Taking a deeper look at types of ESL writers.

As an international student and someone who speaks more than one language, I have always concerned myself with how second language writers from other countries cope with receiving an education in a language that they are not completely comfortable in. I remember when I first started taking this class I wanted to be an ESL tutor because of my vast experience with people of other cultures and languages. Obviously this is a logical choice for me, but after our discussion about ESL students and Dr. Grove's in-class presentation about the different types of approaches that exist when it comes to tutoring second langauge writers, I realized that it would be a good idea to try to understand a specific type of ESL writer. What kinds of ESL writers do we see the most at the University of Richmond? Do they exhibit similar behaviors and request help in similar areas? Do they tend to be from a specific part of the world? What langauges do they generally speak? All of these questions came to my head when I was trying to explore the possibilities associated with how I would try to become an "expert" in understanding a particular type of ESL writer.

Obviously these answers are very hard to obtain unless you actually work at the Writing Center, so I asked my girlfriend Chanel who currently works at the ESL center in the new International Education building. When I posed these same questions to her, she immediately answered that about 90% of the ESL students that come in to see her are oriental students. Oriental is a broad definition, but at the University of Richmond, most of the oriental students are from China. There are a few Japanese and Korean students as well, but Chanel was telling me that she has the exchange and four-year students from China come see her on a regular basis. I was not surprised about this, considering that the largest portion of UR's international student population comes from China. So I set about the task of trying to figure out what makes oriental students unique in the way they understand writing in English and what kinds of issues they have with writing. Perhaps the most comprehensive answer to my question about oriental ESL students came in the form of an article by Xiaomin Cai titled "Behavioral Characteristics of Oriental ESL Students in the Writing Center."

http://www.writinglabnewsletter.org/archives/v18/18-8.pdf

This article was published in the Writing Lab Newsletter and discusses the types of behaviors exhibited by oriental students when they approach the writing center to seek help with their writing. Based on the article and some of my own observations of oriental students, it seems that they exhibit a similar set of characteristics in their writing and during the consultations. I think that learning to understand these similarities and preparing for oriental students in the writing center will significantly improve the preparation that writing consultants have when dealing with these sometimes challenging consultations. The following list represents some of the characteristics that should be kept in mind when consulting with oriental students:

1. The concept of individualism vs. collectivism: Oriental writers have a strong sense of the nonself, which means they tend to understand the power of collaboration as a group versus the traditional Western belief in strong individualism and personal ownership of ideas and assets. For this reason, it sometimes is the case that oriental student writers will have difficulty citing sources or sometimes not cite sources at all. This is not because they wish to steal the ideas of others, but rather because they do not understand the strict adherence to individual intellectual property that Americans pride themselves with.

2. An impersonal relationship with the consultant or teacher is most often desired by the oriental student. Western cultures understand the relationship between student and teacher to be very formal and to-the-point, but oriental students will want their teachers or consultants to like them and vice versa. It is important to understand that small talk or conversation with oriental students will be very beneficial to the consultation, as they will most likely feel more comfortable with the consultant and be more prepared to discuss the paper in question.

3. Oriental students tend to be very polite even if they have disagreements with what the consultant is saying. This can pose a very difficult issue when the consultant is trying to constructively criticize a piece of writing and gets the sense that the writer is agreeing with everything they are saying, even though they might disagree. This concept of "saving face" is culturally very important in oriental cultures, and it is something that consultants should be aware of when consulting with oriental student writers.

4. Oriental students generally come from backgrounds where strict hierarchies exist and the values they inherit tend to come from external influences. In contrast, western cultures tend to place emphasis on developing individual freedom and allowing people to grow independently and develop their own axioms and beliefs. For this reason, oriental students might benefit from positive reinforcement because they will base a lot of their learning and opinion on the consultant's or teacher's comments or beliefs. Instructions should be clear and straightforward, and in this sense the writing consultant becomes much more of a teacher than a tutor.

