ok, so this is not really going to be so much a lecture as a mischmasch of tips, faqs, hints and clues

With your essays coming due this week, you might find that this overview is helpful; of course you've read quite a bit about the writing process a;readu, but here are a few additional tips

And, yes, I fully expect that you have heard a lot of these all the way back in grammar school (have you ever wondered why elementary school used to be called grammar school?), but I will do my best to put a neat little spin on each.

you are writing for an audience, even if it is just an audience of one

I know what you are thinking (I think), "DUH!"

But stop to consider how significant that really is; it may be the single most significant "thing" relating to writing. I'm going to steal an example from the "ridiculous rules" section below to illustrate just how important this is.

Ridiculous Rule #3: Don't use contractions.

You've been reading my stuff for a little bit now. Do I ever use contractions? I have degrees and things; I've been pegging away at this gig for nearly half a century (tires me out just reading that). What gives? How come you got the teacher who doesn't seem to know how to write properly?

Well, the fact of the matter is ("Oh great, now he's writing cliches") I actually do know how to write what you (or at least your high school English teacher) thinks of as "proper." What you really mean is "boring." I can do boring all day long. I did my post-grad work at Exeter campus, Oxford University, England. But why on heaven or earth would I write conversational lectures and not like an Oxford professor (actually, many of my Oxford professors did right much like this, only in English, not in American)?

I want my classes to understand my lectures; I want the ideas to be approachable. So am I saying it is OK to use contractions in a college/university essay. Yes/No/Maye, it depends on the writing situation and the audience. A casual speech in an Interpersonal Communictions class will likely be more earthy than the stuffy, rarified platform speech you deliver in a Public Speaking class.

I happen to love contractions, but I also know that many teachers do not, and in those cases you cannot use them. It is not exactly difficult to change "don't" to "do not." It is not a big deal.

Here's how I imagine myself as your audience. You know all of those readings we've been discussing, many of which are from online journals or news articles or popular culture sites? the ones that paint an all-too-real picture of not being able to give away the ceramic golf tee holder your daughter made for you in crafts class even though you will never play golf? the ones with loads of description and dialogue and humor and drama? Pretend I am the guy who reads all of that stuff ('cause I am). They often don't use a lot of contractions, but sometimes they do to humanize the situation. So size up the sitaution and write what seems to be appropriate. When in doubt, ask the teacher. The teacher is, after all, your audience of one, and you will have several new audiences both in and out of school throughout your life.

ridiculous rules

Ridiculous rules are those things we've been taught that just don't match reality. The five-paragraph thingey is a teaching tool; it is not how writers write.

But Professor Corbally, how can you say that?

Because I read, A LOT, and writers just don't write like that. You have already read several different articles. Are any of them five-paragraph formula papers? Consider those are written by people who are paid to write. They are the pros. So, without further ado, here are a few ridiculous rules.

Ridiculous Rule #1: Essays must be five paragraphs and follow the five-paragraph formula

Nope. Already dealt with it. Ridiculous.

Ridiculous Rule #2: Never use first person in an essay.

NEVER? We're saying, "NEVER"? Well what if you are writing a personal experience paper, a paper about yourself? Should one replace first person with the word one and sound like the stuffiest person at a corporate board meeting?

Ridiculous sub-Rule #2.1: always replace "I" and "me" with "one."

"As one proposes to stream Netflix on the penultimate jour of the week, one determines that watching all seasons of Dark might be a propitious decision. One first pops voluminous amounts of popcorn and seizes a plethora of chilled beverages from one's kitchen refrigeration unit before laying one's hands on one's remote to exhume one's tele-video set."

Really? I think not.

As with many things, it is situationsl. Consider the writing assignment, and consider the audience (so, yes, you can always ask the teacher).

Ridiculous Rule #3: Don't use contractions.

(dealt with it)

Ridiculous Rule #4: ...

There are just too many, some so silly that they make my eyes spin. I've heard things like, "All sentences much have exactly seven-to-ten words," and "All paragraphs must have exactly seven sentences," and, of course, this leads to that "All essays must have five paragraphs" thing again. I do not know where all of these rules come from, but read a handful of actual essays, and you will see that they are jsut not true. So rather than dwell on endless nonsense, let's look at the one rule you really should embrace (and I rarely use the word should.

Golden Rule of Being a Student: When in doubt, ask the teacher

openings and closings, how to

Ah, what to tell you about openings and closing, well, it's a whole lot easier to tell you how not to open and close your papers:

And always go back to the student's golden rule: if the teacher asks you to start and finish either (or both) of those ways, well, then do it. I would never ask anyone to open/close like that for so many reasons, but let's just leave it at that.

