This brings to a conclusion our five weeks together–or nearly so. It’s been quick! Seven weeks in the fall (and I will be seeing most of you in the fall, either in ICM 522 or in ICM 501) will seem like a lifetime by comparison. As always, first time through a course is sometimes rough, and thank you for being my guinea pig group, as always!
I have three requests.
The first is to remind you to be on time with your final two examples. Because there is potential for confusion–after all, these will look very much like your other papers–if you could also email them (or links to them) to me at writing@halavais.net, that would be great. I will reply with an indication that I have them. I’m providing an extension until Tuesday at 10am for everyone, but at that time, I grade and submit grades. Be sure you have everything in, because missing a paper will mean a failing grade.
Second, I think you should have received a request to do a teacher evaluation. Please do take a moment to go to qeval to fill out an evaluation.
Finally, please reply in the comments below with questions you would like us to address in the second summer meeting on the 27th. We are largely agenda-free–we have a relatively short period of time and want to make sure we address your concerns. So please do suggest topics, and comment on others’ suggestions. I’ll be circulating this link to the dean and faculty, so we can prepare a response and discussion.
Thanks! And enjoy the short break before we meet up again.
The hardest lesson to learn about writing is how to unwrite. In writing, as in life, victory comes to those who fail well. To misquote Samuel Becket: Fail, fail again, fail better. Thomas Edison exemplified this, saying that his many attempts to discover how to make a long-lasting light bulb were not failures, but that they were opportunities to learn what does not work. When I toured his research facility as a child, the boxes of various potential filament materials were kept in small drawers in a long hallway, and stood as a dramatic visual reminder of how important failure is. Learning to write means, more than anything else, learning what not to write. You do that by writing a lot, and throwing most of it away.
There are three reasons I think revision is the most important part of writing. After reviewing these, I explain how I revise my own work. Just as everyone writes differently, they also revise differently; my approach may not be the best, but an example may be useful. Finally, I discuss relationship of clear writing to clear thinking.
Why Prioritize Revision?
There are three major reasons revision is the most important part of writing. First, separating out the editorial process from the creative process avoids the potential of “stuttering”: that is, writing in bursts and then repeatedly going back and fixing your work as you are writing. When writing took place more often on yellow pads and a typewriter, this sort of separation was the obvious process. The ease with which work can now be altered means that we often take two steps forward and one backspace. This is no substitute for rewriting and proofreading, it only guarantees that both will be done poorly. By clearly creating before editing, you remove the filter, and allow yourself to write without worrying–the best salve to writers’ block.
The second reason it is worth prioritizing the process of revision is that it provides a much more tractable way of improving your writing. Certainly practicing the act of writing is, itself, one way of improving, but you may just be reinforcing bad habits. Any sort of learning requires a feedback loop: some understanding of what you want to do more of and what you want to do less of. Your writing may improve very gradually simply by writing more, but in revising you learn to separate the good from the bad, and this means your writing can improve more quickly.
Lastly, you are judged not by what you write, but by what others read. Revision can make you a better writer in the long run, and in the short run it can make you appear to be a better writer to others. Good revision, then, means that you are freed to write, that you become a better writer, and that you are thought of as a good writer. Given this, it would be a mistake to not make time for revision. Not revising may not save you any time, and in the process makes you look less capable than you are and provides less opportunity to become more capable.
When to Revise
We have already determined when not to revise: during the process of writing. But revising shouldn’t immediately follow the completion of writing. Like a fine wine, you need to let something air out before you can revise it. You have to come to it as a stranger. Horace recommended you wait nine years before revising something. For most emails and just about anything else we write, waiting nine years before writing a second draft is just not going to happen. For an email, it’s great if you can let it rest as a draft for a few minutes, then come back to it. For a paper or article, it’s wonderful if you can leave it for at least a day. The idea is that you need to get some cognitive distance, need to be able to treat it as something alien to yourself. In many cases, I’ve left a paper that I thought was completely finished, only to find that I have completely left out necessary articles or verbs. Just because I know what I meant to write does not mean that it managed to be correctly expressed.
Revise, Then Proofread
Good writing doesn’t happen linearly, it happens in layers. The ideas are rebuilt over time, with only the best material retained. It is a bit like sculpting, in that you remove chunks from the original that no longer work. Of course, you also often add material, but usually revision means that you end up with less than what you begin with. And like diamonds, which require careful cutting to reach any real brilliance, this process of removing the unnecessary is central to the revision process at each stage.
But particularly in the first revision, rearrangement of elements often takes priority. The way we tell stories in everyday life can inform the way we write, but writing is necessarily structured in a less linear fashion. Even if you do not begin by outlining a piece of work–and few writers do–you should do some form of outlining during revision to make sure that the structure of your document is clear to both you and to your potential readers. It is an effective way of seeing whether you have said what you set out to say.
That outline should make clear whether you have adequately defended your thesis. In most cases, you haven’t, but you may have found another thesis along the way that is more interesting and compelling. Be a critical reader of your own work and identify the ideas that stick out as being original and intriguing, as well as ideas that are not directly relevant to your main argument. You don’t owe any allegiance to your initial thesis, but you need to have a good thesis at the end of the process, and your reader must be able to easily identify that thesis. If you’ve found something more interesting, precise, surprising, and exciting as a thesis, rewrite your thesis statement to reflect this, and reorganize your piece to support that new thesis.
If there are parts of your argument that are showing up in the wrong order, or the wrong place, this is the time to fix that. You should read your paper in the character of the most objectionable, skeptical, rude, and obnoxious reader possible. Try to ask the tough questions of your prose. Look for holes, and when you find them, add the material that will help you to keep your detractors at bay.
Perfect Paragraphs
Once your document is appropriately structured, and you have a good idea of how each paragraph supports your argument, it is time to look at the interior of those paragraphs. Like the piece as whole, the structure of your paragraph should be obvious. Look at each paragraph in turn. Make sure it has a topic sentence, and that the paragraph tackles a single idea. That idea should be supported by a series of claims, with clear evidence that is explicitly linked to those claims.
