Yo, IKEA. Make way for Liberal Studies.

In a recent essay for the Chronicle of Higher Education, Nannerl O. Keohane argues both for the relevance of liberal arts education in today's increasingly hi-tech society and the critical need for university leaders and administrators to embrace and promote a foundation in liberal arts for all students.

Keohane highlights many of the personal and societal benefits of a liberal arts education, but there is one point of his argument that I find particularly wonderful. Drawing from The Essays of Michel de Montaigne, who states in Of Solitude, that "we must reserve a backshop, wholly our own and entirely free, wherein to settle our true liberty, our principal solitude and retreat,"  Keohane argues that the liberal arts outfit our minds with "intellectual furniture" where we might otherwise have an empty chamber.

I love the idea of liberal arts as intellectual furniture. A mental chair, bookshelf, couch, magazine rack. Maybe a mirror, hutch, or ottoman. In the physical world, each of these furniture pieces serves a different, but often related purpose. A chair is for sitting, a magazine rack for holding magazines, and an ottoman for resting one's feet. But, could you rest your feet on the ottoman without sitting on the chair? Would you read a magazine standing up? Though each piece of furniture is quite different in form and function, each is dependent on at least one other to be used to its full potential. Along the same lines, a room with only a chair has a place to sit, but you can't grab a book or magazine to read or put your feet up.

The same goes with your intellectual furniture. Your "intellectual" couch might be classical literature. Your intellectual coffee table might be film noir. Your intellectual table lamp might be postmodern theory on popular culture.The better you stock your brain with "intellectual furniture," the more this knowledge can do for you as you encounter new problems, topics, and schools of thought.

In other words, when we furnish our minds with ideas, theories, literature, and performances from across the disciplines, we give new concepts, current problems, and complex issues a place to get situated, turn on the light, put their feet up, and have a nice conversation. We are then better able to explore and expand upon ideas in our own minds, allowing ourselves a richer experience in our interactions with people and cultures.

Nannerl O. Keohane, "The Liberal Arts as Guideposts in the 21st Centery," Chronicle of Higher Education, January 29, 2012, http://chronicle.com/article/The-Liberal-Arts-as-Guideposts/130475/ 

Michel de Montaigne, "Of Solitude," Essays of Michel de Montaigne, Complete, ed. William Carew Hazlitt, trans. Charles Cotton,  http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3600/3600-h/3600-h.htm#2HCH0038   

Exciting Changes to Come for the MALS Writing Center!

Happy New Year!

I hope you all had fun and restful holiday breaks.

As we move into 2012, I am planning some nice additions to the  MALS Writing Center. Along with more frequent online office hours, I will now be holding some live office hours each week. Yes, that means you will be able to consult with me face to face to go over segments of your writing! Stay tuned for the Spring 2012 office hour schedule.

You can also look forward to evening information sessions about peer writing groups where you can learn all about the benefits of participating in a writing group and get to know some of your fellow students and even join a writing group.  

Last but not least, the MALS Writing Center website will be getting a makeover over the next few months. If you have any suggestions for information you'd like to see added to the site, please drop me an email at malswritingconsultant@gmail.com.

For now, enjoy a few more days of mental relaxation before the classes begin next week!

The Fall 2011 MALS Mini-Conference is coming up this Week!

The ETSU community, especially current MALS students and alumn, are invited to attend the mini-conference, which will be held this Tuesday, December 6th, from 6:00 to 9:00 PM in the East Tennessee Room of the D.P. Culp University Center.

Come and learn about the interdisciplinary topics our newest MALS students are exploring. Refreshments will be served! For more information, please contact me at malswritingconsultant@gmail.com or Dr. Jill LeRoy-Frazier at leroyfra@etsu.edu. You may also see the flyer by clicking here.

I look forward to seeing you there!

Repetition

Yesterday I went for a mountain bike ride. During my fourth attempt to clear a rather technical section of trail, I realized something important as my bike stubbornly decided to stop on a short hill, the front wheel wedged between two rocks and the rear nestled in a pool of mud. While it's probably a bit melodramatic to call it an "epiphany," (I think it best to reserve that label for the really important moments, such as the day I came to know the wonders of wool socks), I can definitely say that a light bulb went off. You see, on my first attempt of this obstacle, I just sort of stopped right before encountering the muddy rock trap.  Knowing that I had broken the cardinal rule of mountain biking - "keep pedaling, stupid!" - I turned around to repeat the section, only this time I pedaled like a madwoman. Well, I still didn't make it; the mud was just too thick for my weary legs to power out of going uphill. Ditto on the third try. As I crashed the fourth time, I realized that, while I had yet to clear this obstacle, I was in fact succeeding.

What dawned on me yesterday as I stood in three inches of mud is that success both is and results from repetition of good habits. I was succeeding because I was repeating with emphasis on what I was doing correctly. I realized that when we employ the patience, perseverance, and wisdom to repeatedly practice good habits, we are in fact succeeding, even when we do not achieve our desired results immediately.

The key is to not place all the value on the achievement itself. Equally important, I believe, are the many, repetitive attempts you must necessarily make that gradually move you toward the achievement. Only by repeating a task, while concentrating on repeating the good habits, will those good habits become more natural to you.

The more I think about it, the more I believe that this philosophy applies to everything we do, whether it be mountain biking, eating well, nurturing relationships, or writing. The writing process is nothing more or less than this repetition of good habits. While the first several attempts at any writing project might seem like they're getting you nowhere, the truth is that each brainstorming session, draft revision, and proofread help you become a better writer. Just as the most important part of training for a marathon is not the last 22 miler before the race, but the dozens of shorter runs you complete in the months before that final long run, the most important part of your development as a writer is the process leading up to your final draft.

