Focusing on the Big Picture; Outlining!!!

What if you walked into your first college class and your professor looked to all of you and said that this class is totally based on how to make good sentences? First off, that’s boring and second off, taking a class like that would probably make me want to drop out. Creating a sentence is different for everyone. Based on your background or where you grew up and the type of language you have been exposed to all your life directly affects the way you talk and how you create sentences.  Stanley Fish addressed in his article “What Should Colleges Teach?” that the most important thing that professors should be teaching their students is how to correctly format and create sentences. This can be hard to reteach not just one student, but a whole universities way of communication. Not to mention a university is created entirely of students from different places throughout the world, so that is a lot of variance in ethnicities and cultures and a lot different types of communication.  

https://gfycat.com/hoarseflateyra 
Please do not write like Shakespeare, he obviously
has a a lot going on with himself and his writing. 

       I agree that there is some importance that Fish states in why students need to learn how to create good sentences. But, I also believe that stressing the importance of creating a sentence can actually worsen someone's writing. I think that students who focus on writing sentences too much will make their sentences too complex so then what they have wrote, then becomes unclear to the reader. Fish says that, “It is because our students come to us unable to write clean English sentences that we are obligated to supply what they did not receive from their previous teachers.” This statement does make sense, not everyone has had the same provided education therefore some of their writing skills may be lacking. Although many students still make good pieces of writing through being themselves and talking through their own type of language. Personally, reading a piece that has some personality to it, is ten times more entertaining than someone who writes like William Shakespear.  

https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-fm
cc-standupspeakout-2/chapter/why-outline/
Format of how to outline

      Instead of professors giving their attention mainly to creating sentences, they should focus on the bigger picture of a piece of writing. Outlining is an a very important aspect of college writing. Whether you outline or not, that is your choice, but it will affect the overall piece of writing that you turn in. Outlining gives the writer the opportunity to organize their thoughts and ideas. Based on the prompt that a teacher gives you, and the length of the paper, you need to format in some way and get yourself organized before beginning the paper. Outlining also helps your collected data to be placed in the right places throughout an essay in the best way so that it makes sense to the reader. It also makes sure that your data supports the specific claims that you are making. While doing this, you're saving a significant amount of time spent while writing the paper and you can spend more time revising the paper when it is completed.  

      There were many steps I took in order to further my knowledge over the importance of outlining in college. I sat in on a tutoring session at the OSU Writers Studio and had a follow up interview with the tutor. I created a survey based on the importance of outlining primarily which college students took this survey. I continued to look up extra sources and documents that helped support as to why outlining is so beneficial to college students and their writing. 

https://giphy.com/explore/bad-dream
You waking up in the middle night after having
a bad dream about failing a paper
because you didn't
outline before your paper. 

Outlining is an important strategy that everyone should learn how to use so that it benefits not only their overall performance of their paper, but also saves the writer a lot of time. Karen Craigo who has been a teacher for many years and has graded few papers in her day, says that the advantage of outlining, “is that it gives students something to turn to when they're lost. They can just move on to the next part and come back to the troublesome section later. That's an empowering tool.” Craigo provides an additional perspective but takes it in a different direction. It can be hard to figure out what you want to write or don’t know where to start so outlining is kind of like a map to guide you through your paper. I mean, wouldn’t you like a map if you were stranded in the middle of nowhere, which usually only happens in bad dreams. But hey, writing papers is definitely like a bad dream.  

       Fish did have a good point that students should learn how to create a complex sentence because this will come in handy throughout their college carrier, but teachers should focus on the benefitting students writing overall. Outlining is an important strategy that all college writers should learn how to do so they are saving time and in the long run are benefitting their performance of the paper.   

