Tag Archives: Writing

Poetry Exercise of the Day

In case people are bored and want to do some writing, here’s the exercise I did during the Writing Center’s staff meeting this morning. Grab a literary journal (any one of sufficient length will suffice) and use the lines from random parts of that journal to create a new poem, called a cento. A cento is essentially a poem constructed using the words of other authors (our boss called it a “plagarized poem”, which is accurate enough, except that it’s cut from multiple authors). This is a very interesting exercise, and some of the other people that tried it came up with pretty good results. Another way to do sort of the same thing is to take a very old copy of a book, take a page out of that book, and randomly paint on the page so that some words are painted over and some aren’t. The words that aren’t construct a poem. It’s best not to read the page before you do this and just semi-randomly take out words. I suggest doing this with really old, run-down paperbacks – it reduces the shock of tearing pages out of books.

The Writing Center director is a poet, hence all the poetic exercises that she throws at us tutors from time to time!

The Importance of Copyediting

It may be interesting to see a headline for a $5 civil lawsuit, but upon closer inspection, it’s clear that this is actually a $5 million dollar lawsuit regarding the wrongful death of a prominent political leader. Normally, this would not be something I would bother to highlight on my blog, except for the fact that the topic really has nothing to do with what this triggered in my head: what does it mean when people are so quick to get things out the door that they fail to completely proof their documents?

There’s really two ways for me to approach this question: as a web site designer and as a writing tutor. Really, the answer here is much the same, but the perspectives on the issue are different.

Commentary from Both Roles: Being hurried in your writing is never a good thing, whether that’s for the web or for any other purpose (professional, academic, and so forth). Grammatical mistakes have cost people lots of time and money (and, in some cases, jobs), and factual mistakes can almost be far worse. In today’s world, though, it’s highly acceptable to shove out content before it’s anywhere near ready for public consumption. The New York Times used to (and still does occasionally) publish articles on their web site rife with grammatical errors and signs of bad copyediting.

This is a cultural phenomenon and a symptom of our high-paced society where, if we don’t get instant gratification, we’ll go elsewhere. The ones that win at the professional game of copyediting chess are those that are careful and don’t put information out there until it’s polished to a soft sheen.

Web Designer/Developer: This can be death to a web site depending upon whether it’s a major site (like our ongoing example of the New York Times) or a small one, such as the ones maintained by many of my past and current clients. There is, of course, a range of copyediting: the completely rough draft to the obviously polished, well-articulated statement. But carelessness when your web site shines in other places can really stick out like a sore thumb. Making sure that the text you put online is free of grammatical errors is to your benefit, since it not only strengthens your message, but also ensures that the reader keeps reading.

That said, please don’t forget to copyedit not only text, but images. I’ve seen many an image on the Web where it’s a beautiful piece of work, but its beauty is completely marred by one glaring grammatical error that should have been corrected before the image was completed.

Writing Tutor: I see a lot of students come in with grammatical errors (in fact, in my three years of working at the Writing Center, I’ve only ever had one paper come in the door that was literally perfect and needed absolutely no changes whatsoever). Since this is an academic environment, those grammatical errors don’t matter so much and don’t have as much of an impact on life. It is to the benefit of these students to understand how to properly use commas, dependent clauses, and modifiers, but it’s rarely as important that all the details be absolutely perfect before a paper is handed in. This is a very different approach to copyediting than in the professional world. This is a learning environment, so you are expected to learn something about how to properly write a paper, which includes grammar.

Yet, still, grammar is one of those things that literally nobody gets right 100% of the time. Especially in English, there are niggling, obscure grammatical rules that only apply a very small percentage of the time that can come back and bite you later (assuming that someone who actually knows that rule notices the error and points it out). That doesn’t mean you should throw up your hands and scream out to the Heavens for mercy on your poor, grammar-impaired soul; in all these situations, it merely means being cautious and observant about how a document is written. The example of the image I linked to above was an obvious, glaring error that could have been fixed if they had bothered to read their headlines before they hit the “Submit” button. Copyediting is as important as ever, and it’s important to remember this.

Tutoring Self Evaluation – Fall 2004

Below is the text of my tutoring self evaluation for this quarter. This is technically an internal document for use by the Center’s Director, but I see no problem with sharing it with everyone else.

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Tutoring Self Evaluation – Fall 2004
Peter Ellis

I have found that my tutoring this quarter has been a mess of questions combined with a series of realizations about my weaknesses in tutoring. The big thing I’ve noticed this quarter is the difference between program tutoring and drop-in tutoring. I’ve missed the personal connection that comes with being assigned to a particular program and tutoring the same assignments repeatedly; now, I’m forced to budget time trying to get a sense of what the actual assignment is. This is an odd issue in time management for me, since some people take five minutes just to tell me what they’re working on.

