Transcript Document
CM107 Overview Cecelia Munzenmaier Kaplan University
Course Housekeeping
Instructor
– – –
Cecelia Mun - zen - MAI -er German for money maker
Contact
– – –
Email: several times a day Voicemail: once a day Program cell: 515-727-2100 x6921
Course Goals
Construct logical arguments
Develop strategies for effective problem solving
Conduct research to support assertions made in personal, academic, and professional situations
Articulate what constitutes effective communication in personal, professional and diverse contexts
Demonstrate effective listening strategies
Course Housekeeping
One 8 - 10 page paper
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With at least 5 sources (including 2 academic sources)
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Credited in a list of references See KU Handbook, p. 136
Course Housekeeping
Assignments build 225 points 25 points
U1 Writing U3 Con troversies 100 pts.
U4 Plan 100 pts.
U6 Rough Draft U7 Peer Edit 85 pts.
150 pts.
U8 Final Draft 225 pts.
U9 Share 50 pts.
Pace yourself
Report progress to a writing buddy or supervisor
Produce 9 times as many pages
•
Write when they feel like it
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Produce 17 pages vs. 157 for steady tortoises
Research says…
Boice compared three groups of writers in a 1989 experiment. One group wrote as little as possible. Another wrote whenever they felt like it. The third group was to write every day. If their writing goals were not, they had to write a check to a cause they detested. Those who wrote every day produced 4 times as many polished pages as “spontaneous” writers. If they reported progress to Boice, their output was 9 times greater.
Pacing tips
• • • Keep a regular schedule Write often for a short time • • • • 15 minutes can be effective 30 minutes (Boice) 1 hour is maximum for many 2 hours (Silvia) Don’t let writing become so fatiguing that you don’t feel like coming back.
(Boice, 1960)
Course Housekeeping
Assignments build 225 points 25 points
U1 Writing U3 Con troversies 100 pts.
U4 Plan 100 pts.
U6 Rough Draft U7 Peer Edit 85 pts.
150 pts.
U8 Final Draft 225 pts.
U9 Share 50 pts.
Is this good writing?
Is this good writing?
•
Raskin donated her drafts to show her writing process.
The
Westing Game
manuscript.
(n.d.) Retrieved July 28, 2010, from University of Wisconsin, Cooperative Children’s Book Center website: http://www.education.wisc.edu/ ccbc/authors/raskin/intro.htm
Reality
You have to get the bulk of it down, and then you start to refine it. You have to put down less-than-marvelous material just to keep going, whatever you think the end is going to be, which may be something else altogether by the time you get there.
—Larry Gelbart,
M.A.S.H
writer
Writing takes effort
In studies of writers, which variable made the biggest difference in quality?
Whether they knew what they wanted to say
Whether they believed they were good writers
How much they liked to write
Course Housekeeping
Directions and models are on KU-ACE Rubrics, or grading criteria, are in your syllabus Supplemental resources are available at http://word-crafter.net/CompII
Read Comments
Revision makes a difference
Grades follow an inverted Bell Curve.
mostly Cs Ds and Fs Bs and As
Ds and Fs As and Bs Normal Bell Curve Cs Comp I Curve
Back Up Your Work
Thumb drive
Email to yourself as attachment
Download from dropbox
Double-click attachment icon
Corollaries to Murphy’s Law
A device is most likely to fail when
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it stores the only copy of your paper
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recreating the paper will take maximum effort and time you don’t have
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the paper is worth hundreds of points
Attendance matters
I support:
Source: Mintzes, J. J., & Leonard, W. H. (2006).
Handbook of College Teaching.
Arlington, VA: NSTA Press.
Weight of evidence
I support:
Given two people of approximately the same ability and one person who works
ten percent
more than the other, the latter will
more than twice outproduce
the former. The more you know, the more you learn; the more you learn, the more you can do; the more you can do, the more the opportunity…. ability, the one person who manages day in and day out to get in one more hour of thinking will be tremendously more productive over a lifetime.
Source: Hamming, R. (2006).
You and your research.
Available at http://paulgraham.com/hamming.html
Is this Comp I all over again?
Comp I
Informative paper
Step-by-step
3-5 pages
4 sources; 1 scholarly Comp II
Persuasive paper
Step-by-step
8-10 pages
5 sources; 2 scholarly
Counterargument?
(yes, but)
What can you add?
You have greater choice of topics.
You can
– – – – –
agree disagree apply compare/contrast evaluate strengths/ weaknesses
Critical/ original thinking Bloom’s Taxonomy
You’ll develop persuasive skills
Is personal
Expresses feelings and ideas
Can bring healing and/or clarity
Allows people to experiment with making beautiful language
Is objective (not just true for one person) Expresses an opinion backed by evidence Explores ideas critically Aims to be clear and formal Anticipates readers’ questions and objections
Personal
Informed
Are multi-taskers more efficient?
Poldrack
Personal experience + Conversation =
Rubenstein Meyer Informed Opinion:
Experience + Evidence
Research on multitasking
Informed opinion
In academic writing, your opinion is only as good as your evidence.
Personal Experience Community of Experts Parents: Home movies show no autism symptoms before vaccination
Doctors detected signs of autism in the movies.
Schwetter: These dinosaur bones smell.
Huh? DNA was recovered.
