A last piece of advice, and your grades are posted.

A recent blog post from lifehack.ogr on how to improve one's resume had the follow point:

3. Proofread past spell check.

Just about everyone runs a spell check on their resume. But I’ve seen so many typos that a computer can’t catch: misused words, misspelled business names — I’ve even seen a resume with the applicant’s name misspelled! You should always read over documents to double check them, and if you can get a friend to read over your resume, go for it.

After reading portfolios for the past week, the advice to read past the spell check hit home. Let me offer an example I encountered on a more or less regular basis. A student would claim they had learned to improve their proofreading technique or to start work on critical texts earlier, giving the writing process time to help them produce more polished documents. In the next paragraph, I would encounter a word like "sue," as in, "I have learned to start work well before it was sue." The student had obviously hit the "s" when they intended to hit the "d" in "due." It was equally obvious, the student never read a final copy of their work out loud; instead, they continued to trust spell check to mark each and every word which was miss used or miss spelled. By claiming to proofread more carefully but not including reading out loud on such a critical document, like the cover essay to the portfolio, the student's credibility nose-dived.

So, here is my last piece of advice for the semester, "In critical documents, 'Proofread past spell check.'"

Have a good break. Grades are now up and posted. I will be happy to answer questions after I am back from break on 5 January.

Steve

Free stuff for 2009...

Hard economic times means students have even less money than usual; so, ever cent saved counts. Enter open source and online applications.

Over the semester, you have learned to use google docs, an online web based word processor. You can use google gears to use docs when you are offline, or you can do with I do and downloadopenoffice.

Open office is a lot like MS Office, and if you can use one, you can use another. Like MS Office, openoffice suffers from feature bloat, but there are times when you need access to features for specialized formatting, etc.

We've talked about Zotero as an online research tool. Today another online research tool crossed my desk, Webnotes. Follow this link to see what the fuss is about:

WebNotes Offers a Virtual Highlighter for Web Research

Sites like Google Docs and Zoho offer a host of applications you might normally have to buy. For instance, I haven't used Outlook for over a year to organize my life, instead everything pours into google mail--another application you've learned to use and one you get for free from the community college. Gmail has recently added todo lists, contact management, and applets to google calendar and docs, all from the mail gmail page. Look under LABS in the setting tab.

If paper time management is more your style,google the hipster PDA--a free template for a paper based personal manager. Remember, next semester is always a new semester; so, between semesters you can set up new time management tools to help you get more done.

Steve

Extended Office Hours Finals Week

Good morning,

I want to let you know how to find me over the next week. After Friday you will be in finals week, so I am going to extend my office hours. Here's my schedule:

Thursday, 12/11
7:30-8:15 at Atlee High School; 8:30-11:00 advising in Rm 206 Burnette; 11:00-12:00 teaching a 111 section; 12:00-2:15 in the Academic Support Center
Friday, 12/12
7:30-8:15 at Atlee High School; 9:00-10:00 teaching; 10:00-12:00 in my office at 231 Massey, Parham Road Campus
Monday, 12/15
7:30-8:15 at Atlee High School; 9:00-12:00 in my office at 231 Massey, Parham Road Campus; 12:00-2:15 in Academic Support
Tuesday 12/16
7:30-8:15 at Atlee High School; 9:00-1:30 in my office at 231 Massey, Parham Road Campus
Wednesday 12/17
7:30-8:15 at Atlee High School; 9:00-1:30 in my office at 231 Massey, Parham Road Campus
Thursday 12/18
9:00-12:00 in my office at 231 Massey, Parham Road Campus; 12:00-2:15 in Academic Support
Friday 12/19
9:00-1:30 in my office at 231 Massey, Parham Road Campus

Sometime over the weekend of 12/20, I will turn in grades and head out for Christmas Break. During Christmas Break, I have promised my wife I will not be teaching, accepting emails, etc., and she and the family will have all my attention. Any questions will have to wait until my return to campus on 8 January; so, if you have a question now, ask. As always, I will be happy to accept emails and telephone calls and make appointments outside the office hours I list above. However, emails will need to be fairly short and the questions specific. If you need lengthy explanations, call or stop by. My home number is 804-262-8585.

Please do get in touch over the next days and let me answer questions about the portfolio, read drafts, etc. If you stop by and I am not in the office, come on in and sit down. I will limit excursions to my mailbox, to check in with colleagues, etc.; and, I will try to limit time outside my office to 20 minutes or less, so if you stop by and don't find me in, come in, have a seat, and wait. I will soon return.

You will notice I will continue to work in the Academic Support Center, Monday and Thursday afternoons. Fill free to stop by and ask questions, my sessions there are usually handled as group sessions, and anyone is welcome to come in and join, ask questions about writing assignments, etc. The same holds true for the hours I am advising in 206 Burnette. Those coming in for advising have dibs over my working with my students, but it has been my experience few students do stop by for advising this week.

When you do come in for a meeting, bring a copy of your portfolio to discuss, and try to bring two copies of your cover essay.

Steve

Framing your claims with examples and analysis.

One group sent a claim and the evidence they plan to use to back up the claim. As you develop paragraphs to support the various claims you will make in your cover essay, I thought you might profit from the exchange, so find it below:

Claims

1.) I learned a great deal of information from my group members.

Example of supporting my claim: X corrected my articles providing me with a starting point on what I needed to work on this semester. After receiving some much needed advice, I looked at what my worst grammatical mistake was and researched ways that provided me with a solution to the problem.

Here, you should go on to include an example of an article Cate corrected in the portfolio evidence section. In the section of your cover essay where you discuss the article, point to the article you've included and make sure to note the specific advice you found useful and the specific aspects of the article you changed based on this advice. [Other advice: I might pull out the section on fixing your worst grammatical mistake and develop it into a separate section or paragraph. Paragraphs should focus on one central idea, develop in, and then you move on to another paragraph.] Back to the claim and the paragraph you are developing to support it.

Notice you are building up what you can think of as a basic body paragraph in academic writing, one where you do the following:

1. You make a claim.
2. You explain exactly what you mean by the claim in another sentence or so.
3. You point to a specific example/quote/summary/paraphrase/fact, etc. which illustrates your claim.
4. You explain/analyze your example, etc., pointing out the specific aspects of it which are significant to the reader fully understanding your claim.
5. You transition into your next paragraph using a sentence, phrase, or keyword.

To provide a full example, you might go on to develop your paragraph as follows:

Claim: I learned a great deal of information from my group members.
Explanation: For example, X corrected my articles providing me with a starting point on what I needed to work this semester.
Example: In the evidence section of this portfolio, I have included a rhetorical analysis with which X helped me. You can see it on page Y of the evidence section.
Analysis/Discussion: X pointed out what I later decided was my worst grammar problem--the need to make sure my subjects and verbs agree in number. For instance, you might look at this sentence, "In this situation, the noise was found in both the assumptions Tom made about the audience and the background of the audience." Originally, it read, "the noise founds" X told me to read the sentence out loud. When I did, I realized "noise founds" did not sound right, so I changed it to "the noise was found."
Transition: All semester, I received this kind of valuable advice from my group.

Notice how the transition sentence sets up the next paragraph to discuss another aspect of the advice you found useful.

Notice how linking your claim to specific a specific article you include in the evidence section allows you to point to specific aspects of the article and fully discuss and develop your claim. Many students never make this leap. They link to an example to back up their claim, but they don't go on to discuss and explain the significance of the evidence to understanding their claim. Not taking this step in the difference between a "B" or "C" paper and an "A" paper. Discussion and analysis of a claim takes more time and work, but by the time you are done, your reader knows exactly what you mean, and they are *sure* you have given your claim a lot of thought. This last gains you ethos and makes your claims more likely to be believed.

