Being a college student, there are times during my years of academic work where I knew exactly what I wanted to write in my paper. At the other end of the spectrum, there were an equal number of situations where I was left staring at a blank paper. I know that there are some of you out there who can breeze through a ten-page research assignment no problem, and for that I applaud you. This article is meant for the rest of us who stare into space after we hit the infamous Microsoft Word logo on our desktops/laptops before retreating to our cellphones to check on the most recent social media update. If you’re having trouble coming with ideas or even starting your paper, here are some scenarios and tips that I’ve encountered that may help with writer’s block.

A Button in Your Character’s Pocket

Creative writing is something that most of us struggle with, especially since it is so personal to us. There are many avenues and lanes that we can take, all of them seemingly endless at times. Some ideas that can help your story begin with choosing a specific genre and building characters from it. It’s helpful to draw an outline or even a list of possible events that could happen in your story, which can be edited later if you choose. Character development is also a topic of interest, and for those stuck with this critical part of creative writing I offer this writing exercise presented from Alice LaPlante’s “The Making of a Story”. In LaPlante’s chapter on recognizable people she recommends an exercise where the writer fixates on one of their characters, imagining what items could fit in their bag, pocket, etc. (435-436).  This exercise allows you to learn more about your character by writing down all the things that can be found in their possession. You never know when a stick of gum stuck in their back-pocket can trigger an idea that impacts their development.

The Cover Page Dilemma  

As a psychology major, most of my coursework is dependent on research papers or reviewing scholarly sources. There were times when I would start and finish my cover page a week before the assignment was due, only to revisit said page the day before the deadline. Some of you (Or most of you) have the same mindset as me being a college student, with the idea that we can write any paper thrown at us at last-minute notice. This can be a frustrating habit and is made even worse when you don’t have a clue about what to write for your paper. I offer some tips that have helped me put content into something other than the cover page. The introduction is often the hardest part of a writing assignment so by skipping this and going right into the actual body of the paper, it allows you to achieve a kind of “run before you learn how to walk” feeling. I find that this approach helps at the start of the paper when you have ideas on what to write about, but don’t know how to begin the introduction. On the other hand, if you absolutely have no ideas for the paper, don’t get discouraged. Reading the assigned article(s) or assignment rubric again often jogs some form of ideas that can be expressed in your writing.

A Cup of Coffee with a Side of Something New

Breaking the routine. Everybody wakes up and has a routine. For most of us it’s a cup of coffee and a bowl of cereal to start our days. Although everybody has a different version of that routine, I encourage every one of you to break this pattern. By sticking with our normal schedule, its hard to think of something new when the world around us is constantly changing. Take a walk or if you don’t have a lot of time, even walking a different path to your class might be enough to inspire you. All of us like to be comfortable, but I often find that it’s the instances where we feel the most uncomfortable that change and stimulate new concepts for my writing. Participating in a discussion for class or talking to a professor one on one are both examples of how getting out your comfort zone can be beneficial in the formulation of fresh perspectives.

Yes, Your Annoying Roommate Affects your Writing

Our external environment also makes a huge impact in our writing. Personally, it’s harder for me to brainstorm ideas for my writing when there is an abundance of activity around me. Everyone is different however; some individuals thrive when they’re in a busy room full of loud chattering groups. The overall message that I’m trying to convey is that no matter what kind of environment you favor, it does play a major role in your writing. Temperature of the room, how many people are around you, or even the amount of space you must work with are all examples of how our environment can hinder the formulation of ideas for our writing. I recommend finding an environment that you believe is the most relaxed and stress free for best results.

Contributed by: Kenny Ho, Writing Center Intern

As the professor begins to pass back our papers, I am filled with the angst of fear and intrigue as I wait for the fateful moment of the return of my labor. Six hours of labor to be exact, all conformed and manipulated to fit as words in ink, on a few sheets of paper. Although it cannot exactly be compared with a twelve or twenty-six-hour birth, I dare to say that this paper is a baby of my own – a child of my labor.

Labor that can be seen in one condensed form – writing. A subject that every student loves!  Or maybe they could if they wouldn’t be asked to write a paper in the middle of a semester with about 1,687,543 other things to do.

Perhaps that is my only solace, that it happens to all of us. As students, we all have felt the stress from an assignment, which is no trivial matter, due to its: deadlines, guidelines, foreign formats, sources, and of course trying to retain the material etc. It’s enough to give any person anxiety. But this is the life of a student – simultaneously juggling multiple assignments in multiple different subjects. Pushing ourselves to the point of anxiety induced stress – which is a subject for discussion entirely on its own.

What happens when a paper is handed back and it is not up to your standards? What happens when your labor, your baby, is critiqued harshly? What is your initial response? If you’re anything like me, you will go through a few different emotional stages. Call them stages of grief, if you will:

1. 1. Shock. I see the grade, and I am beyond unimpressed, as anyone else would be with the hideous number scribbled at the top of my paper. Although numbers are easily understood in any language, I stare at them in a stupor. As if they would magically transform if I stare for a lengthy time.

