As a classroom community, our capacity to generate excitement is deeply affected by our interest in one another, in hearing one another’s voices, in recognizing one another’s presence.
―
Xavier on Plato
Sight is distorted, vision is blurred, blindness persists, truth is fake, reality is diluted, light creates fear and discomfort, darkness consumes. — Xavier
PEER REVIEW
- Read a draft all the way through before you begin to comment on it.
- Point out the strengths of the draft.
- When discussing areas that need improvement, be nice. Offer appropriate, constructive comments from a reader’s point of view.
- Before giving your written comments to the author, reread your comments to make sure they are clear and make sense.
- Be respectful and considerate of the writer’s feelings.
- Use “I” statements.
- Offer suggestions, not commands.
- Raise questions from a reader’s point of view, points that may not have occurred to the writer.
- Make sure comments are specific (not “This paper is confusing. It keeps saying the same things over and over again” but rather “It sounds like paragraph five makes the same point as paragraphs 2 and 3.”).
- Avoid turning the writer’s paper into YOUR paper.
Complete the following sentences:
The author’s main point is…
I like…
I wonder…
I suggest…
|
Then, more specifically, complete these sentences: The introduction makes the reader (curious/interested about the essay?) … | ||||||
| The essay cited sources (effectively, rarely, never?)… | ||||||
| The essay is organized (sufficiently? somewhat? in a logical order?) … | ||||||
| The essay’s details are (rich? evocative? insufficient?) … | ||||||
| The essay has a (strong, somewhat weak) ___________________ conclusion. |
Interdisciplinary Essay Revised
Advantages of Longhand Over Laptop Note Taking copy
Why you should take notes by hand — not on a laptop – Vox copy
First drafts and perfectionism
Starting sentences with “but”:
There is a widespread belief—one with no historical or grammatical foundation—that it is an error to begin a sentence with a conjunction such as and, but or so. In fact, a substantial percentage (often as many as 10 percent) of the sentences in first-rate writing begin with conjunctions. It has been so for centuries, and even the most conservative grammarians have followed this practice. (Chicago Manual of Style)
“Many of us were taught that no sentence should begin with “but.” If that’s what you learned, unlearn it—there is no stronger word at the start. It announces total contrast with what has gone before, and the reader is primed for the change.”
“I can’t overestimate how much easier it is for readers to process a sentence if you start with ‘but’ when you’re shifting direction.” (William Zinsser, On Writing Well)
First person in academic writing: Duke University
First person in academic writing: UNC Chapel Hill
First person in academic writing: Chicago Manual of Style
First person in academic writing: Cancer Journal for Clinicians
Unnecessary phrase: The opinion of the manager
Correction: The manager’s opinion
Unnecessary phrase: The obvious effect of such a range of reference is to assure the audience of the author’s range of learning and intellect.
Correction: The wide-ranging references in this talk assure the audience that the author is intelligent and well-read.
Unnecessary phrase: It is a matter of the gravest possible importance to the health of anyone with a history of a problem with disease of the heart that he or she should avoid the sort of foods with a high percentage of saturated fats.
Correction: Anyone with a history of heart disease should avoid saturated fats.
(U Wisconsin-Madison)
Thomas Lux (1946-2017) from Neil Astley on Vimeo.
The thing gets made, gets built, and you’re the slave
who rolls the log beneath the block, then another,
then pushes the block, then pulls a log
from the rear back to the front
again and then again it goes beneath the block,
and so on. It’s how a thing gets made – not
because you’re sensitive, or you get genetic-lucky,
or God says: Here’s a nice family,
seven children, let’s see: this one in charge
of the village dunghill, these two die of buboes, this one
Kierkegaard, this one a drooling
nincompoop, this one clerk, this one cooper.
You need to love the thing you do – birdhouse building,
painting tulips exclusively, whatever – and then
you do it
so consciously driven
by your unconscious
that the thing becomes a wedge
that splits a stone and between the halves
the wedge then grows, i.e., the thing
is solid but with a soul,
a life of its own. Inspiration, the donnée,
the gift, the bolt of fire
down the arm that makes the art?
Grow up! Give me, please, a break!
You make the thing because you love the thing
and you love the thing because someone else loved it
enough to make you love it.
And with that your heart like a tent peg pounded
toward the earth’s core.
And with that your heart on a beam burns
through the ionosphere.
And with that you go to work.
–Thomas Lux