Within each paragraph, determine what the major claims are. Remember, a claim is any statement of fact that isn’t common knowledge. So, when I say that Cincinnati is in Ohio, or that Einsteinium was discovered by Albert Ghiorso, or that the president is a natural citizen of the United States, these are matters of common knowledge. That doesn’t mean that everyone knows them, but that it is the sort of settled fact found in encyclopedias. Evidence should be provided for any claim that isn’t settled fact, and you should be making such claims, because otherwise your work isn’t providing anything of much interest. Evidence can be drawn from primary sources: that is, direct observation or gathering of evidence from source documents that tend to support your claim as factual. They can also draw on reputable authorities, in the form of secondary sources. If it turns out you just don’t have evidence for a point, or that it is merely anecdotal evidence, it does not mean the claim must be excluded. No one writes perfectly supported arguments. But you should make your case as strongly as you know how, and be aware of those weaknesses and do whatever you can to make the claims compelling.
The length of paragraphs is often determined by the genre of a piece, but generally, avoid short paragraphs and very long paragraphs. By ensuring that there is only one major idea for each paragraph, you make it more likely that you will choose and appropriate length.
And Now, Re-Introducing…
Having fixed your paragraphs, argument, and structure, it’s time to finally write your lead and introduction. Yes, I know you already wrote it, but it’s crap. It is natural not to want to delete something you have created–no one said unwriting is easy–but if you want the finished product to be persuasive, you need to recognize that some of your writing needs to end up on the cutting room floor.
Actually, getting rid of that first draft of the introduction is usually the quickest and easiest way of improving a short piece of writing, particularly if it can just be lopped off. I’ve already suggested to two of you this semester that your work could have been improved by dropping the first one or two paragraphs, and coming quickly to the matter. Coming quickly to the heart of the matter in everyday conversation is considered rude. You are supposed to engage in small talk, to suggest that you see the other person as a friend and not merely as someone to do something for you. In writing, just the opposite is the case. There is no space here for small talk–drop it.
Some of the best writing is the kind that doesn’t hide. In the very first sentence it says: here I am, this is what I’m about, read me. It’s like Babe Ruth pointing out to the bleachers. It shows confidence that you know where you are going and promises you are going to take your reader there.
In any case, while you may have had an inkling of what your paper was about as you are writing it, it’s only after you’ve read it, and perhaps outlined the argument as a result, that you really know what it is about. As the first reader of the article, you are the best person to introduce it. Think about your reader: how do you get them instantly excited about what they are about to read? What are the key ideas that will motivate them to keep reading.
Simple Sentences
Now that you’ve wrapped up the structural pieces, it’s time to make every word and every sentence count. Going sentence by sentence is exceptionally difficult. After all, you’re bored by this stuff. You know what you wrote: you wrote it. It is really easy to find yourself skimming. You have to avoid that. You have to look, again, for every little piece you can jettison. The quality of your writing is not determined by what you write so much as it is determined by what you throw out. Look for every opportunity to make your sentences shorter and simpler. Make sure your sentences are sentences, and punctuation falls in the right place. Never forget to check your references.
Read the piece aloud. You may feel silly doing this the first few times, but nothing is better at catching awkward language or bad grammar than hearing yourself say it. Don’t just read quickly; speak the lines as if you’re being paid to do it in a recording studio for an audio book. And as you are speaking, listen carefully to how each sentence and each word sounds. If you have to go back and restart the sentence, there’s a good chance that a reader will have to do the same.
Stylin’ Diction
It’s important that your writing is clear, concise, and grammatically correct. Good, well structured writing works anywhere, but there are particular conventions for particular contexts. You don’t wear the same thing to a beach bar in Mexico as you do to a dinner party in London–at least unless you are James Bond. It’s worth noting that a very well fitting and classic tuxedo can be worn just about anywhere. You will attract attention when you walk into your favorite fast food establishment, but it probably won’t be negative attention. The same is true of writing: if you want to cultivate a single style, make it classic and a bit formal. (And formal writing–as with tuxedos–does not mean frilly. It means simple, crisp, and clean.) Formality requires more time for revision, but far better to overdress than to be asked to leave.
We generally understand that Instant Messaging allows for informality and that a cover letter for a job application does not. Email falls into a questionable in-between area. It’s often a less formal way of writing; I rarely address an email with “Dear Professor X.” If I were to send the president an email, it would take a force of will to begin with “Dear Mr. President:” rather than “Hey, Barack,” even though I would have no difficulty choosing the first for a letter typed on paper.
Emails may be our most “wrinkly” of written works, but at least a quick read-through will make you sound smarter. That will take more time,, but it also encourages you to keep your emails short and to the point. Take the five sentences pledge: keep your emails as brief as possible. Shorter, narrower, more concrete. All of these things lead to better writing. And the less you write in the first place, the more time you have to review it, and to make it as powerful, punchy, and exciting as possible.
Anything “above” the level of email should have time for revision written into the plan of creation. And that time for revising should be pretty extensive, making up well more than half your total writing time. That may seem like a lot, but only if you write slowly. Write fast; revise slowly. Leave that backspace key alone. Don’t edit until you actually have something substantial on the page.
Writing and Thinking Clearly
Writing is more than just reporting what you know. It is a way of actually finding things out, of learning. Many students have told me something like “I know what I want to say, I’m just not saying it right.” I want to yell “liar!” I used to think that too, when I was an undergrad. It is one of those myths–like “I want to leave some mystery in my writing to make it more complex”–that I am happy to have been mostly cured of. I now believe that if you can’t write something clearly, you simply do not understand it clearly. But by fixing your writing, you can often fix your thinking.
