In the home stretch

As the end of the semester fast approaches and deadlines loom, stress and the sense of being overwhelmed by work can send your focus and motivation out the window.

via Cyanide and Happiness. 

All joking aside, you are in the home stretch now, and in less than three weeks, the semester will be behind you. Hopefully you are all looking forward to a warm and restful winter break, and will finish out the semester feeling satisfied with the work you have done.

A reminder

I'm sure none of you are in such dire straits as Patrick here.

Your friendly neighborhood writing consultant remains available to help you with end-of-semester assignments, including both MALS and elective coursework. Even if you have never worked with me before, I encourage you to contact me if you have any questions, could use a second pair of eyes on a paper or other writing in progress, or if you simply need to vent about the stress and challenges of graduate school. Email any time at malswritingconsultant@gmail.com, and feel free to open a chat if you see me online. 

I know how difficult it is to complete work far enough in advance to allow time for feedback, but keep in mind that you do not have to have a finished draft in hand in order to seek consultation! If you have a couple of pages roughed out, or even a couple of paragraphs, feel free to send them my way. Be sure to indicate the goals of the assignment  (it doesn't hurt to send the original guidelines along with your work), specify any particular concerns you may have, and let me know the due date so that I can prioritize appropriately.

DON'T BE THIS GUY.

via ETSU Memes.

Thinking ahead

Although this is a very busy time of year, this is an ideal time to start thinking about steps you can take to make your life and your schoolwork easier next spring. Specifically, consider the power of teamwork, and think about joining a peer writing group. I'll talk more about this later, but for now, check out some FAQ's about writing groups on the MALS Writing Center website, as well as the information under "content" on the Writing Center D2L page. If you are at all interested in working with a writing group, please email me and/or post on the D2L page so we can get the ball rolling!

In a different approach to teamwork and community support, MALS is preparing to launch a new peer mentorship program. Details are coming to you via email. This spring semester, everyone enrolled in the MALS program will be eligible to participate, either as a mentor (students in their third semester and beyond) or a mentee (newly enrolled MALS students and those entering their second semester). Please look over the email and think very hard about getting involved in this program.

Take five

Don't be this guy, either. via Shoebox Blog.

In the midst of all this hustle and bustle, try to make a little time in your busy schedule to unwind. You can often focus better and work more productively after stepping away from work and schoolwork for a few minutes or a few hours. This is particularly helpful if, like me, you tend to get stuck in a cycle of non-productive time wasting instead of getting your work done.

Here are a few local and on-campus happenings over the next few weeks (click the links for more information):

• ART 

If you are on campus this Wednesday or Thursday, November 28-29, swing by the Culp Center's ballroom for ETSU's Student Ceramic Association sale. Students will be selling one-of-a-kind, handmade pottery and ceramic items.

Walk through Slocumb Galleries in Ball Hall this week to see graduating students' BFA and MFA shows.

Beginning December 3rd, visit the same space for the annual postcard art show and silent auction fundraiser. The first weekend of December also brings First Friday and the annual Christmas Parade to downtown Johnson City.

• MUSIC

At 7:30pm this Thursday, November 29th, ETSU's Ending Fall Bands Concert will play in the Culp Center. The concert is free and open to the public.

ETSU Chorale's annual Christmas Concert takes place this Friday and Saturday in downtown Johnson City. Appalachian Studies professor Jane MacMorran, whom some of you may know, is featured on the violin.

Check out the Down Home and the Acoustic Coffeehouse for additional live music close to campus, including several upcoming performances by ETSU affiliates.

• THEATRE

Glasgow Theatre Company's production of David Sedaris' hilarious "Santaland Diaries" plays this Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, November 29-December 1, at Nelson Fine Art in downtown Johnson City.

Johnson City Community Theatre's holiday comedy, "Nuncrackers," opens this Friday, November 30th, and runs for three weekends.*

For non-holiday-themed fare, Theatre Bristol presents "Peter Pan the Avenger" the first two weekends in December.

• DANCE 

ETSU's Student Dance Workshop performs on Thursday, December 6th, at 7:30pm in the Mini-Dome Dance Studio (room 104). Free admission.

• GET MOVING

As ETSU students, you all have full access at no additional charge to the campus Center for Physical Activity. The CPA is a fully equipped gym with a pool and fitness classes. Drop by to blow off steam, work up a sweat, or even study while using a treadmill or stationary bike. The CPA is open through December 7th, and operates on a limited schedule over winter break.


*Disclaimer: despite appearances, I am not generally a Christmas shill; the holiday tends to take over the area completely in December. If you are looking for a Christmas-free break, you can still see Halloween-themed movies or even "Brave" for $3 at the Real to Reel cinema. 

