CM107 Overview

1. CM107 Overview Cecelia MunzenmaierKaplan University

2. Course Housekeeping • Instructor • Cecelia • Mun - zen - MAI -er • German for money maker • Contact • Email: several times a day • Voicemail: once a day • Program cell: 515-727-2100 x6921

3. Course Goals • Construct logical arguments • Develop strategies for effective problem solving • Conduct research to support assertions made in personal, academic, and professional situations • Articulate what constitutes effective communication in personal, professional and diverse contexts • Demonstrate effective listening strategies

4. Course Housekeeping • One 8 - 10 page paper • With at least 5 sources(including 2 academic sources) • Credited in a list of references • See KU Handbook, p. 136

5. U9 Share U8 Final Draft U1 Writing U3 Con-troversies U6RoughDraft U7 PeerEdit U4 Plan Course Housekeeping • Assignments build 225 points 50 pts. 225 pts. 25 points 85 pts. 150 pts. 100 pts. 100 pts.

6. Pace yourself • Report progressto a writing buddyor supervisor • Produce 9 times as many pages • Write when theyfeel like it • Produce 17 pages vs. 157 for steady tortoises

7. Research says… Boice compared three groups of writers in a 1989 experiment. One group wrote as little as possible. Another wrote whenever they felt like it. The third group was to write every day. If their writing goals were not, they had to write a check to a cause they detested. Those who wrote every day produced 4 times as many polished pages as “spontaneous” writers. If they reported progress to Boice, their output was 9 times greater.

8. Pacing tips • Keep a regular schedule • Write often for a short time • 15 minutes can be effective • 30 minutes (Boice) • 1 hour is maximum for many • 2 hours (Silvia) • Don’t let writing become so fatiguingthat you don’t feel like coming back. (Boice, 1960)

9. U9 Share U8 Final Draft U1 Writing U3 Con-troversies U6RoughDraft U7 PeerEdit U4 Plan Course Housekeeping • Assignments build 225 points 50 pts. 225 pts. 25 points 85 pts. 150 pts. 100 pts. 100 pts.

10. Is this good writing?

11. Is this good writing? • Raskin donated her drafts to show her writing process. The Westing Game manuscript. (n.d.) Retrieved July 28, 2010, from University of Wisconsin, Cooperative Children’s Book Center website: http://www.education.wisc.edu/ ccbc/authors/raskin/intro.htm

12. Reality You have to get the bulk of it down, and then you start to refine it. You have to put down less-than-marvelous material just to keep going, whatever you think the end is going to be, which may be something else altogether by the time you get there. —Larry Gelbart, M.A.S.H writer

13. Writing takes effort In studies of writers, which variable made the biggest difference in quality? • Whether they knew what they wanted to say • Whether they believed they were good writers • How much they liked to write • How much they revised • How much they revised

14. Course Housekeeping • Directions and models are on KU-ACE • Rubrics, or grading criteria, are in your syllabus • Supplemental resources are available athttp://word-crafter.net/CompII

15. Read Comments

16. Revision makes a difference • Grades follow an inverted Bell Curve. mostly Cs Ds and Fs Bs and As Ds and Fs As and Bs Cs Normal Bell Curve Comp I Curve

17. Back Up Your Work • Thumb drive • Email to yourself as attachment • Download from dropbox Double-clickattachment icon

18. Corollaries to Murphy’s Law • A device is most likely to fail when • it stores the only copy of your paper • recreating the paper will take maximum effort and time you don’t have • the paper is worth hundreds of points

19. Attendance matters • I support: Source: Mintzes, J. J., & Leonard, W. H. (2006). Handbook of College Teaching. Arlington, VA: NSTA Press.

20. Weight of evidence • I support: Given two people of approximately the same ability and one person who works ten percent more than the other, the latter will more than twice outproduce the former. The more you know, the more you learn; the more you learn, the more you can do; the more you can do, the more the opportunity…. opportunity…. Given two people with exactly the same ability, the one person who manages day in and day out to get in one more hour of thinking will be tremendously more productive over a lifetime. Source: Hamming, R. (2006). You and your research. Available at http://paulgraham.com/hamming.html

21. Comp I Informative paper Step-by-step 3-5 pages 4 sources; 1 scholarly Comp II Persuasive paper Step-by-step 8-10 pages 5 sources;2 scholarly Counterargument?(yes, but) Is this Comp I all over again?

22. What can you add? • You have greater choice of topics. • You can • agree • disagree • apply • compare/contrast • evaluate strengths/weaknesses Critical/ original thinking Bloom’s Taxonomy

23. Is personal Expresses feelings and ideas Can bring healing and/or clarity Allows people to experiment with making beautiful language Is objective (not just true for one person) Expresses an opinionbacked by evidence Explores ideas critically Aims to be clear and formal Anticipates readers’ questions and objections You’ll develop persuasive skills

24. Personal  Informed • Are multi-taskers more efficient? Poldrack Informed Opinion:Experience +Evidence Personal experience Conversation + = Meyer Rubenstein

25. Research on multitasking

26. Informed opinion In academic writing, your opinion is only as good as your evidence. Doctors detected signs of autism in the movies. Schwetter: These dinosaur bones smell. Huh? DNA was recovered.

