Ask me anything about college writing
 

Hi All,



I am a recent but regular 2p2 poster with about 250+ posts on another account. I am also a PhD student in English specializing in the relatively new discipline of writing studies. 2p2 has helped my poker game a great deal, and I know a number of people helping me are in college. I hope this thread works to give something back. I decided to create this account because if you look at my past posts under my regular SN, it would be easy to find out where I teach, and I would prefer that not be posted at the moment.

I have been teaching a number of different composition courses for the past five years. I have taught students at a community college and students at a top-notch research university. Many of the courses I teach are in the English department. However, I also work at a writing center where I help undergraduate and graduate students with writing from across the disciplines.

So fire away. I’ll respond as best as I can to any question. Some possible questions could be about grading, plagiarism, the role of writing in learning, writing for the SAT/GRE, why teachers have different standards for writing, etc. Keep in mind that compared to many English instructors, I don’t take myself incredibly seriously, so you won’t get much BS from me. Fire away if you please.

Re: Ask me anything about college writing
 

What is the biggest or most common error that students make when writing?

Re: Ask me anything about college writing
 

What high of variance is there with writing? Meaning what do you think is the largest possible range of grades one could be assigned for the same paper, simply because it is graded by different teachers? Do teachers ever let their personal opinion of the student affect their grading? When is the passive voice OK? Can you tell I've had a bad experience with a particular english teacher?

Re: Ask me anything about college writing
 

I think that writing is much harder to teach as opposed to a more concrete subject like calculus. Thoughts?

Re: Ask me anything about college writing
 

Hi, thanks for this, ITW.

How many 18-24year-olds write 150+ page books - novels, nonfiction, whatever - that do not get published? Or, more generally, any comments on the % of people who get published and maybe some distinguishing features between getting published and not getting published?

Any stories about your own experience in trying-to-get-published would be cool.

Any resources you know about re: what kind of books are being published nowadays and what's selling would also be awesome!

Re: Ask me anything about college writing
 

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What is the biggest or most common error that students make when writing?

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Not leaving enough time to proofread. This means you need to let the paper sit for 24 hours before you do the revision, which means you need to have it done a day in advance (who am I kidding??). When students meet with me in the writing center, I’ll have them read their paper aloud. Again and again, students are able to catch most of the errors by themselves, simply by reading the paper aloud. It helps.

What if you finish the paper and you only have an hour left before class? Spend all of the time working on the thesis statement (if it is a paper with a thesis). Make it longer; make it more complex; make it read smoother. I don’t care what you do as long as you put an hour into the thesis. Why? Because reading student papers is a very labor intensive process. And by the time an instructor gets to your paper, if he or she is overworked and tired of reading papers, he'll be on tilt and will have a good idea of what your grade will be after he gets through the thesis—I would say to within 10 points or so.

Re: Ask me anything about college writing
 

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What high of variance is there with writing? Meaning what do you think is the largest possible range of grades one could be assigned for the same paper, simply because it is graded by different teachers?

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There have been a number of studies done on this. For example, a group of instructors were all given the same papers and told to rank them. The results are usually laughable….meaning there is little consensus about which papers are the best.

That means the answer to your next questions is:

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Do teachers ever let their personal opinion of the student affect their grading?

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*Absolutely.* Instructors are human too. And it is possible an instructor will read your paper more “sympathetically” if you have come to all the classes and pretended to be interested, and if you have done all the work. But that doesn’t mean I assign grades based on how much I like students. I have given some terrible & obnoxious students As because they were great writers. And I have given some brown-nosers Cs because they thought good classroom behavior was going to make up for the lack of time they put into their papers.

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When is the passive voice OK?

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When is it ok to double-barrel if you have air and are OOP? The same idea in poker applies to English: it is situationally dependent. That being said: the passive voice in an English class is almost never good—it’s kind of like bluffing a calling station. The passive voice is more frequent in science writing. When in doubt, ask your professor—they’ll love it, trust me.

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Can you tell I've had a bad experience with a particular english teacher?

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We all have. I hated school when I was younger. My tenth grade French teacher told me I would never amount to anything.

Re: Ask me anything about college writing
 

[ QUOTE ]
I think that writing is much harder to teach as opposed to a more concrete subject like calculus. Thoughts?

[/ QUOTE ]


I've got six years experience, teaching 1-3 sections of writing per semester, and I am still figuring out how to teach writing. Actually, conventional wisdom in my field says there is no way to "teach" writing. The best an instructor can do is create the conditions that will allow students to become better writers (give positive feedback, have high expectations for the students). That being said, and as I'm sure a bunch of 2p2 college students know, if an instructor can't get students fired up about a subject, it'll be painful semester.

Re: Ask me anything about college writing
 

[ QUOTE ]
Hi, thanks for this, ITW.

How many 18-24year-olds write 150+ page books - novels, nonfiction, whatever - that do not get published? Or, more generally, any comments on the % of people who get published and maybe some distinguishing features between getting published and not getting published?

Any stories about your own experience in trying-to-get-published would be cool.

Any resources you know about re: what kind of books are being published nowadays and what's selling would also be awesome!

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm expected to write a "scholarly" book of nonfiction and have it published at an academic press, so I am not a fiction writer. However, I heard John Edgar Wideman read a few years ago (he's a legendary literary novelist), and he told the crowd that it's a lot easier to get bad writing published than it is to get good writing published. Why? There is a bigger market for bad writing.

If you want to make a career out of fiction, I would recommend you think about women. Something like 85% of fiction is bought by middle-aged women--so that's where the money is.

Re: Ask me anything about college writing
 

Pseudo hijack:

I have found the best way to avoid some of the grading variance is to go talk to your professor/TA with a draft of your paper. They can read it over and tell you what they think you should change.

I have had pretty good experiences, never really bombing a first paper (at least not yet).