I'm teaching WR 150 this semester, which means that all my students have taken WR 100 or some equivalent thereof. Seeing as I dealt with a lot of unacceptable shit in my WR 100 seminar last semester, I'm distributing this introductory handout to get a few things on the table (think of it as my "airing of grievances"):
WR 150: Cybernetic Writing
Writing Handout (A cautionary tale in ten points…)
If you simplify your English, you are freed from the worst follies of orthodoxy. You cannot speak any of the necessary dialects, and when you make a stupid remark its stupidity will be obvious, even to yourself.
~George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language”
1. Critique, not Evaluation
Unless you’re an expert on aesthetics, your reader does not care whether you think a story is good or bad, exciting or boring, exemplary or deplorable. Your critical argument is not an evaluation of the text, but an analysis of key details that proposes a specific way to read the text. Comments on a story’s good or bad qualities (its excellent depictions or perfect examples, etc.) will be read as filler and may result in -3 points per comment.
2. Active, not Passive
The passive voice describes a sentence in which the subject is acted on by the verb, for example: “The subject of the sentence is acted on by the verb.”
· The ship was sailed by the crew.
· The test was taken by the students.
· The game was played by the team.
Passive voice is not technically incorrect, but it can cause confusion in longer sentences and degrades the quality of written prose. Instead of the passive constructions listed above, consider the following:
· The crew sailed the ship.
· The students took the test.
· The team played the game.
In most cases, changing sentences from passive to active improves their clarity and quality. Don’t rely on the passive because you think it makes you sound intelligent; it doesn’t. The number of passive constructions in any given paper bears an inverse relationship to my level of patience with said paper. Papers that contain more than two passive constructions per page (on average) may see -5 points for every passive construction.
3. Stating, not Staging
Your papers’ sentences should be assertive and confident, declarative and illustrative. Avoid the interrogative mode and rhetorical questions: e.g. “Who wouldn’t want to live a life of luxury?” Your readers shouldn’t feel that they have to answer questions; you’re doing that for them. Don’t patronize your readers, but inform them. Don’t tell your readers there is something important about a certain detail, but tell them what that something is. Staging sentences might look like
· This detail is incredibly important.
· The story presents many significant themes.
· This idea parallels a crucial event in the story.
Instead of staging your claims, state them. Don’t say that a detail is important, but explain why. Don’t insist that a story presents many significant themes, but identify those themes through discussion. In most cases, staging sentences are superfluous and serve one purpose: achieving a word count. For this reason, staging sentences will be subtracted from the total word count and may result in -4 points each.
4. Claims, not Suggestions
Your critical arguments should be coherent and focused. Suggesting that a detail “can be seen” a certain way, or that it “might mean” something important, often leaves readers wondering whether it should be seen a certain way, whether it does mean something important, and whether you actually believe what you’re writing. If you’re not confident in your argument, then your readers won’t be confident in it either. Unless a sentence featuring “it might be suggested that” is immediately followed by a firm rebuttal, revise it. Sentences that merely speculate may result in -5 points each and will not be considered as part of the argument.
5. Arguments, not Proofs
Avoid the temptation to say that a particular detail or element of a text proves that your claim is the right one. Fictional texts aren’t theorems, and we derive less value from them by proving than we do by persuading. Your goal in each paper assignment is to collect enough evidence from your exhibit and argument sources (or what you might have called “primary” and “secondary” sources in high school) to craft a convincing reading of your exhibit text; but this reading is not the “right” or “truthful” reading. Claiming that you have proven your argument opens the door for critics to poke holes in it. All it takes is one exception, one convincing alternative reading, and your “proof” goes “poof.” Instead of viewing your papers as proofs of your text’s meaning, think of them as interventions into discussions about the text that aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive. You want to be confident in your argument without being myopic. In other words, try to envision how your argument doesn’t “disprove” other arguments, but complements and enhances them. Using the word “prove” may result in -3 points per use.
*Your paper should fall somewhere between speculating and proving.
6. Analyzation, not Summarization
Neither the first half, nor the first page, nor the first paragraph of your paper should consist of summary. Any summarization that appears should correspond to the details you draw on to support your argument. You should not discuss details according to the order they appear in the story, but according to their relevance for your argument. In other words, you can begin your paper with the beginning of the story, but you can also begin with the end of the story. The analytical organization is up to you, as long as it exhibits a clear and cogent pattern of thought. Papers that indulge in summarization may lose between 5 and 15 points, depending on the extent of summary. If a paper consists mostly of summarization, it may receive an F. Additionally, if a paper consists significantly of commentary not pertaining to the text, it may receive an F.
7. Transitions Matter
Paragraph breaks are not insignificant or cosmetic. They should appear at crucial moments and signal movements in the argument, but these movements should be connected. Transitions allow you to illustrate for your readers how paragraphs connect to one another, and to justify why you’re moving in a new conceptual direction. Transitions should exhibit clear and sensical links between the end of one paragraph and the beginning of another. Your paper should not look like a list of what might as well be stream-of-consciousness reflections. When beginning a new paragraph, think about why you’re doing so and articulate those reasons. Paragraphs that begin with “Another theme” or “Another idea” or “Another detail” may result in -10 points and will be disregarded.
8. Punctuation Matters
Periods go at the end of complete sentences. Unless you’re writing creative fiction, complete sentences should not be less than four words. That said, “The first man to walk on the moon.” is still not a complete sentence (if you don’t know why, then I suggest you schedule an appointment with the writing center). Commas should be used to connect dependent clauses to independent clauses. When commas unite two independent clauses this is called a comma splice, and it results in a run-on sentence. If you want to signal that two sentences are conceptually linked, you can connect them with a semicolon. A semicolon should not connect an independent clause to a dependent clause. A colon should be used to introduce an explanation, quotation, or list. Use colons and semicolons sparingly in general prose. The titles of “short stories,” “articles,” “chapters,” and “songs” should be placed in quotation marks; the titles of books, movies, plays, and albums should be italicized. More than two punctuation errors per page (on average) may result in -2 points per error.
9. Proofreading Matters
Read your sentences out loud when you proofread. If a sentence sounds strange or doesn’t make any sense, don’t delude yourself into thinking that you knew what you meant when you wrote it. If it no longer makes sense to you, then it won’t make sense to your readers. If you come across words that are misspelled, or repeated, or sentences that are missing words, then correct them. Misspelled, missing, or repeated words will be supplemented with random words of my choosing and may result in -5 points per word (in the age of the internet, there really is no excuse for misspelling words).
10. Citation Matters
Paraphrasing someone else’s writing without acknowledging your source is plagiarism and will result in failure for the assignment and potentially for the course. The easiest way to avoid plagiarism is to cite everything you quote and paraphrase. General and substantially uncontroversial information does not need to be cited; e.g. you do not need to cite that “Philip K. Dick is an American science fiction writer.” Specific and interpretive comments do require citation if they’re not your own; e.g. you need to cite that “Philip K. Dick’s science fiction is less about the posthuman than it is about the way that material objects animate and mediate human relationships” (Brown, Other Things 125). Citing your sources not only gives credit where credit is due, but establishes your position within scholarly discourse. It opens your readers to the wealth of conversations going on about your paper’s topic, and invites them to explore these conversations. By citing your sources, you carve out your territory in a discursive tradition.
Good luck! And remember…
Shoot for the Moon. Even if you miss,
you will land among the stars…
Although the moon is 238,900 miles away, and the nearest star is 93 million miles away.
So, go ahead and shoot for the moon—
You slackers.
