Some tips on writing

In class, I also shared some ideas on how to improve your writing.  Here are some highlights:

• Avoid the cosmic opener.  If you start off your paper's introduction with some kind of grand statement about the meaning of life, the way humans have always done something since the beginning of time, or similar, leave it until you know what you specifically want to say, and then write it over.  :-)  Some examples of good (albethey not awesome) starting sentences:
• The aftermath of World War II resulted in the government investing vast quantities of public money in the support of a new form of institution: the research university.
• Scholars in the 1960s and 1970s explored the intersection of education "as a practice of freedom" and the structure of classrooms in order to question power relations between instructors and students.
• A formative experience in my educational history was learning philosophy through reading French.
• I first thought about being an engineer after being very successful in an advanced chemistry class in high school.
• Strive to avoid using the passive voice.  One of our tasks as your instructors in this class is to prompt you to structure strong arguments grounded in evidence.  When your evidence largely consists of the words of others, the passive voice allows you to avoid articulating WHO said or did or prompted your point.  
• Some examples of the passive voice:
• Education in US K-12 contexts was designed to help children grow using the liberal arts.
• A study was done that claimed people don't learn through rote repetition, but through constructing their own knowledge frameworks.
• Constructivism is considered a popular cognitive framework.
• Students are taught from textbooks.
• Instead, use the active voice.
• Some educators emerging from the Progressive Era structured learning environments around discovery.
• Rousseau has many ideas about the education of men, but does not speak as much about the education of women.
• Noddings uses the tool of formal logic to illustrate challenges to naturalistic argument.
• Once you have written a complete-ish draft, reoutline your paper.  In other words, take a paragraph you've written and try to summarize its big idea, write it in the margin.  Do you have more than one big idea per paragraph?  You might then want to split them into two paragraphs, where you say your big idea, and then spend the rest of the paragraph supporting it.  Once you've summarized all the paragraphs, look at all your big ideas, and think about whether the flow of those ideas help you make your overall point.  Do you need to reorder paragraphs? Do you need to delete one entirely (or save it to a "cut paragraphs" file in case you want it again later) because it is a distraction?
• Have colleagues read your essays.  Not just the folks in ENE or in class -- have your roomate, your partner, your kids read your essay and give you specific advice.
• Let your ideas stew.  Write something, and leave it aside.  You might mull it over, and want to rewrite bits.  You might return to it with fresh eyes to improve how you have made a point.  So plan in time to be able to leave it aside.
• Writing can be a way to think through ideas.  So as you write, you might change your overall point or story.  So then don't leave the beginning of your essay in the place you started -- we should not need to retrace your journey to follow your argument.  START OVER.  Otherwise we will note you are drifting through your essay.  Try to stay focused over the period of your essay.
• Make use of the Writing Lab, either the online version, or the in-person version.  They are great resources - especially the in-person version.

Let me know if you have questions on these, or add ideas to the comments below!