Entries for October 2006

0 comments Contributed by David Mansfield on 25 October 2006 at 20:14

They were thoughtful enough to link to us, so here's looking back at them: the Writing@Case Wiki, another Case-based source of good writing advice.

More elaborate content will return to the blog soon.

0 comments Contributed by Christopher Williams on 21 October 2006 at 10:23

I just read an interesting post on the Web Development blog. It deals with some of the legal issues that writers, especially writers on the internet, sometimes face. I recommend giving it a look.

1 comments Contributed by Christopher Williams on 20 October 2006 at 10:26

Okay, maybe your paper isn't really that bad, but you still have to do some revision. So how to you revise and edit a paper? Well, I have a few suggestions here from the SAGES Peer Writing Crew. I'll be posting them in serial here over this next week, so check back early, and check back often. These are not, of course, the only strategies for revision, but there might be something useful here that you haven't seen before.

Read more »

0 comments Contributed by David Mansfield on 18 October 2006 at 11:40

Just a short post today - I want to follow up on last week's series. I got an A on that paper, so I guess my methods are valid and can be followed. That is all.

0 comments Contributed by David Mansfield on 17 October 2006 at 11:39

A letter I received from Columbia Law School Admissions allows me to be both egotistical (Columbia sent me a letter!) and educational. Examine with me the opening paragraph:

Your name has been forwarded to us by the Candidate Referral Service of the Law School Data Assembly Service, in which you had earlier agreed to participate. On the basis of your performance on the Law School Admission Test (LSAT), you have been identified as a prospective law school applicant who, on that criterion, has demontrated a capability to contribute to and benefit from a legal education of the first order.
Read more »

0 comments Contributed by David Mansfield on 16 October 2006 at 10:43

One famous example of the instability of language is

Time flies like an arrow, but fruit flies like a banana.

Despite the similar sentence structure, "flies" changes from verb to noun, "like" changes from preposition to verb, and the opening word changes from noun ("time") to adjective ("fruit" as a kind of fly).

I bring this up only because there is a poster in the Peer Helper office - across the hall from the Writing Crew - that reads:

Are you making friends or drinking buddies?

The intent is clear - "drinking buddies" as a noun phrase contrasts with friends - but I find it more amusing to think of this sentence as parallelism, where "drinking" is a verb contrasting with "making."

0 comments Contributed by David Mansfield on 13 October 2006 at 10:07

Well, the paper is done, right? Strike that: The draft is done. Before the paper is in turn-in-able form, it needs to be revised.

First, after having set the paper aside for a bit, I give it a quick read-through, out loud, to make sure that my grammar and what not is all right, and that I don't use any awkward phrases like "turn-in-able." The important thing, when reading out loud, is to try to read the paper exactly as it appears, without automatically filling in all the missing words.

Read more »

0 comments Contributed by David Mansfield on 12 October 2006 at 11:42

So now I have my content, but what about my thesis? What about an introduction and conclusion and what not?

Well, regarding the thesis, I must admit to being a bit of a tease. Professor Ehrlich has said in class that she prefers a slightly more conversational style than the standard argumentative essay, and so my thesis is more a topic sentence:

Denis thus problematizes the role of the camera, and thus of “proper customary conduct as viewers,” in looking at the action unfolding in her films.

So let's look at this to see how it could be made a better thesis. Note: This post will contain some brief excerpts of admittedly non-substantive portions of my essay. Do not plagiarise them. That would be very bad.

Read more »

0 comments Contributed by David Mansfield on 11 October 2006 at 10:47

So now I'm done researching. How did I set about outlining my paper?

It was really a three-step process, two of which I will go into here.

Read more »

0 comments Contributed by David Mansfield on 10 October 2006 at 12:39

When last we left our hero, he had just received his research materials via Inter-Library Loan. So, how did he approach his research?

The important thing was to avoid limiting himself ... okay, forget this conceited third-person. The important thing was to avoid limiting myself to the ideas I'd had about the paper before starting my research. So I highlighted everything that remotely had to do with looking or observation.

Read more »

0 comments Contributed by David Mansfield on 09 October 2006 at 08:39

To take a break from offering bland writing advice, I thought it might be wise to spend this week relating how I approached an actual paper assigned to me this semester. After all, my position on the Crew presupposes that I know how to write papers well, and so perhaps my example will be useful.

That said, today will not be the meaty portion. I will start with how I approached research, and then over the next few days I will expand to my method of organization, composition, and revision.

Read more »

0 comments Contributed by David Mansfield on 01 October 2006 at 20:33

If given the following (appalling) prompt -

Compare and contrast can openers and true love

- how would you approach it? Would you have a section on can openers, followed by a section on true love? Or would you alternate between can openers and true love, noting similiarities and differences as you went? Or, perhaps, would you combine those two strategies to form some unholy chimera of compostional structure?

My aim is to suggest the ideal strategy, although the short form of it is: It depends.

Read more »