The Value of Writing Well

Lifehack.org has posted a good article on the value to be gained in learning to write well. Here's the link:

http://www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/the-value-of-writing-well.html

Here's my favorite quote from the article:

"...businesses repeatedly cite “communication skills” as the single most desirable trait in new employees."

Why is all the work in a 111 or 112 English course worth your time and effort?

"Good writing pays better than does bad."

For this semester, the end is in sight. Your portfolio will soon be finished and turned in. While patting yourself on the back, remember a lesson my father told me my wedding day, "This is just the start of all you'll need to know and do to make the marriage work." The same holds true for writing. Like putting work into a good marriage, learning to write well pays all back nine fold in terms of the life you can live.

Steve

Portfolio, Question and Answer Session

A group in another class has engaged me in a series of questions and answers using google docs. The session is focused on questions they have about the portfolio. Here is a link to the ongoing session:

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dg5rkm34_28dpd896gk

It is very possible some of your own questions may be answered here; so, I thought I would post a view only link.

Steve

Tricks for Drafting

Drafting is the stage of the writing process where you get the ideas you've captured in pre-writing into a draft ready for revision. It is also the stage where the dreaded notion of "writer's block" most often comes into play. Writer's block, that is, the inability to write, usually happens for one of two reasons: 1) you are trying to do too much and a kind of verbal constipation occurs; or, 2) the anxiety associated with the text you are crafting triggers a procrastination response. For help with how to overcome procrastination, look at my earlier post on the subject. You might also follow this link for some solid advice on some tactics for overcoming writer's block:

http://www.tcc.edu/students/resources/writcent/HANDOUTS/writing/writblock.htm

For advice about how to avoid verbal constipation, read on.

Drafting is about one thing, getting your ideas out of your head and into a form that can be revised. That is. It is, however, far from uncommon for writers who are just learning the craft to try to do too much besides asking themselves, "What do I say next?," and then writing down what comes to mind. Instead, they are try to revise their ideas or discover what they can say or proofread or some combination of all three while they try to draft a text. All you should try to do when drafting is getting the ideas discovered in pre-writing into a form which can be revised and proofread. You do this one at a time and section by section.

Trying to do everything at once results in taking a fairly tough job--crafting a draft--and making it much, much harder than it has to be. A good analogy is trying to cook every dish in a complicated meal while setting a formal table and entertaining guests. Just as a good meal shared with others requires planning out what needs to be done first, second, etc., so does crafting a successful text. Put off starting the entree until the last moment before your guests arrive, and you might as well send out for pizza.

Good writing takes time and focus, especially crafting long or complicated texts well. Just as not every meal is complicated to cook, you can write some kinds of texts with little forethought or planning. Just as a large meal requires a different level of planning, trying to craft a long, complicated text at the last moment is a recipe for disaster. Until you know the kinds of texts you can just write and those which need careful planning and a lot of time to draft and revise, give yourself more time than you think you need. A good rule of thumb is to double your first estimate and then add in ten percent.

Give yourself permission to take the time needed, to plan ahead, and to do each step in turn, and then you can succeed. Try to do everything at once without any plan, and--most likely--you will fail. Repeatedly fail, and you soon find yourself hating to write and thinking you can never learn. Learn to hate writing and you will loose confidence in your ability to write, and every time you write, you will feel anxious, because you want to succeed; indeed, you need to succeed, but you expect failure. Go through this cycle long enough, and you will avoid writing. Once the avoidance becomes habitual and unconscious, you'll have writer's block. So? Take the time needed to succeed and build confidence, not set yourself up to fail.

As always, write or call with questions.

Steve

Final Portfolio: Frequently Asked Questions. This is a must read.

Frequently asked questions about the final portfolio?

How much of my final grade for the course will it count? 60%. The other 40% is determined by your class participation.

When is the portfolio due? 17 December, 7:30 in class.

Should I continue to do the weekly rhetorical analysis and comments while I work on the portfolio? Only if you have some which you didn't complete; otherwise, no.

What goes into the portfolio? 1) a 5-10 page cover letter; and, 2) a 10-25 page collection of work. Total length should not exceed 35 pages.

Can I turn it in after 17 December? Only if there is substantial evidence of hardship. A crashed printer, failure to backup, or catching a cold doesn't count. I expect you to plan for such events and to have started early.

How to turn the portfolio in? You can turn your portfolio in either as a long google doc, which you share with me, or in a manilla folder, which you turn into me by 7:30 AM in class. If you go the google documents route, name your document: "Your Last Name, ENG 111, Fall 2008, Section Number X." You fill in your name and section number, AT64.

Can I turn my portfolio in early? Of course. Make arrangements with me. Having said this, remember, your class participation grade will continue to play a factor in your overall grade. Finish early and bail on your group, and you will take a hit on your final grade. Part of your job is to make sure everyone in your group succeeds.

How can I receive my portfolio back? If you turn in a physical copy, include a self-addressed large envelop, and I will mail your portfolio back to you; otherwise, I will leave comments in the google doc of your portfolio.

How will I know my grade on the portfolio? Grades will be posted once the college processes them. If you wish, you can include a note in your google doc portfolio giving me permission to state your grade for the portfolio and/or course in my comments. Remember to edit your share list accordingly. Those with whom you share your docs based portfolio will be able to see any comments I make and your final grade. In either case, please remember how harried I will be. Because I want to give you as much time as I can to help you succeed, I'm giving you up until the last day possible to turn in your portfolio; this means, I am only giving myself a day or so to read them, review them in the context of your work over the semester, and turn in your grade. I won't have much time to chat in comments. Please do feel free to contact me after to the grading period for more extended comments or to discuss any questions you have about writing in the future.

How many pages long should a portfolio be? No longer than 35; no shorter than 20. Don't panic. You've written more than enough to meet these demands. In fact, you will be surprised how much you have to weed out to meet them. Now, give yourself a pat on the back, and the next time you are asked to write a lot, remember how much you can write...if you use the right process and if you spread the work out.

How long is a page? A page is double spaced. It is written using twelve point typeface. The spacing between paragraphs is the same as that between lines within a paragraph, that is, double spaced. Each page has one inch margins side, top, and bottom.

How should I format my reflective cover essay? Start with the date, drop down a couple of lines and open with, "Dear Steve,...: End with something like, "Sincerely, ..." You've written a letter. This one is just typed, double spaced, and written to convince me to give you a specific grade. Remember, the object is to convince me you have earned the grade for which you argue. Try to anticipate any objections I might have to your argument, and address them in your reflective essay. Such concerns will be about class participation, if you've taken advantage of the opportunities to learn which have been offered, if you've learned the material in the course, and--most important--if you've learned to become a better writer and communicator.

Why is the cover reflective essay SO long? The cover letter serves the same learning function as does a final. That is, to allow the student to review all the material covered in the course, to provide the chance for the student to integrate the material covered, and, last and least, to allow the teacher to judge the students' learning and performance in the course. It needs to be long to cover the various material you've learned and to allow you space to provide sufficient detail and evidence to convince me you've learned it all.

Then why not a final? It's a course in writing and communication. You need the practice, and this is a *difficult* rhetorical situation you'll encounter later in life. Such self assessment happens every year in annual reviews. In this case, in the process of putting together the portfolio, I get you to review what you should have learned, get you to gauge and assess your learning (hence, making sure you really learn instead of just memorize), and I get to give the knowledge and skill set one last chance to set.

What tone should I use in the reflective essay? Use first person, that is, "I." You should have figured out by now, I am fairly informal, but I am your professor, and as an audience, I'm charged with making sure you have learned to write well. This means I'm looking at everything involved with your writing, including your grammar, usage, and punctuation. After all, you are supposed to have learned some tricks to help you in proofreading and revision in this course. It's only fair you should practice them. Having said this, I am more concerned you learned the concepts in the class, including Kaizen and how to improve your writing--including surface level polish--through researching specific problems and fixing them. I also expect you've improved in how well you proofread. After all, you've been practicing revision, critique, and proofreading all semester.