I have noticed a slight lack of confidence this quarter as well, since I have had to deal with situations where the advice I gave was often only given once. I rarely (if ever) got feedback on how a particular tactic or idea worked. I felt a little awkward at times recommending the same advice to others, since I had no idea of the advice had worked in previous circumstances or not. This is something I continue to struggle with, and I’m not entirely sure how to negate the effects of this.

Recognizing that tutoring is really an ongoing process of learning and tweaking strategies, it seems like my tool bag has remained much the same over the last quarter, with a few interesting new tricks added into it. I do wish, though, that I had more substantive information on grammar and the language to communicate with others about grammatical errors and quirks. I also feel a weakness surrounding my position in a tutoring session � I don’t always allow the student to run the session. It sometimes feels as if I am in control too much, which is something I have always struggled with.
In terms of my work as head of the Web Team, I feel as if we’ve made significant progress this quarter in developing a web presence. Some of that progress has been hard-gained, and it seems like perhaps more could have been done, but I’m satisfied with my work in that arena as a whole.

Looking ahead, I feel like I definitely need to work more on reviewing grammar and fine-tuning my communication skills. Next quarter, I hope to expand my knowledge of grammar by attending some of the Grammar Rodeo workshops. In addition, I hope to continue work on the web site so that it presents the Writing Center as a unique and creative space for writers on campus.

Readers and Writers

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the difference between readers and writers. This is mainly because Evergreen’s Writing Center is in the process of updating its mission statement, revising it to a “mission and core values” statement. As tutors, we serve Evergreen’s population by providing objective feedback on particular pieces of writing, whether that writing is academic or personal. As we’ve begun the revision process, a question came up regarding the difference between a reader and a writer, and what role both of those actors play in the process of a tutoring session.

I have argued that the role of the tutor is rarely one of a writer. According to dictionary.com:

writer, n.
One who writes, especially as an occupation.

The role of a writer, then, is to actually write text in the literal sense of the word. However, in tutoring, the role of the writer changes somewhat — as a tutor, writers are expected to be able to correct on an expert level any problems related to grammar, sentence structure, paper structure, and flow, as well as having a fairly good command of different styles of writing. Certainly, these expectations are not beyond the ability of a writing tutor, but it is one part of this, the idea of writers working on an expert level, that doesn’t quite jibe with the role of an undergraduate writing tutor on a predominantly undergraduate campus (I have tutored graduate students, but this is beyond the scope of this entry).

Now, compare this against dictionary.com’s definition of a reader. I have only included part of this definition, since these parts apply to the discussion:

Reader, n.
1. One who reads. Specifically: (a) One whose distinctive office is to read prayers in a church. (b) (University of Oxford, Eng.) One who reads lectures on scientific subjects. –Lyell. (c) A proof reader. (d) One who reads manuscripts offered for publication and advises regarding their merit.
2. One who reads much; one who is studious.

This definition immediately comes much closer to the role of a writing tutor: “one who reads manuscripts and advises regarding their merit; one who reads much, one who is studious”. A tutor’s job is not to critique a work word by word or phrase by phrase; rather, our job is to provide advice to those who come in regarding the state of their paper and make suggestions for improvement, along with the process of asking questions about the work and providing an objective viewpoint for any piece of writing. In addition, the term reader does not implicitly imply any sort of expertise. In actuality, the term reader is much fairer to apply to writing tutors, because we do not engage in the physical act of writing, but instead appreciate it and assist it from a higher level.

As a result, it seems to me appropriate to apply the idea of a writing tutor as reader to my part in recasting the Writing Center’s mission statement. The word comes much closer to the ideal that we try to promote as an active part of the College’s writing community.

Truth in Magnetic Poetry

“Be ugly though fast as tongues.”

Thus spake the magnetic poetry muses as I fiddled with the magnetic poetry set we have up in the Writing Center this afternoon. For some reason, I found this to have a very faint glimmer of truth, depending on how you interpret it. You can interpret it as being an ugly person, yet being able to run fast. This isn’t really the one I was thinking of. No, the interpretation I like is being ugly as in being truthful, yet being quick enough to realize the power of your words and work accordingly.

Okay, this may seem as if it is quite a stretch to some, but think about it. Words have a power over us that is undeniable — if used in the right way, they wield an enormous amount of influence. The issue at hand is not tact, but rather, honesty: we should be honest enough to say what we think, but careful enough to make sure we also say what we mean. This is a lesson a lot of people never truly learn.

To me, it is a valuable lesson, and guides my tutoring work at the Writing Center. I tutor knowing that honesty is the best policy, and I’m unafraid to tell someone that their work has problems or to discuss those problems within the framework of the piece. The trick is to do it in such a way that it comes across as an impression about the writer’s work, rather than a criticism.

My two cents about the work I do.