Bill Evans on the Creative Process

Do you ever find yourself writing vaguely about a topic because you haven't quite grasped it yet? In the below video, Bill Evans touches on the importance of first building a strong foundation in the creative process. Once you have the essential ideas down, you can then begin to make the material your own.

Don't do Citations; Let Microsoft!

 You do not have to format your citations or your bibliography, Microsoft or any number of other programs will do it for you. Whenever I talk to students about the challenges of writing academic papers, the topic of citations is sure to come up. Students will tell me about the time spent trying to get the formatting correct or about running out of time to do so and losing credit because their citations are a mess. Even worse is when students give up, leave out citations and risk plagiarizing.

Citations are important. They let your readers know who you are putting your ideas in conversation with. They establish that you are a credible writer, someone worth paying attention to. Because you have taken the time to consider what others have to say about your topic, readers know that you are not just spouting off whatever comes into your head in the moment.

The consistent formatting of citations is a courtesy that you do for your readers and a way for you to signal that you can be trusted because you know the rules of the game. When you use MLA or APA style, readers appreciate not having to spend time decoding your citation. And just as you would not wear shorts and flip flops to an interview for an office job, you can dress your paper for success by giving it the equivalent of an "interview suit": a title page or header with your name, course, assignment and date; a title; 12-point, double-spaced font; a basic font like Times or Ariel; and correctly formatted citations.

However, getting the commas in the right place is not the best use of your time. Instead, spend your time thinking about what you know and what you want to know (for brainstorming strategies, see http://snl.depaul.edu/writing/inventing.html). Spend time finding sources that are credible (for guidance on evaluating sources, see http://snl.depaul.edu/writing/Writing%20Help.html#helpsource) and that help you think through the ideas for your paper. Spend time integrating these sources into your paper (for one way to do this, see http://www.csun.edu/~hflrc006/quote.html). 

As the videos below indicate, you can use Microsoft Word to format your citations and bibliography. The nice thing about this tool is that when you enter the information for a source once, you do not have to enter it again when you are working on a new paper. Similarly, Zotero is a free web-based tool. To learn more about it, see http://libguides.depaul.edu/zotero

 

So, let the computer do the busywork of putting the commas in the right place and use your time for the much more interesting (and challenging) work of exploring and communiating your thinking.

Craft of Composing Panel Discussion

On October 24th, SNL Writing hosted a panel discussion with 5 writers from different genres about their writing process titled, "The Craft of Composing".

The panelists included:

Michelle Navarre Cleary, SNL Writing Coordinator and Professor (academic writing)
Penny Pollack, SNL Alumnus and dining editor of Chicago Magazine (journalism)
Rita Leganski, SNL Alumnus and Novelist (novel writing)
Ann Stanford, SNL Professor and Author (scholarly articles, poetry)
Rochelle George Wooding, Neighborhood Writing Alliance member (personal narrative)

Three items that each panelist touched upon were

1) The importance of community
Writing is meant to be shared and written for a specific audience. 

2) Revision
Write first, edit later. Even if you need to make significant cuts later on, you may be able to use that writing elsewhere.

3) Presence of panic
Deadlines can be stressful, and so can negative critiques of your work. Remember that practice makes perfect; you will find your voice the more you write.

To listen to the full discussion, please visit:

http://condor.depaul.edu/mptvideo/SNL/ETCPIW/ETCPIW.html

New WRD Course for International Grad Students

Are you an International Graduate Student?

On Tuesday evenings (6:00-9:15) in Winter Quarter, Writing, Rhetoric, & Discourse will offer WRD 587, Academic Writing for International Graduate Students.  The course is specifically for international students who write English as a second language.  While the course will address features of grammar and style, it is not intended as a remedial writing course, but as an opportunity for students to self-consciously identify and practice Western academic writing competencies through an analysis of genres in their own disciplines.  Such an approach can lead to improved general competency in written English when supported by content-area instructors and augmented by visits to the University Writing Center.  

The course will be taught by Dr Jason Schneider.  Dr Schneider holds a PhD in English with a specialization in rhetoric and composition, and an MA in Applied Linguistics, for which he wrote a thesis on ESL pedagogy. Professor Schneider has taught Intensive English here in the US, and he's taught English as a second language at the International Language Institute in Cairo, Egypt, and at the International House Language School in Krakow, Poland.  Dr Schneider teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in WRD as a full-time faculty member. For more information, contact jschne12@depaul.edu or 773.325.3727.