What style should I use in the reflective essay? The KISS/SVO<24. style. What should I say in the reflective essay? Your essay will consist of a series of claims backed up with support. You main claim or focus for the letter will be what grade you deserve in the course, but you will need to make a series of lessor or sub-claims (and back these up) for you to convince me your major claim for a grade is valid. Prove your major and sub-claims using evidence from the writing you have done this semester. To figure out what sub-claims you need to make, think of the major ideas, terms, and skills you have had an opportunity to learn this semester, and make claims about these. For instance, one of the major ideas you had a chance to learn involved rhetoric. You might make a sub-claim like the following:

"I understand rhetoric better than I did at the beginning of the semester, and I have learned how to use rhetorical analysis to gain a richer critical understanding of the communication which happens around me and to build on this understanding to become a better writer and communicator."

You the evidence you might use to prove this claim might be taken from on of your rhetorical analysis. You might compare your early work this semester with your later work, or a draft version to a final version you have revised. You might discuss each of the primary ideas in a rhetorical analysis, to show me you understand them, and then quote from different rhetorical analysis to show me how your understanding of the terms has grown. You might tell me a story about day-to-day communication this semester and how rhetorical analysis helped you understand and be a better communicator in a communication situation in which you found yourself.

Your cover letter will be made up of different claims you make concerning what you have learned and how you have performed in the class--not just rhetoric. Make sure you develop each of these claims with more than adequate support. Remember, one of the main things I am judging you on is on the quality of your claims and how well you develop the support for each claim you make.

What advice can you give me about what to say in the reflective essay and how to approach writing it?

1. Make good, solid believable claims. Don't try to snowball me. If you screwed up in working with your group or in terms of getting the work done, don't gloss over this screw up. Instead, make it a part of what you discuss in your letter. Remember, I am not interested in excuses or reasons. I am interested in how you used a place where you messed up to learn and to get back on track. I am interested in how you recovered and what you learned in the process. You can turn having done poorly into an asset by discussing it in terms of what you have learned about Kaizen and process, how you corrected your mistakes, or--at the very least--how you might correct them in future.
   
2. Having taught freshman writing most of my adult life, I have very well defined BS meter. Don't make the BS meter go off.
   
3. Don't inflate how much you have learned or the grade you feel you deserve. You might be tempted to say, "I deserve an 'A,' when you feel you deserve a 'C.'" You'll get more credit if you make the claim for a "C." Remember, one thing I am judging is your ability to make effective claims you can backup. If you claim an "A," but can't back up your case, it will count against you. To work, claims must be honest and realistic.
4. In the same vein as 2, be creative in how you back up a claim. You've got all the work and thinking you have done this semester as potential evidence to back up your claims. While I expect the majority of your evidence and support to be grounded in the writing and work you have done for the course, don't forget that you've been learning to think about your writing as a process. This means notes you've taken, email clarifications, revisions and proofreading you have done all are potential evidence to help you support your claims about process. You might also tell stories which illustrate a point you want to make, or you might point to a piece another student has written. Your choices, while not endless, are very wide ranging; so, my best advice is to spend at least as much time going through and figuring out how you will back up your claims as you do. To do this well, go back and review *all* the work you have done for the course and *all* the reading you have been asked to do. Take notes. Your grade depends on how well you do these pre-writing tasks. You can also bring in--up to 1/4th of your evidence section from writing you have done for work and in other classes. Show me how you've allied the lessons from this class to other work, and I *will* be impressed.
   
5. Work with your group. A good pre-writing exercise for this assignment is to go through and review the reading and writing for this class and to take notes on claims you can make about your learning and how you can use writing from and to the class as evidence to back up your claim. Another effective pre-writing exercise is to then get together and share this information as a group. They *will* have had ideas about claims and how to support them which you haven't, and their idea might be the difference between a high and low grade. You might also think about getting your group to critique your claims and the development of them, and when you are finished with an initial draft helping you proofread.
6. If you try to draft this essay and turn in your initial draft in a single pass, you will fail. You have over two weeks to revise and perfect this reflective essay. It counts a *lot* of your final grade. Take the time to do it right. Use process writing. Revise multiple times over the course of the next two weeks. Get an initial draft done early,in the next few days, so you can add ideas to it and let it develop into your best work. Rush this process, and chances are, you will be disappointed in the result.

What can go into the evidence section of the portfolio? Any of the work you have done this semester. I don't want you to include it all. Go through it looking for the work which will best help you make a case for the grade you think you deserve in the course. Think of the evidence section as evidence you can point to in your cover letter to help prove your claims. It's one thing to say, "I've learned to work better with groups and to use others to improve my writing." This is a great claim, but think how this claim comes alive if you point me to a particular email exchange or place in a google document where you really and truly helped another person in your group or they helped you. A good evidence section is a collection of such places in your learning this semester. The writing and work you include should help you make the case for your claims *and* show off your writing and communication and what you have learned.

Do surface level issues count in the evidence section? Yes, but not as much as they do in the reflective essay or as much as the deep content. If you have to make a choice about what to proofread carefully, make the choice to proofread your reflective essay. Do this last carefully using multiple passes. Know the best choice you can make is to pick good evidence and work which shows you off at your best or which helps you make the case for each claim.

Does this mean I should re-type and proofread everything I include in the evidence section? No. For instance, you might decide to back up a claim you make about having taken the time to read the material in the course carefully, actively, and thoroughly by including a photocopy of notes you took on a hard copy of the reading. Don't retype these notes just to show me you can type and proofread. Include a copy or a link to a scanned pdf. It would be silly to re-type them. The same applies in other instances. Use your best judgment. If you include an analysis you have written or other type of written work, then, yes, revise and proofread. Your measure here is: "Will retyping or proofreading make my audience more likely to respond to my message in the way I hope?" AND "Is this better response worth the time and effort to retype or proofread?" Learning to balance such questions is what the course has been about.

What do I do if I don't see an answer to a question I have about the portfolio? As always, write with questions.

Drafting Tricks: Start your draft with an email.

Drafting in email is a trick I often use. It's easier for me to stay on task and focus my writing when I know I have a particular audience. The upshot? I often start and revise a draft in email, and then I move it over to a word processor for final polish and formatting.

For more on how to use email as a drafting tool, check here:

http://www.lifeclever.com/unstuck-your-writing-with-an-email/

FYI: Working with Groups

Here are three links to reading on how to work well with groups, especially online:

http://writing.colostate.edu/guides/processes/group/list7.cfm

http://www.see.ed.ac.uk/~gerard/Management/art0.html?http://www.ee.ed.ac.uk/~gerard/Management/art0.html

http://www.kolabora.com/news/2005/01/29/virtual_teamwork_best_practices_focus.htm

My favorite line from these articles is this:

"Communication is the responsibility of both the speaker and the listener. The speaker must actively seek to express the ideas in a clear and concise manner - the listener must actively seek to understand what has been said and to ask for clarification if unsure. Finally, both parties must be sure that the ideas have been correctly communicated perhaps by the listener summarizing what was said in a different way."

It comes from the second article.

Google Docs Help

Here's a good place to find help learning how to use google docs:

http://documents.google.com/support/bin/topic.py?topic=15114

Resource Post: Using Firefox and Zotero to Keep Research Notes

As you research, you keep notes. You can keep your notes on three by five cards, in a bound notebook, or in an electronic format, like Google Documents. Electronic formats have the advantage of being able to be sorted by tags or searched by keywords, allowing you to more quickly moved from gathering information to outlining your research.

Readers of research need to know from where your ideas come. Doing respected research means making your means available to your readers, so it can be reproduced, or they can tell where you went wrong. Either way, research without documentation if much like an opinions without supporting evidence, everyone has an opinion, so--while it isn't worthless without support--its value is greatly reduced.

