University Writing Center

by Valerie Balester, Executive Director

Do you remember when you received a bifurcated grade on a paper—something like A for Content and C for writing? Conventional wisdom is that “writing” is something we do after we gather content and decide upon arguments: writing is the part where we select words, organize, punctuate, and put thoughts into language.

But there’s another way to look at it. Thinking about content and arguments is as much a part of writing as selecting and arranging words. That part of the process where you think up what to say, often by reading, taking notes, or talking to others, is sometimes called pre-writing, but there’s really nothing prior about it. It’s an essential element of the writing process.

And it happens that we think not only before we write, but as we write and revise. Writing generates new ideas. Writing is not simply organization, grammar, style, and mechanics imposed upon thought.

When we assign writing in the major, we are not simply asking students to communicate an idea already formed or a concept already learned. They are not “just writing”—they are also thinking within their new disciplines. To invite students to communicate in our disciplines is to teach them to think like we do: to value certain arguments over others, to understand the nature of evidence, to use particular formats, to present data in certain ways, and so on. What kinds of arguments will a mathematician make to prove a theorem to her peers? And how might a biochemist report on research in a way that will gain him a grant?

Your students won’t learn this from a technical writing class taught by someone outside your discipline.

When you assign writing in a W or a C course, consider whether the task serves to strengthen students’ understanding of content—will writing about history help them to consider what history is from a philosophical as well as a factual perspective? Can they use the facts they learn in physics and apply them to a real-world problem to help them learn at a deeper level?

Think of writing as another mode of learning, one that can engage students in a highly satisfying way and that can let them demonstrate to you how much they have really been able to enter into your discipline. Challenge students to think as well as to communicate. And spend some class time discussing how writers in your discipline think, how they organize arguments, view evidence, and present ideas. You’ll see much better writing and learning as a result.

Steven Quiring, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography, contributed this Write Idea on peer review.

Students in GEOG 324, Global Ciimate Regions, write a climatological research paper. Since writing a research paper can be a daunting task, it is , much easier if it is broken up into a number of smaller tasks. The students are provided with a schedule (shown below) to will help to keep them on track (and to limit procrastination).

Research Paper Schedule for a fall semester:

1. Choose the type of paper you would like to write and the general topic (middle of September)
2. Have your topic approved (Due Tuesday, October 16)
3. Start a literature search and the data collection (during October)
4. Write an outline for your paper and compile a list of references(Due Tuesday, October 30)
5. Continue researching your paper (literature search and/or data analysis) (first few weeks of November)
6. Complete a draft of your paper (complete by November 13)
7. Edit your own paper! (complete by November 15)
8. Hand in 3 copies of your paper so it can be reviewed by 3 of your classmates (Due Thursday, November 15)
9. Review 3 of your peers’ papers (Due Tuesday, November 20)
10. Revise your paper based on the reviewer’s comments
11. Submit final version of your paper (Due Tuesday November 27)

One of the most important parts of this process is the peer review. An entire class is devoted to demonstrating how to complete a peer review. I first circulate a copy of a rubric (sample below) for evaluating the research paper. I discuss the purpose of the peer review and how to use the rubric. Then I distribute a copy of a paper that was submitted in a previous semester (usually a ‘B’ paper although I don’t tell the students what grade I gave it) for the students to read. The students are given time to read the paper and complete the rubric. They are divided into small groups of 3 to 4 and asked to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the paper that they reviewed. Finally, all the groups report back to the whole class, and we discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the paper in terms of organization, structure, grammar, references, use of figures and tables, etc.

This year, I invited one of the writing consultants from UWC to participate in this class. This was an extremely valuable experience since it provided the students with another perspective. Patricia was able to focus on some of the common grammatical mistakes and issues relating to writing mechanics, while I was able to focus on the climatological content and adherence to discipline-specific writing conventions. Using a “real” paper submitted captures the students’ interest and creates a teachable moment for helping them to identify weaknesses in their own writing.

Each student is required to bring three copies of their paper to the peer review class. I employ a double blind review process (each manuscript and reviewer is assigned a number), and the students are sent home to review three papers written by their peers. I also review each of the drafts using the same rubric as the students. After the students get all four reviews back, they are given some time to incorporate the reviewers’ suggestions before submitting the final version of their paper.

Generally the reviews completed by the students contain some constructive feedback. The biggest problem is that some students submit a very rough draft of their paper for peer review (since they know their draft is not being graded). This makes it hard to provide constructive feedback when the paper is missing many of the essential elements that the students are asked to evaluate.

