrorism.
Analysis of this intro
paragraph:
Background: Imagine that the
bomb that destroyed the U.S. embassy in Kenya had been a
nuclear weapon. Despite the end of the Cold War, the threat
of nuclear weaponry continues because of the aging armaments
of traditional powers as well as the increasing access to
nuclear technology by untraditional powers&endash;especially
terrorist groups. (The intro material is short,
functioning to give the reader a hook into the essay and set
the stage, but not burdening the reader with a lot of
unnecessary detail. Further background can be used in the
essay body. Avoid the temptation to overgeneralize in an
attempt to make the paper sound like a panacea of modern
society. Sentences like: "All human beings must love to
survive" or "Nuclear weapons have changed the way all people
conceptualize their world" are tempting, but usually false
and probably too weak to make a decent point.
Problem/Question: Spent
weapons-grade fuel rods from nuclear power plants are more
than just dangerous waste; they provide the raw material
needed to create weapons of mass destruction. The
problem statement is essential to the success of the thesis
statement and payoff (see below).
Solution (thesis): Nuclear
power regulatory agencies throughout the world must develop
a comprehensive plan to monitor and track the production and
disposal of weapons-grade nuclear waste. In a rhetorical
paper, the thesis is a must. If you are having trouble
finding a good solution/thesis, you might want to revisit
your problem statement and ask a more compelling
question.
Payoff: Such a plan will not
make the world a safe place, but it will reduce the threat
of nuclear terrorism. You may want to be more subtle
with the payoff statement than I have been here. Generally,
the more academic the essay, the more literal one wants to
be here.
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Body
This paper would then go on to argue
for such a plan to monitor and track nuclear waste, using
examples and case studies of such systems. It is essential
that the paper to follow deliver on the promises made in the
introduction.
Conclusion
In this class, where the assignments
are usually very brief, a conclusion that repeats or
summarizes the argument of the paper might be insulting to
the reader. Rather than "telling the reader what has been
said," I recommend that the concluding paragraph explore a
manifestation of the argument in the paper. In the example
above, such a conclusion might explore challenges to global
implementation of such a plan &endash; enforcement or
start-up costs, for example.
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THE
NARRATIVE PAPER
The narrative paper tells a story. In
this class, this story may be autobiographical or it could
be fictional. This story can be simply entertaining, but for
the purposes of this course it should illustrate some point
or have a "moral." In many ways it is the conceptual inverse
of the Rhetorical Paper. In the Rhetorical Paper, the
thesis/solution is given up front in the introduction and
the body of the essay supports this conclusion. In the
Narrative Paper, the story illustrates and supports while
leading the reader to some conclusion, point, or solution.
The problem is shown more than stated.
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COMBINATIONS
Frequently, good papers of either of
the above types incorporate elements from the other type. A
Rhetorical paper can tell the story of discovering a
solution, while the narrative paper can use a traditional
thesis.
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EXPERIMENTS
I would encourage you to explore other
models of argumentative writing. I am generally sympathetic
to experimentation and creativity. If you are sincere in
your writing and present a polished result, you will do well
on the assignment.
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Do's
and Don'ts
Do use a word processing
program with a spell checking routine.
Don't be sloppy in the
technical elements of your work. Misspelling, grammatical
errors, inconsistency of tense, and verb disagreement, among
other errors cause the reader to doubt the quality of more
than your attention to detail, it discounts the quality of
your thoughts and ideas.
Do proofread and revise. To do
this, you'll need to start writing early. Sometimes your
schedule will not permit this, but you should aim for this
ideal in any event.
Don't exceed the page
limit.
Do have a friend read your
paper and give you suggestions.
Don't use words such as,
clearly, obviously, certainly, etc. These words are usually
a signal to the reader that a generalization without
sufficient support is about to be passed on as fact. Please
avoid these words when writing for me.
Do strive to avoid meaningless
generalizations.
Don't neglect to include solid
examples and detailed analysis.
Do use a thesis
statement.
Do care about your ideas and
the quality of your work.
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Examples:
Note: the examples section is
not yet operational. Sorry.
Rhetorical Paper
by Shawnte McCall, used by
permission
Narrative Paper
by , used by permission
Combination Paper
by Zuzanna Ziomecka, used by
permission
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Minimal
Marking
I use a technique of
grading papers called minimal marking. Although I have
modified it to fit my own teaching style, the idea is based
upon "A Quick Guide to Minimal Marking," developed by
Raymond Smith. The purpose is to streamline communication
between editor and author and to increase the effectiveness
of writing as a teaching tool.
Principles:
I: Courses other than
English Composition are not to be devoted to
sentence level correctness in student
prose.
II: I assign papers
because I want to "see" your thought on paper. My
comments are therefore directed primarily to issues
of logic, organization, and the development of
ideas and arguments.
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In marking your
papers I will use the following:
Symbols
- circles locate errors confined to
one or two words
- wavy underlines identify larger
problem areas
- arrows and ties point out puzzling
connections or logical conflicts
- checks praise good word
choices
- straight underlines highlight
well-written sentences or phrases
- vertical lines mark good ideas or
strong paragraphs
Marginal Notations
? (unclear)
! or 4(good)
|AGR (agreement)
AWK (awkward)
A/V (actor/verb)
FRAG (fragment)
GEN (over generalization)
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MM (misplaced
modifier)
N? (necessary?)
NONSEQ (non sequitur)
CS (comma splice)
REF (pronoun reference)
S (simplify)
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SP (spelling)
PL (placement? or move?)
PRED (illogical predication
//STR (parallel structure)
WC (word choice)
Wordy
Choppy
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Note 1: Writing and even
grammar are up to personal interpretation. What one person
says is wrong, others may not mind. (I, for example, find
split infinitives to sometimes be acceptable, even
effective.) My comments and suggestions represent my
personal view, however, this view may differ with both your
own style and accepted grammar books. As long as you're
consistent in your usage, you will be able to write
professionally and you will be successful.
Note 2: Part of the theory of
minimal marking is that the teacher should not and does not
need to point out every tiny error. I don't want to insult
your intelligence by marking obvious errors. I'll just
circle them in order to draw your attention to the problem.
You can decide how to fix them. After checking the marginal
notation, if you still don't see a problem come talk to
me.
Final Note: If any of my
comments are unclear or you would like to discuss your
paper, please see me after class to set up an appointment.
I'd be happy to talk to you about how to make your next
paper better. I'm not terribly interested in talking about
why the grade I gave you should be changed. However, if you
feel that I have missed the point of your writing entirely,
please come talk to me so that I may reconsider my
evaluation in light of your intentions. You can rewrite the
paper and improve your grade if you desire.
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