5/28 Class

Follow-up on panel meeting of Wed., May 27 and the “no excuses” policy:

• The panel discussed how - in the working world- no one wants to hear excuses and no one cares about excuses for why you didn’t get something done-
• They don’t care who was at fault .. they just want to hear what are you going to do to fix it

**** This is true for the corporate world but that is a bit extreme

**** It is not necessarily true for staff in academia or in government work- both of which move much slower than the corporate world.

**** Flip Side: If you work too hard at too intense a level, you are going to burn out

**** Really, it is about a good balance of getting your work done etc. and being rational at the same time

Today's topic: Editing

2 kinds of editing:

1. In our head/minds
2. What the audience is expecting

Goal of today is to create an Editing Worksheet: Checklist of what you want to make sure that you don’t miss when writing/editing a paper

3 Levels of Editing:

1. Global: overall read- how does the whole thing work together, are you getting your message across

2. Local: paragraph level- each paragraph as a community, how does first sentence support all the rest and how does it wrap up

3. Sentence : punctuation, mechanics, word choice

_____________________________

General ideas to keep in mind when you are writing:

• Would your grandmother understand?
• Assume an interdisciplinary audience – some highly knowledgeable and some not so knowledgeable. Test it to the most intelligent- have you maintained their interest without losing those people who don’t know very much?

Example: Malcolm Gladwell (author of Blink, and The Tipping Point) is a good example of writing very clearly- he has an appreciation that it is not about the “language”- it is about the ideas behind the language..and he really knows his material

Bridget’s suggestion:

· Use sideboxes in writingà sideboxes can be an area to explain or give clarification to those people who may not be familiar with the information AND those people who don’t need that extra info don’t really need to read it carefully

What do you look for when you are editing a paper?

In partners:

Tessa and Alicia:

1. comma usage

2. variety of sentence type

Bridget and Tariel

1. clear objective/thesis statement

2. flow/logical order

3. easy to find critical points?

Lara/Kate/Emily

1. flow/organization

2. relevant and appropriate recommendations

3. supporting and well-integrated evidence

4. answer the question- clear thesis

5. choice of language

6. appropriate scope

7. assumptions are explicit

Kelly and Alicia

1. thesis/big picture points

2. no long, wordy sentences

3. sentence flow within paragraph

4. tense/passive v. active agreement

5. format/organization

Nikki and Julie

1. intro and conclusion

2. spelling etc.

3. keep paragraph length concise (don’t let it get too big)

4. flow of paragraphs and sentences (avoid redundancy)

5. be aware of audience in terms of phrasing and word choice

Julia and Caitlin

1. concise

2. overall flow

3. topic/concluding sentences

4. sentence/word variation

5. grammar/punctuation

Shannon/Christina

1. Does it flow?

2. So what?

3. Concise and direct

4. Opening and closing sentence/paragraph

5. Strong intro and conclusion to Set the scene and sum it up

CLASS:

1. flow

2. clarity

a. word choice

b. organization

c. message

3. sentence variation

4. SO WHAT??? à significance (art is making it sound like it isn’t repetitive)

5. concise

ONE MAIN POINT when reading and/or editing a paper:

· Each reader is looking for slightly different things

· Writing is NOT math, not always right/wrong

· NO absolutes

· And there are things that everyone values: conciseness

GIVING and RECEIVING FEEDBACK:

(Interesting reading about this in Silvia – was not assigned)

How to manage feedback?

1. human element

2. you are not the last say on editing

3. depends what feedback is for: understand what the person is asking you for and ONLY give them that kind of feedback!!!!!

4. Pick one thing that they can work on and one thing that is really good (considering the time frame they have given you)

5. Don’t be overzealous!!!! – human element- more to writing than just having the perfect paper---

6. “Read it and tell me what you think?” means TOTALLY different things in different situations

i. At Bren

ii. Mean boss

iii. Colleague- 2 or 3 suggestions

7. ASK for what you NEED- clarify your expectations!

8. Turn-around quickly as possible…

9. Editing in the workplace isn’t about perfect piece, it is about the interpersonal collaboration

10. It isn’t worth insulting someone

11. But it isn’t worth NOT saying something if document will FAIL

12. So is a balance

* * No reader is going to read the paper as you read it!!!

Monica’s List

1. matches expectations of task

2. coherence (does it ever all make sense)

3. cohesion

4. clarity

5. compeling (so what)

6. well-supported

7. flow

8. transitions

9. strong conclusion

10. makes sense

11. necessary and sufficient (try to be necessary – do you have all info/evidence necessary to adequately cover it sufficiently- (BUT not too much to bore or scare reader)

Posted by Shannon Murray