Rhetorical triangle
rhetoric: the art of composing effective discourse (exchange of ideas, conversation) PURPOSE WRITER AUDIENCE
Argument
argument: in speech and writing, an assertion made about a topic that is supported by at least one reason (claim + evidence) PURPOSE: ARGUMENT WRITER AUDIENCE
Developing an argument
Choose an arguable topic.
Read about pros/cons.
Take a position.
Anticipate objections.
Make your case.
– – –
State your claims (pros).
Counterargue (show why cons are wrong) Provide evidence.
Work the writing process
Get ideas
Get them down
Revise them
Polish/publish
Kuhlthau’s Model of Research
Stage
Initiation Selection Exploration Formulation Collection Presentation
Task
contemplating the task and possible topics selecting a topic encountering inconsistency and incompatibility forming a focused perspective gathering/documenting
Feelings
uncertainty optimism confusion clarity confidence
connecting and extending satisfaction or
disappointment
Anxiety does not mean failure
5 Stages of Accomplishment:
Denial Uncertainty Resistance Panic Acceptance
I can’t do it!
Maybe I can do it!
There’s no way I can do it!
AAAAARGH! What if I can’t do it!
I did it. Let’s party!
How to Succeed
Be here
Find a topic you like
Follow the rubrics for each assignment
Read feedback
Keep up with assignments
Ask questions early
Revise
Back up your work Avoid the “Comp is hard” trap
It is the hardest thing in the world to frighten a mongoose, because he is eaten up from nose to tail with curiosity. The motto of all the mongoose family is “Run and find out,” and Rikki-tikki was a true mongoose.
—Rudyard Kipling “Rikki-tikki-tavi”
The Jungle Book
What’s a good topic?
Something you care about
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Enough to be interested
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Not so much you can’t be objective Something that’s researchable
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Time limits
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Available information Objective information Something you’re comfortable sharing Something that’s arguable Something that can contribute new insights
How do I know?
In a study by Carol Dweck, 4th-graders “were given unsolvable problems followed by solvable ones. harder. The with
ability
or
effort
Once the ‘helpless students’ failed, their strategies deteriorated down to _____ grade level; whereas, the "mastery-oriented students" stayed at 4th grade level despite failures. They rolled up their sleeves and worked
crucial element
.” was whether the student saw the failure as having to do
Directions:
1.
2.
3.
Rate these errors as Status-marking
(outrageous)
Mechanical mistakes
(serious)
Noticeable
(annoying)
1. The teacher said I
done
a good job on the editing test.
2. We can get extra help in the ASC, but I
don’t need none
of that.
3. Although some people do.
4. Me and my friends
(fragment) write our papers the night before they’re due.
5. As far as
i
’m concerned, losing a little sleep is no big deal.
Corrections
Hairston’s respondents considered
all
of these errors to be status-marking, or outrageous.
1. The teacher said I
done
a good job on the editing test. but I
(wrong verb tense)
2. We can get extra help in the ASC,
don’t need none
of that.
(double negative)
3. Although some people do
what?
(fragment)
4.
Me
and my friends write our papers the night before they’re due.
(object used as subject)
5. As far as
i’m
concerned, losing a little sleep is no big deal.
(capitalization)
Directions:
1.
2.
3.
Rate these errors as Status-marking
(outrageous)
Mechanical mistakes
(serious)
Noticeable
(annoying)
6. My friend Shan
,
always does at least a rough draft and a revised draft. 7. I’m trying to decide whether to go into criminal justice, study business management,
or paralegal
. 8. Any
one
of these programs when I get to class.
are
a good choice.
9. If I do
good
in my classes, my chances of getting a good job will increase. 10. Our textbook is heavy, so I am glad to
sit
it down
Corrections
Hairston’s respondents considered these errors to be serious.
6. My friend Shan
(parallelism)
, always does at least a rough draft and a revised draft.
(appositive)
7. I’m trying to decide whether to go into criminal justice, study business management, or paralegal. 8. Any one of these programs are a good choice for me.
(subject-verb agreement)
9. If I do good in my classes, my chances of getting a good job will increase. 10. Our textbook is heavy, so I am glad to sit it down when I get to class.
(adverb, not adj.) (sit vs. set)
Do you believe Hairston?
Hairston, M. (1981). Not all errors are created equal: Nonacademic readers in the professions respond to lapses in usage.
College English, 43,
794-806.
Kantz, M., & Yates, R. (1994).
Whose judgments? A survey of faculty responses to common and highly irritating writing errors.
Retrieved July 19, 2006, from http://www.ateg.org/ conferences/c5/kantz.htm
Usage matters: A comparative study of judgments of English usage errors.
(1999, June 7). Retrieved July 19, 2006, from English department Web site, California Polytechnic State University: http://cla.calpoly.edu/ ~jrubba/390/survey/390.RESULTS.html
Yonkers, V. (2009, February 13).
Teaching business writing.
Message posted to http://connecting2theworld.blogspot.com/ 2009/02/teaching-business-writing.html
Women tend to be more irritated than men.
Linguistics students replicated the study; results confirmed.
Beason (2001) found that business professionals perceived writers as hasty, careless, uncaring, or uninformed if the reader identified multiple errors
Myth:
There is one right way to write.
Myth
If I think I’m a bad writer, I can’t pass this course.
The Wizard of Oz
The diploma doesn’t make you smarter.
It’s the work you do to get the diploma.
Course Goals
Compose original materials in standard American English
Use appropriate documentation as required
Illustrate the steps in the writing process
Apply knowledge of communication to chosen profession