How to say nothing in 500 words

What does "Concise" mean? Is writing the art of spinning bllsht into gold? Isn't a grammatically clean paper all you really need for an "A"? Do students really think instructors can't see through BS? OR do students think BS is what is expected? (After all we see nothing but BS on TV, in the news, from those around us)....
Turns out back in the '50s a prof. had some brilliant insight into this. I've only just scanned it - but it comes highly recommended by a colleague.

• the essay
• a blog post on it by someone else.

The writer's job is to take a boring idea, and make it interesting.

Quoting the dictionary: Faculty responses

In an unscientific poll of Composition 1 instructors at JCCC, 8 have weighed in. When asked how they felt when a writer quoted the dictionary in the introduction of an essay, 7 of 8 chose “Arrgh. I hate it” with the remaining voter selecting “I rarely see it work but it doesn’t bother me.” No one chose a positive (“I love it”) or neutral (“Fine. Whatever.”) response. The survey was anonymous, faculty had to follow a link, and perhaps that attracted only those with strong feelings; however, there seems a consensus that quoting from a dictionary does not succeed in comp. 1 classes or higher classes.

In response to the question I posed to the faculty list-serv , however; colleagues offered more useful, nuanced and reflective replies. I asked (all emphasis – bold – is mine):

How do instructors here feel about students quoting the dictionary (particularly in an introduction)? This may be a personal bias I need to address. I don’t generally like it, and I’ve had colleagues who felt strongly about it, but I once taught from a writing textbook that encouraged the practice…..-I’d like to be able to honestly tell students if this is a personal style issue specific to an individual instructor, or if citing the dictionary is generally unsuccessful with college writing professors.

Prof. Brannan explained:

particularly for developmental writers, patterns and other structure are critical. The dictionary gambit can be used as fluff--which it often is in Comp I, II, and beyond--but is useful for our 106 and 102 writers. It is especially useful when these students also see the classifying/dividing element in good dictionary definitions and have the concept of specific, detailed examples reinforced.

In the Precomposition class (roughly the equivalent to JCCC’s ENGL 106 ) I once taught elsewhere, the book suggested incorporating a dictionary definition. This lends support to Prof. Brannan’s thoughts. Prof. Lillich expressed:

I just finished grading a batch of definition essays and had several students use dictionary definitions as jumping off points/introductions. This is the developmental level in Engl 106, where the chapter on writing the definition essay suggests incorporating the dictionary into your pre-writing and using your specific definition in your essay. I really think it all depends on what level writing you are teaching AND who your students are.

There seems to be consensus. There’s a time and place for it, but Comp 1 students should be in the process of moving out of the practice. Prof Allen wrote:

At the risk of sounding like I worry about template writing a lot, I think this comes back to that. Students are given certain patterns, tricks of the trade early in their writing experiences and they are never moved out of that. What I don't know is why. Are they not given enough opportunities to think? After all, writing requires the ability to think not just regurgitate facts. Or are they encouraged to stick with what "works" for so long that they fear leaving the security of it? What I do know is that the definition opening is one of those strategies encouraged early on as an "opening technique" for young writers.

Maybe my overexposure to the technique (because I teach comp 1) has contributed to some sort of allergy. The repetitive exposure results in a numbness or fugue in others. Prof. Karle explains:

Dictionary definitions are boring and, as I tell my students, a missed opportunity to say something that is actually interesting to the reader and significant to the paper's argument. I also tell my students that if they must define a word, their own definition (for example of the word hero) would be far more interesting to the reader.

Prof. Schmeer tells writers that their goal is to:

grab our attention and “delight the reader”--that is, engage us and make us want to keep reading. Dictionary definitions are the written equivalent of Ben Stein’s character in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” It helps to show a YouTube clip of the roll-call scene in FBDO or read students papers aloud in a Ben Stein voice when you explain this. They get it right away…
But beginning writers need templates to follow. I think we all forget that we needed templates at some point, too. Learning to think isn’t easy. Learning to trust your thinking is harder. Learning to trust that what you put on the page is often a poor representation for what you think and you need to think harder and represent those thoughts better is impossible unless you are willing to put forth the effort.

I’m going to share the video link in class next semester to provoke a free write on the analogy Prof. Schmeer talks about (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7zYyTotwfE). I like analogies. Prof. Fitzpatrick posited:

I have always thought of things like modes or the known/new pattern or even “claim-logos support-pathos support-ethos support” models as solid training wheels for students to use while they are finding their bearings in this new world of academic writing. ….But you don’t keep training wheels on forever, and the trick is helping students know when to take those training wheels off —and I think it is particularly difficult in late 106 …and early Comp1 (where some students come in with the stock patterns, which have given them success in high school and that are damn near required for standardized tests, and assume every kind of thought can be squeezed into one of those templates). That is something that, in my opinion, needs to be done on an individual basis with the student and the intention of the essay. But, for me, the place to start is to make sure students understand that these things are training wheels (or scaffolding) that will disappear once the ideas have enough wherewithal to support themselves.