Revision is not merely something that happens with your writing or your documents. It is a more formal way of organizing your thoughts, your time, and your life. Revision requires looking at your work in a new way, and cutting away the unclear, the inefficient, the ugly, the self-involved, the parts that fail to do good work or pull you toward a conclusion. Clearer writing is a worthwhile goal in itself, but it can also lead to clearer thinking, and the ability to reach your goals more effectively outside the world of text.
One of the hardest lessons to learn in writing is how to unwrite. In writing, as in life, victory comes to those who fail well. To misquote Samuel Becket: Fail, fail again, fail better. Thomas Edison exemplified this, claiming that his many attempts at discovering how to make a long-lasting light bulb were not failures, but that they were opportunities to learn how to not make a light bulb. When I toured his research facility as a child, the boxes of various potential filament materials were files along a wall, and stood as a dramatic visual reminder of how important failure is. Learning to write means, more than anything else, learning what not to write. And you do that by writing a lot, and throwing most of it away.
In what follows, I present the three reasons I think revision is the most important part of writing, and then provide an overview of how I revise my own work. Just as everyone writes differently, they also revise differently; my approach may not be the best, but perhaps you will find something of use in learning something of my process. Finally, I touch on the relationship of clear writing to clear thinking.
Why Prioritize Revision?
There are many reasons to focus on revision, but two predominate. First, by separating out the editorial process from the creative process, it avoids the potential of stuttering: beginning a thought only to go back and endlessly fix it as you are writing. When writing took place more often on yellow pads and a typewriter, this sort of separation was the obvious process. The ease with which work can now be altered means that we often read what we have written more carefully before proceeding. This is no substitute for rewriting and proofreading. It only guarantees that both will be done poorly. By clearly creating before editing, you remove the filter, and allow yourself to write without worrying–the best salve to writers’ block.
The second reason it is worth prioritizing the process of revision is that it provides a much more tractable way of improving your writing. Certainly practicing the act of writing is, itself, one way of improving, but you may just be reinforcing bad habits. Any sort of learning requires a feedback loop: some understanding of what you want to do more of and what you want to do less of. Your writing may improve very gradually simply by writing more, but in revising you learn to separate what works from what doesn’t, and this means your writing can improve more quickly.
Lastly, you are judged not by what you write, but by what others read. Revision can make you a better writer in the long run, and in the short run it can make you appear to be a better writer than someone who has not revised as thoroughly. Good revision, then, means that you are freed to write, that you become a better writer, and that you are thought of as a good writer. Given this, it would be a mistake to not make time for revision. Not revising makes you look stupid, makes you stupid, and may ultimately save you no time, if you end up writing with a filter attached.
When to Revise
We have already determined when not to revise: during the process of writing. So it must logically follow writing, although often writing and revising is an iterative process. But revising shouldn’t follow the completion of writing immediately. Like a fine wine, you need to let something air out before you can revise it. You have to come to it as a stranger. Horace recommended you wait nine years before revising something, and frankly, there are things that need that sort of space. Someday, I may go back and revise my dissertation and make it actually make some sense, but it’s going to take longer than nine years before I take that on. For most emails and just about anything else we write, waiting nine years before writing a second draft is just not going to happen. For an email, it’s great if you can let it rest as a draft, then come back to it. For a paper or article, it’s wonderful if you can leave it for at least a day. The idea is that you need to get some distance, need to be able to treat it as something alien to yourself. In many cases, I’ve left a paper that I thought was completely finished, only to find that I have left out articles or verbs, making sentences into complete nonsense.
Revise, Then Proofread
Good writing doesn’t happen linearly, it happens in layers. The ideas are rebuilt over time, with only the best material retained. In that regard, it is a bit like sculpting, in that you remove each of the pieces from the original that no longer work. Of course, you also often add material, but usually revision means that you end up with less than what you begin with. And like diamonds, which require careful cutting to reach any real brilliance, this process of removing the unnecessary is central to the revision process at each stage.
But rearrangement of the materials is an important part of revision, particularly at the first stages. The way we tell stories in everyday life can inform the way we write, but writing is necessarily more structured, and often is read in a less linear fashion. Even if you do not begin by outlining a piece of work–and few writers do–you should do some form of outlining during revision to make sure that the structure of your document is clear to both you and to your potential readers. It is an effective way of seeing whether you have said what you set out to say.
That outline should make clear whether you have adequately argued your thesis. In most cases, you haven’t, but you may have found another thesis along the way that is more interesting and compelling. Be a sharp reader of your own work: which ideas stick out as being original and intriguing. You don’t owe any allegiance to your initial thesis: the question is whether you have a good thesis at the end of the process, and that your reader can clearly identify that thesis. If you’ve found something more interesting, precise, surprising, and exciting as a thesis, rewrite your thesis statement to reflect this, and reorganize your piece to support that new thesis.
If there are parts of your argument that are showing up in the wrong order, or the wrong place, this is the time to fix that.
You should read your paper in the character of the most objectionable, skeptical, rude, and obnoxious reader possible. Try to ask the tough questions of your prose. Look for holes, and when you find them, add the material that will help you to keep your detractors at bay.
Perfect Paragraphs
Once your document is appropriately structured, and you have a good idea of what each paragraph is doing in the service of your overall structure, it is time to look at the interior of each of those paragraphs. Like the piece as whole, the structure of your paragraph should be clear. Look at each paragraph in turn. Make sure it has a topic sentence, and that the paragraph tackles a single idea. That idea should be supported by clear evidence that is explicitly linked to the claims present in the paragraph.
Within each paragraph, determine what the major claims are. Remember, a claim is any statement of fact that isn’t common knowledge. So, when I say that Cincinnati is in Ohio, or that Einsteinium was discovered by Albert Ghiorso, or that the president is a natural citizen of the United States, these are matters of common knowledge. That doesn’t mean that everyone knows them, but that it is the sort of settled fact found in encyclopedias. It is those items that might have significant and creditable detractors that need evidence: either primary or secondary. If it turns out you just don’t have evidence for a point, or that it is weekly supported, this is to be expected. No one writes perfectly supported arguments. But you should make your case as strongly as you know how.