27. Rhetorical triangle • rhetoric: the art of composing effective discourse (exchange of ideas, conversation) PURPOSE WRITER AUDIENCE

28. Argument • argument: in speech and writing, an assertion made about a topic that is supported by at least one reason (claim + evidence) PURPOSE:ARGUMENT WRITER AUDIENCE

29. Developing an argument • Choose an arguable topic. • Read about pros/cons. • Take a position. • Anticipate objections. • Make your case. • State your claims (pros). • Counterargue (show why cons are wrong) • Provide evidence.

30. Work the writing process • Get ideas • Get them down • Revise them • Polish/publish

31. Kuhlthau’s Model of Research Stage Task Feelings Initiation contemplating the task uncertainty and possible topics Selection selecting a topic optimism Exploration encountering inconsistency confusion and incompatibility Formulation forming a focused clarity perspective Collection gathering/documenting confidence Presentation connecting and extending satisfaction or disappointment

32. Anxiety does not mean failure 5 Stages of Accomplishment: Denial I can’t do it! Uncertainty Maybe I can do it! There’s no way I can do it! Resistance Panic AAAAARGH! What if I can’t do it! Acceptance I did it. Let’s party!

33. How to Succeed • Be here • Find a topic you like • Follow the rubrics for each assignment • Read feedback • Keep up with assignments • Ask questions early • Revise • Back up your work • Avoid the “Comp is hard” trap

34. It is the hardest thing in the world to frighten a mongoose, because he is eaten up from nose to tail with curiosity. The motto of all the mongoose family is “Run and find out,” and Rikki-tikki was a true mongoose. —Rudyard Kipling “Rikki-tikki-tavi” The Jungle Book

36. What’s a good topic? • Something you care about • Enough to be interested • Not so much you can’t be objective • Something that’s researchable • Time limits • Available information • Objective information • Something you’re comfortable sharing • Something that’s arguable • Something that can contribute new insights

37. How do I know? • In a study by Carol Dweck, 4th-graders “were given unsolvable problems followed by solvable ones. Once the ‘helpless students’ failed, their strategies deteriorated down to _____ grade level; whereas, the "mastery-oriented students" stayed at 4th grade level despite failures. They rolled up their sleeves and worked harder. The crucial element was whether the student saw the failure as having to do with ability or effort.”

38. Directions: Rate these errors as • Status-marking (outrageous) • Mechanical mistakes (serious) • Noticeable (annoying) • The teacher said I done a good job on the editing test. • We can get extra help in the ASC, but I don’t need noneof that. • Although some people do. (fragment) • Me and my friends write our papers the night before they’re due. • As far as i’m concerned, losing a little sleep is no big deal.

39. Corrections Hairston’s respondents considered all of these errors to be status-marking, or outrageous. • The teacher said I done a good job on the editing test. (wrong verb tense) 2. We can get extra help in the ASC, but I don’t need none of that. (double negative) 3. Although some people do what?(fragment) 4. Meand my friends write our papers the night before they’re due. (object used as subject) 5. As far as i’m concerned, losing a little sleep is no big deal. (capitalization)

40. Directions: Rate these errors as • Status-marking (outrageous) • Mechanical mistakes (serious) • Noticeable (annoying) 6. My friend Shan, always does at least a rough draft and a revised draft. • I’m trying to decide whether to go into criminal justice, study business management, or paralegal. • Any one of these programs area good choice. • If I do goodin my classes, my chances of getting a good job will increase. 10. Our textbook is heavy, so I am glad to sit it down when I get to class.

41. Corrections Hairston’s respondents considered these errors to be serious. • 6. My friend Shan, always does at least a rough draft and a revised draft. (appositive) 7. I’m trying to decide whether to go into criminal justice, study business management, or paralegal. (parallelism) 8. Any one of these programs are a good choice for me. (subject-verb agreement) 9. If I do good in my classes, my chances of getting a good job will increase. (adverb, not adj.) 10. Our textbook is heavy, so I am glad to sit it down when I get to class. (sit vs. set)

42. Do you believe Hairston? Hairston, M. (1981). Not all errors are created equal: Nonacademic readers in the professions respond to lapses in usage. College English, 43, 794-806. Women tend to be more irritated than men. Kantz, M., & Yates, R. (1994). Whose judgments? A survey of faculty responses to common and highly irritating writing errors. Retrieved July 19, 2006, from http://www.ateg.org/conferences/c5/kantz.htm Usage matters: A comparative study of judgments of English usage errors. (1999, June 7). Retrieved July 19, 2006, from English department Web site, California Polytechnic State University: http://cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba/390/survey/390.RESULTS.html Yonkers, V. (2009, February 13).Teaching business writing. Message posted to http://connecting2theworld.blogspot.com/2009/02/teaching-business-writing.html Linguistics students replicated the study; results confirmed. Beason (2001) found that business professionals perceived writers as hasty, careless, uncaring, or uninformed if the reader identified multiple errors

43. Myth: • There is one right way to write.

44. Myth • If I think I’m a bad writer, I can’t pass this course.

45. The Wizard of Oz • The diploma doesn’t make you smarter. • It’s the work you do to get the diploma.

46. Course Goals • Compose original materials in standard American English • Use appropriate documentation as required • Illustrate the steps in the writing process • Apply knowledge of communication to chosen profession