Strategies to Develop your Writing

Íde O’Sullivan and Lawrence Cleary Shannon Consortium Regional Writing Centre

Academic-writing workshops

• Strategies to develop your writing • Analysing the assignment title and developing a plan • Developing an Effective Thesis Statement and Developing and Organising Ideas Methodically • Using evidence to support your argument Regional Writing Centre 2

Writing support: Drop-ins for students

• Visit our website ( Mon — www.ul.ie/rwc ) to check out our tutors and make an appointment.

• Drop-in to the Writing Centre, C1-065 2 – 4 Tues 10 - 12 2 – 4 Wed Thurs Fri 10 - 12 2 – 4 10 - 12 2 – 4 10 - 12 — Regional Writing Centre 3

Anxieties and fears

Freewriting

• What I worry about and struggle with when faced with a writing task?

• Keep writing non-stop for 5 minutes.

• Write in sentences.

• Do not edit or censor your writing.

• Private writing — no one will read it.

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Difficulties associated with writing

• Anxiety and fear of writing • Lack of confidence and motivation • Cracking the codes of academic writing • Getting started • Lack of guidance, practice and feedback • Misconceptions of writing – Good writing skills are innate X – Think first, then write X Regional Writing Centre 5

Cracking the codes

• Analysing the genre/text and modelling • Generate a list of – The most important features of academic writing – Criteria to make your writing more effective – The important conventions in your discipline – What is/is not acceptable in your discipline • Journal guidelines for contributors Regional Writing Centre 6

Discipline-specific conventions

• What organisational features/patterns are in • How are arguments and counterarguments presented and structured?

• What types of evidence are important in this discipline?

• What stylistic features are prominent?

• Is the text cohesive? How does the author achieve such cohesion?

• What kind(s) of persuasive devises does the author employ?

• Are there noticeable features that can be Regional Writing Centre 7

Getting started

• Writing is a process • Create time and space for writing • Freewriting – Keep writing non-stop for 5 minutes – Write in sentences – Do not edit or censor your writing • Prompt – “How I go about writing…” • How do you feel? • Other prompts: – “The aim of this assignment…” Regional Writing Centre 8

Dialogue about writing

• Peer-review • Generative writing • The “writing sandwich” (Murray, 2005:85): writing, talking, writing • Writing “buddies” (Murray and Moore, 2006:102) • Engaging in critiques of one another’s work allows you to become effective critics of your own work. Regional Writing Centre 9

Strategies that work for you

• Writing is a personal process • Learning diary (Moore and Murphy, 2005:61) • Process journal (Elbow and Belanoff, 2003:19) • When do you feel most/least motivated to write?

• What strategies have/have not worked in the past? Regional Writing Centre 10

Strategies that work for you

• Write a little bit every day (Moore and Murphy, 2005:117) • “we learn to write through writing” (Hyland, 2002:81)

• Writing can be a positive experience • Get stuck in

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Works cited

• Elbow, P. (1998) Writing without Teachers (2nd edition). New York: Oxford University Press.

• Elbow, P. and Belanoff, P. (2003) Being a Writer: A Community of Writers Revisited. New York: McGraw-Hill.

• Hyland, K. (2002) Teaching and Researching Writing. London: Pearson Education Ltd. • Moore, S. and Murphy, M. (2005) How to be a

Student: 100 Great Ideas and Practical Hints for

Students Everywhere. UK: Open University Press. • Murray, R. (2005) Writing for Academic Journals. UK: Open University Press. • Murray, R. and Moore, S. (2006) The Handbook of Academic Writing: A Fresh Approach. UK: Open University Press.

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