Finally, make sure the paragraph isn’t too long or too short. The length of paragraphs is often determined by the genre of a piece, but generally, avoid short paragraphs and very long paragraphs. By ensuring that there is only one major idea for each paragraph, you make it more likely that you will choose and appropriate length.
And Now, Re-Introducing
Having fixed your paragraphs, argument, and structure, it’s time to finally write your lead and introduction. Yes, I know you already wrote it, but it’s crap. You don’t want to throw out work? It’s a natural response. We start with a blank page and after pounding on a keyboard for a few hours, out sprouts an oeuvre, fully formed. Why pick it apart? And more pointedly, why start walking in reverse, undoing what we have wrought?
Actually, getting rid of that first draft of the introduction is usually the easiest step. I’ve already suggested to two of you this semester that your work could have been improved by dropping the first one or two paragraphs, and coming quickly to the matter. We use the phrase “beating around the bush,” as a pejorative in English, but the fact is that those who come quickly to the heart of the matter in speech are considered rude. You are supposed to engage in small talk, the niceties that suggest you view the other person as a person, a friend, a colleague, and not merely instrumentally. In writing, just the opposite is the case. You are putting ink on dead trees (or at least on a live LCD screen). There is no space here for small talk–drop it.
Some of the best writing is the kind that doesn’t hide. In the very first sentence it says: here I am, this is what I’m about, read me. It’s like Babe Ruth pointing out to the bleachers. It’s an indication of where you are going and presents confidence that you know where you are going and you are going to take your reader there.
In any case, while you may have had an inkling of what your paper was about as you are writing it, it’s only after you’ve read it, and perhaps outlined the argument as a result, that you really know what it is about. As the first reader of the article, you are the best person to introduce it. Think about your reader: how do you get them instantly excited about what they are about to read? What are the key ideas that will motivate them.
Simple Sentences
Now that you’ve wrapped up the structural pieces, it’s time to go through the hard slog of making every single word count in each sentence. Going sentence by sentence is exceptionally difficult. After all, you’re bored by this stuff. You know what you wrote, you wrote it. It is really easy to find yourself skimming. You have to avoid that. You have to look, again, for every little piece you can jettison. The quality of your writing is not determined by what you write so much as it is determined by what you throw out. Look for every opportunity to maker your sentences shorter and simpler. Make sure your sentences are sentences, and punctuation falls in the right place. Always remember to check your references!
Finally, read the piece aloud. Yes, you may feel silly doing this the first few times, but nothing is better at catching awkward language or bad grammar than hearing yourself say it. Don’t just read quickly: speak the lines as if you’re being paid to do it in a recording studio, or for an audio book. And as you are speaking, listen carefully to how each sentence and each word sounds. If you have to go back and restart the sentence, there’s a good chance that a reader will have to do the same.
Stylin’ Diction
It’s important that your writing is clear, concise, and grammatically correct. Good, well structured writing works anywhere. But it is still the case that there are particular conventions for particular contexts. You don’t wear the same thing to a beach bar in Mexico as you do to a dinner party in London–at least unless you are James Bond. It’s worth noting that a very well fitting and classic tuxedo can be worn just about anywhere. You will attract attention when you walk into your favorite fast food establishment, but it probably won’t be negative attention. The same is true of writing: if you want to cultivate a single style, make it classic and a bit formal. (And formal writing–as with tuxedos–does not mean frilly. It means classic, clean, and appropriate.) Formality requires more time for revision, but far better to overdress than to be seen as frumpy.
We generally understand that Instant Messaging requires informality and that a cover letter when applying for a job should be formal. Everyday email falls into a questionable in-between area. It’s often a less formal way of writing. I rarely address an email with “Dear Professor X.” Actually, that’s not quite true: in some roles I do that with frequency, but there is definitely a tendency to think of email as something that would show up on a post-it note rather than written with a fountain pen. If I were to send the president an email, it would take a force of will to begin with “Dear Mr. President:” rather than “Hey, Barack,” even though I would have no difficulty choosing the first for written correspondence.
So, emails may be our most “wrinkly” of written works, but at least a quick read-through would make you sound smarter. That will take more time? Maybe it will, but it also encourages you to keep your emails short and to the point. A number of people have taken the five sentences pledge–keeping their emails as brief as possible. Shorter, narrower, more concrete. All of these things lead to better writing. And the less you write in the first place, the more time you have to review it, and to make it as powerful, punchy, and exciting as possible.
Anything “above” the level of email should have time for revision written into the plan of creation. And that time for revising should be pretty extensive, making up well more than half your total writing time. That may seem like a lot, but only if you write slowly. Write fast! Revise slowly. Again, leave that backspace alone. Don’t edit until you actually have something on the page.
Writing and Thinking Clearly
Many consider writing to be more than just reporting what you know, or what you have discovered. Writing is a way of actually finding things out, of learning, of figuring out what you meant in the first place. Many undergrads, in particular, have come to my office and said something along the lines of “I know what I want to say, I’m just not sure I’m saying it right.” I want to yell “liar,” but I usually resist this urge. I used to think that too, when I was an undergrad. It is one of those myths–like “I want to leave some mystery in my writing to make it more complex”–that I am happy to have been mostly cured of. I now believe that if you can’t write something clearly, you simply do not understand it clearly. But by fixing your writing, you can often fix it in your head. “Oh… that’s what I was thinking!”
Revision, then, is not merely something that happens with your writing or your documents. It is a more formal way of organizing your thoughts, your time, and your life. Revision requires looking at your work in a new way, and cutting away the unclear, the inefficient, the ugly, the self-involved, the parts that fail to do good work or pull you toward a conclusion. Clearer writing is a worthwhile goal in itself, but it can also lead to clearer thinking, and the ability to reach your goals more effectively outside the world of text.