• Anger/Denial. After I stare, I start to read and interpret the comments. I recognize every fault, of the soon to be unfortunate professor: they miscounted my points, or they didn’t give me credit for entering specific content in the paper – yet it’s there, etc. After my own critique, I fume with anger and resentment. I deserve a better grade! My six hours of labor deserve much better than this.

1. Bargaining. I make the resolve to meet with this so-called, “professor” and redeem the qualities of the paper that were so obviously misunderstood.
2. Depression. Even if the professor gives me a few extra points, I still will not have an ideal grade. Then starts the inner monologue: You didn’t get a good grade cause the professor doesn’t like you. Or maybe you really do suck at writing! (Yah, you do). Why do I try so hard, for so little in return? Maybe I should just give up. I see people doing it all the time. Yeah, I’ll just give up, and sleep – man I am tired.
3. Acceptance/Perseverance. Regardless of whether I meet the professor or not, or whether I receive a better letter grade, I understand now why I have earned the grade I have. Maybe I didn’t fully understand the content, and I was trying to write around that small detail. Maybe I was sick at the time, or I had personal things going on at the time, and my paper reflected that in one way or another. The possibilities are endless. Either way, I accept and understand my baby’s critique.

As I said before, the only true solace I have, is that I am not the first to receive a letter grade that doesn’t meet my approval. My situation is universal. I cannot attest to it, but I am almost positive Poe would have had a bad paper or two, if he was a UMBC student in 2019. I would think the same of Whitman, W.E.B. Du Bois, and even Churchill. Presumptuous maybe, and perhaps my perception and my beliefs are invalid. However, I cannot believe that a single student of UMBC (in any decade) hasn’t received a letter grade that was not to their standards. I do believe that a student, isn’t a true student, until they have felt the touch of despair from the attainment of a disappointing letter grade. I also believe that instead of claiming to have lack of expertise in a subject (mine’s science), or simply not having a knack for a certain kind of assignment (I dislike group work), it is far more gratifying to simply pick myself up, and move forward. By doing this, all students show their personal and academic perseverance and resilience. I am proud to be one of the many students, who can demonstrate the very essence of tenacity that is needed, not only to excel at UMBC – but to excel in life, as well.

Contributed by: Cassie Davis, Writing Center Tutor

One of the things that bothered me most about my high school writing experience was how my teachers would, more often than not, put unnecessary prohibitions on how we wrote our papers. I don’t mean how as in our writing process or word processor, but in the language and word choice. They would often tell me “never use the first person” or “don’t use rhetorical questions.” They would tell me not to use simple words, not to vary my format, not to write the way I wanted to write. This sort of teaching suffocates, until it stops kicking and lies more dead than your dinner, one of the most important features of writing: voice.

Voice is what makes writing special. Voice is what makes writing unique. Voice is what gave Shakespeare’s work it’s wide appeal that it is still loved to this day. Voice is what gave Martin Luther King Jr.’s speeches the power that people remember to this day. So why, then, does seemingly every little rule that we were taught makes “good writing” in high school seem to be an effort to kill our own voice and replace it with the ever-monotonous voice of the academic papers we are all so enthralled by? After years of being taught such things, it may seem hopeless to you to have any chance of making your writing stand out, to have any chance of finding your voice. But it is not. Voice is not something that can be taken away, at least not in writing. Your voice is not dead, despite my above metaphor, for it cannot die nor be stolen nor replaced. It is simply lost, and you need only to find it. Here are a few tips that helped me find my voice, and I hope they will help you too.

1. Write how you talk.

Possibly one of the most common pieces of advice for finding your voice in writing is to imitate your actual, speaking voice. I subscribe to this theory as well. By imitating how you speak on the page you observe how you speak, how you explain things, and, through that, can begin to look critically at what make your speech unique. Be careful when doing this, however, as sometimes things that work in speech do not work on the page.

1. Look at writing you enjoy and observe how the author constructs their voice on the page.

One of the best ways to learn something is to look at how others do it. Take a piece of writing that you are particularly fond of and read through it. Observe the writing and try and pick apart the things the writer does to present their unique voice. It may, like in Shakespeare’s case, be the use of meter, diction, and syntax. Or it may, like in MLK’s case, be a use of repetition and chiasmus. Whatever the case, looking critically at how other writers write is sure to help you with anything in writing, voice included.

1. Try imitation.

Branching off tip two, after finding a piece of writing and determining how that writer constructs their voice within the text, try imitating them. This is not to say that you should directly copy a writer, nor would I recommend doing this step in an assignment. But, same as how a dancer must first mimic their teacher, or how an artist may begin their training by tracing other drawings, imitation is a good way to begin finding your voice. You may find that some techniques the author used worked and incorporate them into your own voice. Or you may find that, while you enjoyed the work, the techniques used to construct its voice do not work for you. Even learning what does not work will help narrow your search for your voice. By finding what does and does not work for you, and thinking critically about why, you will be able to find out key characteristics of your voice, and even your writing in general.