The Focus of Writing

We often wonder about how to write about all the things we want to include into our writings. It can be just a little bit difficult but at the same time if you have the right resources, it will help your paper in so many ways. In my English 1110.03 class we got to read “What Should Colleges Teach?” By Stanley Fish. He mentioned how middle schools and high schools aren’t preparing students to write effectively. I do agree with this fact because as students prepare for writing in college they need the skills on how to focus with the evidence they have. When all your organized thoughts and ideas are set and ready to go it will help you not get sidetracked when you write, because that is what tends to happen when students are writing. Having a big focus on your research is key as well, because when you don’t have that it will be a waste of time and you’ll have unnecessary information to focus upon. This will then may lead to having you change your topic unintentionally of you aren’t focused.

    Besides all that you are still asking why? As mentioned before above, Stanley Fish went into depth on how high schools and middle schools don’t prepare you to write effectively and it all starts with on how to properly locate and use your resources. He explains how you won’t be able to change what you have if you don’t have the tools to correct. I do agree with him on this but I also think that most students out of high school are prepared for the writing in college. They may not be fully prepared, but in my opinion I feel that students still have potential to write what they can in college. Students are prepared for the basic needs when it comes to writing and come with enough to help them write to their best and full potential.

You may have that though where you're wondering on what to put down to make it even stronger. As we all know, having strong evidence and detail to back up your point and to make your writing better is well needed, but you also need something else and that is focus. Always focusing upon your topic and your main points and ideas along with your evidence will help to strengthen your writing, and then in the end you will come to the conclusion on why focusing on all these key thing is so important. I have had many experiences, (and still sometimes do) where I lose track of my topic throughout the paper and just don't know what I'm writing or what to write. I realized that it was because most of the time I did not have the important information or just enough to express what I am trying to get across so that my audience will understand rather than dragging the whole thing.

In my English 1110.03 class we had the opportunity to do data gathering assignments which included a survey, an observation between a PWC and a student, a teacher interview, and a PWC interview. I got to interview PWC Maddie from the Writers Studio at The Ohio State University at Newark https://newark.osu.edu/students/support-services/the-writers-studio/. When I got to observe her and the student that she was working with, they were working on a project proposal that was focused upon the analysis of a place and throughout it Maddie mentioned a lot about detail/being brief. While interviewing her I asked why she though that was so important and she went on to say how the detail the student had needed to be clear/concise so that the reader won't get confused with also the prompt they were referring to for evidence needing to be brief because the main focus was the analysis.

She explained to me how most first year writing courses have a focus on analysis of repetitions, binaries, and detail. This really stood out to me because these are things that have a big focus but is something we tend to leave out and not think about. I believe that when you do not have the right amount of detail to explain your argument is when it starts to go downhill. In order to have a proper formatted paper you need to follow step by step instructions to come to a conclusion. Start off by gathering the most relevant information and organize them for each paragraph and then explain what it all means. By having that strong evidence helps to boost the main idea of your whole paper.

When it comes to your analysis, that is also one of the key things to focus on as well. Many writers have a concern over this because sometimes they feel as if they don't have as much or have too little. The main thing when it comes to analysis is to think about your audience. You should focus on how much to explain, and think about what you'd do if you were the reader. According to the https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/audience/ this helps a lot with audience and will help to guide you on how to sum it all up. Narrowing down your focus helps your paper as well. You want to try and have not too much or not too little of information to come to your main idea. Having too much overwhelms the reader and having too little confuses them. It's kind've like a recipe, you want to add the right amount of an ingredient to get the right amount flavor.

When you just know it's too much and that you don't know what you just read.

    Even though Stanley Fish had great points on how students are not prepared for the writing in college, I believe that students are somewhat prepared for it. From the research that I did I came to the conclusion that there are so many steps to take when it comes to the focus of your writing. From my own experiences I've had so many situations where I didn't know how to focus upon my topic and would get sidetracked. By hearing about others' experiences and and understanding what needs to be put into a writing to make it strong has helped me to realize the importance of focus. 

Why we should dissect a paper

A big question is what should be taught in college writing. In an article “What should colleges teach? Part 3” By Stanley Fish, he talked about what high school teachers are not teaching and what students should already know when they get into college. In this article he wants college professors to focus on sentence structure to make up for poor writing skills in high school. Stanley states “ You have to start with a simple but deep understanding of the game, which for my purposes is the game of writing sentences.” When he said “understanding of the game” it caught my attention because understanding a paper as a whole is very important. Writing a good sentence and understanding the structure of the sentence is a very good skill to have but, understanding the components of a paper are key to successfully writing in college.

