On texts of some length, proofreading/editing is often the final step in the writing process prior to publishing your text. Proofreading usually takes place nearer the end of the revision process than at the beginning. Why? Because it doesn't make sense put in the effort to proofread looking at every sentence and word level issue until your draft is fairly solid. In other words, why proofread and edit sentences and words which might still be cut? Why proofread haphazardly when you can proofread systematically after you've finished most revisions and save effort and time?
Here are my own notes on proofreading. Those just below are the main ones to remember:
It's nearly impossible to effectively proofread your own work. You know what you mean to say. When you read your own work, you often read over mistakes. My best piece of advice is to get others to proofread your work. Try to get at least three people to look at your work prior to turning it in. If necessary, hire someone or create a writer's group to help you with proofreading.
EVERYONE makes mistakes. Don't kick yourself for your mistakes, learn to recognize them and how to fix them. Even then, you'll still make mistakes.
I once worked for an academic journal. Four sets of eyes proofed each article--the professor who wrote it, myself, the departmental secretary, and the editor. Still, EVERY time we got the journal back from the printers, I opened it to a random page and found at least one mistake. EVERYONE, even professionals, make mistakes.
When you proofread, you're trying to do something called breaking set. This means you want to change the way you usually read, so you don't read over mistakes. Most of the proofreading tricks I list below have to do with changing how you read, so you can see what you've written.
1. Give yourself time to proofread. It's easy to find yourself adding the last sentence to a text at the last possible minute. As we finish drafting, the last thing we want to do is acknowledge there's yet more work to do. We want to be done. Resist the temptation. Give yourself time to proofread. Your final product will be better for the time. To give yourself time, set your deadline for finishing your draft in time to revise the draft for content and structure and to still have time to proofread.
2) Read backwards from the last sentence to the first. When proofreading for spelling, read backwards one word at a time. Learn to isolate each word, even those which have been passed by the spellcheck. It doesn't catch every misspelling. When proofreading for sentence issues, read backwards one sentence at a time.
3) Read slowly and out loud. You'll be surprised how reading something out loud, as opposed to silently, will let you hear errors you'd otherwise overlook.
4) Read to someone else. Reading your paper to someone else forces you to take an audience into account. Not only can the person you're reading to ask questions about content, they can mark places in a copy of your paper where they're confused or they hear an error as you read. When you hear a mistake or a piece of awkward phrasing, you can mark it and come back later to fix it.
5) Print out your text. If you usually read your papers on the screen, make a hard copy. As you find errors, mark them, and later revise your electronic copy. When we're drafting and hit the creative zone, we often work quickly and have a hard mental focus on meaning. These habits of reading quickly and thinking in terms of meaning and adding or cutting content can track over into efforts to proofread on the screen. Remember, when you're proofreading, you're not so much worried about content or organization (hopefully, each of these elements was polished earlier in the writing process), when proofreading you're looking at mechanics, usage, spelling, and grammar and only at mechanics, usage, spelling, and grammar.
6) Get someone else to read your work to you. Print out two hard copies. Get a friend to read your work to you. Both of you mark places which don't make sense or appear to be problematic. Use both copies as an index when fixing your text. Go back and look at each place which was marked and try to figure out what caused the area to get marked.
7) Have the computer read the text two you. Make a hard copy and set up the computer to read the text out loud. It will read what's there. Every time you hear an error, mark your hard copy. Use your marked copy as an index to what needs to be fixed.
8) Give yourself time. Breaking set isn't just about reading backwards or reading out loud. You get close to a text when you draft it and work on content and structural revision. If you try to proofread after working this closely with the text, you'll find yourself seeing what you meant to say rather than what you're actually saying. Horace, a Roman rhetorician, recommended putting what you write away for nine years, that is, until it reads as if someone else wrote it. We don't have such luxury, but giving yourself a day or two to let the text set, even just doing something else between finishing your content revisions and proofreading, gives distance enough so you're can bring fresh eyes back to your text. So, finish your draft and reward yourself with a night's sleep, a night out, or a workout prior to proofreading.
9) Give yourself time to proofread. Slow down. You're not in a race to get through, you're trying to look closely at multiple things, and the process takes time. Slow down. Read slowly. Take the time it takes to truly see and truly edit every sentence and word.
10) Physically touch every word. Talk about breaking set! Read backwards. Read out loud, and touch every word to make sure you're seeing and proofreading each and every word and sentence.