Consciously practice good habits, whether it's in mastering Turabian documentation style, overcoming comma confusion, or adopting a mindset of identifying and integrating sources and ideas from multiple disciplines to approach questions in your academic and professional career. More importantly, be confident that this practice and repetition is success in and of itself.

Now go work on that draft!

Presenting....

If I remember correctly (and I'm sure that I do), during the next two weeks your schedules are not only packed with final exams and seminar papers, but also peppered with project presentations, mini-conferences, and other opportunities to share your work in front of an audience. It's no secret that the anxiety brought on by an upcoming presentation can rival that of the looming deadline for your 22-page research paper, particularly if you're presenting on a complex subject, theory, or concept that is relatively new to you (post-structuralism, anyone?).

While in no way do I claim to be the queen of the lectern, I do have a few tips to help you prepare for your next presentation with confidence and style.

1. Timing is Everything. Regardless of the reason or forum for your presentation, you will at the very least be given guidelines for the length of time you will be in the limelight. Use this timeframe as your starting point when planning and preparing your entire presentation, from your introduction to your power point slides. Especially when presenting a semester-long project, it's easy to get carried away in the details. The last thing you want is to create a gorgeous masterpiece of slides, video clips, and insightful quips only to be cut off before you get through 10% of your planned presentation. The last think your audience wants is to have a presenter drone on three times as long as necessary. Always tailor your presentation to the time allowed, making sure you hit all of your essential points.

2. Read Responsibly. For some presentations it's perfectly acceptable to read a prepared paper and/or speech. For example, this is usually the case for your MALS 5100 mini-conference presentations. That said, please don't just get up in front of the room, stare at your paper, and read us the words. Even when you have a script, you need to engage your audience.  Make frequent eye contact throughout your presentation. Speak slowly, pause at appropriate intervals, and subtly inflect emotion into your voice to emphasize important points. Additionally, you may want to add examples, stories, or small bits of humor to your presentation that you won't necessarily include in the final version of your paper. Finally, if you're using PowerPoint, don't read your slides. Let them work for you, and elaborate on the points contained in each slide.

3. Grab your Audience. Not literally. But it is essential to capture your audience's attention immediately. Start off with an interesting story, statistic, or question that engages the audience and allows them to relate to your topic from the start. Please don't start your presentation with "Today I'm going to talk about....XYZ," and don't just dive into the details.

4. Dress the Part. Even when you can attend class all semester in your sneakers and sweats, you should approach presentations as more formal affairs. I liked to dress up a bit even if my professors did not specify a dress code. While I cannot offer concrete proof, I think that dressing well for presentations helps one feel more "professional" and therefore make a sharper, more credible presentation. You don't need to wear a tuxedo, but at least dress business-casual. Keep your hair neat and out of your face, and wear good but comfortable shoes.

5. Practice! This may sound like a no-brainer, but you'd be surprised how much stress and worry practicing washes away. Find a (captive) audience, such as a spouse, child, friend, or coworker, and practice your presentation with a timer. This is the only way you can be sure that you will make a complete, clear, and interesting presentation within the allotted timeframe.  Ask for feedback not only on your content, but also about any visual glitches like garish or unreadable PowerPoint slides or distracting mannerisms such as toe-tapping or over-gesturing with your hands. At the very least, hearing yourself talk out loud for 10 minutes should help you become more comfortable with, well, talking out loud for 10 minutes.

6. As always, remember interdisciplinarity! Practice is especially important when making an interdisciplinary presentation, because you'll need to relate to audience members with different academic backgrounds and effectively draw from multiple disciplinary perspectives in a short period of time. As you're making your notes, adapting your paper, or making slides, remember to demonstrate the intersection of disciplines in your presentations. Make clear the disciplinary (or interdisciplinary) origins of each of your points, and clearly state any connections between disciplines. You don't have to go into the theory behind each concept, but do use language to acknowledge the merging of disciplines.

7. Go Old School. That is, use notecards. Even with Youtube, PowerPoint, and GoogleDocs available to liven up a presentation, I still recommend putting together a set of good, old-fashioned, 5x7 index cards outlining the points you need to make during your presentation. Why? Because technology sometimes fails. And because nerves can play tricks on you and make you forget what you stood up to say in the first place. A simple statement on a notecard can get you back on track and help keep you there. You might even go so far as to jot a time-frame down on each notecard to help you progress through your presentation at your practiced pace. Also, don't forget that a humble notecard gives you something to hold in your hand, providing a simple remedy for excessive hand gesturing.

8. Be ready for questions. During most conferences, class presentations, or symposia, you will have a brief Q & A period after your main speech. As you're preparing your presentation, try to anticipate some of these questions. Jot down potential answers, complete with examples, on a notecard. In the likely event that you receive a rather off-the-wall or challenging question, just relax and provide the best answer possible. Don't hesitate to ask for clarification of the question in a tactful manner. Also, monitor your answers to be sure you don't get off track too much and end up making a second presentation. Keep answers concise.

9. Remember, you're hardly alone. You have a class of peers who are making similar presentations all over campus. Nor are you the worst public speaker ever. I'm pretty sure my entire 8th-grade language arts class had that one covered. Try and enjoy this chance to share your research with your peers.

Good luck!