 Stanley has a very good idea with teaching sentence structures but I just don’t think that is as important as understand a prompt, analyzing sources, and revising the paper. I have conducted various types of research pertaining to college writing to come up with my idea of what is most important. This includes an observation of a tutoring session at Ohio State Newarks writers studio, I emailed a professor from OSU Newark, had 10 college students participate in a survey monkey, and did online journal and book research on college writing. After doing all of this research, analyzing really stuck out.

Don't be like this guy, if you can't figure it out
always ask your professor!

Understanding an assignment prompt is one of the first and most important things to do beforewriting a college paper. In high school I was never given an actual assignment prompt other than a 5-paragraph form layout. Prompts have very important information such as what the paper needs to look like and the deadline. Analyzing the prompt gives you a good start for the essay because you already fully understand what is being asked of you, now you just have to research sources and understand the topic you are writing about. Analyzing sources can help you come to find a better understanding of the topic you are writing about. After you conduct research and have primary claim you then want to break that claim down into smaller detailed paragraphs.

Something to keep in mind whole writing a college essay is the difference between summarizing and analyzing. In an essay you want to analyze the topic you are focused on. Ashford Writing Center gives us a good understanding of the difference between them “ To summarize is to take ideas and present them again in a more concise way. But to analyze is to reach your own conclusions about how the elements of a topic...fit together to create something that may not be evident at first glance.” This gives more insight to analyzing in a college paper. Teachers should be teaching students how to analyze a topic and really understand it to make your own conclusions and present them professionally in a college essay.

We use analyzing in our daily lives, maybe too much analyzing for some...

                                   

The most important thing from all of my research was emailing another OSU professor. Her name is Professor Boeshart and I emailed her after I came to the conclusion of analyzing being the most important. My questions to her were very specific to analyzing in college writing and she gave me very good insight to what is the most important from a professors point of view. Analyzing can be seen as revision if we are talking about an essay as a whole so I asked her “Why is it important to revise a paper?” The key things she told me was “it may make sense in your head, but not as clear to an audience...we haven’t questioned the conclusions we’ve come up with yet on our first draft.” These are key steps for analyzing a paper after a first draft. Whenever you revise it means to look at it again with a fresh set of eyes.

When following my advice this is how you
should feel about college writing.

College writing is much more than writing a good sentence. Fish said that sentences were the most important and the rest of college writing skills will just follow, I think knowing how to analyze is the most important to do. College professors should teach analyzing to students. Not just analyzing the prompt but to analyze and revise the essay as a whole. When you write an essay, think about the topic and research the topic so you have your own conclusions on that specific topic and not just what others say. Take what others say to form a new and better understanding of the topic. Knowing how to read a prompt is also very important to do when you first get assigned an essay. Read over the prompt, read it out loud if you have to and really understand all the key points that are being asked of you to complete.

What Should Colleges Teach - Alned Qemalli

In the article What Should Colleges Teach Part 3, Stanley Fish takes on one of the toughest questions against any college professor. “What should the ideal composition course look like and what should it  teach? Stanley Fish says that most students in high school are not being taught any writing skills in a effective way. His solution is that to creat multiple methods starting from which he says is the most important method, sentence structure. To teach students who are in college instead of having teachers teach the course all over again.

When Stanley Fish described what he thinks in the most important thing to college writing is, I agreed with him. But after doing my own research I think that introduction is a good and better way to get better writing skills for students who are in college. Since the beginning of the semester I was assigned and completed many different things on introctuons. I attended a observation with a tutor and a English writing student, I researched articles online, and I even emailed a college proffesor at The Ohio State University Newark for some help. All of my sources are reliable and trusted. If a student can start off with a good introduction to his paper than his paper will be 100 times better along with his writing skills.

