1. Not paraphrasing. If you have a quote–especially a long quote–be sure that it does something really, really special. Here’s a good rule of thumb: Use a quote if it does something that you can’t do in your own words (through paraphrasing).

Representative Tom Smith said that the state would “need to raise taxes at least ten percent in order to make the annual budget.”

Representative Tom Smith said that the state would require a ten percent raise in order to fulfill the annual budget’s obligations.

Representative Tom Smith said, “This state is in pretty nasty shape, and we’re going to have to raise taxes just to break even.”

2. Comma splices. This is where two independent clauses are hooked together with a comma. In other words, you have two sentences that need to be separate. Instead of being independent and separate, however, they are wrongly hooked by a comma. Simply unhook or add a conjunction (or maybe use a semicolon).

It’s already late, my friend is asleep on the couch. –> It’s already late, and my friend is asleep on the couch. (It’s already late. My friend is asleep on the couch.)

3. It’s its/their there they’re.

4. Titles and quotes or underlining.

5. Dangling Modifiers. This is a common problem, although many people don’t recognize it when they see it. Basically, whenever you have a small “chunk” of text that describes something, that chunk has to be next to the thing it describes. Otherwise, what you find is a sometimes confusing and unintentionally funny situation.

Dangling: After studying the problem, vandals are now thought to share certain characteristics.

Revised: After studying the problem, researchers think that vandals share certain characteristics.

Dangling: I talked about the great things George Washington did at Sunday’s picnic.

Revised: At Sunday’s picnic, I talked about the great things George Washington did.

Dangling: At age seven, her grandfather passed away.

Revised: Her grandfather passed away when she was age seven.

Dangling: Having finished my dinner, the waitress offered to bring out the dessert tray.

6. Non-parallel construction. When you have a series of actions, make sure they are in the same mode. Do they all “fit” with the verb that is used for the first word? [What about the following…?]

Jim likes to surf the net, to design games, and watching science-fiction movies.

I wanted to cry and head for the hills, all at the same time.

Without my mom, I would have driven too fast and shopping all the time.

For Thursday: Please find a section (perhaps a few sentences or even a paragraph) that either gives you trouble or that makes you particularly proud.

Guidelines: Seven minutes (no more, no less). This presentation should be written out in advance, practiced, and very interesting. Use notes, images, sounds, or whatever else will help you to tell an interesting story.

Your presentation needs to be INTERESTING! It should be something we want to listen to, and something that gives us (your audience) some pleasure from hearing.

What should your presentation be about? Two things:

1. The writing process: both the good and the bad. What was the research like? How did you start writing, and how did you revise? How did your focus change over time? What kinds of decisions did you wrestle with? Etc.

2. Some discussion of the topic itself. Tell us something you learned about your topic in the course of research. Since not all of your audience will read your topic all the way through, tell us a little about the topic. If it seems interesting, you might even read or show us a small excerpt of your project.

Balance these two things. Don’t necessarily emphasize one over the other. But do these two things in interesting ways. How? By being animated. Remember the anecdote? Use it!

Set the scene for us through language, images, music, whatever. Be creative. For this seven minutes, WOW us. Don’t limit yourself.

See the assigned order here:

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Revising writing must take into account the rhetorical character of any text. Remember: every time you write (or speak), you are entering a rhetorical situation. There are particular goals you want to reach in regard to a particular audience. You write in such a way that fits those goals and that audience.

Revision is more than simply checking for misplaced commas or spelling errors. Revision looks again at your writing and considers what you were trying to accomplish. You want to literally “see it again,” perhaps trying things in a new way. Revision is not the “almost done” feeling of checking your spelling or commas. Revision is a big job. It’s a creative job. You might end up overhauling a lot of what you’ve done so far. You might cut a lot, add a lot, or simply move things around. That’s the point of revision.

I’m going to talk about two different approaches to revision. The first I will call prose revision, which you can use to revise any kind of writing (academic, informal, professional, whatever). You can use this in almost any of your writing situations in the future.

The other approach I will call a reperspective. This method helps you for those areas you find lacking, somehow, but you aren’t sure how or why. This revision method helps to generate some new perspectives on the text.

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Next week, you will meet in smaller critique groups of 3 or 4. This group will be an intensive support group with which you can share your work for the rest of the semester.

For the next few weeks, we will meet in small groups. No regular classes on Tuesday or Thursday. See your group’s schedule below.

* Exchange your proposal with your group members by this weekend. Read your group members’ proposals before your meeting. YOU WILL BE EXPECTED TO COMMENT ON THESE PROPOSALS DURING OUR MEETING. Give written comments to your group members at the meeting.