College Mentoring Program Session II.

I just came out the second CMP session as part of our course requirements this semester. I was very pleased when I read my mentee's college paper, and the way he decided to write it reminded me a lot of how I wrote my college application essay back in 2007. He started out with a creative writing piece about how he wants to direct a particular movie that has impacted him from a novel he read. I think that having a personal story that shows creativity and passion is the best way to go about writing for a college admissions office, and I think my mentee really hit the nail on the head with his essay. After I edited the paper for grammar and some other content issues, we started talking about what he wants to do after highschool and what kinds of careers he was looking at to pursue. He mentioned that besides film directing he was interested in a career as a politician. One of his teachers had told him he had natural speaking skills and would be apt to pursue a career in politics. At the end of the session I gave him some advice about how to pursue his interests and what to look for in a college when applying for specific careers or programs. Perhaps the most important advice I gave him was not to go into college with a set plan about what he wanted to do, but rather to take different classes and explore a variety of interests to see if he finds something he truly enjoys.

Shadowing session 11/18/2010.

Today's session was just another day in the writing center. My consultant had a girl with an eight-page paper come in to get her ideas revised and the first draft edited. Her paper was on post-traumatic stress disorder, a subject matter that I have studied before in one of my English classes. It was obvious that the student had not sent her paper to the consultant prior to the session because he spent a lot of time looking over the paper and there was about a ten minute silence in the room. I think some writers underestimate the importance of sending the draft to their tutors in advance because it reduces the amount of time either party wastes on either waiting for the draft to be read or reading it for the first time. I remember in my freshman year I went to the writing center and forgot to send the consultant my draft the night before. When I came into the session the tutor took about twenty-five minutes to read my draft, and I feel like he did not give me as much advice as he could have given me had he read the draft the night before.

Shadowing session 11/12/2010.

Today's session was a bit quiet. My consultant was supposed to have two people come in today but one of the appointments had been made all the way back in September. Not surprisingly, the girl who made the appointment did not show up. Also, the student who was supposed to show up at 11:00 AM also did not show up. It seems to me that sometimes people make appointments at the writing center anticipating that they will need help on a future paper. However, this does not seem to be a very effective way of setting up an appointment because not only do you waste the consultants time but you also force yourself to receive help on a paper that you may not have needed any help on. In any case, it is always encouraged to come in for help even though the paper might be flawless, as a second opinion on the writing can never hurt.

Dr. Grove's visit.

Our class on Wednesday was a bit different from our regular classes. Dr. Grove immediately began the class speaking Turkish and I could tell that everyone, including me, was a bit startled by it. She went on for about 10 minutes trying to teach us basic Turkish and eventually switched to English. I thought it was an interesting way to show how people are uncomfortable in settings where a different language is spoken and they do not understand what is going on around them.

Dr. Grove explained to us the different kinds of international students on campus and the differing levels of English proficiency that they have. She also mentioned the correlation between TOEFL scores (or lack thereof) and how well students speak English, saying that although most students have very high TOEFL scores they do not speak or write English as well as they should based on these scores. It was interesting to hear her talk about what techniques we should use as writing consultants to help ESL students with their writing. Perhaps what struck me most is that she said we basically have to act as teachers and mentors rather than simply consultants. I do agree with the notion that we actually have to teach these students some basic grammar ideas and concepts, otherwise we cannot effectively do our job and help ESL students become better writers.

Shadowing 11/05/2010.

For this shadowing session the consultant I work with had two guys come in with an assignment for a business course. It just so happened that I had the same class as them and knew what the assignment was all about. I was able to help my consultant quite a bit because of this because I was able to explain to him the background behind the assignment and also what the teacher was looking. The two guys from my class were basically looking for a group reflection paper to be edited and so my consultant was a bit confused because he was not used to editing papers from business classes. Overall I think me and the consultant did a pretty good job of editing the paper and explaining to the writers what changes needed to be implemented. It was kind of strange that the paper was a group effort but only two of the six group members had actually shown up for the appointment...