The one thing that I’ll always remember from my research and English 1109 class is the tutorial observation that I observed. I say this because when I observed the observation the student tutor who is Eli told the English 1110.03 student that his introduction was too weak and need to be longer and better. He explained why he needed to do this because when introductions are too weak they will not inform the reader about anything or interest the reader and grab his attention at all. That made me realize how powerful and useful a introduction is.


Although I think that introductions are more important, Stanley Fish is right about sentences too. Never worry about your paper all at once. Just make sure you have a good/strong introduction that will inform the reader about your topic and grab his attention and you will already be off to a start start in your paper.

Why evidence is important ?

Why evidence is important?

When you're trying to get someone onboard with you, you always give evidence, facts, reasons why your side is more logical than an opposing side. It’s the same thing for an essay even when you are not in averbal discussion it is still important to prove why you hold your stance. A claim alone is just that it does not have any foundation for it to be built on, evidence is the foundation for your claim and makes it stronger than just an opinion. The University of Guelph defines evidence as “facts, examples, or sources used to support a claim” and says that in scientific terms “this might be data retrieved from an experiment or a scientific journal articlehttps://www.lib.uoguelph.ca/get-assistance/writing/writing-disciplines/using-evidence-effectively Using evidence is important but the type of evidence you use is just as important, using chat room opinions or Wikipedia posts does not make you a trustworthy and reliable source of information.

There are different kinds of sources Primary sources and Secondary Sources. Primary sources as defined by the University of Pittsburgh’s Department of Communication “Primary sources are first-hand experiences, accounts, observations, reports, or narratives. Primary sources could include diaries, letters, contemporary newspapers, or eyewitness accounts of events. Official documents (e.g. the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms), data collected from surveys, and lab results are also primary sources” In continuation Primary sources can also be first hand witness accounts, if you were covering a news story, you would want to speak to people who were either involved in the story your covering or were there watching what happened. This would make you a reliable source of information because your story is backed by the witness and individuals involved.Secondary sources are written by academics and scholars, defined by the University of North Carolina at chapel hill secondary sources “are considered secondary because they examine primary sources to present an argument or support a point of view; as such, they may be selective with their evidence or insert themselves in a debate happening among a number of scholars. In the sciences, reviews, which are surveys of articles that demonstrate an understanding of a field, are considered secondary.” continue to say that “It is a good idea to be aware of the bias in secondary sources when employing them as evidence.” https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-

                                                                                                   

Now this can be confusing and cause you to think, well if secondary sources bias can cause an issue in my paper, why do some professors require both primary and secondary sources in written assignments? That is a good question and just like the student who is asking this question, critiques of college education and what should be taught in colleges, have also had some concerns on how writing is taught in college. Stanley Fish is one of the critiques in the NY times article What should colleges teach?Fish says that “by all the evidence, high schools and middle schools are not teaching writing skills in an effective way, if they are teaching them at all” he then continues to say that “the exception seems to be catholic schools” Fish uses individuals who have attended catholic school and “remembered with a mixture of fondness and pain the instruction they received at the hands of severe nuns”. Although I agree with Fish on the argument that there are things high schools and middle schools don’t put focus on that colleges should put focus on. I don’t agree with what he is insinuating,

Although I don’t know how catholic schools give their instruction in full detail, I have read and heard horror stories about what individuals deal with in those schools. Fish himself talks about the “pain” these people felt “at the hands of severe nuns”. I would never want my child instructor to be abusing my child verbally nonetheless physically assaulting them, yes, the curriculum taught in schools should be reevaluated and students should be taught about not only things they will use in real life, but the instructors and parents should together make sure that students are understanding the full concept of writing. Fish is a professor of writing himself and believes that students should learn the full concept of reading and writing at an earlier school stage because these two come hand in hand, fish also believes that because students are not taught better writing and reading earlier, this should not relive college professors of the responsibility of teaching those elements. What fish is saying in a nutshell is that students should have the ability to read and write at a “mastery” level,  however if they do not when they reach higher education this should not mean they get thrown in with students who have already mastered the concept but rather professors should take it upon themselves to teach these skills to their fullest ability. I agree with fish in this argument for many reasons. One this should not just be about reading and writing but for all other courses as well, yes, the education system overall needs to be reevaluated and teachers should make sure a student understands everything that has been taught to them, but I also agree with him because students reaching a college level education does not mean they fully understand everything and a professor should put to use assessments that evaluate what level a student is at and make sure the student is placed in the correct course and has all the tools available for them to succeed onto a higher level of understanding .

