0 comments Contributed by David Kent on 28 March 2008 at 08:58

Students often remember that Thomas Edison said, “Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% desperation”. While you undoubtedly write best when under pressure, many students, myself included, simply use this delusion to justify our procrastination. We become like one desperate for a date; as the night draws on, we begin to dictate our thoughts, sacrificing beauty for availability. However, if we are to still respect ourselves in the morning, we should take preventive measures to avoid receiving a rash of red marks a week later.


When we become tired, our writing becomes bloated; this is often an attempt to artificially increase the length of our sentences. Powerful sentences are succinct. But they are not choppy. One must first untangle a sentence before it can be pruned and allowed to flourish. Here is a typical twilight sentence:

Wars come and go, and, as such, different periods in history arise, because few things can cause such a change as a major war.

This sentence can quickly be made clearer by making the main subject (currently Wars) the same as the main actor (different periods):

Different periods in history arise as wars come and go because few things can cause such a change as a major war.

The sentence now flows logically, but the thought it expresses is a bit elementary, which was partially disguised previously by awkward wording. Seemingly simple concepts need not be suppressed, but should not parade as profundity. This same idea could be expressed in fewer words:

Every epoch is defined by its war.

The above revision is concise, but a bit enigmatic. We could achieve a different tone by intertwining this thought with a metaphor:

Historical eras are born of wars, nursed by the blood of the fallen and the ink of historians.

This revision has imagery the original lacked, but creates a tone that might be difficult to maintain throughout the essay. Usually, the easiest and most appropriate method to improve an exceedingly simple sentence is to combine it with another simple sentence from the same paragraph:

In order to study different eras, historians will often examine the wars that defined them.

This revision may be considered ideal because it sounds the most natural. In general, make sure the number of words in a sentence is justified by the number of concepts expressed.


The composition of an exhausted author bores the reader into sleep. However, appropriately polished prose will persuade the reader more than tired truths. As you edit your essay, critically examine each sentence. Experiment with alternate wordings and see if a better sentence evolves. Speak it out loud and hear if it sounds natural. Above all, never forget that sound logic is often indistinguishable from that which sounds logical.

0 comments Contributed by Janette Siu on 01 March 2008 at 13:57

You've finally finished that terrible essay that your prof gave you last week. What a relief that that's over with! Now, just to make absolutely sure that your paper is what it's supposed to be, you go back and check the assignment sheet one last time... and at the bottom, you notice this little sentence that says, "Be sure to revise your paper."

"Revise?" you say. "I thought my paper was pretty decent while I wrote it... and I did my best and I don't think I could do any better. Besides which, I just finished writing this monster. The last thing I want to do is read it over again... after all, it's 10 pages long!" After a moment's thought, you add, "I don't even know how to go about revising anyway..."

Fear not, my friend. There are ways to tackle this beast called Revision.

Here's a funny coincidence of the English language. "Revision" comes from "revise," but by one of those strange and happy occurrences, the noun form of the word can give us a hint about how to do the verb. Re-vision. Look at it again. "OK," you say, "I knew that already. So what?" So, you should look at it with fresh eyes. That means setting it aside for 24 hours or more before you read it over. Why? Because after a while, you will recover from being tired of writing this assignment, and you won't be thinking, "I'm so sick of this paper!" while you reread it. Instead, you can focus on the organization and flow of your writing. Also, you'll be better able to detect places where you did not clearly explain your thinking (which was so clear to you while you were writing it!), or maybe you'll be able to come up with that one word that escaped you while you were writing.

But I can hear you laughing now, "Silly! I always finish my papers an hour before they're due... I would never have time to set it aside for a day before revising it!" Well, though I would encourage you to try to finish earlier than that, I can certainly understand where you're coming from. And don't worry, there are still more strategies for revising, which don't take 24 hours.

As you reread your paper, try reading it out loud. Don't just whisper it quickly ("themosttellingcomponentofthisimageisitsdrabcolorpalette...") because that won't help as much as if you read it in a slow speaking voice. Pretend you're presenting your paper; read it like you're making a speech. (Don't be embarrassed; let your roommates hear what a great paper you wrote! Maybe they'll even have some good input about how you can revise it.) The point of reading out loud is to slow you down so that you actually read what's on the page, instead of what you know should be on the page. This will help you to catch places where you left out a word (which often happens to the best of us!), where you used the wrong word or the wrong form of the word, or other such mistakes. Also, reading your paper out loud will help you to pick out awkwardly phrased sentences ("That doesn't sound quite right..."), overly long sentences ("If it took me three breaths to get through this sentence, maybe I need to cut it down..."), or excessive repetition ("I used 'good' five times in two sentences... maybe I need to find some more descriptive words..."). If you find that reading out loud doesn't slow you down enough, try reading the entire thing out loud and backwards, word by word.