Downloading the free and open source browser Firefox and adding the research extension, Zotero, can help you with the task of keeping research notes. Zotero allows you to capture web pages, paper articles and books published online, or to capture part of them. Each time you capture such an entry, Zotero allows you to capture bibliographic information along with what you have captured. It will even help you prepare bibliographies, and export them to OpenOffice or to Word.

Here's a link to Firefox: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/


Here's a link to Zotero: http://www.zotero.org/

Take the Time to Vote

You know that feeling you get when you hear the Star Spangled Banner play? I know it's corny. I still get that feeling. The librarian who was supposed to open our precinct over-slept, so there was a long line to vote, but I didn't see anyone head back to their cars. For the first time in a while, I was reminded of the time and comfort everyday Americans are willing to give up to make sure the work of the Republic gets done, and I got that feeling.

I got there at 6:00 AM, thinking few others would be there so early. I was wrong. Already the line wrapped around the Ginter Park Library. Those joining the line knew it would be a long wait. We could see the beginning of the line where the end crossed the beginning. Some had been there since 5:00, standing in a cold, slow rain. The only hubbub I heard was the shout of joy in the doors opened.

Too often, I underestimate Americans. I shouldn't. Each time there's been a crisis, I've seen the nation pull together. Each time I think Americans don't care passionately about liberty and aren't willing to do the work necessary to keep the great experiment going, I have been proven wrong. This morning was an example. As folks would come out, more than one walked the long line telling us it was worth the wait. It was.


Steve

Grammar, Usage, Punctuation, and Spelling

Resource of the day:

http://www.refdesk.com/factgram.html

Assignments for Weekend of 24-26 October

1. There will be *no* rhetorical analysis or comments due this week. Spend the extra time getting caught up on any assignments you may not have done or done half-heartedly.

2. Don't forget, your reflective, persuasive essay is due this by mid-night tonight. Use Google Docs to create it, and make sure to add me as a collaborator.

3.. We've spoken in class about how, at least in academic writing, one uses evidence to support claims and opinions.

As a way of helping you "get" how evidence works in the relationship between opinion and support, over the weekend, I thought I might ask you to explore this site:

http://www.exploratorium.edu/evidence/index.html

In particular, I want you to look at the link "Can you believe it?" Note the various questions scientists ask of scientific articles to find out if the evidence is worth anything. At the end of the discussion of questions, there's a link you can use to look at science articles collected for today's headlines. Look at one or two, and ask the questions suggested by the site. Decide if the claims are worth anything and, in particular, the evidence used to back up the claims.

Steve

Reflective, Persuasive Essay Due Friday

Your reflective, Persuasive essay is due by Friday Midnight. Share a version of the file with me via google docs. Name your file, "Lastname, Reflective Essay, October 2008."

Between now and Friday, revise once more to make sure you are using evidence to support your claims. Make sure you explain the significance of each piece of example and evidence. Explain their significance in terms of the claim you make and how the evidence shows your claim to be true.

Finally, after you have finished revising, proofread your essay at least twice using two differnt methods from the blog post on proofreading.

FYI: Four Year College Transfer Days

J. Sargeant Reynolds
Community College
4 Year College
Transfer Days

Tuesday, Oct. 21st (Burnette Hall- PRC) & Thursday, Oct. 23 (1st Floor Lobby- DTC)
11am until 1pm
Meet with Admissions Representatives
Learn about Guaranteed Admission Agreements
and Transferability of Classes

Randolph-Macon UVA
Bluefield College VA State University
Hampton University VCU
ODU Virginia Tech
JMU Mary Washington
NC State University Radford University
University of Richmond
and many more!

An example of a good, solid rhetorical analysis.

A few students have asked I post an example of the kind of rhetorical analysis for which I am looking each week. Below is a good, solid example. It could be improved, but I am impressed with how the author has placed himself in the rhetorical place of the person he is analyzing. The author of the analysis does a good job of identifying his rhetor's audience, and looking at a specific problem the rhetor is facing and how the rhetor crafts his message to overcome these problems. There are even specific examples. I would prefer the author had taken a few extra minutes to proofread, but over all, I would give the following example an "A."

Here's the example:

Watching preist perform the mass is an excellent example of Rhetoric. His ethos is established by the clothes he wears, the logos can be simply achieved by backing up your statements with scripture, and pathos can easily be achieved when people come to church, looking and expecting to feel better about themselves. The audience is generally the same group of people. Old people who come from habit, young people who come because they're forced to, and people in the middle looking for answers about life. The message stays pretty consistent from week to week: live right, but if you can't you can be forgiven. The thing that makes their job difficult is keeping the attention of this audience week to week when you need to send the same general message. They try to do this by varying the stories and examples they use. I cannot imagine this is as easy to do as it sounds. The three groups I described which compose the congregation are very diverse. Many of the stories I can relate to do not apply to many of the near-deads who sit up front. Very frequently the situations they find humorous don't do anything for me. Our priest seems to have discovered the secret to making everyone pay attention. His Homilies often conist of you might be a redneck if jokes and comparisons to professional football. Everyone likes these.

Disregard Draft Revision Assignment

Thank a couple of your classmates, who let me know they wouldn't be able to do both the draft revision assignment and that of reading the articles and commenting. I'm happy they stepped up to the bat to let me know, and they earned some extra credit on their class participation grade.

The upshot? After considering their argument, I think they are right, doing the draft revision and the reading/commenting/discussion is a tad much for one weekend. Just do the reading/commenting/discussion. Remember, one article per day.

If you want to get ahead on assignments for next week, feel free to get started on the various revisions of your reflective essay, but the work is no longer required for Monday.

Steve

Reading: Kaizen and Process, Take Two

Now you are getting your head around the basic elements of communications---the sender, the message, the receiver, noise, and feedback, it's time to talk some down and dirty about how to improve your writing. The basic notion of how to make improvements in any process (like writing), can be found in the industrial management philosophy of Kaizen.

If you do a quick google of "Kaizen," you'll learn it's the industrial management philosophy which led to Japan being the technological and industrial powerhouse it is. This way of approaching process brings together the best of Western ideas about motion study and efficiency and Japanese notions of how communities and individuals work. It's one of a handful of the most powerful ideas to emerge from the 20th C, and it came into being at the end of WWII.

The US wanted to build a working democracy out of the wreckage of Japan at the end of WWII. Japanese industry was geared up for war, and the US had learned from how it had handled Germany at the end of WWI that for democracy to work, you had to have a certain amount of wealth flowing through out a viable economy; so, the US sent in some of our best industrial engineers to help Japan to build a consumer industrial base.

These folks were well grounded in how to set up a factory to mass produce, but they didn't have a clue as to how Japanese culture functions. The upshot was they tried to impose the latest 1930s/'40s motion and process theory and failed miserably. Japanese culture sees work holistically. It tends to see the individual as part of a community, and the function of work not so much as a means of producing a product but as a means of maintaining the viability of the community and the pride and sense of status of the individual within the community. Luckily, the Japanese were able to work with the well intentioned Americans to come up with a theory of industrial process which combined the best of both ways of working.

From the US, they took the notion of process, that is, when you do something over and over (like writing a sentence, paragraph, or email), you tend to follow the same steps and tend to need the same stuff. If you break down such repeatable activities into set steps, you can focus on one aspect of the process at a time and work to improve its efficiency. You might, for instance, make sure the tools you need for a task are at your workstation instead of stored across the room, saving you the time needed to get up, loose your train of thought, and go across the room to get a pencil or keyboard. The idea is as you improve the efficiency of the individual steps, you improve the overall efficiency of the process and your ability to compete.