Plan for Boys & Girls Club.

My plan for today is to go with the flow. I don't think a rigid outline is necessary as we are probably going to be dealing with lots of different questions and issues that we cannot anticipate and prepare for. I plan to help students primarily with technical aspects of the project (I've done this project twice already and know the fastest ways to insert audio and visuals into the project). I also will focus on making sure they understand how a story needs to be told in order to have the specific elements that are needed to make a good digital story. I am sure that because I've done this so often I will be able to help them with whatever questions or concerns they have. I might also make sure that there stories can adapt well to scripts that will be read out loud in order to create a story that has a clear beginning and end.

Shadowing session 10/29/2010.

For this session I was unable to make it because I have been sick with some sort of stomach virus since Thursday. I have not yet fully recovered but I think I am almost there. Not attending shadowing was unfortunate but today I had my consultation with Long about my English paper. Apparently our teacher was disappointed in our midterm results, so he has offered us the chance to rewrite the paper in hopes of getting a better grade. I was very relieved at that because now Long's consultation will help me even more as I begin to think about a rewrite or modification of the paper. Long had some very practical advice from me and I feel more motivated to begin my revision now. He helped me revise my thesis, and although I chose not to share my teacher's comments with him, he had a very similar approach to the revision that the professor had, which is very impressive considering he does not have as much experience writing English papers as my professor does.

The power of failure.

This week Professor Dolson asked us to write about failure and what that means to us in terms of personal growth. I have been quite busy this week so I only just got around to writing about the subject, but I think its an important one because people have lots of contrasting ideas about it. Some people are under the impression that failure, or making mistakes, is a prerequisite of success. Without it, how can we learn and grow into successful people? Others advocate the notion that failure is not necessary; that is, a person who has always been successful will continue to do so without ever making serious mistakes or ever truly understanding how to fail and how to learn from it. Personally, I believe that it is impossible to go through life without committing a mistake or not failing at something. I've had my share of failures and mistakes, be it academic or personal, and I continue to learn from them and grow as a person every day. This same notion applies to writing, as getting a bad grade on a paper is not the end of the world. When we understand what we do wrong and learn to correct it, we get the most benefit from failing. That way, we won't do it again in the future.

Digital stories.

This week we watched everyone's digital story and talked briefly about each of them in class. I think our class did an excellent job on the stories considering this was the first time most people had done a digital story project. Having done this in the past, I noticed that our stories had a lot more sense and direction in terms of content and actual "story-telling" than the stories from my class back in sophomore year. I guess this is because this class is full of talented writers who have the ability to modify their forms of expression across different media and "paper," so to speak. Also, the audience grade idea was a good one, and I think most people did well in terms of how their peers graded them.

Shadowing session 10/22/2010.

Unfortunately, the writing consultant that I regularly shadow did not show up today. So instead I took it upon myself to finish helping Long edit his paper, which is actually due later today. Last night I had my consultation with him and I think it went really well. It shows from his edited draft that I gave him some direction for where he wanted to go with the paper and thesis, and I'm glad that he was able to synthesize all the advice that I gave him. I have no doubt that he will ace the paper.

Shadowing experience 10/09/2010.

This update comes a bit late in the week as I plan to discuss my shadowing experience from last week. This session was very interesting as the only person that came in for a consultation had questions about a graduate school application. She wanted some advice from the consultant regarding the essay portion of the application, and my observations of their consultation was quite interesting. The consultant used the same process theory that one would use to write an English paper or a Poli Sci paper. It seemed that the tutee was quite nervous about applying and really wanted to make sure her essay was free of errors and logical inconsitencies. It seems very interesting to think about the job description of a writing consultant and then imagine helping a student on grad school essay. One might not traditionally think of this as the role of the consultant, but I feel it is important that we are prepared to edit any kind of writing.