1. Don’t be afraid.

Do not be afraid to try new things out. Do not be afraid to fail. Do not be afraid that you will never find your voice, and that you will never be able to make your writing stand out. I am here to let you know that you will fail. You will struggle and still not know your voice or the voice of your text. And that is okay. Failure is a part of the learning process, and you can never improve if you don’t first know what you did wrong. Experiment. Do some research. Read and imitate others. And, if after all of that you still are no closer, then try and try again. Writing is an ever-going process and writers are always changing and growing. So do not despair. If you keep at it, you will one day find that voice that has been hidden inside you all along, and it will come out and shine like the sun in the sky and you will be able to say, “this is me.”

Contributed By: Blue Perez, Writing Center Tutor

Reading, while considered a leisure activity, is also an invitation to an infinite source of examples of good writing. College students who read, either for their academics or as a hobby, are “refilling their well” as writers with every article or book they finish. At the Writing Center, reading is valued as a part of the writing process, and many sessions begin with reading through your paper-in-progress. This practice may remind you that you are not writing in a vacuum, but writing to a reader. Your most important reader may, in this case, be your future self, checking back over what you wrote!

It is easy to feel as though writing is a formless, unstructured struggle to pull ideas and sentences out of thin air, when in fact all writing stands on the shoulders of giants. Everything from the textbooks you read for class, to the articles in the Retriever, are based upon an experience of reading the work of other writers. Without reading and literacy, good writing has no source material to build up from, so grab a topic that interests you and start on reading! Writing assignments so often ask for your thoughts, your opinions, and your analyses, without seeming to offer a direct roadmap for how you should express or piece together this information.  But what if I told you prior reading experience was this coveted roadmap?

Are your thoughts and ideas as a writer based on sheer impulse and imagination… or have you got your nose in the right book or research that will back your writing style with credibility, detail, context, and intrigue? Writing is only half a skill without reading. Let’s take a quick dive into some of the ways your writing style will immediately improve, simply by taking time out of your day to read through your favorite publications!

General Knowledge

This may be the most common virtue of reading among the public. Reading materials may be used as templates of excellent writing, but they were created to communicate information about any conceivable subject matter. Consider your major, your hobby, your entertainment, your family history, your culture, your interests, or anything that holds personal meaning or importance. What sort of reading materials have you or would you read about these topics? In the process of learning more about what you care most about, you will also grow familiar with how others have written about these subjects. This knowledge may serve you well in the future, whether it is in writing a personal statement for graduate school or writing a research proposal on your passion.

Vocabulary

Technically, reading a dictionary or thesaurus would be the quickest way to expose your inner writer to new words and meanings, but understandably, this pursuit may not be the most exciting or encouraging way to broaden your lexicon. Luckily, any reading material you select will likely introduce you to not only new words, but new turns of phrases, slang, expressions, and poetry. Familiarity with a wide vocabulary will help you specify your ideas and edit your writing to not just make sense, but to sound good. With the right word choice, you’ll say exactly what you mean and nothing else.

The Proofreading Eye

As a proficient reader may read tens of thousands of sentences within several months, it is no surprise that the pages will start to just fly by. When reading becomes second nature, errors in grammar or syntax will become increasingly jarring. Imagine walking into an unfamiliar room. You look around, see nothing problematic, but your friend, who lives in this room, joins you there and reports that the place is missing several important items. Who knew? Now imagine you return to your dorm room, and all of your belongings are just slightly moved around. Immediately, you recognize someone has disrupted the space, and instead of relaxing, you jump to fix the problem. In the first scenario, the place was unfamiliar, so mistakes slipped under your consciousness. But in the second scenario, you were so familiar with your own space, your mind was attuned to every detail, and could solve relevant problems right away. Regular readers view writing as familiar rather than foreign, and therefore have an easier time of locating and analyzing errors on the page. Does reading and writing feel like your space, or someone else’s?

Variety and Voice

If you read across a variety of genres, you will quickly notice that writer’s voice can change drastically. The choice of sentences, word choice, detail, and more varies dramatically from a chapter in a fiction book to the article of your favorite magazine to a how-to book about a hobby you want to learn. You will realize certain ways of writing, while correct in some contexts, do not work in others. You will find as many writing voices as there are real people, communities, and occupations. Reading a variety of writing genres will help you understand what kind of audience the writing is aimed for. Understanding this can help you fine-tune your writing assignments to the right type of reader.

Reading is a life skill that may be taken for granted, or worse, undermined, because many students have been forced to read undesirable materials growing up, or have not been encouraged to read for fun. Never let a previous lack of interest or time get in the way of one of the most rewarding pastimes. As you have learned, reading can help you know what you want to write about, choose the right words, self-check your own work, and know exactly who your writing is geared towards. If you want to improve your writing, reading is an amazing tool to sharpen your writing style and give you credibility. So read what you would want to write. Write what you would want to read. You don’t even have to put pen to paper to reap the benefits.