11) Use the grammar and spell checker. The state of the art in grammar and spell checkers isn't quite there yet, but they can help you see some errors. Just don't their word as law. Use them for the things at which they're effective. They can isolate "to be" verb constructions and give you an index to possible passive voice constructions. They can show you long sentences. They can usually recognize subject verb disagreements. They can sometimes help with punctuation. The real trick with using grammar and spell checkers is to learn their weaknesses and to learn how to customize them to the style of writing you want to reproduce.
12) Boo-boo or demon words. You know these words. They're the ones which sneak through the spell checker. Usually they're jargon or proper names you misspell or forget to capitalize. You can customize autocorrect to make corrections for your most typical boo-boo words.
13) Use a ruler or a piece of paper to isolate the sentences you're proofreading. This practice forces you to look at the sentence you're proofing, not the next sentence, not the previous sentence, the sentence you're supposed to be looking at.
14) Learn your problem areas. Everyone is prone to making different mistakes. If you or someone else sees a pattern in your mistakes, put it on a personal "list of things I have to look at when proofreading." (This is why it's a good idea to read the papers you get back from teachers and proofreaders. Often your professor will mark errors. Use their work to help develop your list of "things at which I have to look.") By learning to recognize the problems you're prone to introducing into the text and how these errors can be fixed, you'll soon find yourself making fewer errors. Every once in a while, take your copy of "things at which I have to look" and find your worse error. Spend some time researching how to recognize and fix your worse error. Eventually, you'll find your list of common errors getting shorter and your sentence level writing improving in proportion.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Answers to a couple of more good questions...
The prewriting posts to your individual blogs are meant to be on the formal papers only. Don't worry about doing the pre-writing for past papers, only for those on which you are currently working or will work in the future.
Publish your formal papers either via google docs including me as a collaborator (my preference) or via the class drop box.
I like google docs because you can invite viewers or collaborators, and the immediate feedback you can get is a useful tool in writing. I also like the online web writing and production tools because many web teams are using them as basic tools for working at a distance and asynchronously.
Having said this, one of the mistakes I've made is in not paying enough attention to how UAT students are used to turning in assignments, so I'll be happy to accept assignments in the class drop box or the Q&A forums.
Publish your formal papers either via google docs including me as a collaborator (my preference) or via the class drop box.
I like google docs because you can invite viewers or collaborators, and the immediate feedback you can get is a useful tool in writing. I also like the online web writing and production tools because many web teams are using them as basic tools for working at a distance and asynchronously.
Having said this, one of the mistakes I've made is in not paying enough attention to how UAT students are used to turning in assignments, so I'll be happy to accept assignments in the class drop box or the Q&A forums.
Clarifying Ethos, Pathos, and Logos Appeals
I thought I'd pass on my response to Jason's rhetorical analysis paper. He wrote on Ultimate Destruction. Since the Hulk is such a popular culture icon, I thought my response and discussion of ethos, pathos, and logos in Jason's paper might resonate with many of you.
Pathos often is the first of the appeals to make sense. This seems odd because most of us have been trained to think in terms of logos as being the strongest of the appeals. It's certainly the most used in academic writing, where appeals to emotions are frowned on. Ethos is the hardest of the appeals to get your head around, because ethos appeals often hide in the guise of logos appeals or pathos appeals. Think, for instance, about using a particular form of documentation. When you use MLA style and write a paper in MLA format, the format and form of documentation are part of an ethos appeal. The assure your audience that you're part of the discourse community who knows how MLA style and formats work. The upshot? While citing a source is part of making a logical appeal and appearing objective (pathos is also be a lack of emotion), you are also making a subtle ethos appeal.
Now my response to Jason's paper. I hope it helps you get a better handle on ethos, logos, and pathos.
I also liked your section on ethos. As you argue, ethos is about reputation, and the reputation of the company creating a game goes a long way toward reassuring the player that they'll be getting a quality game experience, hence increasing the game's appeal. This kind of branding through company or author name is a fairly new way for ethos to work, and I remain fascinated with it. In fact, there are some history of the book scholars who have argued that one reason the concept of the professional author developed side-by-side with the mass consumption of books was that books could be branded by their author. Just like shopping at McDonalds, we know what we're buying when we pick up a Stephen King novel. This kind of audience branding was why Author Doyle worked so hard to kill off the character of Sherlock Holmes. Doyle wanted to write historical fiction, but he was forever linked with the Holmes character and the mystery short story. The same thing happened with Ira Flemming and James Bond. I find it fascinating that the same thing is happening with companies and games.
Write with questions.