This dialogue responds to the question much better than a simple and reductive rule for or against a practice; hopefully my students will read it. Lance Armstrong could show up to a bike race with training wheels and those who knew of him wouldn’t laugh He’d likely win the race, but for most riders, once they reach sufficient proficiency with a bike the training wheels become a hindrance rather than a help. ( I imagine he’d use them like the wheel weapons in the chariot race in Ben Hur, or like those vicious chrome plastic lug nut covers on semis).

Prof. Heflin makes an important distinction and relates the question to larger issues of research

if the student feels compelled to justify her/his point of view on an idea with a definition, I require that they use an authoritative dictionary, not a common one....so I remind students that they are not doing research by using a common dictionary, but merely doing preliminary research. I push my students to realize that the easy sources can be accessed by anyone, but a scholar accesses the authoritative, hard to find sources, which helps to build the writer's own authority in the process… that is also the rationale I give about avoiding using Wikipedia or eHow or any other abbreviated or condensed encyclopedia--it is not authoritative enough in and of itself (besides other issues).

All comments collected from email over the period of 12/9/10 to 12/12/10 and reprinted with permission of the authors.

Citing the Dictionary

For some reason people like to start papers with by citing a dictionary. Maybe writers think it kills 2 birds with 1 stone in that a) it's an in-text reference and demonstrates a quote and b) gets something on paper.

I hate seeing quotes pulled from a dictionary. Call it a pet peeve; call it a fetish; call me an irascible curmudgeon and pedant, but it makes me cringe. I'd rather chew aluminum foil than read a dictionary quote of common word.

To make it worse, most dictionary quotes I see from students include several meanings of the word, in various parts of speech, and fail to identify what particular meaning will be focused on. It looks like filler - a great ploy to break writer's block and get started on a rough draft - but not something that should survive to a final draft.

I generally hate seeing dictionary quotes because its tried so often and almost never works - not that it can't be done. Maybe it's like cutting your own hair. I've known just one person who can pull it off, but I've know dozens who failed miserably. I strongly recommend against it. I can simply turn my head from looking at a bad haircut, but I'm required to read what students write, so for now I reserve the right to dock points for style.

I do encourage writers to define their terms as they use them, but be specific to the context and usage of your term, and define it in a way personally meaningful: preferably in your own words. All dictionary definitions of common words are going to be similar, so most such definitions are common knowledge and would be trite.

Mike Shapiro at UW- Madison writes

Three quick usage rules:

1. Incorporate a definition into your essay only when that definition is unusual and interesting—as a general rule, give definitions only for meanings that are uncommon (example: the theological sense of disgrace) or that have gone out of use since Shakespeare’s time.
2. Use the definition to further your argument. If you take the space to spell out an unusual meaning of disgrace but don’t explain how that unusual definition betters our understanding of the sonnet, that space will be wasted.
3. Don’t begin an essay with a definition. Although this might give you a way to break the blank page, your reader is more interested in the argument of your essay than in the OED definition of “love.”

A thread started on a public discussion board has a student asking if it's ok to quote the dictionary because her teacher said it was a rule she couldn't. There's a great discussion and only a little teacher-bashing.


Oh, and if one were to quote a dictionary, it'd better be the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), or a specialized dictionary like the Urban Dictionary or the Devil's Dictionary.

Grammar Matter (?): that vs who

One mechanical or stylistic pet peeves that got violated most in the SP2010 semester is the careless or inconsistent use of that vs. who. These words (along with "which") introduce a type of relative clause, which is particularly difficult for speakers of Asian languages - because relative clauses don't exist in their native tongues. Relative clauses are only found in European languages (tho some Native American languages have adopted the grammatical structure due to the influence of Spanish). But the "That/ who" distinction discussed here is a primarily native-English speaker issue. This concern is shared by many of my colleagues, and this issue sparked the longest dialogue posted to a teaching list-serv this year. Consider some examples. A colleague posted the following, and asked us to compare:

She was a student that worried about the finer points.

To this:

She was a student who worried about the finer points.

It's small and fussy, but in my ear it's like calling a person "it."

I whole-heartedly agree. "That" is way overused - and it denies humanity to the word it refers to - its antecedent. It reminds me of a self-described " conservative Christian" who referred to "children that are abused." Denying humanity to a race or class of people is the first step to violence against that group: the irony. Another prof. here offered:

I agree that it's most important just to get students thinking about word choices. It's pretty common, though, for personalized animals, like pets, to be referred to as "who." However, I too prefer students to refer to people with "who," even when the student wants to write "the damn cop that gave me the ticket!"

