Classical Music
in the United States


CONTENTS

General Guidelines
Professional Writing

Grading
Minimal Marking
Principles
Symbols

Do's and Don'ts

The Two Types of Argumentative Writing
The Rhetorical Paper
1.
introduction
2.
body
3.
conclusion
The Narrative Paper
Combinations
Experiments

Examples
The Rhetorical Paper
The Narrative Paper
Combinations

Peer Comment Form

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.

In marking your papers I will use the following:

Symbols

 

Marginal Notations

? (unclear)
! or
4(good)
|AGR (agreement)
AWK (awkward)
A/V (actor/verb)
FRAG (fragment)
GEN (over generalization)

MM (misplaced modifier)
N? (necessary?)
NONSEQ (non sequitur)
CS (comma splice)
REF (pronoun reference)
S (simplify)

SP (spelling)
PL (placement? or move?)
PRED (illogical predication
//STR (parallel structure)
WC (word choice)
Wordy
Choppy

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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