Group 1: Gant, Madison, Maggie [Meet on Tuesday in my office–112 Tate–from 11:00-11:35]

Group 2: Jennifer, Danny, Anna, Parker [Meet on Tuesday in my office–112 Tate–from 11:40-12:15]

Group 3: Andrew Lovewell, Jake, Lauren [Meet on Thursday in my office–112 Tate–from 11:00-11:35]

Group 4: Billy, Angie, Eric, Jamie [Meet on Thursday in my office–112 Tate–from 11:40-12:15]

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What are helpful critiques? Helpful critiques are neither opportunities to praise nor criticize someone. Instead, this is an opportunity to talk about how well something is “working.” It’s also an opportunity to describe some additional ideas that you can see for this project. Never, never simply say: “This is great!” Or, “It’s really interesting.” That doesn’t help the writer one bit. Instead, you actually need to tell them how it is working so far.

For example, here are some comments that fall into the “helpful” category:

“I am not following your narrative very well in this section. It seems confusing about who is talking/what you’re talking about.”

“Who is the audience for this writing? It seems like you are writing for a younger audience, but wouldn’t young people already know about the stuff you’re saying?”

“Are you making an argument in this section? It seems like you don’t have much evidence to support what you’re arguing. You are arguing that teens really are smarter than popular culture makes them seem, but I think you need to give us something more than just your opinion. What examples can you give that might convince your readers?”

Ashley Nelson’s documentary, The Combination, is part of the New Orleans Neighborhood Story Project. Use Nelson’s project to think about different ways of telling your own story.

• What are Nelson’s rhetorical goals?
• How does she seem to reach for these goals through her documentary modes?
• What rhetorical strategies does she use in her documentary? (images, interviews, profiles, etc.)
• What do you find particularly strong about her method of storytelling?
• If Nelson was in your critique group, what might you say to her in a response session?

I would like you to think about your own project as a story.

• What modes will you use? Why?
• What kinds of rhetorical strategies will you use?
• For inventional purposes, follow Nelson’s lead and divide your project up into a few major categories. (Just brainstorm on paper for a few minutes.) Then think about what smaller “stories” would fall under these headings. Share these responses with your group members.

From Bill Nichols, Chapter 6

Consider the different kinds of modes your documentary might have. The different modes reflect different rhetorical goals of a documentary.

What are “rhetorical goals” of a text?

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Your fieldnotes should, from this point on, be very focused on your project’s research. Note that the requirements for you fieldnotes ask for a minimum of 500-word entries. Q: What kinds of things should end up in your fieldnotes? A: Things that you can use in your project!

• Descriptions of scenes, observations
• Transcripts (partial, even) and analysis of interviews
• Quotes that you might use
• Analysis of findings
• Questions that you have about how to proceed
• Description of images or sounds you’ve gathered

I’ve been fairly lenient when grading these fieldnotes so far, but I will begin to look more closely at the quality of your work from this point on.

An important word about naming conventions on the wiki: In order to avoid overwriting someone’s page with the same name (”Fieldnotes 5″), please name the whole link with your name and the fieldnotes number (e.g., “John’s Fieldnotes 5″).

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For your next set of “finds,” please focus on The Combination and Nichols’ chapters.  I’d like you to focus on how The Combination’s author tells her narrative (what does she do/how does she do it).  What do her rhetorical goals seem to be, and how does she accomplish those?

Pay close attention to Nichols’ discussion of documentary methods. Though he is talking about film documentary, the theory he discusses can apply to any media/form of documentary.

We are going to try and create this sound.

We will be using two sound clips:

MLK’s “I have a dream“

MLK’s “Injustice anywhere“

and a little background music.

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First thing first: Isn’t this a writing class?? Why the heck are we learning about audio editing?!?  

Remember that writing is a form of technology already. If writing helps us to communicate thoughts, feelings, questions, desires, and ideas, there has to be some form in which those intangible things take shape. At some point, the written alphabet developed as one tool for that very purpose. Pencils and pens were like revolutions of personal technology: suddenly anyone could “write” their thoughts down and communicate them to someone else. Convenient technology! Later would come typewriters and word processors.

If we call “writing” or “composition” any technological means of communicating ideas, then other media (audio, video, web) are simply other forms of giving tangible shape to the intangible. So, we’re not going to artifically limit writing to  print (via word processor) formats. That distinction is not only fake, but it’s not very productive in the digital age.

But writing with audio or video isn’t easier than writing with print/type. All the same considerations are still in play:

• organization
• editing
• rhetorical goals
• coherence
• style
• etc.

So, with that introduction, let’s get started!

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Information is presented through specific designs.

What are some different ways of presenting information/arguments/narratives about a subject?

• Think about the different parts/pieces of the subject.
• What kinds of different patterns can those pieces be put into?
• How do the different patterns help to convey that larger information?
  • Examples:
    • This American Life
    • Folks Songs for Five Points
    • Pittsburgh Signs Project

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