Grammar Girl weighs in on the subject with her customary verve here. And Grammarbook.com is less equivocal and more succinct.

Grammar matters (?): #9 farther vs. further.

Farther is distance and further is for an abstract concept - matter of time or degree usually. Click on cartoon for full treatment (it won't fit here and be legible).

All grammar and style advice should be funny

Fake APStylebook posts style advice for writing - the site makes me laugh consistently and sometimes I agree with their point. Sometimes it's bogus - but generally funny. attached is a screengrab from what I found worthy of retweeting (BTW: follow me here on twitter if enough people did I might actually keep up with it).

I decided to follow them on the advice of a student who gets updates to his cell phone.

This reminds me somewhat of The Transitive Vampire - a grammar handbook for the doomed. It actually does a great job teaching grammar - on purpose.

Passive voice

When I speak of excessive use of passive voice (or passive verbs) I refer to the over use of "to be" verbs: is, are, was, were, be, being, been and am.

Passive verbs are to writing what salt is to the American diet. The human body needs salt- and if and when it is totally eliminated from a person's diet that person will eventually die. But we tend to eat way too much salt. It's everywhere! It has become a health problem that leads to health problems and the early death of too many people (fat works in the metaphor too).

Same with passive verbs. Good writing will have a few - but first drafts always have too many - and with some students I only see first drafts. We have to learn to reduce our reliance on passives.

Passives

• can make sentences longer than they need to be - resulting in wordy constructions
• hide or obscure agency - who did what? Politicians have long used passives for non-apologies for various heinous acts
• suck the life out of writing. Active verbs have more ... action. Stuff happens.
• were once tacitly, if not explicitly, encouraged in medical schools. In 2006, my boss at the KU Med Writing Center showed me research that indicates this habit - with the intent to hide agency in case of malpractice cases - actually exacerbates the filing of malpractice suits. Modern med schools now, at least publicly and officially, no longer encourage passive voice in medical reports (eg. "the patient's temperature was 106" is now better, "the nurse recorded the patients temperature at 106" ).
  

Sometimes the problem may come from cognitive malware installed by previous writing instructors, such as directives "Don't use first person in any writing!" in which the teacher probably meant to address other issues such as wordiness and over-reliance on opinion rather than fact or support. I don't mind an occasional use of first person - especially if it reduces passive verbs. But that's just me ;)

There's an online interactive tutorial from punctilious.org that we should use in class. I've also started collecting links re: passive voice/ passive verbs on the social bookmarking site.

Qualifiers of Certainty: what they say

I've noted the use and abuse of qualifiers from our first papers - particularly those I've called "filler" such as: "I think," "I believe," "In my opinion," "I feel," "In my eyes," and "From my perspective." I call these filler because their use is generally out of habit - casual readers might not consciously register them.

Compositions teachers shouldn't be casual readers. The qualifiers above generally signal uncertainty, a lack of confidence, an unwillingness to commit to a thought or statement, or worse (ie that other words from the paper are NOT the writer's thoughts...plagiarism). These words and phrases at best add word count but add little meaning. Use them sparingly if at all.

If a person writes something, shouldn't the reader assume it to be the writer's thoughts?

A lack of confidence may be a personal shortcoming that education is meant to remedy - or it could signal a lack of research, and writers should become experts on the topic of their papers.

These qualifiers show up in the first drafts of many skilled writers - including (and perhaps particularly) myself. Editing and revision takes care of this. So excessive use of qualifiers of uncertainty communicate the lack of proofreading.

Web comix, cliches and colloquialisms.

Grammar discussions demand humor.

Taylor Mali, a teacher turned Slam Poet (he's been on Def Comedy Jam and Comedy Central), has great material on YouTube. His poetry (more stand up/ spoken word with a hip hop feel) rocks. See a collection of links . His rant on “what a teacher really makes” lifted my spirits, but his video on rhetoric and the loss of voice in contemporary culture is more relevant for students.

Victor Borge’s a phonetic punctuation system can lighten up a grammar discussion and teach mechanics. And for me it's practical; living in multilingual environments, I sometimes speak out punctuation to clarify meaning.

There's an online cartoon at http://www.bitstrips.com/series/34595/ that treats grammar. Web comix work better in the wiki than in the blog. The blog cuts off much of the content, but if you click on the image itself it will open up larger and in its entirety.

Also on the issue of tired language , Oxford researchers have released a list of the top 10 most irritating words or phrases in English. Not all of them are cliches, but...

And what is the difference between a cliche and a colloquialism?