Happy Fall Break!

A post from one of my favorite online comic strips XKCD..

I hope everyone has a great fall break. See you all next week!

Writing across genres and subjects.

A couple of hours ago I was thinking about how vastly writing can differ when it crosses genres and subject matter, and how this relates to our task as a writing consultant. An integral part of helping tutees with their writing is to understand the assignment, and on a deeper level, to get an idea of what kind of writing is expected from the student. For example, within the English courses, one can be expected to write papers on a variety of things. I wrote a few papers on novels in my modernism class, and now I have to do an in-depth paper on poetry in the Milton seminar that I'm taking this semester. Writing about prose is very different than writing about poetry, and the strategies that a writer needs to adopt for each kind of writing are very different and require time and practice to master. As both a writer and a writing consultant, I think it will be very important to keep these ideas in mind when helping a tutee improve their writing because the strategies that I choose to share with them will differ based on the kind of writing they are asked to produce.

How to write...basic guidelines.

Browsing through the internet the other day I found this website while looking for idea's for my English 400 midterm paper..

http://www.fireandknowledge.org/archives/2007/01/08/a-guide-to-writing-well/#IntroGeneral

I think its a great website and it seems to have various different interpretations of writing depending on the context. But overall I think it helps to structure an essay quite well. Probably a tool that I will refer to my future tutees (hopefully when I become a writing consultant)..

I especially liked an excerpt about how to write good conclusions:

“The perfect ending should take your readers slightly by surprise and yet seem exactly right. They didn’t expect the article to end so soon, or so abruptly, or to say what is said. But they know it when they see it.”

Sometimes people often forget how important a conclusion paragraph can be, and I like to emphasize that by having a strong conclusion, you leave a lasting impression on the reader; they will remember the fact that they didn't waste their time reading a paper that had too obvious an argument, but rather were pleased with what they read and what they learned.

Generic teacher end comments?

In response to Summer Smith's article about the genre of the "end comment," I find that I have to agree with some of the points that she raises about the generic characteristics of some comments that teachers use to evaluate student writing. I've seen this on many of my past papers, comments where teachers don't really say anything of substance except "improve" or "good job." I find that this does not help my writing improve because it does not give me clear indicators of what is actually wrong or weak in the essay. However, there have been many cases where I have received great feedback. The best feedback I have received on a paper focused on the originality of my argumentation and how well I used the supporting evidence to prove it. It was the teacher telling me whether or not I had convinced him of my argument and my grade based on how effectively and "eloquently," as he put it, I had succeeded in doing so. I do feel that some professors need to break out of the genre of end commenting in order to truly evaluate student writing rather than simply skip around the issue to avoid problems with offending the student or problems with the institution that might arise out of offending a student for criticizing his writing. I personally welcome criticism in all forms (as long as it is justified), and it is very useful when teachers are actually honest and specific rather than vague and conformist.

Writing consultant shadow - session 2.

For this session, I remained quiet the whole time and simply observed the consultant  at work. Much like last week, a girl without a paper (but with plenty of ideas) came in to talk about her ideas for a paper. She went into a very long summary of the book she was writing about and also trying to get some feedback from the consultant regarding her ideas. This was very much a brainstorming session, and I noticed that through the whole process, the consultant and the writer were sharing and developing ideas that I think will really help the writer write a good paper. Also, she had a long list of quotes that she wanted to relate to her ideas. Obviously, a session like this is a little harder than having a physical paper to go through because it requires a lot of thought and idea-sharing between the consultant and writer, but I think it was a good exercise that will help any writer. It seems the writing consultant really does need to be very flexible and dynamic in terms of how he/she performs her job...

Reminds me of Wednesday's class..

For all of you who dislike run-on sentences..

English classes at the college level.

