Writing For Me

General Advice 

The core of analysis at this level is "What did YOU learn?" Here's why my teaching focuses on this.

Writers might reasonably ask "What can I teach a professor about the topic?"  While it's true that I learn new things whenever I reread the assigned texts or watch the films (some of which are new to me) I do have a good deal of background knowledge about the early and current Space Races.

Remember, I too read the books and seen the films, save for some of the original sources you find for the research proposals. So, instead of resorting to summary, focus on what you learned! That will always be new. It could involve using the first person, in analysis. You may have been taught not to do that in high school; I and the authors of They Say / I Say disagree. 

Here's an example of an original claim that uses first person well: "Hansen's account of Neil Armstrong's exchanges with Buzz Aldrin differ greatly from those in Chazelle's film. I learned that a filmmaker might dramatize events to keep an audience spellbound with dramatic tension for two hours, where with a book the reader remains engaged for days."  One way to avoid "I learned that" if it bothers you so much might be to write "Viewers thereby learn how a filmaker might..." My alternative sounds academic without sounding pretentious, though "thereby" could get close, yet that is what college does: you get new words in the toolbox.

Writing for Me, Six Basics + Some Fun Mistakes

1. Be specific and avoid generalizations: Image writing "Society loved the astronauts" or "The American public loved the astronauts." 

Really? Every single one of those hundreds of millions? Instead "Americans in the 1960s not only broadly followed the astronauts' stories but many also could recite the names of the Mercury Seven." Of course, claims like that may need a citation.

2. Cut deadwood: In the example above, I changed "The American public" to "Americans." Why pad things out? 

After 30 years of student writing, I know BS when I smell it. If you are the sort of writer who either obsesses about word count or tries to pad your way to it, you'll be shocked at how demanding I am. I will, however, give you a chance at revision to make back some points.

3. Avoid sweepingly general words such as "never," "always," "everyone," and "no one" when making claims. 

These words lead to the sort of unsupported generalizations that top my Pet Peeves list and, generally, signal a lack of critical thinking. 

4. Keep direct quotations minimal, only enough to provide evidence for your own original claims without misrepresenting evidence or claims in a source. Cite them all properly.

The rules are easy, for the most part! Here are my worksheets on how to use use sources as we do in college, on effective direct quotations, on paraphrases. You'll want, for formatting sources, to see Purdue's excellent site on MLA format references. 

For films, you use a Director's name if  you have it, plus a time code (hour:minute:second) when quoting or paraphrasing.
Example: At this moment in the film, a character says "that's all folks!" (Herzog 1:20:06).

5. Reduce "is/are/was/were" in favor of action verbs and directness. See this page on Clarity from our Writing Center's online handbook. Pro tip: this task works best when saved for after you have a working draft.

6. READ ALOUD frequently. You will hear the BS I can smell, feel the creeping boredom of weak prose, sense the wandering from the big claim that orients most written work. If reading aloud proves difficult, get a friend to read to you. This provides distance from your own work. You will hear what you need to change.

The Pet Peeve List: These are fun because they offer a chance at redemption.

I will dock you points for Faculty Pet Peeves but you'll have a week to revise. This is your one chance to earn some points back. Any assignment with one or more Peeves loses 10 points off the final assessment. Usually you get them all back, but there may be exceptions: for complex peeves (such as a sentence fragment that is also a sweeping generalization) I will award at least 5 points back if you return the error, revised, within a week. You get more points than those mere 5 if you revise in ways that improve the prose, not just fix the mistakes.

For tragically peevish writing,  I might drop the grade 20. Either way, I'll flag the Peeves and you will have a short time to redo the work for partial credit.  The Commonly Confused Words list may look vast, but I'm merciful here. The first time, I'll slap your wrist and let you redo the sentence. The second instance, later? I won't be as nice. These are important terms because misusing them makes a writer look sloppy.  I once got a rejection letter from an editor, explaining why he was turning down an article I had worked on for three months. His comments were not mean, but he wrote that he began to suspect my work was not careful after I had misspelled a scholar's name on page one. That lesson, learned in grad school, never has left me.

How I break down the grades:

Focus (0-20 points)

• • Exceeds Expectations: Shows the work of advance planning. Clever title (when required) that sums up the focus of the work ("Neil Armstrong" or "Astronaut Courage" are lousy titles; think about how First Man or The Right Stuff sums up the central point of each book).  The writer never loses sight of the focus and the governing claim (aka Thesis) works to give a why/so what for the focal point.  Introduction of the essay clearly lays out a focus narrow enough for the length of the project, yet broad enough to at least tell me what the writer has learned about it.
    
    More on titles: students neglect them, when in fact, they provide an excellent method for establishing, maintaining, and checking focus. "Our Stoic Gladiator" would be a very clever title that sums up a writer's focus about how Neil Armstrong's personality combined both relentless drive and patriotism with either modesty or introversion.