Although the peer review process requires some time and effort on my part, I believe that this approach helps to significantly improve the quality of the research papers. It also helps the students to become better at proof reading and reviewing their own work.

CHECKLIST FOR THE REVIEWER

Rate each factor on a 1 to 5 scale, with 1 being poor and 5 being excellent.

1) Is the title informative and a reflection of the content?

2) Are the approach, results and conclusions evident from just reading the abstract?

3) Are the purpose and content of the paper evident in the introduction?

4) Is the paper logically structured and well-organized? (including use of appropriate section headings)

5) Is the paper written using the correct spelling, grammar, and syntax?

6) Are the ideas sufficiently developed? Is there enough depth to the discussion?

7) Did you understand what the author was trying to say?

8) Did you learn something from reading this paper?

9) Has the author written in a clear and concise manner? Is it easy to read?

10) Has the author used the proper citation style (e.g., International Journal of Climatology)?

11) Has the author used enough relevant sources (at least 5 (or 15) recent peer-reviewed sources)?

12) Has the author given credit for all of the ideas that are not their own (e.g., avoided plagiarism)?

13) Are all of the references properly cited in the reference list at the end of the paper?

14) Has the author properly used data (if appropriate) to support their argument:

15) Are the illustrations/tables useful and necessary?

16) Are the illustrations/tables of good quality?

17) Is the paper an appropriate length?

18) Overall quality of the work:

The purpose of your review is to provide the author with the means to improve their paper, so please provide adequate justification for your ratings. The comments can be included here or on the paper itself.

Please justify the ratings that you have provided above and provide more detail.

[Leave space for an answer here.]

Can you suggest any other improvements to this paper?

A contribution from Vic Penuel, Texas A&M at Galveston

Vic Penuel, a lecturer in Technical Writing and a resource for W courses on the Galveston campus, is developing a brief series of approximately ten of these tips from a writing instructor. They will be completed as the spring 2008 semester starts. Any instructor on either campus can request the series by emailing Vic at penuelv@tamug.edu.

Use a scorecard

One of the easiest ways to lighten your grading load is to use a scorecard. As a developmental exercise leading to writing an academic paper, I like to hand out an article from a peer reviewed journal or a periodical and ask students to write an abstract for it.

The abstract will tell me whether they can summarize effectively, selecting key points and presenting them in their own words. My assignment description requires a reference style citation and a clear simple title. The reference must be in APA, CMOS (Chicago Manual of Style) or something appropriate for the course.

My score card might read:

In the assignment description, I list the required elements and explain the point value of each, for example “inclusion of essential information” as part of the summary, and I stress that nothing appears in the summary which is not part of the original and that it must appear in the same sequence as in the article. On my scorecard (which I attach as a cover when I return the paper), I make comments such as “You left out the findings about dolphins as bioindicators” or “you covered these in a sequence which differs from the original.” I then give them a score, 35/40.

In the language section, I may list “run on sentences, fragments, and single-plural shifts (I mark one or two on the paper) and a score, 20/30. Students learn how to score points. I focus on grading things I want to teach in the assignment, emphasizing title, summary, and citation format. Most upper level students have few serious language problems and those are largely habit. Identifying habits early in the semester gives them time to develop new ones rather than losing points repeatedly for the same error, an error unrelated to their knowledge or skill in the course content.

Occasionally, I encounter a student whose basic skills are weak enough to threaten his or her ability to pass. I give extra attention, but I also refer the student to the University Writing Center, his or her favorite writing teachers, or a top student worker to support my efforts. This gets the student needed help and keeps me focused on teaching students how to write abstracts, materials and methods, persuasive arguments and other elements of academic writing.

The scorecard changes with each assignment-focusing on the things most important to the particular assignment. It can be as simple or as complex as needed. Students learn to depend on it in evaluating their own efforts. Removing the mystique from writing gives them confidence and helps remove writer’s block. The scorecard is useful in peer reviews. Because it is systematic, it keeps me from bogging down in detail unrelated to course objectives. Most important, students I believed can’t write can write. They just needed someone to define the territory, someone to show them how, someone to keep score.

There is no mystique in the scorecard. It is in the back of my mind as I grade since I know what I will count off for, add on for or disregard, but as I grade, it becomes fuzzy and I bog down. Creating a scorecard, putting it on paper, makes it clear. It becomes a checklist; I go through the steps and record the points. Because I am an academic, when I explain it to friends looking for a simple way to improve student writing while controlling their workloads, I explain it in English teacher jargon. . . . I make it sound impressive. I call it a rubric.