Just yesterday I received my first assignment for my 400-level John Milton seminar. There seems to be this preconceived notion that any class at the 400-level is bound to be much more difficult than those at any other level. It is true, that on certain levels, the demands of such a class do become more straining and taxing on the mind and body. There is more assigned reading, there is more discussion, and there is much more expected of the student in terms of his critical thinking and analytical skills. Which brings me to the next part of the class - writing. All English classes request some form of written evidence of thoughts, ideas, and arguments about the material that is discussed. Just before I received the assignment, I thought it would be a 12-page paper on some very obscure facets of the texts, but it turns out that it was a 4-5 page paper on any three given topics (which are not obscure, mind you). This made me realize that the demands for academic writing do not increase in a sense that we have to be more intellectual in the way we write (using harder, more advanced words; different styles, increasing level of grammatical complexity), but these demands are placed on the quality of thought and argument. Writing for a 400-level English classes will be harder than writing for a 200-level classes because the quality of argument and originality that is expected is very high. What makes it even more difficult is that the paper is only allowed to be a maximum of 5 pages! Writing is intrinsically devoted to the extraction of thought so that others may understand and benefit from the ideas, not whether or not you can string together a paper full of never-before-seen vocabulary and impossibly difficult syntax.

The Almighty Thesis.

Going back to a few issues that I raised in class a few a days ago, I still maintain my position that the thesis  statement of any paper is the most important part and should also have the most time dedicated to it. I can't tell you how many papers in high school and freshman year of college I had ripped apart by teachers because my thesis was basically non-existent, no matter how good the supporting sections or conclusion were. The thesis is the ultimate form of self-expression, because it encompasses the main idea or argument that you are trying to synthesize from all sorts of external information and internal thought processes.

Another main issue that arises with thesis statements is how exactly one judges them. You can't tell someone their thesis statement is weak simply because you don't agree with the idea or because the argument is easily refuted. Obviously one needs to make some effort and put some original thought into formulating an argument, but sometimes having a good idea and argument does not necessarily mean you know how to translate it to the written word that easily. I've had good ideas that just sounded stupid on paper, so I think its really important to keep in mind whether or not you can write what you say and say what you write (and still make sense and remain congruent with your thoughts).

The power of speech and conversation.

Today I had a huge presentation to make about Milton's Areopagitica in my English 400 level seminar. I think overall I did a good job, but it is very intimidating making a presentation that lasts approximately an hour and in front of people who know exactly what you are talking about at all times, especially the professor. I stayed up late last night working it out and organizing it to the best of my ability, yet I still found it hard to organize my thoughts as I spoke because I felt that I digressed a lot. This got me to thinking that conversation about literature and specific topics can be really helpful in trying to put those ideas into writing. Perhaps trying to organize a presentation and talk about it in a logical and coherent manner will make the ideas stick better on paper than they do in speech. Just a thought that I had...

Midterm self-reflection.

I never thought I get a chance to write a blog post in class. I am writing this reflection as part of an in-class exercise to understand where I am in the class right now and whether or not I am happy at this point. Personally, I think I am doing fine so far. I am starting to understand what it means to be a writing consultant (rather than a proofreader) and also learning a lot from the readings and editing other people's essays. Probably the most useful experience in terms of learning to be a writing consultant is the shadowing process. Seeing a writing consultant in action really helps to put things into perspective in the sense of what my job demands will be like and what others will expect of me, including my peers and my superiors. Also, I think a hands-on experience of this kind is invaluable in learning how to deal with people who only want their papers edited and do not require the full "spectrum" of the services we are supposed to provide. I do wish I had more time to post blogs and comment on other people's blogs, but I find myself swamped with work from other classes. I guess taking five units is not as easy as I thought. In any case, I think that I will easily be able to accomplish my goals in this class. I just need to stay focused and put in more effort into doing work outside of the class, especially blogging, which I actually enjoy doing. As the middle of the term approaches I want to try my best to post as many blogs as possible and try to develop my ideas as a future writing consultant so that I am better prepared for the second half of the semester.

First shadowing experience.