When it comes to any writing, whether for pleasure or for an assignment, the first step is to pick your topic. This step is the easiest part of the process for some writers, followed by the much harder task of supporting and developing a coherent paper around the idea. But this is not always the case - most writers are familiar with that unfortunate situation of staring at a blank screen, trying to figure out how to start a paper while the crickets chirp between their ears. Below I will outline some strategies for picking a subject to write about to help you overcome this wall and get your writing started. These strategies can be simplified into a basic code: write what you like, write what you know, or write what makes sense.

Writing What You Like

There are many types of papers with many types of prompts, but often the hardest to start are the most open ended. With these prompts, the near limitless range of topics can be intimidating, and choosing a specific one to write about when there are so many can appear to be a challenge. The first thing I would recommend is simple - write about something you like. No matter the subject, whether it is for a personal novel or a 10 page research paper, the writing process will be much easier and much more enjoyable if you have a genuine interest in the topic. Even if the prompt is more specific, such as choosing a topic related to a specific historical event, try to find anything that you would really want to write about. If you are someone who does not like writing, doing research and formulating ideas around a topic you like will make the process bearable, and hopefully even a little fun.

Writing What You Know

Sadly, however, not all assignments can be so open-ended, and sometimes there will just not be a topic to write about that you like. This occurs mostly when you move away from personal writing or writing assignments focused on your writing itself, and further into more disciplinary writing. Certain assignments, such as analysis of a literary technique or researching a specific type of biological study, just might not hold any interest for you. This brings us to the second part of the code, to write what you know. If you really do not have any interest in a topic, try to find something that you have some background knowledge about. For example, if you are writing a paper on biological gene editing techniques, a field you find incredibly boring, you could start from a technique that you learned about in class and know the two-sentence, basic explanation of how it works. This gives you a starting point to develop the topic further, and you can expand on your prior knowledge with a little more direction in what to research. This may not bring as much enjoyment to the writing process as writing about your interests would, but having a basic foundation to build upon instead of learning about a totally new topic will make the process that much easier.

Writing What Makes Sense

If you get an assignment that you have no interest in and no knowledge about, you may feel like you are in for a truly horrible experience. Again, these assignments are usually more focused and likely based in a specific discipline. The last part of the advice I have for choosing a topic is to write about something that makes sense. When you have no idea what to choose for a topic and no knowledge base to work on, try to write about something that you agree with. If you are trying to analyze another author’s writing, try to pick a technique that you really see in his or her writing. If you are writing a research paper, write about research that makes sense to you, or something that you think could make sense once you read further into it. This might not make the writing process more enjoyable or significantly easier, but it will make your paper better. Writing about “The Effects of Chocolate Metabolites on Mood Elevation” would probably form a stronger argument than “Mood Elevation Based on Changes in Serotonin Reuptake.” Assuming that you know nothing about either topic, it is easier to believe that chocolate brings happiness compared to the activity of a random brain chemical. It is always easier to argue for something you believe than for something that you think is false or cannot understand.

All of these strategies can be taken with a grain of salt, as some of the best ideas come from a sudden light bulb turning on after minutes or hours of staring at that blank screen. But if you do not have that time, or do not think you will be able to come up with an idea, think “what do I like, what do I know, what makes sense?” Worst case scenario you will at least have an idea for a topic, and best case scenario you have a fun and engaging time writing what was initially a daunting task. And if all of these strategies fail, and you are still stuck? Phone a friend! Talking ideas over with someone else is a great way to organize your thoughts and pick out the best topics. And if you don’t have friends, don’t like your friends or want someone with a little more experience, come on down to your Writing Center! The tutors are all experienced with brainstorming and how to assist you in the process, and you will surely walk out of the appointment with an idea of how to start writing.

Contributed by: Ajay Kharkar, Writing Center intern

STEP 1.a: What is a Rhetorical Essay anyway?

The keyword here is “rhetoric,” or the practice of using language to persuade an audience one way or another about a particular topic. Typically, these essays focus on the ways that this is done in a non-fiction work such as a speech, decree, autobiography, or another argument-driven text. The essay itself focuses on the argument that is made, and the devices (often referred to as “rhetorical devices”) that are used to make that argument.

STEP 1.b: Picking Your Source

Sometimes the humble student-writer is blessed with a prompt in which they can pick their own text to work with. If this happens to be your case, be sure to actually take time to think about your options. If you get to choose from a selection of provided texts, be sure to at least glance over each of them to get a sense of what the text is arguing. If you have a wider range of freedom, resist the urge to go with the first text you see without really knowing what it’s about. Remember, this text is going to be the cornerstone of your paper, and you’re going to be spending quite a bit of time looking and thinking about it, so try and make it something that you’re genuinely interested in. Trust me, it makes the writing process so much better.

STEP 2: Determining the Argument

Read the text! Once, twice, aloud, whatever it takes in order for you to best understand what the text is getting at. Consider the context and form of the text; a Medieval European historical account is going to tend to have a different purpose, and thus a different argument, than a recent college commencement speech. Depending on the type of text, you might even be able to find videos of the author delivering the argument to an audience! Try annotating a physical copy of the text, or breaking it down paragraph-by-paragraph to try to get a better understanding of what the text says as a whole. Once you think you know what the argument is, write it down!