Now American thought tended to think of process efficiency as a means to an end. You get a factory up to a certain level of productivity per man hour, and you can compete. The Japanese had the brilliant insight---based on Zen notions of work based meditation--that one never reaches a perfect process; instead, one can just improve the process at hand; but, and this is a big but, you can make small, continuous improvements to whichever processes is in place. Literally, one's focus isn't on the end product, but on the doing or the work necessary to a task. You practice and perfect the doing of a task, not the product of the task. The upshot is they created the notion of continual small improvements to process or Kaizen. It's quite literally a continuous focus of improving how the task is done and assuming that a good process will produce a good product which can compete.

There are some additional flourishes. Kaizen rewards workers who come up with a means to improve how their task is done. It creates time in a production schedule to have regular meetings of the workers, management, and sales folks to discuss process and product. The idea is everyone needs to understand the big picture, so they can understand their part. In any event, small groups meet to make decisions about which improvements to process to implement and to judge if a change in process is an improvement or not. There's also the notion of low hanging fruit vs. high hanging fruit. That is, one always begins work on a process from the process already in place. This process already allows you to receive some gain or, to use the Kaizen metaphor, pick the lowest hanging fruit. As you make improvements, you add to your gains by being able to pick the lowest hanging fruit and some higher hanging fruit. The upshot is your return in the investment of improving process is always increased return.

Kaizen can be applied to any process, from coding to writing to your morning routine. Let's talk about writing. You currently use a series of processes when you write. As you write and revise your inventory of WPA Outcomes, think how you produce writing currently and give these processes your attention. Break writing down into the steps you follow as you produce. For instance, how do you proofread? How do you draft? Do you build in time for revision? We'll be discussing how composition and rhetoric has broken down the task of writing and making speeches, but my goal here is to just give you some language for thinking about the processes you use as you create and write. I encourage you to think about processes in the work you do or want to do. Once you begin noticing the steps you follow and can accept the notion of improving how you produce through making small, continuous changes in these processes, you'll be half-way to becoming a writer.

Here are the tricks of Kaizen:

1) Pat yourself on the back. Whatever process you are now using is picking the lowest hanging fruit.
2) Know your goals.
3) Take small steps toward your goals by improving the process.
4) Pat yourself on the back for picking higher hanging fruit and moving toward your goals.
5) If a step doesn't work out, figure out why and make another change. Use the loss as an opportunity to learn. You are still picking fruit.
7) Keep the pace of change slow but steady. Every few weeks, figure out your next change and keep implementing the change until it becomes habit and routine.
8) Take time to review. Know you are making progress and picking higher fruit than you were. As you review, reward yourself and internalized your success. It is only from success that you gain confidence.
9) Include others in your goals and work toward them. Listen to their insights. Often, from outside, they will see those things which you cannot from the inside. Let these others share in and celebrate your success. Again, you gain confidence from public acclimation.
10) Don't expect the moon; instead, move toward it. As change and improvements accumulate, you will eventually obtain the moon.
11) Usually, when you reach the moon, you find out it wasn't about being there; it was about the journey, the successes along the way, your own growth, and the confidence you have gained for the next project.

Write if you have questions, comments, or observations.

Assignment: Goals, Habits, Motivation, Kaizen, and Writing.

Over the past few weeks, we've been talking a lot about Kaizen, that is, making small, continuous high impact improvements as a way of moving toward your goals. You've brainstormed and written about your goals. You've identified a habit either to acquire or to shed. Now I'd like to bring together this assignment with some reading and further writing.

You will be tempted to skip the reading, and take what I've said in lecture as all you need to know about goals, habits, Kaizen, and writing. Many of you have managed to get by in school with doing little to no reading. Don't do it this time. Like rhetoric, Kaizen and using habits to become a better writer lays at the heart of this class, and it is one clear path to becoming a better writer. You know I have never BSed you. Read these articles. They are more than worth your time and effort. You won't find everything useful. Remember the 17% rule; but, you will gain some important perspective on how to achieve your goals or to find them. Why else are you attending college?

The only way to become a better writer is to make becoming a better writer a goal and then begin to acquire the skills, habits, and knowledge you need to craft and understand effective writing and speaking. Combine this work with practice and thought, and --over time--you'll become as good a writer as you want. Why go to the trouble? Well, you have to to pass the class. However, one of my favorite writers boils it down to a simple truth, "Good writing pays more than bad."

To help you get a handle on how the process of moving from goal to habit to achievement works, below I've brought together a few of my favorite posts on setting goals, how to move from goals to habits, some tips on ways to acquire habits, and some tips on how to stay motivated. You need to read these.

Print out each article, put them in your habit's project file and bring your file to class. I will be checking. You have until Friday, 24 October to complete this reading. This will have you reading and re-reading one article per day, taking notes, taking some time to think about what you've read, and then writing about it and discussing what you've learned. This writing and discussion can take place either within your group (using a google doc) or with the whole class (using the class discussion list). Your choice.

As you read each article, take notes, and read actively. After you finish each article, take a few moments to summarize what you thought were its major points and what part of its advice resonates with you (or didn't). As you write about the advice or resources you find, use your habit and your work on it as a focus for your discussion. Talk about the advice you find particularly helpful, and how it might change or alter your goals or your work on your habit. Finally, read what others have to say. Help them get a handle on the reading. Comment on what they say. Discuss. I'll be paying particular attention to this set of linked assignments when I decide on your class participation grade.

Here's the reading:

Setting Goals:

Written Goals for Skeptics

Simple Goal Setting

Lifetick: Goal-setting software that actually helps you achieve your goals

Habits:

Achievement: How to Turn Your Goals into Habits

How to Establish New Habits the No Sweat Way

Things to Avoid When Changing Habits


Finding Motivation:

Ultimate Guide to Motivation

Scheduling College Application Tasks

http://www.admissionsconsultants.com/college/the_year_ahead.asp

Work for Wednesday, 15 October

My back spasmed again this morning getting out of the shower, so I'll not be able to make it in to teach or for office hours; instead, I'll be alternating hot and cold packs and be on my back--again. This doesn't mean you can't be learning and making progress.

Over the weekend, you finished a draft of the section of your reflective essay dealing with what you have learned to date. Also, you wrote a paragraph in which you let me know what I could do to help you learn better, and you completed a prewriting exercise on a section of the reflective essay in which you discussed your performance in the class.

For Friday, I would like you to bring all your work together by producing a unified draft of the entire reflection essay which includes all three sections, that is,

1) A discussion of your performance;
2) a discussion of what you have learned;
3) some ideas on what I could do to help you learn more or better.

Share this draft with your group and with me using google documents and bring two hard copies to class on Friday. The reflective essay is meant to help you develop something called a metadiscouse--an ability to reflect on and think objectively and systematically about your learning and your writing, what you are doing well, and what you can improve. Much of college is learning how to learn on your own, and developing a metadiscouse is essential to developing this skill.

When completing your draft, make sure to make clear claims, explain your claims, and then back them up using examples, quotations from what you have written, the work you have done, and analysis of each. Remember, your goal isn't to just tell me about your performance or what you have learned. Your goal is to show me what you have learned and to show me what you say about your performance is true. Use examples and analysis to show, not just tell.

Second, you should have read Peter Elbow's "Writing for Teachers" over the weekend. Be prepared to discuss the article. When thinking about it, you might remember your primary audience for your reflective essay is me, your teacher. Think about how the reflective essay is like and differs from the examples described by Elbow. We'll discuss this question in class on Friday.

Steve

FYI: Proofreading/reading tool

Proofreading is easier the more distance you can get from your work. One way to do this is to get someone else to help you proofread by reading your work out loud. This proofreading method works best when both you and your reader have a copy of your work; this way, whenever something sounds odd or off, you can put a check off to the side and use these checks as an index to things in your paper you want to check. Asking questions of your reader, like, "What was the main point of my paper?," "What would you improve?," or "Did I stay on topic?, is also a good way to get cheap feedback on your writing.