Steve
Pathos often is the first of the appeals to make sense. This seems odd because most of us have been trained to think in terms of logos as being the strongest of the appeals. It's certainly the most used in academic writing, where appeals to emotions are frowned on. Ethos is the hardest of the appeals to get your head around, because ethos appeals often hide in the guise of logos appeals or pathos appeals. Think, for instance, about using a particular form of documentation. When you use MLA style and write a paper in MLA format, the format and form of documentation are part of an ethos appeal. The assure your audience that you're part of the discourse community who knows how MLA style and formats work. The upshot? While citing a source is part of making a logical appeal and appearing objective (pathos is also be a lack of emotion), you are also making a subtle ethos appeal.
Now my response to Jason's paper. I hope it helps you get a better handle on ethos, logos, and pathos.
Jason,
Your section on pathos was your strongest, probably because the notion of an appeal to emotion makes more intuitive sense than does logos or ethos. You were right on the money when you said, "the greatest appeal that this game offers to players is making them feel powerful." Why did this line stand out in my mind? Because it was here I saw you integrating the notion of the game authors using an appeal to have a specific effect on their audience. "Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction," as you point out, manages to create much of its appeal by building on the notion of the un-outstanding wanting to indulge a fantasy in which they are suddenly powerful.
I also liked your section on ethos. As you argue, ethos is about reputation, and the reputation of the company creating a game goes a long way toward reassuring the player that they'll be getting a quality game experience, hence increasing the game's appeal. This kind of branding through company or author name is a fairly new way for ethos to work, and I remain fascinated with it. In fact, there are some history of the book scholars who have argued that one reason the concept of the professional author developed side-by-side with the mass consumption of books was that books could be branded by their author. Just like shopping at McDonalds, we know what we're buying when we pick up a Stephen King novel. This kind of audience branding was why Author Doyle worked so hard to kill off the character of Sherlock Holmes. Doyle wanted to write historical fiction, but he was forever linked with the Holmes character and the mystery short story. The same thing happened with Ira Flemming and James Bond. I find it fascinating that the same thing is happening with companies and games.
There's another level to ethos, however, about which I'd like you to think. Ethos appeals also have a lot to do with how an author gets their audience to identify with them. In the study of rhetoric we call this kind of ethos appeal, identification. To get a handle on how this kind of appeal works, think for a moment on why players might identify with Banner. As you noted in your pathos section, one reason the game appeals is that it works on our emotions to make us feel powerful, but we identify with Banner because we too have felt impotent and wanted to let go of all our inhibitions. Like Banner we struggle with finding a balance between letting go and being innocuous and meeting social expectations.
This brings us to logos. One of the ideas behind the Hulk which makes the character so appealing is in identifying with Banner, we have to think through the basic idea behind his character. That is, we have to figure out and play with the idea of the animal side of human nature and the logical, social side. I think the Freudian terms are id vs ego. As we indulge in the fantasy, we're also living through identification with a character who, on the one hand, can assume great power but, on the other hand, can only do so via an essential loss of control. The Hulk also forces us to think about our beliefs. For instance, do we believe we have an essential nature? Is who we are tied to our brain or our heart? Is it some mixture of the two? One way logos works to make a game appealing is to present us with powerful questions, questions which compel us even if we're unaware we're thinking about them. This unconscious confrontation with ideas is one reason fiction, either in the genre of games or another form of story, is so powerful. It causes us to think under the guise of entertainment. It gets in our heads via a means against which we have very little defense.
Write with questions.
Steve
What to put on your blogs and how weekly assingments work with your outcomes inventory...
Travis also wrote with a couple of good questions. He was confused by what I expected you to put on your individual blogs, by how the outcomes inventory worked, and how the weekly papers integrated with the ongoing inventory assignment. Since if one student is asking a question, I assume others may share it, here's my response to Travis. Write if you have follow up questions:
The blogs you set up individually are places to write about your writing and to post some of the steps involved in producing your papers. In specific, I've asked that you do a prewriting exercise for each paper. As part of this exercise, you'll produce a post for your blog in which you answer the following questions:
Who is your audience(s)?
What goals do you want to achieve by producing your text?
What is your topic?
How will you organize the text?
You might also post to the blog any pre-writing exercises in which you come up with ideas for your paper. These kinds of posts may take the form of a list, an outline, a free write, or a link to a mind map. I'll be posting to the class blog how to use such exercises to help you come up with ideas you can incorporate into your writing.
Your responses to the WPA outcomes is an ongoing exercise. For many of you, your initial reaction to a specific outcome may well have been, "I have no idea what this means." Remember, the outcomes represent knowledge and skills you should have after completing a full year of freshman level writing. However, as the class progresses, and I make posts to the class blog, exchange emails like this with you, you do some reading, and you write your weekly papers, I'm hoping you'll gain deeper insight into many of the outcomes. As you gain these insights and reflect on them, you should revise the corresponding individual entries in your inventory.