I’ve communicated with a couple of you about the final revision assignment. To be clear, I want two of your works during the semester to be posted in revised form.
Just to make clear expectations, at least one of the two needs to be a piece that is about 1500 words. This is not a long piece of writing (the average academic article is between 5,000 and 7,000 words, and a “short” article is usually defined as 3,000 words). Want to make sure you have something that can be substantial enough to show up in a portfolio.
The second piece need not be as long, and if you want to revisit your online “talk”, that’s fine.
missyka04: @LaurenDiLieto @halavais I’m not convinced that social media works for all companies. I’m looking forward to reading the diff plans #icm506
I couldn’t answer this within the 140 word quota.
Not sure what you mean by “works.” Social media affects every company. So, the question becomes, do they engage or disengage. Do they think strategically about the way they interact with the public, or do they ignore the public. I suppose that if you are a secret society, you don’t need a social media strategy (though it would be smart to have one for your members), but any organization that deals with a public this is online needs a social media strategy. In the US, the vast majority of the public is not online.
There was a time, not long ago, when companies said “the internet is a major trend, but it’s not something that affects us.” The idea that the internet doesn’t “work” for what you do is pretty much irrelevant today. You either ignore it, or you engage it.
The term “social media” is a bit confusing. Basically, I guess it includes every form of media that is (a) online and (b) not designed to be one-to-many. It’s hard to point at examples of online media these days that aren’t social, but clearly, for example, google.com (the main search site) isn’t, and neither is citibank.com. Of course, both are heavily influenced by social media, and both pay a lot of attention to social media, but they aren’t social media sites.
For that reason, not having a social media strategy is simply poor management. Sticking your head in the sand and ignoring the changes that are happening right now means more than your head gets buried. Companies that decided the internet “was not for them” lost out to those who found ways to leverage it. Of course, plenty of companies that engaged the net also lost out, but deciding not to play was pretty much a guaranteed fail. The same is true today of any organization that decides to ignore social media–because social media won’t ignore you.
Lauren mentioned the Department of Homeland Security. The Obama administration has been urging all federal agencies to engage social media, and the DHS is no exception.The DHS twitter accounts (@DHSJournal and @HomelandSecurit) frankly don’t make very innovative use of Twitter, though they provide another outlet for information. And to be fair, like the CDC’s use, it is intended mainly for timely release of information during a disaster. And their blog could use some tips from the TSA Blog. I am not a fan of the TSA, to be sure, but I have a lot of respect for their blogging efforts.
In sum, the absence of a social media strategy is, in itself, a strategy–a strategy for failure. I’ve yet to learn of an organization that could do without a social media strategy.
There is only one “lecture” post this week, but it is the most important one. It’s about revising. Everyone says that they revise, but really, who does? I mean, there you are, deadline looming, and really, who can be bothered? You write “good enough,” right? At least for government and educational work. Well, there are a lot of reasons that people say “writing is revising.”
One good reason for this is that when you write with revising waiting in the wings you write like someone on fire. The hell with the backspace key! You just plow forward. It’s like you have just had three or four Pepsi Maxes in a row (highest caffeine content of any soda out there) and you just can’t stop talking. Writers block? Never met the man! I’m on a roll baby!
So, that’s the first reason: it frees you up to write without worrying too much about the product. You’ve already been thinking a bit about this before you sat down, and even if you hadn’t, let your fingers do the thinking. This is just like brainstorming: the little editor in your head can just sit this one out. All ideas are not good ones, but let’s get them out there on the page and see how they fly. Or don’t. We’ll worry about that later.
So, (and yeah, I just started a second paragraph with “so,” and you know what? I don’t care! I’m a madman!)–So, are there any other advantages to putting revision in the top drawer of your writing tools? Of course.
Good writing doesn’t just happen linearly. I mean, good writing might, but good reading most assuredly does not. (Just a quick side note: see how I feel myself relying heavily on those italics? It’s a natural outgrowth of this kind of stream of consciousness writing.) (Second side note: notice the tendency to go on tangents? It’s something I do in real life too, but all of my inadequacies in real life ought to be edited away on the page–at least in an ideal world.) As I was saying, before I so rudely interrupted myself, good writing isn’t like telling a good story. I mean, in some sense it is: you begin at the beginning, and then you come to the end and stop. But good stories, either spoken or written, tend to start out “in media res”–in the middle of things. That means that the author has some things in mind that may not be revealed chronologically, or even revealed at all.
What this means is that writing happens in layers. And no one really wants to reveal the soft underbelly of their writing. Each layer improves its organization, and irons out the wrinkles that naturally show up when you are first generating something. No one want to show up in wrinkled clothes for something, but effectively that’s what we end up doing when we write on a daily basis. We write emails without checking them for errors. We definitely don’t check IMs or Tweets. It’s almost considered bad manners to correct a tweet or IM in which you’ve included a typo–who would be that vain?
Some of that hints at the oral nature of those media. You are expected to make mistakes in speech. I run with an academic crowd, and many of us manage to talk like we write. We speak in complete sentences; some of us can even insert silent semi-colons into what we say. But anyone who has ever transcribed an interview knows that the way we talk is usually far different from what makes sense on paper. Someone, meandering half-phrases and half-thoughts are automatically rendered into something sensible by the listener. We edit what we are hearing in a way that we cannot edit what we are reading.
Email falls into a questionable in-between area. It’s often a less formal way of writing. I rarely address an email with “Dear Professor X.” Actually, that’s not quite true: in some roles I do that with frequency, but there is definitely a tendency to think of email as something that would show up on a post-it note rather than written with a fountain pen. If I were to send the president an email, it would take a force of will to begin with “Dear Mr. President:” rather than “Hey, Barack,” even though I would have no difficulty choosing the first for written correspondence.