This past Friday I had my first shadowing experience at the Writing Center. I'm signed up for one hour every Friday morning, from 10 AM to 11 AM. I shadow Chris Cacace, who just started working there since he had only taken ENG 383 last spring. I thought the whole experience was actually pretty cool. Chris was booked that morning, but I only got to see him in action with the person who booked the appointment from 10 to 11 that morning. His first appointment was a girl who came in without a paper and only ideas to discuss. She wanted help regarding her thesis and also to improve her understanding of the assignment. Chris looked over the assignment, which turned out to be a leadership paper, and gave her some advice regarding how to go about tackling the assignment and what ideas she might use for her thesis. Chris let me look at the assignment sheet, and I thought it was really vague and quite hard considering that there was no clear indication as to how the questions addressed in the assignment would be answered. Chris did an excellent job trying to teach the girl how to write for an assignment such as hers and not simply help her draft a thesis and outline for her paper. In my opinion, this is what a writing consultant should be doing, and I think that the girl left satisfied with the help that she got from Chris. Overall, my first experience as a shadow was great, and I am looking forward to next Friday's session.

Writing consultants for digital stories?

During my reading of "Youth Culture and Digital Media: New Literacies for New Times" by Glynda Hull, there was a pending question at the back of my mind: is the job description for a "writing consultant" going to encompass more than just writing on paper? As difficult as it is to improve a writer's ability to write academically in the traditional essay form, can you imagine what will happen when technology is thrown into the mix? Are we going to be editing digital stories and improving not just the written content, but also the audio-visual content too? I see this as an issue further down the line of technological advancement simply because, right now, traditional academic writing is still at the core of how professors and students interact with each other on an intellectual level, and the use of digital media is only recently gaining popularity amongst writers and professors who incorporate aspects of digital media creation into their classes. So my question is, should writing consultants be expected to help students with digital media projects? The closing of the "digital divide" will soon create an academic world in which the majority of students (and teachers) are well-versed in the use of computers and technology to create academic material that transcends formal essay/report writing. It seems like writing centers will need to incorporate this change of academic landscape into their training programs in order to keep up with the vast technological changes that occur every day.

Responding to Criticism and Praise of Writing Centers

Reading through some of the highlights of Jane Cogie's article "In Defense of Conference Summaries: Widening the Reach of Writing Center Work," I noticed that there were some points that I agreed with and some points that I disagreed. For example, the idea of conference summaries seems good in theory, but I don't think that tutors should always have to summarize the conference simply because they had a session with a tutee. Sometimes writers, including myself, go to the writing center for brainstorming ideas or simple thesis checks that have nothing to do with an actual draft or concrete piece of writing. I agree with Cogie's idea that information from the writing center to the instructors should be "as limited as possible," because at the end of the day, the whole point of going to the writing center is to get your work evaluated without actually having it formally graded. The writing center, in my opinion, exists as an extension of the writer's mind and desire for external opinion regarding his/her ideas and writing style and function; teachers should be as far-removed from that process as possible. If a writing center can encourage student writers to go and get suggestions or ideas from writing consultants out of their own accord (not forced by their teachers), then it has succeeded.

College Mentoring Program: A Reflection

This weekend a part of our class got a chance to talk to some high school seniors about their college essays and the ideas (or lack thereof) that they had regarding regarding what they wanted to write about. This was part of the College Mentoring Program from the Center for Civic Engagement, and I actually thought it was a really interesting and hopefully helpful experience for the seniors that we talked to. It kind of makes me wish that I had some college students come talk to me when I was applying for colleges back in my senior year of high school. I was paired up with Julia because there weren't enough seniors for each of us to talk to, and both of us had our share of time with the high school senior we were grouped with. Our senior was interested in film and directing movies, and he gave us a list of potential schools that he had wanted to apply to for that reason. It seems that both Julia's and my advice to him was to be honest about what he wanted to do and to write about it in his college essay. He seemed enthusiastic about his ideas, and I think that our advice and encouragement will help him when it comes time for him to sit down and write his essays. I think its very important, especially during the college admissions process, to be honest about who you are and to avoid the tendency to "bullshit" your way through the essays. In reality, a college essay is the only way a school can really know who you are and get an idea about what kind of person you are. SAT scores, grades, and all those other quantitative figures just make you another statistic. Writing, however, is a true expression of individuality and personal thought, and it is important for everyone, not just high school seniors, to remember that.