Openings

Here is one of my all-time favorite openings; it is from L.P. Hartley's novel The Go-Between:

"The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there."

OK, it is not as exciting as the opening of Laini Taylor's Daughter of Smoke and Bone, but it is a little gem: it is throughfufl and thought-provoking and clever and true (probably truer the older you get). It's just a neat, novel way to look at the past Vs. the present. It is an attention grabber. Laini Taylor grabs the reader's attention with action. Other writers use drama, humor, pathos, shock/surprise.

But wait! You are talking about fiction!

Of course I am; I love fiction, but that does not mean it doesn't apply to non-fiction (essays, for example) as well. Think about it. If you are reading an article on League of Legends Tournament play, and the opening paragraph is just flat out boring, you will not read the rest of the article. There's that "audience" thing again. Consider how the first essay we read in this class opens:

"THE PALE YELLOW chair sliding down the scratched steel bed of the Goodwill tractor trailer lands with a thud atop the fractured remains of a cheap particleboard desk at Seattle's South Transfer Station, an ignominious end for an object that, at one time, probably sparked joy for its owner" (Kelleher).

Be honest. If you had not read the entire article, would you have any idea what it is about? You are faced with a striking, detailed example that will make a whole lot of sense after you are about 1/3 of the way through the article (essay). It appeals to your senses and grabs your attention, but it does not telegraph the thesis of the writing. Now if the example had nothing to do with acquiring too much stiff, it would be silly, but it does. The author opens with an example creatively (remember that...CREATIVELY) written. Here's the opening of the first reading from week two, another article/essay:

"Go to an American home in exurbia, and almost the first thing you do is drift toward the picture window. How curious that the first compliment you pay your host inside his house is to say how lovely it is outside his house! He is pleased that you should admire his vistas" (Yi-Fu). And, yes, just to keep you on your toes, Yi-Fu Tuan's last name is written first (Chinese is not the same as English).

That opening leaves us with a sitaution, and it is a thought-provoking one. "Yeah, why do we praise someone's house for its view, which is NOT the house; it's outside the house? I see that on all those HGTV beacfront rennovation shows all the time. Hmmm..."

Read just about any jazzy opening in a newspaper, magazine, online human interest site, and you will find that real writers (the ones who get paid to do it), open with something that relates to the subject, sure, but it is most likely going to be an eye-catching example, an action-packed incident, a startline number/statistic, a thought-provoking puzzler. You should be doing that too. Your opening is your one opportunity to snag your reader; it is also one of the few spots in your essay writing where you can get full-on creative. So if you are writing about alterntive houses, why open like this:

"There are many different kinds of alterntive houses in the world today." DEAD BORING!

when you could open like this:

"Rolling down a rarely-used side road near the sandstone buttes in the middle of nowhere, Utah, the school bus slows to a stop. The driver is exhaused, having traveled the over-700 miles from central California in one day. There is nobody around as he pulls onto the shoulder, kills the engine, and moves to the back of the bus. He is not lost; he is home."

That has a bit of color, some descriptive detail, some big numbers, a bit of a mystery that leaves the reader with a "Say WHAT?" moment. Reading further that same reader will doscover this is an alternative house, a school bus conversion, but there is no reason to start with that. Start with a bit of suspense. Grab the reader's attention.

Closings

Notice I didn't quite write "conclusions" there.

What I said about Openings, well, the same is true of closings. Sure, you can conclude with a thesis (oddly, a thesis IS a conclusion (I will just let you stew over that on your own; you can ask about it if you like), but most thesis statements hang out at the end of the opening paragraph not at the end of the paper. And re-stating the thesis is kind of an insult to the reader; it says, "Your attention span is so non-existent I have to remind you of what you read five minutes ago." Even my ancient memory can keep track of what I read five minutes ago. So end with an example or something thoughtful that extends the topic. Here is the last paragraph of our first reading:

"The people throwing their stuff away might feel relieved, finally getting it out of the house. Whatever joy it once sparked is long gone, and the most pleasurable aspect of owning stuff - the moment just before you bought it - is but a distant memory" (Kelleher).

It's an interesting thought, a different way of thinking about all that stuff we feel guilty about giving (or throwing) away. There is also a very neat little writing trick (technique) in there; did you spot it? It opens and closes with the same Marie Kondo reference: "sparked joy." That gives the paper a circular unity; it makes the whole thing hang together. Neatly done! Here is the conclusion of "American Space, Chinese Place":

"When we criticize American rootlessness we tend to forget that it is a result of ideals we admire, namely, social mobility and optimism about the future. When we admire Chinese rootedness, we forget the word “place” means both location in space and position in society: To be tied to place is also to be bound to one’s station in life, with little hope of betterment. Space symbolizes hope; place, achievement and stability" (Yi-Fu).