So, emails may be our most “wrinkly” of written works, but at least a quick read-through would make you sound smarter. That will take more time? Maybe it will, but it also encourages you to keep your emails short and to the point. A number of people have taken the five sentences pledge–keeping their emails as brief as possible. (Note: I broke my stream by going and looking for that link. Should have left it for later if I didn’t already have it on hand. In the worst cases, this can lead to a long, distracting browsing session, or start you on the path of “yak shaving” [link to follow].) Shorter, narrower, more concrete. All of these things lead to better writing. And the less you write in the first place, the more time you have to review it, and to make it as powerful, punchy, and exciting as possible.
Anything “above” the level of email should have time for revision written into the plan of creation. And that time for revising should be pretty extensive, making up well more than half your total writing time. That may seem like a lot, but only if you write slowly. Write fast! Revise slowly. Again, leave that backspace alone. Don’t edit until you actually have something on the page.
A number of people consider writing to be more than just reporting what you know, or what you have discovered. Writing is a way of actually finding things out, of learning, of figuring out what you meant in the first place. Many undergrads, in particular, have come to my office and said something along the lines of “I know what I want to say, I’m just not sure I’m saying it right.” I want to yell “liar,” but I usually resist this urge. I used to think that too, when I was an undergrad. It is one of those myths–like “I want to leave some mystery in my writing to make it more complex”–that I am happy to have been mostly cured of. I now believe that if you can’t write something clearly, you simply do not understand it clearly. But by fixing your writing, you can often fix it in your head. “Oooooh… that’s what I was thinking.”
OK, so there is the case for revising, what is the strategy or process? The first thing to keep in mind is that you need not only to build in time for revision, but, like a fine wine, you need to let something air out before you can revise it. You have to come to it as a stranger. Horace recommended you wait nine years before revising something, and frankly, there are things that need that sort of space. Someday, I may go back and revise my dissertation and make it actually make some sense, but it’s going to take longer than nine years before I take that on. For most emails and just about anything else we write, waiting nine years before writing a second draft is just not going to happen. For an email, it’s great if you can let it rest as a draft, then come back to it. For a paper or article, it’s wonderful if you can leave it for at least a day. The idea is that you need to get some distance, need to be able to treat it as something alien to yourself. In many cases, I’ve left a paper that I thought was completely finished, only to find that I have left out articles or verbs, making sentences into complete nonsense. I used to have a student who would come up to me in class, when I taught in Japan, and say “I am Chinese boy.” Each time, I would correct him “I am A Chinese boy.” He found this, for reasons that remain lost to me, the most amusing thing in the world. When I make this kind of errors in my writing, my spouse–who kind of singed on to proof papers for me when we were married–calls this one of my “Chinese boy” moments.
Once you’ve left it aside, you need to look at the revising as a series of “levels.” At the macro level, you need to make sure your thesis still stands up once you’ve written a piece. Let me save you some time: it doesn’t. That thesis you wrote? It’s the old thesis. As you’ve been writing–and keeping your cool thesis in mind–you’ve found something more interesting, precise, surprising, and exciting as a thesis. Problem is, you haven’t fixed that in the thesis statement. Or worse yet, despite your best intentions, you have no thesis statement. This is one of those “macro” things you need to fix.
Next, are your paragraphs cohesive? Do they make sense? What does your piece look like when you outline it?
“Ack!” I hear you say “Outlining? I left that behind in high school.” I’m fine with that. I’m not as anti-outlining as some writers are. When I get to the point that the words run out, or when I’m stumbling on a section of something, I’ll often outline it and move on to a more interesting part of my thoughts, but I fully understand why some people abhor outlining. It gets in the way of creating something that flows.
But outlining after you’ve written something can be very effective. Are you actually hitting things in order. Are there chunks of your argument that are showing up in the wrong order, or the wrong places? This is the time to fix that. Back in the bad old days when you wrote out your papers longhand for the first draft, this meant rewriting those sections. Now, with cut-and-paste, re-organizing a piece of writing is much more easily accomplished. Writing out an outline, with a short phrase describing each paragraph, shouldn’t be overly time consuming. If it is, perhaps your paragraphs are not as clear as they need to be.
Having looked at the overall structure, you now need to bore down to the paragraph level. Take the paragraphs one at a time. (Just as a quick note, I want to remember to talk about reading aloud, so I’ve dropped down and written the sentence marked ### below before continuing here.) Look at each paragraph and make sure there is a topic sentence. Make sure there is a clear claim. Make sure you have evidence backing up that claim. Finally, and this is a hard one to put a handle on, make sure the paragraph isn’t too long or too short. You are not Proust–and paragraphs are getting shorter. Oh, and unless you are writing for a newspaper, two-sentence paragraphs won’t cut it, and one-sentence paragraphs are only useful if you want to *really* emphasize a particular sentence. Reach for a happy medium.
Within each paragraph, determine what the major claims are. Remember, a claim is any statement of fact that isn’t common knowledge. So, when I say that Cincinnati is in Ohio, or that Einsteinium was discovered by Albert Ghiorso, or that the president is a natural citizen of the United States, these are matters of common knowledge. That doesn’t mean that everyone knows them–there’s that old Mark Twain quip about how uncommon common knowledge is–but the existence of Ohio-ignorants, Physics deniers, and birthers doesn’t change the common nature of the knowledge. It is those items that might have significant and creditable detractors that need evidence: either primary or secondary. If it turns out you just don’t have evidence for a point, or that it is weekly supported, this is to be expected. No one writes perfectly supported arguments. But you should make your case as strongly as you know how.
You should also read your paper in the character of the most objectionable, skeptical, rude, and obnoxious reader possible. Try to ask the tough questions of your prose. Look for holes, and when you find them, add the material that will help you to keep your detractors at bay.
Now, having fixed your paragraphs, argument, and structure, it’s time to finally write your lead and introduction. Yes, I know you already wrote it, but it’s crap. You don’t want to throw out work? It’s a natural response. We start with a blank page and after pounding on a keyboard for a few hours, out sprouts an oeuvre, fully formed. Why pick it apart? And more pointedly, why start walking in reverse, undoing what we have wrought?