STEP 3: Picking Devices and Quotes

Determining the argument is only half of the battle, you also need to determine how that argument is made. Now is the time to determine which rhetorical devices are the strongest contributors to the argument itself. While many students have been taught that the devices of Ethos, Pathos, and Logos are the typical rhetorical devices to focus on, there are many many more to choose from (infact, about 150+ more, listed here). The amount of devices you choose to focus on will vary from paper to paper, but generally it’s safe to pick two to four devices (such as irony, personification, and even the form in which the argument is given) to focus on. I find it helpful to highlight instances where these different devices are used with different colors. Through grouping this way, I find it much simpler to look at my text and quickly create a rough outline. When picking which quotes to use in your paper, really think about which quotes make the strongest impact on the argument, it will make your paper stronger in the long run.

STEP 4: Crafting Your Thesis

If you’ve written other thesis statements before, this shouldn’t be all that different. Your thesis should be a sentence or two that introduces what you want to say about the text. Typically, thesis statements for a rhetorical analysis paper will include an argument in the text, the devices used to make that argument, and whether or not that argument is made effectively. While this tends to be a basic skeleton for a thesis, there is still room for creativity for crafting your thesis. Does this text’s argument apply to current society? Can it be put into conversation with another text to strengthen it’s argument? Are there counter-arguments? Sometimes it can be helpful to draft a few thesis statements and then choose one which you feel is the strongest. Remember, a thesis has to be arguable, so make sure that your thesis isn’t just arguing for a blatantly obvious claim.

STEP 5: Start Outlining or Drafting!

You’ve made it! Now that you have a thesis and some quotes to work with, you’re in pretty good shape to start your next phase of the writing process. As you write, be wary of falling into summarizing; the point of your paper should be finding the “so what?” of the arguments made in the text, or the ways in which the devices build the argument. What are the greater implications of the text? Are there implicit sub-arguments that the author is trying to make within the greater argument?

As you go through this process, remember that there are always tutors at our lovely UMBC Writing Center who would be more than willing to help you through any step of this process. While this cheat-sheet can hopefully get you off on the right foot, there isn’t quite anything like talking out your ideas with another person. Know that even if these papers seem daunting, you have plenty of resources to take advantage of to help you along the way!

Contributed by: Emma Jett, Writing Tutor

Commas and Conciseness: Finding the Middle Ground by UMBC Writing Center

I decided to get serious about my writing during senior year of high school. Before then, I would brush it off as a last-minute chore for after dinner a couple days before the due date. Part of me getting serious included editing my drafts. I would end up with red ink all over my draft and myself, but I always found I was much more satisfied with my essay. However, during this newfound editing process I noticed something: I use a lot of commas. My teachers and professors noticed this as well: my English 100 professor put a one comma cap on each sentence which did not contain a quote or a list. I found this to be an extremely helpful requirement because it forced me to write clear and concise sentences, and I tried to follow this rule for the essays that followed. I learned a lot of little tricks to achieve this and I hope you will find them as useful as I do.

Conditional Sentences

Conditional sentences are comprised of an if clause and a main clause. Some examples are:

If I study now, I’ll have free time later.

If it snowed last night, campus would have been closed.

If the interview goes well, I may get the job.

All of these follow the formula mentioned above. In the first sentence, the if clause is “if I study now” and the main clause is “I’ll have free time later”. These sentences all abide by the one comma limit, so what is the issue? The issue is when the sentence is much more complicated than these examples. Here is an example I pulled from the rough draft of the first essay I wrote for English 100:

A satisfied audience is an attentive audience, and what better way of getting people to think about an issue than to make them laugh about it? If people have a common ground with each other, like finding something humorous, they may be more open to discuss it.

I included the sentence before the underlined one for context. There are two issues with the underlined sentence. It breaks the one comma limit and it is redundant. Why tell the reader people may be open to discuss an issue when they find humor in it if the reader was already (rhetorically) asked a better way of having people think about an issue by laughing about it? That question alone proves the redundancy of that sentence. With that in mind, this was my revision for my final draft:

A satisfied audience is an attentive audience, and what better way of getting people to think about an issue than to make them laugh about it? If common ground is established, an audience may be more open to discussing the issue.

Those two issues have been taken care of, but let’s go a step further. We can make it even more concise by flipping the order of the if clause and the main clause, eliminating the need for a comma:

A satisfied audience is an attentive audience, and what better way of getting people to think about an issue than to make them laugh about it? An audience may be more open to discuss an issue if a common ground is established.

Perfect! We went from a redundant sentence with two commas to something much more straightforward. Too bad I didn’t think of that before I turned in my final draft.

I find conditional sentences the easiest to “clean up” because they usually make sense regardless the order of the if clause and the main clause.

Meaningless Phrases Introduce Unnecessary Commas

This is especially true when starting sentences. Here are some examples:

As a matter of fact, you have more debt than ever before.