What do you do, however, if you can't get another reader to read your paper out loud? There's tech. While a computer reader won't be able to answer questions about your writing--at least, not yet. It will read you back your words EXACTLY as you wrote them. Add in a hard copy and a pen with which to put check marks off to the side, and you have a workable part of a decent proofreading system.

Check out this free text-to-speech web based converter:

http://readthewords.com/

Assignments due Wednesday, 15 October

1. Print out and read Peter Elbow's "Writing for Teachers." I will email a pdf as an attachment. There will be a short in class writing on Elbow Wednesday.
2. Building on the prewriting your have done and the exercise on creating claims and finding evidence we did today in class, produce a draft of the section of your reflective essay which will deal with what you have learned. Compose this draft using google docs.
3. Do a prewriting exercise in which you discover what you can say about your performance in the class to date and how you can improve it over the remainder of the semester.
4. Write a paragraph in which you let me know how I can better structure class to help you learn. Compose using google docs.
5. Create your two rhetorical analysis for the week using google docs, and share them with me and with the rest of your group.

Bring all this with you on Wednesday to class.

Remember, I will hold conference hours in my office on Parham Road campus from 7:30-9:30 on Monday, 13 October. During these conference hours, you can stop by to discuss your performance in the class, go over an individual paper, get me to look at a draft of your reflective paper, etc. These conference hours are voluntary, but--in the past--I have found them an important element of student learning.

Class Monday

I have figured out a compromise which should work for the upcoming holiday.

On Monday, I will be in class for voluntary conferences which any students who want to stop by. I will make up the session we miss on the Reynolds calandar on Wed. 26 Novemeber--a day which is on the Fall Break for Reynolds. Since you will be meeting for half a day at Atlee on the 26th, you will be there anyway. My faculty convocation on the 26th will start at 9:00, so, if I leave directly from Atless, I should be able to make it just on time. In any event, the class won't miss the class time; we won't need to meet on 13 October, and you'll gain the chance of one-on-one voluntary conferences.

Steve

Reynolds' Academic Calendar

Here's a link to the Reynold's Academic Calendar:

http://www.reynolds.edu/_calendar/2008_fall.htm

The only holidays we have off are for fall break, 25-30 November.

I checked this morning, and Atlee is making sure the school will be open (or not) Monday. As of now, my understanding is we're meeting per the Reynolds' Academic Calendar, and Atlee will be open for the teacher's work day. The only difference of revelance to us now is the 13 October and 26 Novemeber. It looks as if Atlee will meet on the 26th, but I'll be at faculty convocation that day.

Unless you hear otherwise, assume your college classes will meet on the 13th. Having said this, I am willing to entertain proposals for outside work and alternatives, and I'm even willing to meet on the 26th as an alternative to Monday. Convocation will start at 9:00, so I should be finished and just be able

Steve

Catch up on missed election speeches and debates.

Going for the extra credit for discussing the election with your classmates? Looking for a subject for this week's rhetorical analysis? Tired of not knowing about the speech about which everyone is talking?

Follow the following link to legit online access to tonight's debate, past speeches, etc.:

http://lifehacker.com/5059937/catch-tonights-presidential-debate-on-hulu

Thanks to lifehacker...

FYI: Real World Advice on Acquiring Better Study Habits

One of my favorite blogs, AskMetafilter, does nothing more than act as a place where folks can write in with a question and get good suggestions on how to answer it.

Recently, a graduate student wrote in asking how to acquire better study habits than those which got him his initial degree, and he got some good advice--advice I wish I had heard long before graduate school.

Please note: the question was posed by a graduate student, who was suddenly looking at the task of preparing for comprehensive exams. Think of all the classes you've ever taken and an exam where any question from any class is fair game, and you have a good idea of what comps are like. One reason folks with a masters or a doctorate know how to study is most of us had to sweat comprehensives at one time or another, but the skills I had to learn then would sure have made my life as an freshman much, much easier.

Here's the link:

http://ask.metafilter.com/103544/Help-Ive-fallen-and-I-cant-get-up

FYI: Apostrophes

Apostrophes are the bug-a-bear of many writers, not just students learning the ropes. If apostrophes give you fits, you might follow this link:

English Apostrophe Society

The society is dedicated to stamping out the over use and misuse of apostrophes in English. They have some truly funny pictures of places where folks used an apostrophe or six where they shouldn't have. More important, they have some easy to follow rules for when and when not to use apostrophes in your writing.

Today's post is thanks to Instructify.

Steve

Notes on Proofreading.

Below you'll find my notes on various tips and tricks to help you proofread better. Over the rest of the semester, try out as many of the techniques I discuss as you can. Not every technique will work for every writer, but I'm confident you will find three or four which will help you catch surface level issues you are now missing.

Remember, proofreading differs from revision. When you proofread, you're looking at the surface level and polishing grammar, spelling and usage. When you revise, you're concerned with clarifying what you say, perfecting the organization, adding to your text, and cutting. In short, in revision, you want to deal with meaning and deep level issues. You proofread *after* you revise; otherwise, the effort you put into proofreading may well be wasted. One last note: one difference between editing and proofreading is that one edits another's text while one proofreads one's own.

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 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 or changed?

You can also waste time proofreading haphazardly. Once you've learned how to proofread systematically, your prose will be more successful and polished, and you'll save effort and time over haphazard, disorganized means you may currently be using.

In any event, here are my own notes on proofreading. You can now update your writing inventory on learning various techniques involved with different stages of the writing process.

Those notes 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. I know, for instance, there are more than a few errors in these notes.

When you proofread, you're trying to do something called breaking set. This means you want to change the set or usual way you 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 spell check. 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. You can find many free text to speech readers by just googling.

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.

Adding Collaborators Seems to be Fixed

Reports from most students say the problem with adding collaborators seems to be fixed. Here's what to do if you have trouble:

1. Clear your browser's catch of cookies and temporary files.

If step one doesn't allow you to add collaborators, try:

2. Add collaborators one at a time.

When you share your google doc with a group of collaborators (Shart tab ===> Share with Others ====> Add collaborators window), you have two choices, adding folks as full collaborators or adding folks as viewers. Add your group and me as a full collaborator. This will allow us not only to read and view your document, but it will allow us to leave comments, suggestions, etc. I've had some reports of students not being able to edit once they open a document shared with them, my best guess is that this is because they've been added as a viewer rather than a full collaborator.

Steve

Problems with adding collaborators in google docs.

After touting the wondrous simplicity and ease of use of using google docs to collaborate, Google has picked now to prove me wrong.

If you've tried to add several folks as collaborators, and you've received an error message to the effect, "The server encountered an error. Try again later." You are far from alone. It's a google issue and isn't limited to this class, but is happening all over the web. Here is what I know about the problem and what is being said online about it:

The problem with the server is not you or your machine. There is something else going on, as the same problem is happening with other students and on my machine. From what I've been able to gather, folks are often able to add one collaborator at a time, but trying to add more sometimes--not always--is giving the google servers fits. I've read reports online that faster connections are getting through better, so I suspect some folks are just being timed out by google. The good thing is that google knows of the problem, but it has been unusually slow in fixing it.

For right now, try the trick of adding one collaborator at a time.

Resource Post: "Punctuation Made Simple"

Follow the link to an approachable discussion of punctuation:

"Punctuation Made Simple."

FYI: A Method to Learn New Vocabulary

Expressways--a writing textbook--suggests you use mindmaping to learn new words. You can use online tools to make mind maps. Here is a link to two of my favorite online mind mapping tools:

* Bubbl.us
* MindMeister

If you don't know what a mindmap is, here's a link to explain:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_map


Here is Expressways' advice on how to use a mind map to learn a new word:

Using Word Mapping

Word mapping is a visual method of expanding your vocabulary. It involves examining a word in detail by considering its meanings, synonyms (words similar in meaning), antonyms (words opposite in meaning), part(s) of speech, word parts, and usages. A word map is a form of word study. By the time you have completed the map, you will find that you have learned the word and are ready to use it in your speech and writing.

