CM107 Overview

1. CM107 Overview Cecelia MunzenmaierKaplan University

2. 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

3. 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

4. Course Housekeeping • One 3 - 5 page paper • With sources • Credited in a list of references • See KU Handbook, p. 136

5. U2 TopicExploration U3 Key Points U7 Draft U9Finalproject Share U4 Sources U5Outline Course Housekeeping • Assignments build 190 points 75 pts 75 pts 30 points 100 pts 75 pts 50 pts

6. Course Goals • Why do I need a comp class? Employers think you do. People unable to express themselves clearly in writing limit their opportunities for professional, salaried employment. —Bob Kerrey National Commission on Writing

7. Course Goals • Why do I need a comp class? Writing is a way of thinking. How do I know what I meanuntil I see what I say? —E. M. Forster

8. Course Goals • Why do I need a comp class? Research skills help you keep up. For any organism to survive, its rate of learning must be equal to, or greater than, the rate of change in the environment.—Reg Revans

9. Course Goals • Why do I need a comp class? Writing skills make you credible. Question hey im dayshaun and im 14 years old ive been wanting to become SWAT since i was 5. i need to know what do i have to do in order to become a SWAT and what standers i need to achieve lease write back and thank you for your time. have a great day Question hey im dayshaun and im 14 years old ive been wanting to become SWAT since i was 5. i need to know what do i have to do in order to become a SWAT and what standers i need to achieve lease write back and thank you for your time. have a great day

10. Question hey im dayshaun and im 14 years old ive been wanting to become SWAT since i was 5. i need to know what do i have to do in order to become a SWAT and what standers i need to achieve lease write back and thank you for your time. have a great day Course Goals • Why do I need a comp class? Writing skills make you credible. “Subject did abducted woman without no illegal right.” —Baltimore police officer Response to a report of death caused by experimental drug “Not much wee can do about dumd docs!”

11. Standard American English • Correcting 20 common errors will correct 91.5% of all grammatical errors.Based on Lunsford and Connors’ 1992 study of 3,000 papers • Write first, then edit. • Target a few errors at a time. • Target the errors that matter most.

12. 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.

13. 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)

14. 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.

15. 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)

16. Course Goals • Compose original materials in standard American English • Use appropriate documentation as required

17. Course Goals • In academic writing, your opinionis only as good as your evidence. I say: Attendance is important.

18. Course Goals • I support: Based on Comp I grades from March-October 2008. No one who attended every class earned less than a B. Everyone who earned an F missed at least 33% of class.

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

20. Course Goals • 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…. 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. Course Goals • GIGO (garbage in, garbage out) • Four credible sources • Universal rather than personal

22. 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

23. Course Goals • Do people who watch shows like CSI make better jurors? Researchers Informed Opinion Personal experience Conversation + = Defenseattorneys Prosecutors

24. Course Goals • Evidence-based information or expert opinion Experts Question Informed Opinion Personal experience Conversation + Problem = Disagreement Associations EBSCO Pathfinders

25. Course Goals • Compose original materials in standard American English • Use appropriate documentation as required • Illustrate the steps in the writing process

26. True or False? • There is one right way to write. • Good writers don’t need to revise much. • Only people who love writing write well. • Comp I will destroy my GPA. • Beliefs about writing can make me smarter.

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

28. Reality: • The writing process is anything a writer does from the time the idea came until the piece is completed or abandoned. There is no particular order.     —Donald Graves,        writing researcher

29. Writing Process • Get ideas • Get them down • Revise them • Polish/publish

30. Take time to plan • “Those who focus on form before generating ideas find it _______ difficult to develop the body of their papers” (Hillocks, 1986).Hillocks, G. (1986). Research on written composition: New directions for teaching. Urbana, IL: National Conference on Research in English. more • “Experienced writers spend upto _____% of their time planning” (Davis, 2005, p. 15). Davis, K. W. (2005). The McGraw-Hill 36-Hour Course in Business Writing and Communication. New York: McGraw-Hill. 40

31. Polish after you draft • “Writers who try to catch every mistake as they draft can give themselves writer’s block” (Russell, 2005). Russell, M. (2005). The assumptions we make: How learners and teachers understand writing. Retrieved November 3, 2005,from National Center for Adult Learning and Literacy Web site: http://www.ncsall.net/?id=336

32. Is this good writing?

33. Who created that draft? • A Kaplan student who’s repeating Comp I • A returning student whose last comp class was 10 years ago • A Newbery-winning author

34. 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

35. Myth • If writing makes me anxious, I must be a bad writer.

36. Are you this anxious? Anne Lamotton writing restaurant reviews: I'd write a first draft that was. . . . so long and incoherent and hideous that for the rest of the day I'd obsess about getting creamed by a car before I could write a decent second draft. I'd worry that people would read what I'd written and believe that the accident had really been a suicide, that I had panicked because my talent was waning and my mind was shot. —Bird by Bird

37. 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!

38. 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

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

40. Reality • 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

41. Absences :: Grades Based on Comp I grades from March-October 2008. No one who attended every class earned less than a B. Everyone who earned an F missed at least 33% of class.

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

43. Reality: • Your beliefs about writing can make you smarter.

44. 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.”

45. 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

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

48. 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 • Something you’re comfortable sharing • Something that’s informative • Something that can contribute new insights