For the most part, we don’t go to bed at four in the morning.

In both these sentences, commas have been introduced because they start with phrases which add little to nothing to the overall meaning. We can rewrite them as follows:

You have more debt than ever before.

We usually don’t go to bed at four in the morning.

In the case of sentence one, we can get rid of “as a matter of fact” and still keep its meaning. But for sentence two, we need to substitute “for the most part” with “usually”. Sentence two’s meaning changes from “sometimes we don’t go to bed at four in the morning” to “we don’t go to bed at four in the morning” if we don’t do that substitution. Even though we need that extra word, we’ve gotten rid of that comma. Here is another example from my final draft of that first essay:

Most of the time, the melody establishes tone, not the lyrics.

I can’t remember why I broke my own rule, but I’m sure you can see the revision:

The melody usually establishes tone, not the lyrics.

This one was simple enough. Get rid of the meaningless phrase “most of the time” and substitute “usually” to keep the sentence’s meaning, all while meeting the one comma limit. Let’s take a look at the second essay I wrote for English 100. This is a sentence I had in my final draft:

Facts cannot be refuted, and a person speaking from years of experience in a field will always trump someone without experience.

“Facts cannot be refuted” states the blatantly obvious. This meaningless phrase also introduced an avoidable comma. Here is what I should have had in my final draft:

A person speaking from years of experience in a field will always trump someone without experience.

Another easy revision which makes a world of difference in sentence flow. Finally, I want to go back to the first essay I wrote for that class:

As humans, it is far too easy for emotion to trump reason.

“As humans”? What else is going to be reading this essay?

It is far too easy to let our emotions trump reason.

That’s better. That meaningless phrase and its comma is out of sight. I wonder what my professor thought when he read that.

While I don’t think these are the easiest to correct, I believe they are the easiest to avoid. All it takes is some extra thought when you’re starting sentences.

Sentence Shuffling

This last tip is something that should be put off until you’ve written your entire draft. Don’t focus on making your rough draft perfect while writing it — it’s a rough draft. You’ll lose your mind trying to write perfect sentences while forming coherent thoughts for the first time. I feel getting right to real examples would be better than me making up artificial ones for this topic. Going back to the final draft of the first essay:

A song’s melody should match the tone it is trying to convey, otherwise it may be interpreted differently.

You should always look for ways to improve a sentence even if it’s fine on the surface. To start, let’s look for words that stand out. “Otherwise” is used to connect two clauses. Remember what else has two clauses? Conditional sentences! We can transform this into a conditional sentence:

If a song’s melody does not match the tone it is trying to convey, it may be interpreted differently.

All that’s left is to eliminate the comma by flipping the order of the if clause and the main clause:

A song may be interpreted differently if its melody does not match the tone it is trying to convey.

Great! We’ve removed the comma and made this sentence flow better. Let’s shift focus to the final essay I wrote for English 100. Here is a sentence from my final draft:

After all, to her, a lazy, carefree life is just a door away.

When I read this now, I feel like I’m driving over a really bumpy road. Three commas? But it was finals week when I wrote this so I’m going to cut myself some slack. Let’s get rid of “After all” because it is meaningless.

To her, a lazy, carefree life is just a door away.

It seems like we need another comma because of the list. But “lazy” and “carefree” used together in this context is redundant. Removing either adjective works, but I want to remove lazy because it’s “weaker”.

To her, a carefree life is just a door away.

We’ve met the one comma requirement, but is there anything else we can do? Flipping the “order” of this sentence to remove the comma makes it sound awkward:

A carefree life is just a door away to her.

There’s nothing else we can do with this sentence. However, it is still a gigantic improvement over our original. If you’re wondering about the “to her”, I need it for the previous sentences in my essay to make sense.

Let’s move onto the sentence directly after this one. I included the edited version for context. I replaced a couple words in the underlined sentence because the original wouldn’t make sense without seeing the rest of my essay.

To her, a carefree life is just a door away. To her, the benefits of this [potential] life will tower over the effort she is putting in to try [that] hotel door a couple times each day, so she remains hopeful.

The “to her” sticks out like a sore thumb in the underlined sentence, so let’s get rid of it:

To her, a carefree life is just a door away. The benefits of this [potential] life will tower over the effort she is putting in to try [that] hotel door a couple times each day, so she remains hopeful.

It might be a bit harder to see how we can get rid of the comma, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t possible. Notice something about that sentence: there is a reason why she remains hopeful. This sentence is the same thing as “[x] because [y]”, so we can re-shuffle it:

To her, a carefree life is just a door away. She remains hopeful because the benefits of this [potential] life will tower over the effort she is putting in to try [that] hotel door a couple times each day.

There isn’t anything else we can do, so let’s compare the revision to how those sentences originally were:

After all, to her, a lazy, carefree life is just a door away. To her, the benefits of this [potential] life will tower over the effort she is putting in to try [that] hotel door a couple times each day, so she remains hopeful.

