Welcome to COLLEGE COMPOSITION II!

CM220 Instructor Jacob Kaltenbach)Unit 1 Seminar – audio enabled

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Quick introductions:Let’s use the first 10 minutes or so in a free chat to get to know one another.

Who are you? What are you studying? Anything else you’d like to share?

Who am I?

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AIM name: KaplanJAK

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Question Time

What marks "good" writing?

How do you know it when you see it?

… clear, easy to understand, attention-grabbing ….these are some of the hallmarks of good writing. But think of some ‘good’ academic, legal, political or technical writing. Does it always follow this model? Is it always clear, easy to understand, attention-grabbing?

No – writing for different purposes means different standards of clarity and complexity, different categories of vocabulary. We call these different levels ‘registers’.

Let’s look at an example. Let me know if this is in the correct register, and why or why not.

1. After procurement actions, de-containerize inputs. Perform measurement tasks on a case-by-case basis. In a mixing type bowl, impact heavily on brown sugar, granulated sugar, softened butter and shortening. Coordinate the interface of eggs and vanilla, avoiding an overrun scenario to the best of your skills and abilities.

2. At this point in time, leverage flour, baking soda and salt into a bowl and aggregate. Equalize with prior mixture and develop intense and continuous liaison among inputs until well-coordinated. Associate key chocolate and nut subsystems and execute stirring operations.

3. Within this time frame, take action to prepare the heating environment for throughput by manually setting the baking unit (by hand) to a temperature of 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Drop mixture in an ongoing fashion from a teaspoon type instrument in an ongoing fashion onto an un-greased cookie sheet.

4. Position cookie sheet in bake situation and survey for 8 to 10 minutes or until cooking action terminates. Initiate coordination of outputs within the cooling rack function. Containerize, wrap in red tape and disseminate to authorized staff personnel on a timely and expeditious basis.

What's this for? Is this good writing?

Right, it doesn’t seem phrased for the appropriate audience.

Why not?

This writing is awful, precisely because you can never separate writing from audience.

A chocolate chip cookie recipe should not read like a congressional bill (one might argue that a congressional bill shouldn't read this way either). Its tone is completely wrong for its task. It is not lucid (clear), simple, or direct, meaning it misses three of the most important components of good writing.

Let’s turn to the differences between formal and informal writing

Could that chocolate chip cookie recipe just be considered formal writing?

The following article on formal and informal writing provide some interesting definitions http://writingguide.geneseo.edu/?pg=topics/formalinformal.html

(feel free to pull up that website now or after seminar if you like)

How does SUNY Geneseo define formal writing? The article says it's about following a list of conventions or rules. Since our seminar room is an informal setting, I’ll list their formal recommendations first and then we will all try to "translate" them into informal prose, just so we can see the difference.

Here's the first one: 1. “Adopting conservative usage means hewing to those linguistic practices that bear professional writers' and editors' stamp of approval”

Anyone - try to translate this into more informal prose and post your result here.

Informal translation:

Write the way professional writers and guidebooks recommend (you have or will visit many of these in coming weeks)

2. "Contraction-free prose" How would you informally translate #2?

Informal translation:

Don't contract your words like I just did with "don't". Write them out in their full forms ("they are" for "they're"; "will not" for "won't"; etc…)

3. "Coarse language and slang betoken a casual rather than a serious approach to your subject, and they may convince your reader that you lack the energy or resolve to think of more precise ways to express dissatisfaction, disagreeableness, or disruption."

Informal translation:

Don't swear, cuss, or use words so new that only your friends know what the heck they mean. It may be completely unfair and not true, but people do make judgments based on others' writing

4. "Most formal writing aims to establish an air of objectivity and impartiality, an air with which the personal pronouns I, me, and ‘my’ seem inconsistent…the second-person singular pronoun - you - raises a similar issue when used to refer to a hypothetical rather than a real individual."

Informal translation:

Don't use "I, me, my, mine, you" in formal writing. Note how the reading also asks to you ask your instructor about this? That's a good idea because these pronouns are not always incorrect. Like all rules, this one needs some stretching and defining.

You should only use "I, me, my, mine" to relate personal experiences and opinions. For example, let's say you are writing a paper about the minimum wage and whether or not it is enough for people to live on. You earn the minimum wage, so you have some relevant personal experience to contribute. When you are sharing your own experience, it is perfectly fine to use the first person.

It is also fine to state your own opinion in your conclusion, and you can use the first person there too. We will talk about how much opinion and personal experience is appropriate in a research paper, and where it should go later in the term.

Be on the lookout for phrases like "I think" or "I believe". Usually "I' can just be deleted. Phrases like "I think" or "it seems to me" in a paper are repetitive and redundant. Why? You are the author, so obviously this is what you think or how things seem to you. You don't have to say that

Next let’s discuss "you". Imagine you are reading a paper about step parenting. You aren't a stepparent yourself, but the topic is interesting. Every paragraph or so, the author writes a sentence like "you want to discipline your step-child, but you aren't sure if that's your role".

When the paper is addressing a more general audience of people who aren't all stepparents, it can be strange. Every time you as the reader read "you", you have to pause and think "not me". If the paper is written for stepparents and no one else, that's fine, but it's something to think about. Reserve "you" for when it really can encompass everyone (and that's a rare thing).

One more: "we".

Some authors like this because it can form a bond between the writer and the audience, sort of a "we're in this together" thing.

Unfortunately, this can really easily backfire. People don't like to be told what they feel or think or what outrages them. Using "we" assumes that everyone has the same view. That alienates an audience, even one that agrees with the author.

Finally, think back to the cookie recipe. The recipe was not lucid (clear), simple, or direct, meaning it missed three of the most important components of good writing. Its "lard factor" was through the roof! Too many people think that to sound intelligent or professional, you have to write this way; not true.

Let's take a look at another “lard-filled” sentence: It is also useful to know the personality of the supposed killer so that a strategy may be made to aid in the interrogation and in the questioning in the courtroom.

Would anyone like try quickly revising this?

We will learn a revision method later on in the quarter that tackles this kind of sentence really efficiently, but I think one good way to start is just to try to say what this sentence means.

Here's my try:

Knowing the supposed killer's personality improves the quality of courtroom interrogation.

So to recap: Writing varies depending on the

audience, writing can be formal or informal.

Formal writing is characterized by a set of characteristics.

Finally, regardless of audience, purpose, or style, good writing should be simple, clear, and direct.

Question Time

Thanks and good night, all! See you this week in the discussions and next week in seminar!