This is the first of a series of entries called Write Idea, an exchange of ideas about teaching writing. This entry is contributed by Barbara Gastel, Associate Professor of Integrative Biosciences/Medical Humanities.

The following exercise for sharpening paragraph-and sentence-level editing skills is used in BIMS 481, Seminar in Writing. Goals of this required course for biomedical science majors include introducing students to types of writing done by biomedical scientists and health professionals and strengthening students’ general writing skills.

Near the middle of the semester, the students learn the standard structure of a clinical case report and look at some published case reports. They also receive brush-ups on punctuation and other aspects of the mechanics of writing.

They then receive an exercise consisting of five sentences from a veterinary case history and five sentences from a human case history. Each set of five sentences has been scrambled, and a mechanical error has been introduced into each. The students’ task is (1) to put each set of sentences in the proper order and (2) to correct the mechanical error in each sentence. The completed exercise is reviewed in class and is graded.

Although the exercise isn’t a writing assignment per se, it reinforces items being taught about writing. It also provides a mid-semester change of pace. After a few regular writing assignments and before a few more, students seem ready for something different. And instructors seem ready too for a week with a different type of grading.

We were informed this past summer by Instructional Technology Services that students should not include identifying information on work submitted to Turnitin.com. ITS is concerned about reservations expressed by the U.S. Department of Education regarding student privacy and FERPA regulations. However, some professionals within the field of composition instruction have other concerns: plagiarism detection software like Turnitin does more damage, many of us fear, than violating privacy. One of the most influential professional organizations in composition, the Conference on College Communication and Composition (CCCC), for example, suggests that plagiarism detection software “undermines students’ authority over the uses of their own writing” (http://ccccip.org/files/CCCC-IP-PDS-Statement-final.pdf).

Why, you might ask, should we care? After all, student writing is just practice writing, and it doesn’t really count for anything. It’s not like our writing, by which we make our bread and butter. But when we treat student writing as inconsequential, so do students, and the result is the careless, poorly written drivel that we have been trying to obliterate with W courses. Students who do not feel pride of ownership and control over their work will not give it the time and attention it needs to be excellent.

Beyond this basic concern is the atmosphere plagiarism software detection programs can create, the expectation that students will cheat, that they are basically dishonest in their work. This atmosphere undermines trust and make writing even more distasteful. It’s just another trap, another hurdle to jump before graduation. Students are encouraged to see writing for college as a game rather than as an integral part of their education. We don’t want that.

The CCCC also worries that programs like Turnitin will make college faculty complacent by shifting responsibility for detecting plagiarism onto technology. It’s only a matter of time before students learn to beat the software. I have personally tested it with my students, asking them to cheat; many of their transgressions went undetected by Turnitin. Students who run originality reports that come out clean may still have made mistakes, but if they rely too heavily on the report, they will not know it.

After all, learning citation properly is far more than learning a set of rules, a style, the correct placement of commas and capital letters. Learning citation is first and foremost learning how a discipline creates and disseminates knowledge. It is subtle, takes many years to master, and is the mark of a professional. Still, difficult as it is to teach, we must do so. We have to take the time and make the effort to treat our students as apprentices and to invite them into our communities of practice.

Writers, we composition specialists know, is often learned by imitation. We examine the work of the masters; we analyze it, practice it, are critiqued as we attempt it, and we keep it up until we can do it as well as our betters. In the process, we make mistakes (thus the critiques). As instructors, we cannot let a technology find all the errors, then, without remarking upon them, expect students to correct them. Besides the fact that Turnitin can lull students into a false sense of security—they may have errors the software did not catch—it does nothing to help them correct errors it discovers. It cannot teach how to work a citation into a text without distracting the reader, nor can it teach the difference between direct or indirect quotation, or when or why something might be considered common knowledge. It cannot explain why in some citation styles dates are foregrounded while in others they are not, nor show why in some documents citations within the text are provided while others omit them.

I am advocating responsible use of Turnitin.com. Syllabi should always make it abundantly clear from the first day of class if students are expected or required to use it, and they should be informed of the privacy issues raised by ITS. They should be told what “identifying information” means.

Better yet, I suggest you do not require Turnitin.com, but make it available to students to use in the drafting stages of their writing. Offer help in interpreting results. Most important of all, devote some time in class to discussing the logic of citation and the ways that knowledge is disseminated in the discipline of the class.