The papers you write each week, the process you use to develop and produce them, and your reflection on this process should provoke some thought about how the assignment and your work on the paper might provide evidence for claims you make about your comprehension of an outcome. For instance, when you first responded to the outcome about integrating critical inquiry, reading, and writing. You well may have written something fairly vague or simply said, "I don't understand." After thinking about your paper doing a rhetorical analysis of a game, you might change this claim and say you've learned to integrate critical inquiry, critical reading, and writing. You might support this new claim by pointing to what you learned about a game with which you were already familiar as you "read" it and wrote about it using the rubric of the three appeals---logos, pathos, and ethos.
Does this help?
Steve
The blogs you set up individually are places to write about your writing and to post some of the steps involved in producing your papers. In specific, I've asked that you do a prewriting exercise for each paper. As part of this exercise, you'll produce a post for your blog in which you answer the following questions:
Who is your audience(s)?
What goals do you want to achieve by producing your text?
What is your topic?
How will you organize the text?
You might also post to the blog any pre-writing exercises in which you come up with ideas for your paper. These kinds of posts may take the form of a list, an outline, a free write, or a link to a mind map. I'll be posting to the class blog how to use such exercises to help you come up with ideas you can incorporate into your writing.
Your responses to the WPA outcomes is an ongoing exercise. For many of you, your initial reaction to a specific outcome may well have been, "I have no idea what this means." Remember, the outcomes represent knowledge and skills you should have after completing a full year of freshman level writing. However, as the class progresses, and I make posts to the class blog, exchange emails like this with you, you do some reading, and you write your weekly papers, I'm hoping you'll gain deeper insight into many of the outcomes. As you gain these insights and reflect on them, you should revise the corresponding individual entries in your inventory.
The papers you write each week, the process you use to develop and produce them, and your reflection on this process should provoke some thought about how the assignment and your work on the paper might provide evidence for claims you make about your comprehension of an outcome. For instance, when you first responded to the outcome about integrating critical inquiry, reading, and writing. You well may have written something fairly vague or simply said, "I don't understand." After thinking about your paper doing a rhetorical analysis of a game, you might change this claim and say you've learned to integrate critical inquiry, critical reading, and writing. You might support this new claim by pointing to what you learned about a game with which you were already familiar as you "read" it and wrote about it using the rubric of the three appeals---logos, pathos, and ethos.
Does this help?
Steve
Clarifying some terminology...
In Jason's first draft the first paper, he responded to the WPA Outcomes by saying there were terms used, like rhetoric, genre, and format, which didn't make sense on an intial reading, but which he assumed would make more sense later. In my response to the google doc of his most recent draft, I clarified these terms, and I thought I'd pass my response on to the class as a whole.
rhetoric--the study of how to accomplish one's intentions through effective communication.
genre--a type or kind. Music has genres, like classical, ballad, rock, or bluegrass. Games have genres like board, video, RPG, etc. Writing too has genres. Most of us are used to thinking of writing genres like poetry, the novel, the short story, or drama, but each time you write a specific kind of text, you write in a genre of writing. The concept of genre gives you a rubric through which to think about the characteristics of different kinds of writing. Email, for instance, is digitally published and distributed, usually short, conversational, informal, and covers a single topic. It has a specific format. There's a subject line. There's a body. Often there's a signature. Google "How to write good emails," and you'll be linked to a host of advice about how to effectively create texts in the genre of email. In a similar manner, you can research how to write in any number of genres. Google how to write a good term paper, portfolio, resume...
format--one aspect of a genre is the format. The format refers to how a document is laid out, the order in which information is presented, if it's OK to use bullets or sub-headings, what kind of documentation style to use, what margins to use, etc. Researching and learning the expected format for a genre can be as simple as asking for an example of it. For instance, when your boss asks you to put together a proposal, ask if she has an example of a good proposal she can share to use as a model.
Keep the questions coming.
Response to several of your concerns.
Seth wrote to let me know of how frustrated many of you are, so I thought I'd post my email response to him here and also on the class site.
Read the class blog at ENG101fall2007UAT.blogspot.com. It should clear up at least some of your confusion and, I hope, frustration.
Some of the confusion was a result of the initial week's problems. Some is my unfamiliarity with student practice at UAT. My usual practice is to let students struggle with the first paper on their own, this practice is meant to cause frustration I then use as a learning platform. However, added to the initial frustration and confusion with the course, employing this practice hasn't---to say the least---played well.