Set up a mind map with the word you want to learn at the center.

Your mindmap will contain the following nodes:

• Primary Meaning--include the part of speech in this node along with the meaning.
• Secondary Meaning--if the word has more than one meaning, include it here.
  
• Synonyms--use a thesaurus to find these.
  
• Sentences--write two sentences using the word.
  
• Word Parts--break the word down into its root and any prefixes and suffixes.
  
• Other--this is good place to find and put antonyms
  

Use the following steps in completing a word map:

1. Write a sentence in which the word appeared at the top of the map. Figure out which meaning fits the context and write it in the box labeled “Meaning (as used in reading).” Fill in the word’s part of speech as used in this context.
2. Study the dictionary entry to discover other meanings of the word. Fill those in on the map in the box labeled “Other Meanings.”
3. Find or think of two synonyms (words similar in meaning). You might need to use a thesaurus for this.
4. Write two sentences using the word.
5. Analyze the word’s parts. Identify any prefixes, roots, and suffixes.
Write the word part and its meaning in the box labeled “Word Parts.”
6. In the box labeled “Other,” include any other interesting information about the word. You might include antonyms, restrictive meanings, or the word’s history or derivation).

As you create a word map, here are some resources you might find helpful:

Links to online dictionaries taken from this useful post from studenthacks,

"101+ Web Resources for Students":

Dictionaries

• Acronym Finder
• American Heritage Dictionary
• British National Corpus
• Encarta World English Dictionary
• Idiom Connection
• Lexicool
• Oxford English Dictionary
• Roget’s Thesaurus
• Rhyming Dictionary
• Synonym Dictionary

If you want some terms on which to practice, here's a list of the most used words in Academic Writing. At least one study has shown around a 10% improvement in student comprehension of academic texts just by learning these sixty words.

The most used words in Academic Writing

analyze
approach
area
assess
assume
authority
available
benefit
concept
consist
constitute
context
contract
create
data
define
derive
distribute
economy
environment
establish
estimate
evident
export
factor
finance
formula
function
identify
income
indicate
individual
interpret
involve
issue
labor
legal
legislate
major
method
occur
percent
period
policy
principle
proceed
process
require
research
respond
role
section
sector
significant
similar
source
specific
structure
theory
vary

FYI: Science Night at the College

The Fifth Annual J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College “Science Night at the College” will be held on Wednesday, October 8 in the Massey Library Technology Center’s Lipman Auditorium located at 1651 East Parham Road from 7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.

Program:

“Fire & Ice” by Associate Professor David Walz.

Iceland sits atop the Mid-Atlantic Ridge where the North American Plate and the European Plate separate. This highly tectonic island is very young geologically and its landscape features active volcanoes, lava fields, hot springs and geysers. Professor Walz will discuss how Iceland’s cultural history began with the settlement of Vikings from mainland Europe and how its modern technology is supported by an unlimited supply of geothermal energy and hot water.

Detoxifying Cigarette Smoke” presented by Dr. Dory Snow.

The presentation will examine toxins found in cigarette smoke and will explain how the human body rids itself of them. Dr. Snow will cover how certain enzymes may be the key to why some people get sick from cigarette smoke.

“Heart Failure” presented by Dr. Ramzi Ockaili.

The presentation will cover the basic definition of "Heart Failure,” stages and causes of the disease. Dr. Ockaili will discuss the biological and physical manifestations of the disease and some of the clinical challenges. He will finally touch on the clinical signs and symptoms and on the various strategies that will maximize the quality of care for the patient.

A SIGN-IN SHEET WILL RECORD STUDENTS WHO ATTEND AND SUCH WILL BE AVAILABLE.

For more information contact Richard Groover, 523-5594.

FYI: Advice on Overcoming Writer's Block

There are many books written on the subject of the occupational disease of the writer--writer's block. I sometimes wonder if the books are written to overcome a block and profit from it. Writer's Block is real, and finding yourself without an idea to get started or the right words once started happens to all writers. Follow the link below to some decent advice on tactics to overcome writer's block. I can recommend the advice to get physical and that of doing research, but nothing works so well as sleeping on the problem and having a routine where I write every day.

Steve

http://www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/break-through-writers-block.html

FYI: Sleep and Drafting and Revising

If you find yourself stuck on a problem when drafting or revising, walking away and sleeping on it may be the best answer. This is advice from which I've personally profited over the years, and I've passed along to students with very little to back it up but my own experience that it works. Here's a link, via Lifehacker, which points to recent research which confirms. My Mother's advice to "Sleep on it" was right.

Steve

Sleep Boosts Creativity by 33% [Mind Hacks]

via Lifehacker by Gina Trapani on 9/28/08

A Harvard sleep researcher finds that if you sleep on new ideas and information, you're 33% more likely to make connections between distantly related points. Sleep helps you make tough decisions, and solve proble

Rhetoric in Advertising

One of the places where rhetoric touches our lives every day is through advertising. Some quick and dirty research on the question of just how many advertisements the typical American gets exposed to produced answers from 300-3000 advertisements per day (http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=56750). Since numbers which vary this much point to research which still needs to be done, let's go with a low ball estimate and go with 250 ads per day. Even this conservative estimate translates into all of us being bombarded with advertisements.

If you don't think advertising agencies have done audience research, think again. If you don't think there's a host of rhetoric training behind most successful advertisements, think again. One of the reasons you are being trained in looking at basic rhetoric and learning to think critically about how others communicate with you is to learn when and how you are manipulated through rhetoric. However, now you have the training, there's a lot you can learn from such successful communication as advertisements.

Here's an example. Somewhere there's an essay with "weasel words" in the title. When I used to teach composition as a course in reading, I used to use the essay. It discussed words in advertising, such as, "virtually." The statement, "It has virtually no fat.," translates into, "It has fat." However, advertisers count on their audience being lazy and not taking or having the time to think through what they are saying.

Here is a link to a site which offers small businesses advice on the Truth in Advertising Act:

http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/business/adv/bus35.shtm

Boiled down, advertisers are required to have "reasonable evidence" to back up their claims. This is a pretty low threshold for determining what makes a true claim and what doesn't, and it counts on your and my willingness to accept claims as face value without thinking about how they are supported.

Truth in advertising leads me to a second example of how advertisements work. Nance and I decided to have bacon, eggs, and baked tomatoes with our scones and tea. It's a Sunday, so we have additional time to cook and enjoy. Nance breaks out the bacon package and comments that, "It has thirty percent less fat."

The claim is right there on the label, "30% LESS FAT." By the way, this is Kroger's high end, house brand of bacon; so, you can look for yourself. Her BS antennae go up and critical thinking kicks in. Nance has lived with me, so she has long since learned to think rhetorically and critically.

"Thirty percent less fat than what?"

She looks on the bag and in tiny, tiny print it says, "than USDA data for bacon." Knowing the USDA sets very, very minimalistic standards, having less fat than the fattest bacon allowed to qualify as bacon doesn't mean a lot; but, this qualifies as "reasonable evidence." Notice how Kroger has highlighted the claim and minimialized its support by crafting how the message appears. The large print and bold lettering draw your attention to the claim. They are counting on the fact you will never take the time to look at the small print and their "reasonable evidence."

Such advertisement is insulting to its audience. It suggests you are lazy
enough not to think about the claim itself and to know that claims are only as good as the evidence used to support them. Sloppy or manipulative claims say a lot about the assumptions their authors make about their audience, and they say a lot about their authors.

Yes, such claims work; otherwise, we wouldn't be exposed to them by advertisers. Remember, advertisers are in the business of making money. If their messages were not successful and didn 't make money, they would soon be out of business. However, you are now being trained to think critically, so you don't have to be taken in by sloppy reasoning and manipulative claims.