There are lots of other strategies you can try too. If you've been fighting with the phrasing of a sentence or two, try asking a friend if what you've written is clear. If you know that you've had trouble with homonyms in the past, use Control + F (if you're writing in Word) to search for all the instances of the troublesome words (such as "their," "there," and "they're") so you can check specifically to make sure you used them correctly. If you're struggling with a particular grammatical issue, try looking in a writing guide. We even wrote one just for you, and we put it online at http://studentaffairs.case.edu/education/resources/sagesguide/. Of course, you can always schedule an appointment with the SAGES Peer Writing Crew, and we would love to help you out!

Whenever you write, keep in mind that no matter how good your ideas are, people are less likely to listen to what you think if you don't communicate your thoughts clearly. Though it's sad, it's a fact that if you have a lot of small mistakes in your writing, you are less likely to be given credit for good thinking than if your writing is polished and professional. Therefore, go forth and revise, and knock 'em dead!

2 comments Contributed by David Kent on 14 February 2008 at 20:44

Learning a foreign language is difficult. Even after conjugations and syntax have been refined, a vulgar idiom will still poison a paper. Idioms are phrases that are peculiar to a given language or locale. They are part of the natural evolution of a spoken language as an expression of the culture in which it is spoken. Unsurprisingly, those speaking a foreign language in an alien culture find their tongues tied by idioms. If beauty is only skin deep, then so is human nature; a frustrated idiom can strangle a brilliant idea. The final solution is to cleanse your paper of all imperfect idioms.


The most common way to find out how to use idioms is to hear them from native speakers (friends, movies, teachers, etc.) and then experiment with them yourself. While this method will undoubtedly work, it is not quick and lends a sense of dependency. Fortunately, it is possible to tell if an idiom is incorrect using online concordances. These concordances contain a massive database of English prose (not literature, but more mundane writings such as newspaper articles). The user is able to search this collection for any word or phrase they desire. For the most part, idioms are pre-constructed phrases that have little variation. If an idiom is constructed improperly there will be few results, but if constructed correctly there will be plenty. Of course, it is important to examine the sentences generated by each search to see how the phrase is used and its connotation. One final note before continuing, online concordances are not typical search engines; they generally use a subset of the Regular Expression query syntax. This means that you cannot simply type in the phrase like you would for Google. Each word in the phrase is joined with a +. For example, a search for “in my opinion” would be written in+my+opinion. Of course, this can also be written “in your opinion”, “in his opinion”, “in her opinion”, “in our opinion”, or “in their opinion” yet it is the same basic idiom. To have a more inclusive search we would type in+1opinion. This allows one extra word to come between “in” and “opinion”. Changing this number changes the amount of words that can separate the terms joined by the +. However, if the idiom is common enough, there will be a large number of results using simply in+my+opinion.


Now that you know how to search a concordance, go to Collin's Concordance. There are two text input bars on this page, but for this blog entry we will only use the first one. To use this site, you must let it through any pop-up blockers you have enabled. Also, the number of characters in each result can be modified using the “+” and “–“ buttons directly below “Show Concs” button. This site is only a demo, so it will only display 40 results at the most. Fortunately, this is enough for our purposes.

One of the most common mistakes I see is the confusion of an idiom's preposition. A recent paper contained the sentence “For my opinion, having plastic surgery is good”. This author may not have been sure whether to write “For my opinion” or “In my opinion”. Rather than flip a coin, let’s make an educated guess. Type in+my+opinion into the first text bar and hit enter. You will have to make sure your pop-up blocker does not prevent pop-ups from this site. Look at the pop-up window and see how many search results were obtained: 40 (the maximum). Since there are 40 results, the phrase “in my opinion” is probably used in English. You should examine each result to find out how it is used. In particular, notice how it is often used at the start of a sentence or independent clause. Now type in for+my+opinion and hit enter. This time, you probably only got one result. These few results indicate that it is probably not a commonly used idiom, even though it may be grammatically correct. In this case, the “opinion” is the indirect object of the verb “ask”. This is not the same sense the author intended. Since the author did not make “opinion” the indirect object of anything, it is more probable that “in my opinion” is the proper idiom to use.


In summary, this site can reveal whether a given phrasing is correct for a particular idiom. If there are no or very few sentences using your phrase, it is probably not an idiom as you have phrased it. It is crucial to remember to see how the phrase is used in the example sentences. The more research you put into your writing, the more effortlessly natural it will seem.

1 comments Contributed by Theodore Roman on 08 February 2008 at 15:39

This past week, I've had a chance to reflect on the writing strategies that I use most often. Often, I have a natural tendency to want to sound "scholarly". In other words, I use far too many words and far too formal diction. When I realize this is happening, though, I slow down, reread my paper, and look to write as though I were talking to a friend who didn't know the subject matter at hand. I've also encouraged many visitors to do the same. However, be warned: informal speech isn't always acceptable. Sometimes precise, high diction works best. The secret is knowing which diction is more appropriate for a specific prompt.