The reason I have students struggle with the first paper is to give a graphic lesson in just how much information they're usually given prior to writing in an academic setting, information which they will have to figure out on their own as they adapt their writing to rhetorical situations outside the classroom. If the lesson goes well (and it usually does), students quickly learn the value of prewriting, that is, what exactly they need to know prior to beginning to write; and, instead of just accepting that they will be given essential information like genre, format, length, and jargon common to a new discourse community, they learn they have to actively seek this information out. Learning just how much information is needed prior to writing is an important aspect of a writer's skill set. Think, for instance, how many folks will end up doing consultant work with their UAT degrees or moving between different company cultures as their career matures. Each of these moves will involve you in learning the writing expectations of the your new discourse community.
In this class, however, what is usually an effective tactic just added to the loss of ethos inherent in the confusion of changing the course design in the middle of the first week. My other faulty assumption was in assuming that students would write me at prof.brandon@gmail.com with questions and concerns. Instead, I've found students at UAT try to work out these concerns in threaded discussions on the class site; so, while I've been monitoring my email at both UAT and my gmail accounts, I wasn't hearing or responding to the level of frustration building up on the class site.
Last but not least, I assumed that students would dive into the class blog, and all I needed to do was direct them to it via an announcement on the class site. Instead, students continued to look for updates, content, and clarification on the ecollege web site.
Here's my plan:
1) I'll be more involved in the threaded discussion on the class site.
2) I will no longer assume students will write me directly with concerns or questions.
3) I will update the ecollege class shell and not just handle the class through the blog and email.
I hope you'll meet me half-way and read the class blog at eng101fall2007uat.blogspot.com. I does answer many of your frustrations and concerns. If questions still remain, do write. I'm here to teach and want you to know I am available and more than willing to help in any way I can.
Steve
Read the class blog at ENG101fall2007UAT.blogspot.com. It should clear up at least some of your confusion and, I hope, frustration.
Some of the confusion was a result of the initial week's problems. Some is my unfamiliarity with student practice at UAT. My usual practice is to let students struggle with the first paper on their own, this practice is meant to cause frustration I then use as a learning platform. However, added to the initial frustration and confusion with the course, employing this practice hasn't---to say the least---played well.
The reason I have students struggle with the first paper is to give a graphic lesson in just how much information they're usually given prior to writing in an academic setting, information which they will have to figure out on their own as they adapt their writing to rhetorical situations outside the classroom. If the lesson goes well (and it usually does), students quickly learn the value of prewriting, that is, what exactly they need to know prior to beginning to write; and, instead of just accepting that they will be given essential information like genre, format, length, and jargon common to a new discourse community, they learn they have to actively seek this information out. Learning just how much information is needed prior to writing is an important aspect of a writer's skill set. Think, for instance, how many folks will end up doing consultant work with their UAT degrees or moving between different company cultures as their career matures. Each of these moves will involve you in learning the writing expectations of the your new discourse community.
In this class, however, what is usually an effective tactic just added to the loss of ethos inherent in the confusion of changing the course design in the middle of the first week. My other faulty assumption was in assuming that students would write me at prof.brandon@gmail.com with questions and concerns. Instead, I've found students at UAT try to work out these concerns in threaded discussions on the class site; so, while I've been monitoring my email at both UAT and my gmail accounts, I wasn't hearing or responding to the level of frustration building up on the class site.
Last but not least, I assumed that students would dive into the class blog, and all I needed to do was direct them to it via an announcement on the class site. Instead, students continued to look for updates, content, and clarification on the ecollege web site.
Here's my plan:
1) I'll be more involved in the threaded discussion on the class site.
2) I will no longer assume students will write me directly with concerns or questions.
3) I will update the ecollege class shell and not just handle the class through the blog and email.
I hope you'll meet me half-way and read the class blog at eng101fall2007uat.blogspot.com. I does answer many of your frustrations and concerns. If questions still remain, do write. I'm here to teach and want you to know I am available and more than willing to help in any way I can.
Steve
I'm back up and running.
The Verizon FIOS setup went without a hitch, and the fiber optic to the house is much, much faster than the cable at the apartment. So,...
I'm reconnected much quicker than I originally expected. I'm working sans desk, but I can work. Once again, you can contact me at prof.brandon@gmail.com or my cell at 505-553-3853. Several of you have written with questions, and I'll post responses to the frequently asked questions later tonight.
Steve
I'm reconnected much quicker than I originally expected. I'm working sans desk, but I can work. Once again, you can contact me at prof.brandon@gmail.com or my cell at 505-553-3853. Several of you have written with questions, and I'll post responses to the frequently asked questions later tonight.
Steve
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