  • Meets Expectations: A few sentences, perhaps a single paragraph, might digress from the main idea of the project. 

  • Below Expectations: Reader cannot find a focus. Might not answer the assignment's questions fully. Topic meanders from an initial focus and never really returns.

Analysis (0-30 points)

• • Exceeds Expectations: The governing claim (I dislike the term "thesis") serves like the Constitution: It binds all smaller claims made afterward. The governing claim, if one is needed for the assignment, compels the reader’s interest.  It may take an intellectual risk that runs contrary to "conventional wisdom." UR students are notorious for playing it safe, intellectually. That, friends, is B work. Read more and see a video I did with a colleage about writing stronger governing claims here.

This ain't high school. Without going too far onto thin ice, weigh the evidence and make an interesting, even bold claim you can support well.

Example: "The evidence suggests that Americans stopped being enthusiastic about the Moon landings after Apollo 11 because they became obsessed again by the Vietnam War and economic problems at home. That said, the most compelling argument from sources shows that at the Congressional level, lawmakers felt that they had done their duty to a martyred President to land on the Moon before 1970." 

After such a start,  the work’s secondary claims in the body paragraphs (like laws governed by a constitution) do not contradict but elaborate upon the governing claim.  The writer has analyzed every piece of evidence taken from sources, and that analysis adds value to the overall argument, persuading a reader of the reasonable nature of the argument even if the reader disagrees. There are no logical gaps at all.

• • Meets Expectations: The governing claim may be strong but a little obvious and takes few intellectual risks ("The evidence suggests that Americans stopped being enthusiastic about the Moon landings after Apollo 11 because they became obsessed again by the Vietnam War and economic problems at home"). Most claims in the body of the essay are well supported and compelling.

  • Below Expectations: The governing claim has no "why" ("The evidence suggests that Americans stopped being enthusiastic about the Moon landings after Apollo 11") or goes missing altogether.  Unsupported or weak claims appear in several places.

Evidence (0-20 points)

• • Exceeds Expectations: The piece of writing features well chosen, high quality direct quotations or paraphrases  that add value to the writer's original arguments. Every single bit of evidence gets well introduced and followed by analysis. The writer clearly understands how to use past and present tenses for quotations, always.

  • Meets Expectations: Work chooses evidence well, but perhaps not as fully as possible for the topic.  Might contain one poorly integrated quotation or one that rambles a bit / summarizes too much. Tense shifts happen but not frequently for quotations. In addition, all sources get cited correctly.

  • Below Expectations: Every piece of evidence cited correctly, but in places needed evidence is missing for a claim or when employed, the evidence simply summarizes plot or commonly known ideas. "Hand grenade" quotations are common  (these get dropped in suddenly to go " boom" with no signal before and no analysis after). Citation formatting is "all over the place" in the worst examples (Plagiarism is far worse--you must cite every idea from a source. When in doubt--cite it). 

Flow & Organization (0-20 points)

• • Exceeds Expectations: Reader never stops and says "huh"? When read aloud (a key pro tip!), one sentence flows to another beautifully. There are no quotations dropped in without an introduction, and all are followed by analysis. Every topic sentence describes the paragraph that follows, and when discussing a new point, the writer "looks over the shoulder" at earlier claims and evidence, as in "Buzz Aldrin, unlike Armstrong, actively sought publicity after Apollo 11."  Finally, the conclusion moves to a "big picture" about why the topic matters beyond the scope of the paper (such as "as we see in First Man, Armstrong's life after Apollo shows us a larger truth about national heroes. . ."). 

  • Meets Expectations: Paragraphs have clear topic sentences and the overall organization works, but it may be awkward or forced in places. No serious gaps exist in comprehension, but the paper simply plods in a few places. Transitions may be awkward and not all evidence gets integrated smoothly. The conclusion may be a mere summary of what has been said before (the high-school move) with one or two clever points. 

  • Below Expectations: Lack of coherence, hard to follow, evidence dropped into the reader's midst like hand grenades. Conclusion missing or a mere summary.

Style & Grammar (0-10 points)

• • Exceeds Expectations: Level of formality, grammatical correctness, and variety of word choice make this a smooth, eloquent reading experience. The project establishes a clear, concise style that includes jargon and professional terms only when needed for the audience.  No errors appear that might be made by a first-year writer. Vocabulary achieves college-level complexity without BS or preciousness. Title format for articles and books or films works well.

  • Meets Expectations: A few simple errors that might be from carelessness or from a lack of experience. Vocabulary does not sound pretentious (a stylistic, not grammatical error!) but not too informal, either. Style "sounds" direct (read aloud to hear your prose) and sentences use action verbs, mostly. The prose attempts to have the right style but remains a work in progress.

  • Below Expectations: Full of my Pet Peeves, spelling and mechanical errors, repetitive wording, and grammar errors. Style is either dull, inappropriate for academic readers, or bombastic. Plenty of boring "is/are/was/were" instead of action verbs.