The EnTITLEment Process

I've found that writers vary in their attitudes toward titles. Some, like me, find the title to be one of the most enjoyable parts of the paper to write. I savor the process of coming up with that attractive, two or three line statement that encapsulates the essence of a paper over which I have toiled for weeks or months. Others are rather ambivalent toward titles. They see them as a necessary part of a paper, but treat it as little more than an afterthought to be slapped on the cover page just before the final printing.

Regardless of your feelings about titles, you need one. Moreover, you need a title that really works for your paper and offers the reader an accurate and concise first impression of your argument. In this respect, I urge you to get in the habit of treating the title as an integral part of the paper instead of as a piece of metadata. By this, I mean that your title should both introduce and reinforce the crux of your argument and not simply provide a few simple terms that you might put into a search engine. Lets look at an example:

Title 1: Bicycle Commuting and Gas Prices

Title 2: A Push to Pedal: Rethinking the Bicycle as a Commuter Vehicle in an Era of Rising Gasoline Prices

While the first title gives us a general idea of what the paper will cover, it's really too vague. There's not even a hint of what direction the author's argument will take. We only know that the paper will probably explore some relationship between bicycle commuting and gas prices. Title #2 gives us much more vivid insight into this paper's thesis. We know that we are going to read about a movement to increase the use of bicycles for transportation, within the context of a current economic environment of rising fuel costs.

In your Turabian manual, Booth, et al. state that your title should be the "last thing you write" for your paper (108). Why? Because it's only after your paper is finished (or getting pretty close) when you will have a complete picture of your argument and know how to best shape your title. And, when you complete this last element of your paper, think about the key and phrases and concepts throughout your paper that best state the essence of your argument. Most likely, you'll find such phrases in your introduction (particularly in your thesis statement) and/or in your conclusion, two sections that are dedicated to packaging your overall argument.

While I agree that finalizing your title is best left as the last act of paper-writing, there's no reason why you shouldn't start jotting down title ideas earlier in the writing process. I believe that the process of articulating a title helps you think more critically about your paper as  a whole. If you have a hard time coming up with a title that is any more specific than one or two nouns (like Title #1 in the above example), you might want to ask yourself why? Could it be that you yourself are unsure of how to articulate your thesis statement? Early in the writing process, this is probably fine. But, by keeping a "working title" alongside your "working thesis," you can use these two critical elements of your paper to help you shape (and reshape) your content. By letting the working title and working thesis really work, you have a built-in mechanism to monitor your clarity, organization, and depth of analysis.

While at the end of a long, arduous research and writing process, you may be tempted to throw down a couple of words that serve as a catch-all for your paper, please don't. Your hard work deserves an interesting title, so spend a little extra time on the first part of a paper anyone reads. The last thing you want is for the title to become the only part anyone reads.

PS> I didn't come up for a title for this post until after I finished writing (and rewriting) all of the above.

Seedy Thoughts

It's April, and most of you are in the early stages of drafting this semester's biggie paper. It's time to take all of that research, reading, and planning and transform your efforts into a masterpiece of interdisciplinary scholarship. Okay, maybe not a masterpiece, but certainly you  intend to write an organized, fully-developed analysis and/or argument.

If writer's block is ever going to rear its ugly head, it's probably now. You know you're ready to start writing cohesive paragraphs that will eventually come together into a whole paper. Except that you're not. The ideas are in your head, but you just can't seem to get them on paper.

But, if you wait until you have a great sentence in your head before you start writing, you'll be waiting a long time. Why? Because complete, compelling, and cohesive thoughts almost never go straight from your brain to your fingertips. Instead, even the best ideas first get to paper in an immature form, much like a prize-winning tomato plant first hits the soil as a tiny seed. You have to plant this "seedy thought" before you can fully develop on paper the idea that you know is floating around in your head.

As Michael C. Munger states in his essay 10 Tips on How to Write Less Badly, "Don't worry that what you write is not very good and isn't immediately usable. You get ideas when you write; you don't just write down ideas." Your first few rounds of writing might be ugly, but they are essential phases in the learning process. In short, you have to write first to articulate your thoughts to yourself and only after that can you effectively write to communicate your ideas to others.

So, if you're struggling to write anything because you can't even seem to form an intelligible sentence, perhaps the problem is that you're waiting until you have a complete thought before putting anything on the page. No matter how incomplete, grammatically incorrect, or unintelligible that thought may currently be, jot down whatever you can get out at the time - that seed of thought will be there, ready to cultivate into a strong point to communicate to your reader, once you've had a chance to fully articulate your idea to yourself.