One of the hardest lessons to learn in writing is how to unwrite. Actually, getting rid of that first draft of the introduction is usually the easiest step. I’ve already suggested to two of you this semester that your work could have been improved by dropping the first one or two paragraphs, and coming quickly to the matter. We use the phrase “beating around the bush,” as a pejorative in English, but the fact is that those who come quickly to the heart of the matter in speech are considered rude. You are supposed to engage in small talk, the niceties that suggest you view the other person as a person, a friend, a colleague, and not merely instrumentally. In writing, just the opposite is the case. You are putting ink on dead trees (or at least on a live LCD screen). There is no space here for small talk–drop it.
Some of the best writing is the kind that doesn’t hide. In the very first sentence it says: here I am, this is what I’m about, read me. It’s like Babe Ruth pointing out to the bleachers. It’s an indication of where you are going and presents confidence that you know where you are going and you are going to take your reader there.
In any case, while you may have had an inkling of what your paper was about as you are writing it, it’s only after you’ve read it, and perhaps outlined the argument as a result, that you really know what it is about. As the first reader of the article, you are the best person to introduce it. Think about your reader: how do you get them instantly excited about what they are about to read? What are the key ideas that will motivate them.
Finally, I haven’t used subheads this time around, but make sure your subheaded sections actually make sense as little papers on their own: do they have a good argument, a thesis statement? Do they demonstrate their point?
Now that you’ve wrapped up the structural pieces, it’s time to go through the hard slog of making every single word count in each sentence. Going sentence by sentence is exceptionally difficult. After all, you’re bored by this stuff. You know what you wrote, you wrote it. It is really easy to find yourself skimming. You have to avoid that. You have to look, again, for every little piece you can jettison. The quality of your writing is not determined by what you write so much as it is determined by what you throw out. Look for every opportunity to maker your sentences shorter and simpler. Make sure your sentences are sentences, and punctuation falls in the right place. Always remember to check your references!
### Finally, read the piece aloud. Yes, you may feel silly doing this the first few times, but nothing is better at catching awkward language or bad grammar than hearing yourself say it. Don’t just read quickly: speak the lines as if you’re being paid to do it in a recording studio, or for an audio book. And as you are speaking, listen carefully to how each sentence and each word sounds. If you have to go back and restart the sentence, there’s a good chance that a reader will have to do the same.
Rinse, repeat. Revision is never done, but the more times you do it, the better the work becomes.
Over a long period of time, you will become a better writer. The practice in revising will show. But make no mistake, the process of revising is the key to becoming a better writer. Over time, you will internalize some of that process. But more importantly, in the short run, your writing product will improve. In a world of text, that short term improvement is probably what makes revision worth it.
A couple of tweeting notes. I realize that some of you are twittering more, and some are using Diigo more. That’s fine, though it’s worth at least giving Twitter a try. If you do, remember to add “#icm506″ somewhere in your tweet, so it’s easier for everyone to find it.
First note: You might consider trying TweetDeck. I use it. Some people like it, some people don’t. There are a lot of other tools that help you with your Tweets, but I like Tweetdeck because I can easily keep track of, for example, the #icm506 discussion. The web interface for twitter, while simple, is not necessarily the best way to use the service.
I didn’t have any affirmative RSVPs for the call tonight, so I went ahead and canceled the reservation. As always, I’m available via email or IM, and happy to set up an appointment to talk via phone.
Last week saw a more academic writing assignment–the lit review–and I realize that this was not familiar territory for some of you. I think the biggest issues that seemed to come up across the board were related to quotation and citation. Let’s start with the easy stuff: basic structural rules.
When you use a block quote, you don’t need quotation marks; the indentation stands in for the quotes. There are different rules for when you should use a block quote, depending on which style guide you are using. For APA, the rule is that you go to block quotes for quotations of over 40 words. Especially for the web, you’ll see shorter block quotes than that, but for longer passages, you should certainly go to the block quote.
Single quote marks (that is, inverted commas) are generally used in American English only to denote quotations within quotations. (The standard for quotations within quotations within quotations is: don’t do that!) So, when I write that Mark Twain wrote, “I gasped with surprise; my breath almost got away from me. ‘What!’ I said, ‘you here yet?’ Go along with the rest of the dream! scatter!’” I make use of single quotes inside of my own double quotes, to avoid confusion.
There are some style guides, particularly for technical manuals, that use single quotes for terms of art. This is just ugly, but if you are required by your boss or editor to follow such a rule, then do what you must.
In American English, the standard is for commas and periods to be placed inside the quoted text. So if I were to end this sentence with a quote, “I would include the period inside the quote marks.” This changes when you use parenthetical citations, in which case “I would move the period back to the very end, including the citation” (Halavais, 2009).
On that, some used citations fairly willy-nilly. You have to follow an established standard: that’s why it is a standard. You can go APA, or Chicago, or MLA, but you can’t go the Cartman route and make up your own. And again, on the web, hyperlinks are a great mechanism for citation.
As a rule, you should try to avoid putting URLs in your text–especially ugly URLs–if it is meant to be read online. When you do end up including a URL, be sure to make it linked as well. Nothing is so frustrating as seeing a URL and having to cut and paste it into the address bar. Better: use contextual linking and rely on hyperlinks rather than bare URLs.
I think the issue that really caught a lot of you up was the need to use a quote, when paraphrasing would serve you just as well. (This PDF provides an example of the difference between quoting and paraphrasing, with APA style citations.) When you do use a direct quote, especially one of some length, it shouldn’t be used as a replacement for your own work, but as evidence. Unfortunately, even if you do not intend it to be such a replacement, it often reads as such unless you clearly indicate why you are using it.
