the id, the ego, & the single misfiring brain cell

I didn't make as much progress as I planned on student papers this weekend, even though I worked...well, more hours per day than I would were I at work, where there are awesome and entertaining people to distract me.* I did, however, get my lesson plans prepared for classes tomorrow and mostly for Wednesday, and I graded 27 papers submitted by my sophomores. 

* Michelle is most entertaining in all respects, but she was reading Elsie Dinsmore books. I love her for her quirks. 

This was what I call a "low threat" assignment. It's short and designed to provoke the students to think about what "close reading" is, and why they should be doing it. Beyond that, if provides me a good writing sample from each of them so I can begin solid, individualized feedback. 

Instead of writing extensive notes on their papers, I wrote the following ideas on my laptop as I graded. I'll print these comments and provide handouts, which we will discuss tomorrow. 

- Just as you must slow down and read deliberately, you must slow down and write deliberately. Your writing goal in my class is to find something worth saying about a text and saying it as clearly and concisely as possible. 

- Avoid overstatement. For most of you, aiming at *understatement* will cut just enough of your tendency toward overstatement to make you sound reasonable. Excise adverbs in particular. (Ex: really, very, extremely, simply, totally, entirely, perfectly, utterly, wholly, thoroughly, just, exactly, precisely, absolutely, completely....)

- Be aware of words' and phrases' default meanings. When you're writing about a piece of literature already identified, you don't need to say, "In the poem, Shakespeare writes," or "This theme is recurring in the story." (Themes recur anyway; that's what makes them themes. This sentence adds nothing.) 

Another: "When someone thinks back to the past about what the right thing to do was..." Consider how much of this is superfluous. ("Back to the past" is unnecessary; you're using the past tense verb "was" already.) 

- Pronouns should agree with each other and the noun they refer to. "Their" (plural) does not refer to "the reader" (singular). I know it's common, but for writing purposes, it is incorrect. Instead, try either making the noun plural or choosing either "him" or "her" and sticking with it. DO NOT write "he/she" or "him/her." It's clunky. 

- When you write about what happens in a book, poem, or story, use present tense. Think of it this way: Literature lives forever, and every time you read it, it happens now. 

- No orphaned quotes (by this, I mean quotes in sentences by themselves). Introduce the quote, provide the quote, then explain its relevance to your point. 

- If you're going to use semicolons, please refresh your memory on when/how to use them (versus when you should be using a colon). The OWL at Perdue online is your go-to reference guide.

- "Insinuate" is not synonymous with "imply." I imply; you insinuate. 

- Words mean things! Think of what ideas are implicit in each word you use, and avoid restating those ideas. Example: "intimately close." Is it possible to be intimately distant? Maybe, but when you say "intimate," "close" is implied. Another: "constant repetition"; repetition is assumed to be constant unless you specify that it's sporadic. "Adds more"--as opposed to "adds less," I assume? Think about what words mean. "Escape from": to "escape" is to "get away from"; if you say "escape from," you're essentially saying "escape from from." And another.... "Emotions being felt by the characters": is it possible to have an emotion you don't feel? Think!

- Avoid wordiness. Blaise Pascal once famously ended a letter with this apology: "I'm sorry that this was such a long letter, but I didn't have time to write you a short one." I expect you to take the time necessary to prune out all unnecessary, vague, and redundant verbiage in your writing before you submit it. This requires rereading what you write and rewriting it, sometimes several times. 

- Do not repeat ideas. You may write several attempts to express a single idea in your first draft or two, but I expect you to find the one best way to express that idea and delete all of the failed attempts. 

- Avoid expansive statements. Example: "The reader must read closely to...get the sense of fulfillment that has motivated people to read for thousands of years." This isn't profound. It's just fluff. 

- Avoid passive voice except when you wish to emphasize a specific subject. Passive voice, except in science writing, is a tool you should use sparingly. Of course, in order to control it, you must first understand what it is.

It requires an actor, an action verb, a form of the verb "to be" (am, is, are, was, were, be, being, been), and an object which is acted upon. In a passive voice construction, the actor is either left unspoken or added to the end while the object acted upon takes first place. For example, instead of saying "Jim kicked the dog" (active voice) you might say, "The dog was kicked" or "The dog was kicked by Jim" (passive voice). Jim is the actor, kicking is the action, and the dog is the object of the action (you need the form of "to be" to turn it into passive voice). If you need to emphasize what happened to the dog and who did it is irrelevant or unknown, you'd want to use passive voice: "The dog was kicked." 

Politicians also use passive voice when the actors are known but wish to remain anonymous. I.e., "The bill was passed" or "The guilty parties have been punished." :) 

So...the rule is this: If you use passive voice at any point, you must have a reason to use it. Otherwise, use active voice. 

- Avoid the colloquial use of "get," as in "I got hit by a ball." This is not only passive voice and usually unnecessary, but it is correctly stated, "I was hit by a ball." (If you cannot replace "get" with "receive" and have the sentence still make sense, you're using it wrong.) 

Last but not least...Helpful tool: Read your paper aloud to yourself or to a friend. If at any point you feel like an idiot, delete or rewrite the sentence that gave you that feeling. 

Yeah. I know. It's too much to pile on them at once.

I'm going to do it anyway.  

d