The revision flows as smooth as butter compared to the choppiness of the original. Keep in mind this will not be possible for every sentence. And again, please do not do this while you’re writing your draft. This is the hardest part of revising, but it comes with the largest payoff.

Finding the sweet spot between commas and conciseness requires a lot of thought and sentence shuffling, but it is absolutely worth it when you’re finished. Please don’t take these tips as what is considered “right” for writing. Different things work for different people: I shared these in case you find they work for you.

Contributed by: Justin Sherman, Writing Center Tutor

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The Learning Resources Center has an exciting new offering beginning the Monday after spring break, March 25th. Check out our schedule for Presentation Coaching by the LRC, located in the drop-down menu in WC Online.

Our presentation coach will help you with the delivery of your presentation for any class! 

• Mondays and Wednesdays: 12:00-1:00pm
• Presentation Practice Room, Library #257
• Log in to WC Online to reserve your spot: https://umbc.mywconline.com

Please contact Elaine MacDougall (efick1@umbc.edu) with any questions!

Hope to see you soon,

The LRC Team

Just as it takes time to develop strong verbal skills and memorize every element in the periodic table, the same also applies to the writing process. People are not born to be ‘good writers’or ‘bad writers’. Learning to write well is a skill that can be mastered by anyone, regardless of their educational background or existing skillset, if they are willing to put in the time to do so.

As the title of this article proclaims, writing is an extremely useful functional skill that can be applied across many different disciplines. With that said, it is important to note that writing entails so much more than creating compelling argumentative essays, enthralling stories, and detailed propositions.

While it is true that traditional writing relies heavily on maintaining readers’ attention by eloquently reinforcing opinions with statements made by notable individuals, the same cannot be said of STEM writing. In STEM writing, the main purpose is to convey high-level technical concepts in an (1) objective, (2) comprehensive, and (3) straightforward manner so that they can be understood by a broader audience. That is not to say, however, that STEM writing requires absolute simplicity. Nearly all STEM writing uses field-specific technical terms to ensure that the main message is accurate and appropriate for its given audience.

In ‘hard science’ fields such as chemistry, biology, and physics, it is common for researchers to create lab write-ups for their experiments. During this process, researchers should make it a point to (1) list all of the equipment that was used in the experiment as well as their functions and relevance, (2) identify the overarching goal of the experiment, (3) detail the sequential process that led to the result, and (4) identify ways to improve the experiment. By documenting this information, the value of researchers’ work increases substantially because it fulfills the core tenets of the scientific method – observability, measurability, and repeatability. Without this information, the significance of the experiment’s results becomes much more difficult to determine.

In the same way, professionals in the technology and engineering fields are frequently asked to assess the strengths and weaknesses of existing systems and provide detailed mitigation solutions that can rectify those issues. Unless specific information, such as (1) the specific locations of the issues, (2) the severity of the issues, (3) the potential causes of the issues, and (4) the solutions to the issues, is documented clearly, it is nearly impossible to perform any meaningful changes. Furthermore, failing to adequately assess all aspects of the issue could hinder a decision maker’s ability to make an informed recommendation; this may ultimately lead to schedule delays, which could have a devastating effect on the business’s success and the employee’s reputation.

Here are some key takeaways on how to be successful in STEM writing:

(1) Identify the target audience. Every piece of writing is different and therefore requires a unique approach. Knowing who the document is geared towards can help the writer determine the optimal level of formality for their document. In general, it is better to use formal wording than informal wording. A technical report originally intended for a functional manager could eventually wind up in the hands of the company’s CEO. For this reason, writers should never assume their audience’s knowledge base. Some audiences have broader skill and knowledge gaps than others. Consider this in advance and make it a point to include a brief synopsis about the subject matter being discussed to prevent misunderstandings from occurring.

(2) Be specific. The purpose of writing is to communicate effectively. It is impossible for an outside viewer to discern the meaning of a statement if crucial details are missing or vague terminology has been used. Be detail-oriented and make it a point to elaborate whenever possible. Consider the what, when, how, and why of the situation and express that information to the reader in an accessible way.

(3) Be objective, but not robotic. While the primary focus of STEM writing is to communicate with intent rather than flair, it can ultimately lead to an abundance of repetitive and uninspiring verbiage appearing throughout the document. Utilizing transitional devices such as additionally, furthermore, likewise, and nevertheless, can significantly improve the readability of any paper and maintain a reader’s attention. If multiple sentences begin to sound alike, it may be a sign that transitional devices or an alternative word choice should be implemented.

(4) Remember that writing is a process. As every STEM student knows, a good idea requires multiple iterations before it is perfected. The same concept applies to the writing process. No matter what someone’s skill level is, every piece of writing requires multiple revisions before it reaches its final form. Keeping this in mind, it is crucial that enough time is allotted to revise, edit, and proofread a document before its final submission. There is no greater embarrassment than delivering an unfinished document that does not communicate the same meaning as the writer’s original intent. Make a detailed plan of what should be expressed and put it into action, one step at a time.