The best bet is to paraphrase, only quoting when you want to make the point that an author has phrased something in a particular way, or when the words are of particular import. If you are mainly drawing on the ideas, look for a way to rephrase them so that they serve your own argument. Especially for lit reviews, summary and paraphrasing should make up the majority of your citation. The OWL has two pages on this: here and here. Note that you also need to paraphrase fully.
There has been a claim recently heard that new kinds of technologies change the way we write. This seems inevitably to be the case. There is a long history, since the ancients, of our technologies of writing affecting the content of that writing. When people first started writing on cave walls, no doubt there were complaints about how much was lost in the move from dirt floors.
As in the natural backlash that accompanies the hyping of each new technology, there is now concern that Twitter and its kin will spell the end to literacy and a descent into frivolity. It would be easier to place credence in these claims if we had not heard them so many times before. The telegraph, with its Twitteresque focus on brevity, led to the most extreme sorts of claims–both utopian and dystopian. In the end, the way we write will not be any more affected by Twitter, texting, or blogging, than it was by the telegraph or movable type. But that’s not to say that it will remain unchanged.
Print Revolution
Of course, movable type had tremendous social effects. It moved written language closer to spoken language, and reinforced existing European languages as vulgate versions of the bible and of other books were widely published. It changed the style of discourse as well. In particular, it was–for the first time–possible to cite other books, because there were exact duplicates of those books spread across the continent. A strong determinist view would claim that this one writing technology led to the Enlightenment, science, and modernity.
And, no doubt, there are those who would say that this was a bad thing, that we would have been better off with books and writing in the hands of the few. Many of these steps have moved the act of writing into more and more hands, and with each step it has become less expensive (some would say cheapened) and less sacred (some might say more profane). The concern is that with new forms of writing and the ease with which they are produced, all discourse will be reduced to graffiti.
IDK my BFF Jill
There was a string of such concerns when texting slowly made its way into the mainstream in the US, mainly among teens. Would teenagers be able to write? Would they create business letters with “u” for you, or other seemingly inane abbreviations? Worse yet, would we all start doing this, leading to the fall of (English language) civilization? That particular panic calmed down only long enough for Twitter to come along. The language police were out in full force, decrying the damage this was doing to our literate brains. Think of the children!
In fact, it turns out that texting is related to improved literacy among 10- to 12-year-olds. The short-cuts we take in order to fit into 140 characters actually follow rules that have deep roots in the English language. In Txtng: the Gr8 Db8, linguist David Crystal suggests the ludic use of text on mobile phones provides a particularly effective way of learning about language. As with other technologies, the potential for radical damage has been vastly overstated.
And like other technologies, the unintended consequences are yet to be felt. I suspect that other technologies–particularly the ability of machines to write and read text–will cause far deeper changes in our language than a 140 character limit ever will.
Style-switching
Let me begin by saying that, in fact, I have received emails with “u” for “you.” Not just from undergrads, but from graduate students. I was really disappointed by this. If they had IMed me with that replacement, I would have been less concerned, but something deep inside me finds these kinds of abbreviations in an email to be indecorous. There are certain style and diction expectations in an email, just as there are in an academic paper, a personal note, a letter to the editor, and a newspaper article. In none of those is it appropriate to write “omg” but in an IM, text, or LOLcat image, it is perfectly acceptable. (Actually LOLcat is an interesting counter-example. I’ve yet to see frightened letters to the editor about the fact that LOLspeech is hurting the youth. This despite a project to translate the entire bible into LOL.)
The issue, then, is that good writing looks different in different contexts. Anyone who has seen their favorite book butchered in movie form can tell you that. Same message–sometimes even the same writer–but with drastically different outcomes. The ability to pick the right style and diction for a particular context is a vital piece of what it is to be literate. As Bronwyn Williams is quoted as saying in this Tech Review article:
In coming years literacy will mean knowing how to choose between print, image, video, sound, and all the potential combinations they could create to make a particular point with a specific audience. What will not change is the necessity of an individual to be able to find a purpose, correctly analyze an audience, and communicate to that audience with information and in a tone that audience will find persuasive, engaging, and intelligent.
Likewise, when I have to explain to someone over IM what brb, afaik, or afk mean, I have a fleeting “where has this person been” moment. It’s not particularly fair, I know, but it marks them as someone outside the technical circle. In years past, that actually might have been a good thing. After all, being a member of the elite used to mean that you dictated your letters, never touched email, and wouldn’t think of texting someone. This was so entrenched, that the idea that our current president might actually want to carry a Blackberry nearly caused a constitutional crisis. But this is changing. Not only the young and geeky text these days, and not knowing how to doesn’t make you aloof, it makes you out of touch.
Likewise, not being able to write a businesslike letter, memo, or email puts you out of touch, and closes doors to you. Unfortunately, this is a silent killer. This is most strikingly the case in cover letters for employment. Even if someone is vaguely interesting for a job, their resume is quickly “round filed” if the cover letter is not formatted properly, has a typo, or strikes the wrong tone for the context. The test for literacy is someone who is equally adept at writing copy for a popular website, shooting off a short message requesting help from a friend, and writing a clear, precise, academic article without skipping a beat.
Fear & Loathing On Twitter
Should we be afraid of new writing and communication technologies? Absolutely not. But we should definitely think about their use and misuse. It is a mistake to jump on the bandwagon and mindlessly devote yourself to any new technology. Try it, but do so with a critical mind. What is this good for. Why is it better than other options? What contexts is it best suited for?
It used to be that I blogged several times a week on my main blog, but now I often go for weeks without making an entry. Some of that is that I am writing in other spaces (like here!), but a lot of it has to do with using Twitter for a lot of what I did on my blog. There are times when 140 characters is just not enough to say what I want to say, but those times are rare.
My advice is to go for the middle way. Use communication technologies when it is the most appropriate and most effective way of reaching the people you want to persuade. Of course, as I’ve said before, one of the keys to persuading people is to gain and hold their attention, and one of the best ways of doing this is by surprising them. Twitter is relatively virgin territory: there is a lot of room for surprises.
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