This has a differnt sort of unity; it leaves us an unexpected idea at the beginning and another at the end, making us wonder "So...what is bad is good, and what is good is bad? Hmmm...." Notice that that closing is no longer just about architecture; it is expanding the topic to what popular culture might symbolize or imply. Good stuff.

Is it easy to do? Not without some practice, but give it a try. Open and close with examples rather than explanations. That's the easiest way to start practicing. Your writing will get better.

the secret to growing your writing: narrow the focus and expand with details
hey, remember those little picture frames you made?

Students often tell me they run out of things to say and just can't get the four+ pages the teacher is looking for. Interesting. Here's my response: you are not looking closely enough; you are probably writing about somethig too huge, so you only see the shadowy outlines. Suppose you were assigned a paper on "What I Did All Year." Four pages seems really easy with that big a topic, but you might find you tap out after just two because you are writing things like, "And then we were stuck indoors during the pandemic and I binge-watched Mandalorian on Disney Channel. I walked the dog a lot to get outdoors, but I felt weird wearing a mask everywhere, and going to the store was nerve-wracking as I tried to imagine being six-feet from someone always." Well, it's a start, but I don't think you will make the four pages. Why not?

The topic is so huge that you are generalizing, explaining. You are not SHOWING anything (except, maybe, that you watched Mandelorian rather than Umbrella Academy.

Let's change the topic: "How Did your Day Go?" Still a bit too big. Let's narrow it even further: "How Did your Date Go?" Let's move this to a time when it is safe to go out and eat, and you are on a first date and really want to make a good impression. Many of us have been there, by the way, so it is a trulyl relateable, human topic. Good start. And for a moment, let's think abou this not so much as a writing assignment; let's imagine a conversation with our best bud ever.

Bud: "Hey, how did your date go?"

You: "Aw man, it was a the worst."

Bud: "Really? What happened?"

You: "We went to that pop-up Mexican restaurant in Del Amo, and the food was awful."

Bud: "Oh wow. That sounds like the worst nightmare experience ever; I can totally picture it. Let's go play PUBG"

Uh, either you have the least curious Best Bud ever, or Bud just does not care about your date at all. You really have not shared anything that says, "worst nightmare experience ever." Let's give you a Best Bud who actually cares, a snoopy friend, a gossipy friend, someone who wants all the dirt, someone like Corbally, perhaps.

. . .

Corbally: "The food was awful? In what way, and how was that a deal breaker? What did you order?

You: "Taquitos."

Corbally: "Fantastic! I love taquitos. I still remember my first taquito. We went on a school bus to Olvera Street and.... Oh, but this is about you. You had taquitos. How is that awful?"

You: "Well, they were limp, oily."

"Bummer, but that's still not that big of a deal. I'd eat that. It's no worse than the microwave ones."

"Well, the guacamole was getting old, kind of gray."

"Yes, that happens; they probably needed to put a bit more acid on it to keep it from turning color, but it is still not a turn-off. Look, paint a picture for me so that I can understand why it was a date-ender."

You take a deep breath.

"OK. Two limp taquitos hung over the edge of the plate, dripping grease on the tablecloth, their skins crusted over with gray-green guacamole that oozed like pus from an open sore."

OK, that is a bit of a turn off. It certainly is more evocative than "The food was awful" (which does not get any gag reaction from anyone and it completely unclear). This not only paints a picture and might turn the listener off of taquitos for a bit (which is the reaction you want), but look at what else you accomplished here:

  1. The reader/listenter, who was not there with you on the date, now experiences a bit of it second hand because you are SHOWING rather than just explaining.

  2. This one moment in you description of the date (which I am sure is going to go further downhill as you describe more) has grown from four words, "The food was awful," into thirty words (thirty-one if you want to count "gray-green" as two words). If you can keep that up (and you would want to vary it with some long sentences and some shorter ones), your "Date" paper will grow fron one page to four or five easily.

  3. Your writing got a whole lot better, and all you had to do was LOOK CLOSELY, include examples, share the details.

Couldn't you do that with the How Did Your Year Go topic? Sure, of course you could. You would be writing for months; you would have a book, and that is rather terrific, but it's not practical when you have a week or two (and other classes) to do a paper. So narrow the focus of your topic. That not only allows you to look more closely, but it actually requires you to look more closely, and when you include the juicy details, you communicate a lot more, and your talking/writing gets much more interesting.

that is not it for hints, tips, etc, but

That's enough for now. I will share many more ideas on the discussion board, in announcements, and so on, as we go along :)