Is the number rule really that bad?

After looking through some of the other blogs in the class, it seems that quite a few of my fellow writing consultants in-the-making had renounced the "rule of three" or "five-paragraph essay" concepts because they did not think that these rules gave them the flexibility and sophistication to meet the more elevated requirements of the college paper assignment. Even though I agree that it would probably take a prodigiously adroit writer to write a five-paragraph essay for a minimum twelve to fifteen page assignment, the number rule really does have its use beyond the vicissitudes of high school academia. One simply needs to expand on the numbers rather than lock themselves into the idea that an essay needs to be five paragraphs long or have just three supporting arguments to a thesis in order to be successful and comprehensible. For example, instead of having a rigidly structured layout such as the generic five-paragraph all-rounder, one could expand simply by adding subtopics, and consequently, additional supporting arguments to the main supporting evidence. If an introduction has three main supporting examples that attempt to prove the thesis, then each one of these ideas can have its own set of three supporting ideas.

Hypothetically speaking, let's say I want to write about why the Obama administration was the best in the history of the United States, I could have as my thesis three main reasons that support this argument. I can say that his social policies, international policies, and economic policies (here is that "rule of three" idea) were nothing but beneficial to the progress and development of the United States. If I spent one paragraph discussing each of these subclauses, I would have my five-paragraph essay. But if I took each one of these ideas and added three supporting ideas (eg. his social policies were excellent because they furthered educational development, improved welfare for the impoverished, and guaranteed universal health insurance - having groups of three makes the process much more logical and easy to follow), I would have a much longer essay that would provide the in-depth analysis, critical thinking, and attention to detail that most college professors want to see in their students' papers. By expanding upon these number rules, you can still write a paper that is worthy of your professor's time (and maybe even get a good grade on it). There is no need to abandon the number rule because it allows us to logically structure and organize essays so that they are easier to conceptualize and also that we are forced to look for more evidence or supporting argumentation that will only strengthen the paper.

Bullshit needs a new name.

It strikes me that, after discussing the origins of "bullshit" and the semantics involved with the subject, no one has bothered to create an academic term synonymous with what we refer to as "bullshit." Undoubtedly vulgar and perhaps a tad derogatory, "bullshit" falls under the general category of "what is not a hundred percent true." In some (read: most) cases, it is not in our favor to tell just the facts or the simplistically truthful version of the subject at hand. Argumentation, analysis, and rhetorical exercises all involve personal input and opinion. And where there is opinion, there is always bias. Biases seem to create the notion that if we stretch the truth, or even obscure some of it, to fulfill our ulterior motives, we are in fact "bullshitting." This term, to me, is slightly obtuse and perhaps even inaccurate in its attempt to describe the alteration of truth to strengthen an argument or point of view. Persuasion, after all, is one of the underlying purposes behind written composition. Very rarely does one ever get to simply tell the truth and get their way at the same time. I haven't found an appropriate term to replace "bullshit" simply because my writing is not eloquent enough to emphasize the all-encompassing nature of the term and how we use it in language today. Maybe someday everyone will stop bullshitting and recognize it as a legitimate literary concept...

English 383 Schedule

Don't mind me guys...just adding in my schedule for the class so that I can remind myself when stuff is due.

Article Review (Week 9) - Smith, A. "Non-traditional Students in the Writing Center." Writing Lab Newsletter 27.7 (March 2003): 12-14.

Class notes: 27th Sept. 2010