 

Don't forget to quote!!!

In the article "What College Should Teach Pt.3" Stanley Fish argues how high school are not being taught in an effective way and how students are not prepared for college. He said
“By all the evidence, high schools and middle schools are not teaching writing skills in an effective way, if they are teaching them at all. The exception seems to be Catholic schools. More than a few commentators remembered with a mixture of fondness and pain the instruction they received at the hands of severe nuns.”

Fish said that he’s not there to take anyone’s language but just there to add more and one of his claims is writing sentences.

Dr. Fish..

“You have to start with a simple but deep understanding of the game, which for my purposes is the game of writing sentences. So it makes sense to begin with the question, What is a sentence anyway? My answer has two parts:  (1) A sentence is an organization of items in the world.  (2) A sentence is a structure of logical relationships”.

Said by Fish I agree with his point but he never mentioned how important a quotation is to the writing center and also strongly agreed with Fish point which is middle school and high school teachers don’t really prepare or help us as student on the right way to collage and they leave it all to the the collage professors. 

Which leaves the collage professors to build every student from the base on how to use quotation because student must know how to use and when to use a quotation in there paper and if the student was never thought in the previous school they won’t understand the importance of the quotes.




In an email to professor Herbruck Lauren, an English instructor at The Ohio State University in Newark. I sent her questions based on how and why quotation is important in collage writing.

And she replied “ In academic writing, secondary sources are very important to develop and contextualize your own ideas and analysis. They allow you to respond to others’ ideas and add your own to the ongoing conversation about an issue or topic”.

You don’t only just using someone’s words you showing your readers that, there is someone knows more than you that support your point and giving them their proper credential

are you using quotation mark properly? 

In university of Carolina writing center I read an article that supports on how are you using quote properly? Some students do lack on to how or when to use the quotation marks I did an online research to when would I quote? “Use quotations at strategically selected moments. You have probably been told by teachers to provide as much evidence as possible in support of your thesis. But packing your paper with quotations will not necessarily strengthen your argument. The majority of your paper should still be your original ideas in your own words (after all, it’s your paper). And quotations are only one type of evidence.”

This short paragraph shows more important to how to use quoting by using someone’s word and explaining or to support your claim. Quoting is like bring a guest speaker to the stage and let them talk/ tell instead of you that supports your point.

After reading an article from this book I came across how quotation could be organized as three categories which is the following steps 

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/short-guide-to-college-writing-sylvan-barnet/1100056753

of course Quotation Sandwich 

A) Introduce your quotations
B) Discuss your quotation
C) judge your quotation                          Quoting sandwiches encourages writers to introduce quotes and discuss them afterwards. Keep in mind quote should be the supporter, not the supplier of information in an essay. This helps the reader separate the writer’s ideas from someone else’s idea, connects someone else’s ideas to the writer’s ideas, also understand the quote and why it supports the writer’s thesis statement and last but not least explains the context of the quote. 

Overall Fish has point that primary and secondary schools should focus on their students and teach them what they will expect from their future education because collage isn’t the place where the students opens their eyes and taught how to hold their pencil, how to read and ect.. But stead its where they should know what to expect and they been taught to how to build their paper on the previous schools. 

Quotation can provide important piece of evidence and lend fresh voices and perspectives to your narrative. Used ineffectively, however, quotations can clutter your text and interrupt the flow of your argument” this means don’t use a long sense when you only need quarter of it, also don’t make it bored that the reader only reads people’s words more than yours because you only need the quotation for the flavors. It’s like you cooked spaghetti and sources without any flavors like garlic so you missing the whole purpose of the yumminess of the food.