Over the next few weeks, as you look for examples of rhetoric to include in your two weekly analysis, you could do a lot worst than to pay attention to how advertisements try to work, the assumptions which are made about their audience, and what these assumptions say about their authors. One trick here is to learn to hear what advertisers are saying, instead of just taking an ad at face value.

One lesson you can learn from all this is that of making sure your claims and evidence stay up to high standards. You can bet, Nance will be looking at other sources of bacon. After all, we don't see why we should support a company who has such a low opinion of our ability to think. You might also learn that some members of your audiences are looking at your claims and evidence and trying to figure out what they say about their authors and their assumptions about their audience.

FYI: A Free Timer to Download

For years, I've been working with students who struggle with procrastination and getting started on a writing project. It is a problem with which I have always struggled; so, I know how hard it can prove.

My current struggle is to make time each day to write, read and think; but--depending on the project--sometimes it's still just getting started. One trick I've used to jump start my starting a project is that of setting a kitchen timer for ten or fifteen minutes, and telling myself, "I'll work until the timer goes off. When it does, I'll decide if I want to go on. If I don't want to go on, at least I've put in ten or fifteen minutes." Usually, just the ten minutes allows me to make enough of a start that I can continue. If worse comes to worst, I've wasted ten or fifteen minutes just sitting and thinking what a putz I am.

Of course, if you're a student, having the money, motivation, and time to buy a kitchen timer can prove a hindrance. The net to the rescue. Today, lifehacker, one of my favorite productivity blogs, posted the following article on a timer which the folks who work in Windows can download for free.

from Lifehacker by Jason Fitzpatrick

Windows only: Stop wondering where the time went and start using a timer to be more productive. Cool Timer is a small timer application with three modes: countdown, stopwatch and alarm clock. You can customize the color scheme and size of the clock to make it easier to see it at a distance, and you can assign a text message to an alarm to serve as a reminder. Included are several basic sound files like a gong, alarm clock, etc. but you can use any WAV, MP3 or MIDI file you want. If you use certain countdown times and alarms frequently, you can save them for repeat use. If you're looking for a Linux solution check out Timer Applet, for Macs check out Alarm Clock 2. Cool Timer is a free download for Windows only.

Cool Timer [Harmony Hollow Software]

Steve

FYI: "Advice for Students: Start Planning Now for Life After College"

Over the years, I've played with an assignment design which would have students interview folks who have completed college and ask the question, "What do you wish you had done/learned in college you didn't?" I admit, I secretly expected folks to hear, "I wish I'd learned to write better. I have to write all the time now." I've never implemented the assignment, but I know for a fact there are opportunities and support in college which 95% of students never even think to explore. Think internships. Think career services.

I occasionally google and research such advice to current students. It's one way I try to make sure my courses teach knowledge, skills, and techniques which are useful both in and out of college.

For your consideration, here's such advice from a source I read everyday and whom I--mostly--respect, namely, lifehack.org:

http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/advice-for-students-start-planning-now-for-life-after-college.html

I especailly want to call your attention to the follow piece of advice:

7. Become a great writer.

No matter what field you hope to go into, and no matter what job you hope to have in that field, writing skills will get you further than almost any other competency. “Written communication skills are ESSENTIAL for most careers today,” writes Pollak. Look at every written assignment as a chance to develop better writing and editing skills. Ask for feedback from your professors. Take writing classes, either for credit or through adult extension. Join a writing group, or form one. Read writing books (Stephen King’s On Writing is a great one and highly readable). In short, do whatever you can to become a better writer – you’ll be putting yourself two or three steps ahead of the rest of your graduating class.

Using Google Documents to Communicate with Your Group

You've got one more piece of technology to learn how to use. Don't panic. I assure you, this new tech, google documents, will make your work with your group easier. It is no more difficult to use than the class discussionl list or google mail, which you are now using successfully. More important, you will find google documents one of the most useful writing tools available today.

Just as google mail allows you to access email from any Internet connected computer, google documents allows you to edit documents on any Internet connected computer. Not only does this greatly expand the number of machines and places from which you can do productive writing, having your work stored online creates a number of opportunities traditional word processors simply can't provide, especially in the realm of gruop collaboration and having easy access to your work from almost anywhere. Here's a video tutorial to explain:

http://www.teachertube.co/view_video.php?viewkey=0c1b9311cb8f40eb4f25

Because you already have a gmail account, all you have to do get access to the google word processor (google documents) is log into your gmail account. Now look in the top, left hand side of the page. There you will see a line of links which will read something like: "Gmail Calendar Documents ... More." Click on the link for Documents, and sign up for the new service. Notice the help link (top right hand line, next to your logon name). Following the help link will take you here:

http://docs.google.com/support/?hl=en

and allow you to read and explore your new, online word processor. Take some time this week to learn how to open a new documents and save it. Remember, with google documents your work is saved on the internet, not on your machince; so, to access it later, all you need to do is to log back onto google documents.

In the future, anytime you need to go to google documents you can get there through the method above or use the following link:

docs.google.com

Now, to do some useful work using google documents...

Choose someone in your group to set up a new, google document called "YourGroupName: Contact Information, Class and Section" If the author from your group needs help, they can contact me at 804-885-3727 or prof.brandon@gmail.com to step them through the process.

Once your group author sets up a document for your group's contact information, they are to add their name, telephone number, and email address as the first line of text. Then they they are to use the "share" menu to add everyone else in the group as a collaborator. They do this by clicking on the share tab and choosing the command, "share with others." A box will pop-up labeled "invite collaborators." To invite people as collaborators, all the original author needs to do is to type in every one's gmailaddress and hit the button "Invite Collaborators." SInce everyone has already been emailing their group, you've got everyone's gmail address in your notes or contacts. Google docs will send out email invitations to everyone invited to collaborate. Oh, whoever is the original author, make sure to invite me, prof.brandon@gmail.com, as a collaborator as well.

Once your author creates the document and adds the group, including you, and me as collaborators, each of us will receive an email inviting us to collaborate. If we accept this invitation by clicking on the link to the document in this invitation, we will be taken to the contact information document the original author created. Since we are now collaborators, we can make changes to the document, and these changes will be saved. Add your name, gmail address, and telephone number under that of the original author, and then look to right hand side of the page. There you will see "Save and Close." This will save your work and close the document. If you want to continue editing and playing around, just hit "Save."

If you now log back onto google documents, you will see the document your group is creating on your file managment page. Using google documents, creating a collaborative document is just this easy. Someone creates the document, and shares the newly created document with the other authors/commenters using email. The other authors accept the invitation to collaborate, and they can make changes or add and delete text, just like the person who created the document on which everyone is collaborating. Moreover, they can log into their google documents account from any internet collected computer, and have access to the collaborative document from most anywhere.

Notice that a whole new world of collaborative team work is now open up to you.

Don't panic over the new tech; explore it using the help page, and feel free to get in touch with the more tech savy folks in your group for help. If you find yourself still having trouble, get in touch with me sooner, rather than later, and I'll be happy to meet with you to step you through the baics of using google documents.

Over the course of the semester, you will be working with your group via google documents to practice some of the skills you'll be taught. For instance, this week you *could* use google documents to share your King revision with your group and to get comments back from them. This week you don't have to do this. In fact, until everyone gets through the step of feeling comfortable logging onto google docs, you shouldn't. This week, just get used to going to the service and--unless you are one in your group creating the document to collect group information--just keep an eye out for your invitation to collaborate, open your group's document, and share your contact information with your group on it.

Here's another video introduction to google documents:

http://services.google.com/apps/resources/overviews_breeze/DocsSpreadsheets/index.html

Don't worry about understanding every aspect of the introduction. Just as with most of technology, you'll pick up what you need to know as you use it. You did this with gmail, google documents is, if anything, as straightforward.

As always, if you have questions, write or call. Remember, I am here to help.