0 comments Contributed by Christopher Williams on 08 November 2006 at 10:52

So. Two of the most elusive concepts in writing are tone and voice. Where grammar, content, and even organization are generally apparent in a paper, tone and voice are rather more ephemeral. They exist more as a general sense or feeling about a paper, rather than something specific that can be readily identified and circled. So how do you approach something as subtle as tone and voice can be?

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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.

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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.

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2 comments Contributed by Christopher Williams on 17 September 2006 at 23:24

So. Thesis writing is hard. It is, in fact, so difficult that I spent a half-hour staring at my keyboard trying to start this blog entry. This post doesn't even have a real thesis! So no one can blame you if you have trouble writing a thesis. But we may be able to help.

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1 comments Contributed by Christopher Williams on 10 September 2006 at 22:25 Read more »

2 comments Contributed by Nicole Sharp on 27 March 2006 at 20:55

How does one start writing papers? Contrary to what some people think, good papers aren’t born and executed in the single night before the due date. Some papers begin before one ever sits down and opens up a word processor.

Personally, I tend to work out papers in my head before I start writing them. With a twenty-minute walk to and from class, I have plenty of time to ponder what I’m going to write about and how I’m going to approach the paper. As the time for sitting down and writing the paper draws closer, I’ll sometimes start composing sentences, particularly for the introduction, in my head. If they’re good sentences, then I might jot them down in my notebook before my next class.

Other students will write outlines of their arguments and ideas. Some will open up Word documents and keep track of ideas or useful phrases there. Writing down a list of main ideas and then putting them in order is another popular route to take.

All of these activities are pre-writing techniques, and they make actually sitting down and writing a paper much easier. Having a guide and structure to work from saves one from spending too much time staring at the same sentence, wondering where to go from there. It can also be a useful way to ease oneself into the right mindset for writing a good paper.

What kinds of techniques for pre-writing do you use? How useful do you find it?

0 comments Contributed by David Mansfield on 12 October 2005 at 19:28

I love to write inflated papers, where my extended sentence structures and odd constructions result in a great deal of wasted space. This is bad, very bad. Do not do it. There are a large number of writing habits I have that I think people should not practice, and being overly verbose is certainly one such habit.

So, how do you get around it?

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0 comments Contributed by David Mansfield on 21 September 2005 at 23:56

The writing experience with which most people arrive at Case comes mostly from high school. Unfortunately, high school English teachers most often focus thier composition lessons on how to write specifically for high school. The hard fast rules they offer frequently fail to hold up to the increased scrutiny of the college environment.

Here are two habits I've seen from writers that simply will not work in a college environment:

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0 comments Contributed by Nicole Sharp on 19 September 2005 at 22:12

One thing that my six semesters at Case has taught me is that writing education in high school can be haphazard at best. Teachers throw out so many rules and regulations ("You can't start a sentence with And, But, or Because!") that students begin to see writing as formulaic--either a formula easily imitated or as one mysterious and tough to grasp. The truth is that there is no formula for the perfect paper. There's not even one for a good paper. Every paper and every topic has an infinite number of possibilities.

In some respects, losing the lifeline that is the thesis-first, five paragraph essay format is frightening. But (note I start the sentence with it!) becoming a good writer--both at the college level and in life in general--requires letting go of those arbitrary constructs and embracing the freedom to writer your own way.

Mind you, I'm not declaring college writing an anything-goes-free-for-all. I'm simply saying this: writing is like cooking. You're given ingredients--words and ideas--and implements--paragraphs, transitions, organizational structures--with which to construct a masterpiece. College writing is about learning to cook beyond the recipe, realizing that measurements aren't exact and learning that improvisation can lead to a better result. The best cooks don't need a recipe in order to create a delicious meal. The same can be said of a good writer (though I will caution readers not to mistake "recipe" for "outline" when translating my analogy).

Like cooking, writing takes experience with which one gains judgment and insight on different practices. And, like cooking, the ability to write well sets you in good stead in life no matter where you end up.

In the future, I hope to discuss how to move beyond the high school level when writing. I invite both readers of the blog and my fellow Crew members to join in the discussion. This blog wouldn't deserve the name of SAGES if we didn't all participate!

0 comments Contributed by David Mansfield on 29 August 2005 at 16:39

Take the following passage:

Oliver Sacks writes about Temple Grandin, an autistic woman who designs cattle chutes. Because she is autistic, she cannot tell when people are lying. This makes life difficult for her. She also says a toddler is more advanced than she is, because she cannot read people.

Leaving content aside, what's wrong here?

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