By applying this advice, writers should be much better equipped to overcome the challenges associated with STEM writing. While this guide certainly does not detail every component of STEM writing, the ideas that were discussed hold true for every writing scenario, even for those in other disciplines. Just as the beginning of the article states, writing, at its core, is merely another method for communicating ideas to others. Focus on achieving that indicated goal and everything will work out just fine.

Contributed by: William Kallal, Writing Center Tutor

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As I mentioned in my first article, I’m big on genre fiction. I love an interesting fantasy world and can get really lost in a good science fiction piece, even well after I’ve put the thing down. That said, science fiction is a really broad genre, and there are all sorts of possibilities within it. If you’re having trouble or you just want some ideas on how to approach the genre in general, I’ve got you covered. Here are my six tips for writing science fiction.

Hard or Soft?

Science Fiction. For those seasoned science fiction readers, this is often one of the first questions asked when considering a new story that pops up on one’s radar. If you’re not already familiar with these terms, this is essentially how the science fiction community differentiates pieces of science fiction that conform closely to the natural laws of physics and the universe, that makes these laws central and important to the plot and always carefully considers them (hard sci-fi), and pieces of science fiction that only loosely follow them or have no reverence for them whatsoever (soft sci-fi). Isaac Asimov is probably the most notable hard science fiction writer, and Star Wars is possibly the most notable example of soft science fiction (and some might argue it’s not even that, but that is a whole other debate).

Get Familiar with the Genre

All of this talk of Asimov and hard versus soft science fiction brings us very close to my next point. This is perhaps the most obvious advice here, but I encounter a surprising number of people who are interested in writing in a genre who don’t do very much reading within it. Typically, they watch a lot of TV and movies, and I think that can do a lot of the same things for you that reading does, but at the same time, I would argue that it’s still no substitute. Seeing the work of published authors can really clue you into stylistic decisions and conventional wisdom that they follow, even if you don’t fully understand everything that they’re doing at first, finding a handful of writers whose style you enjoy and taking cues from them can help immensely in growing your understanding on the intangible “feel” a genre has.

Read Modern Science

Just like you can learn style and conventions from reading contemporary science fiction, you can obtain all sorts of ideas and inspiration from contemporary science. A lot of science fiction has been about observing the latest or up and coming inventions and discoveries and then writing stories that imagine where those discoveries and inventions may lead the world ten, 100 or even 1000 years down the line (see the aforementioned Asimov and his contemporaries). I think this is also a really good place for newer science fiction writers to start, because often stories that start here are more grounded in reality and thus their stories are more relatable to their audience.

Ground Your Piece

Piggybacking off of the last piece of advice, it’s important to make sure your pieces have some basis in things that are widely familiar, at least in terms of the audience you have in mind. Yeah, sure you can have people flying around in “dremelthopters” and eating “blortthas” wearing “gampfs” and so on, but if your story consists of too many of those things, it becomes too alien and strange for your audience and this often leads to confusion. No one reads a story purely to be confused, even mysteries function largely off of suspense, not true confusion. And ultimately just a bit too much confusion for your reader is quickly followed by them putting a story down and never coming back to it. Making sure your audience can keep up is of the utmost importance, and one of the easiest ways to do this is to make sure you introduce your more novel story elements gradually and sparingly.

Use Sci-fi Elements Purposefully

We’re on a roll here, so let’s take a cue from the previous point once more. Really ask yourself why you’ve included a science fiction element in your story. What purpose does it serve? If you’ve got giant mecha robots in your story, great, but what do they contribute to the overall narrative? If you’re including aliens because you want to use the interactions between them and humans as a metaphor for racism … well, then I’d assume you’ve watched a lot of Star Trek, and if you haven’t you should probably check it out. But I’d also say that thoughtfully used elements like that are a good step towards making your writing effective and engaging. Now, that isn’t to say that giant mecha robots can’t be used effectively, but maybe you just included them because they’re cool. That’s fine, but that decision and the weight of it (or lack thereof) will inevitably be felt by your audience, and that’s something that could harm your story’s overall impact depending on how it gets used. It’s also possible that your story is fine in spite of it or even the better for it; however, being conscious of that consideration in the first place is important. Try and make these decisions as purposefully as possible.

Don’t Let Originality Drive You

There’s a common trap I often see newer writers fall into: the fear of being unoriginal. It often also manifests itself instead as the intense desire to be truly original, to find that perfect storm of ideas that no one has ever come up with before. This is a snipe hunt, essentially. There will always be that person who can immediately point out how this element in a story exists in some other more popular piece of media or how that character is just like a character in something else they watched. Sometimes we’re that person, but you know what, you don’t have to worry about that person. Don’t be afraid of them and their observations. Just write your story and focus on making it good. That is far more important. Stories have been repeated over and over since before we had paper to write on, so long as you’re not copying and pasting Star Wars’ plot and reskinning everything with fantasy tropes, then you have nothing to worry about.

Contributed by: Lyle Davis, Writing Center Tutor
Photo by John Fowler on Unsplash

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