Writing Ideas/Strategies gained throughout Writing 005-28 Cultures of Place course:
- Organize elaborate and stronger citations (be familiar with MLA format and make sure it is effectively being used)
- Developing claim in beginning EACH paragraph; topic sentence is crucial to ensure paragraph has a motive
- A complex sentence/paragraph does not necessarily mean an eloquent one. In fact, the best approach is to strip sentences down to the basics of verb and noun clauses and remove unnecessary jargon to become effective
- Minimize passive voice in papers, present tense is more inviting for audience
- Encourage drafting in early stages. This allows authors to take chances at free writing and then continue to editing and refine core ideas.
- Conclusion is very important to argument of essay. Look to not just wrap ideas up, but to push for forward thinking and future discussion.
- Include bigger significance in each piece of writing regardless of topic; will ensure the audience understands the significant of the argument being presented.
- Understand that the process of writing=process of learning.
- -Use evidence to support claim, not as the claim.
In creating this list, I realized one writing strategy truly represented my pursuit to become a better writer this term: understanding a complex sentence/paragraph does not necessarily mean an eloquent one. In fact, the best approach is to strip sentences down to the basics of verb and noun clauses and remove unnecessary jargon to become effective.” Looking back at my work, I saw a tendency to add large words that weren’t necessary and implement long sentence structures that internally distracted readers from the real purpose of a particular sentence. In my first reflection written on work before Dartmouth, I concluded, “I still need to improve my ability to write elegantly while staying clear and concise. Many times my claims get lost in academic jargon in polished papers and at other points, I find myself straying away from my thesis in varying measures.”
Specifically, the last three assignments in class have encouraged me to take a step in the right direction, ultimately strengthening the presentation of an argument and making changes that effectively convey greater understanding to my intended audience.
The first assignment, a thesis-first paper, was first drafted like any of my high school assignments. It had a thesis, evidence, and conclusion but unfortunately the middle paragraphs didn’t say much. After peer revisions and understanding that my prose was a bit more confusing than earlier anticipated, I began to search for ways to clarify my argument. The first approach was to look at the larger claim. Each paragraph needed to have a motive supported by analysis and evidential quotation. Quickly, I reshaped paragraphs that didn’t have a specific purpose and aligned my evidence under reformatted topic sentences, ensuring that the entire flow of the essay had a logical explanantion, as seen in the finalized version of Project 1. The next step, encouraged by my R.W.I.T. tutor was to pyscially read aloud each sentence in search of the verb and noun. This, in conjunction with the overall reshaping of paragraphs encouraged stronger evidence that initiated better claims.
The next step to understanding that eloquent writing is most effective when simply structured was through the IMRAD format of Assigment #2. Offering a literature lense on a historically research structured outline ensured that my paper kept readers enagegd by drawing attention to specific details in the methods and results section, as seen in the finalized version of Project 2. Likewise, in the conference draft of Project 2, clarity and effectiveness of argument were absent because of distracting problems with MLA guidelines. With minimal citations that raised potential questions of plagiarism, faulty source-attributing limited the effect of my argument. Thus as I reworked my citing into the finalized version, the basic structure of the IMRAD format emerged clearly, conclusively highlighting the localism practices evident in the Ecovillage at Ithaca.
The final task of Project 3 and its multimedia space analysis further developed my attentiveness to constructing concise yet developed claims. With a website design, written prose was reserved for specifically highlighting a claim or clarifying evidence, directly encouraging limited jargon. In addition, the presentation of evidence through multimedia approaches including recorded narrative, photos, and video encouraged production of thought-provoking evidence that would directly affect and influence the audience. In this regard, the argument presented would be clearly defined.
Overall, the three projects initiated various perspectives that all merged to discuss the importance of simplicity and elegance with issuing a claim. Through my work, I strongly believe I have grown as an author in the process of formal writing. Just this fall, I started college with a rigid interpretation of a formalized essay and the “necessary” complexity needed to ensure elegant writing. Yet after three varied styles of writing, and an in-depth look at the relationship between claims and evidence, I have realized complexity and intellectual writing does not stem from sentence structure or rhetoric but in depth of knowledge. To write is to learn, and to learn is to improve. Thanks for a wonderful term.