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Stephen Bernhardt contributes to Section 1 of Explanation Points with his article titled "Community Writing." Bernhardt's focus is to make sure a writer does not "confine [his] work to the academic cloister" (77). Rather, ideas can be fostered in "business and community settings", too (77).

Bernhardt shares that in addition to one's own situation as a writer and thinker, a writer should consider the "opportunities...in your local or regional community" to generate ideas (77). He identifies a number of benefits to breaking out of one's academic shell. Writing becomes part of a larger process within the "flow and action" of a business, instead of just an end goal (77). And it allows for a new audience who can appreciate it differently than fellow academics.

The last section of his article recounts a number of personal experiences that stemmed from following the needs of his community - more science-based technical writing - and led to a position for IBM, several grant opportunities, and "a long-term consolatory position with McCulley-Cuppan" (80).

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I initially picked this article because I thought it would explore something that we will be experiencing in this class, framing our writing within a community. While he does this, he takes it a step further by exploring communities outside academia. This stood out to me because I am also looking to start my own business to address an issue within my local community, offering writing services for resumes, cover letters, grants, and copyediting. It stemmed from a conversation I had with an attorney who said he always questioned his writing and should have me look it over. So, I can see clearly how Bernhardt's career took a path he couldn't have foreseen if he limited the number of communities he was open to engaging with.

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In Section 1 of Explanation Points, Heidi A. McKee contributes an article entitled "Believe in Yourself and in Your Ability to Join Public and Scholarly Conversations." McKee addresses questions of doubt commonly experienced by all writers early in their careers. She reassures young writers by highlighting that a diverse range of voices within scholarship is paramount. She also acknowledges that writers and the ideas they explore in their writing are never definitive or static just because they are published. Her last major point of encouragement comes from finding mentors who will support and challenge you. Mentors can come locally, via in-person conferences, or online forums.

McKee provides her personal experiences with publishing, emphasizing the importance of knowing your audience and your purpose. The lesson she highlights is that publishing is not meant to be an exercise in gatekeeping. Instead, it is itself a process of staying engaged in the conversation with others to help ready yourself and your work for publication.

McKey ends by telling writers to believe in their unique voices and abilities to join the conversation and to help others have their voices heard, too.

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This article title stood out to me initially because I think the idea of being a published authority on a topic is scary and daunting for many people, including myself. I do find it helpful when McKee highlights the importance of a diverse range of voices. Sometimes it may feel like our scholarship needs to reinvent the wheel. I think McKee would agree that simply analyzing the wheel from your unique perspective situated in your unique setting while acknowledging other unique perspectives is more what publishers want.

I also enjoy her focus on finding a mentor to help assuage the common doubts writers can develop. I recall that my mentor for my undergrad capstone project not only helped me with the revising and editing processes, but also the research and idea development stages. He offered a number of sources, even his own writing, that I may not have been able to find on my own and that would strengthen the support for my argument. Despite the doubt and distorted thinking that comes with it, writing does not happen in isolation.

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The Feak and Swales article focuses on the CaRS model of an organizational pattern of writing research papers, "the aim of which is to Create a Research Space, hence CaRS (p. 56).

The article takes the reader through "tasks"  and highlights citation practices, noting that citation practices vary across disciplines" (p. 60), choice of verbs as verbs "situate your work in relation to previous work in the field (p. 63), language focusing on agreement and disagreement "showing awareness of the work in their field" (p. 71), and guiding your readers with "language used to provide and overview or indicate the purpose of your writing (p. 86).

The exercises help the reader understand the system set out by Feak and Swales in crafting an introduction to a research paper in a systematic manner.

I found the article interesting and informative and found some of the exercises more relatable than others.  As a language teacher (Latin and ancient Greek) I found the verb choice section interesting as I focus in my Latin and Greek classes on the idea that verbs drive sentences.  We were reading In Catalinam in class on Friday and in the speech by Cicero, we have been focusing in some of Cicero's rhetorical genius in his speech delivery.  He puts his verbs at the end of the sentences.  This device is effective in the speech as the action, delayed to the end, emphasizes the action.

This article will be a good one to keep in mind as the exercises can help focus writing and the CaRS system has clear steps to help a writer stay organized and streamlined in writing.

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Collin Gifford Brooke. Discipline and Publish- Carlos

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Collin Gifford Brooke. Discipline and Publish- Carlos

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Colling Gifford Brooks’ article Discipline and Publish brings to the table several essential issues and notions related to witting in graduate education. One of the big notions I see is that of reading and writing the network/discipline. Here, Brooks understands “reading” in its broadest sense as thoroughly understanding a discipline and “writing” as the written contributions that scholars in that discipline postulate. Brooke argues that those two dimensions always exist in tension “How much reading and understanding are required before our students are ready to begin contributing their own perspective to the discipline?” (Brooke 95) This is a dilemma always complex to be solved. The solution that Brooks suggest rests in the idea of Bruno Latour of understanding “textual accounts” as a laboratory to describe, explain and understand our own writing process. In other words, because the knowledge in any discipline is always growing and dynamically changing, it would be practically impossible to expect that someone will grasp all knowledge in a discipline in order to be ready to start publishing and contributing to the discipline's advancement. What to do then? Start experimenting with your own writing process in a trial-and-error process, utilizing various methods, and eliminating errors or causes of failure until you reach the desired result. This endeavor expects good and not-so-good results, attainments, disappointments, and imperfect first drafts. However, it is in this “experimenting lab” where writers “make things happen (i.e., to publish, to exert an influence on the field, to be cited)” (Brooks 95)

Regarding first drafts, Anne Lamott posits the argument that for all writers, even good ones, it is necessary “to let go and write those ‘shitty first drafts’ that lead to clarity and sometimes brilliance in second and third drafts”. Lamott ends her article arguing that:

"Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere. Start by getting something –anything—down on paper. A friend of mine says that the first draft is the down draft –you just get it down. The second draft is the up draft – you fix it up. You try to say what you have to say more accurately. And the third draft is the dental draft, where you check every tooth, to see if it is loose or cramped or decayed or even, God help us, healthy.” (2)

As we can see, both Latour and Lamott suggest the experimental nature of scholarly writing. What does that mean to me?  It certainly helps to reduce the anxiety of confronting the blank page; knowing that scholarly writing is a complex process but with persistence, dedication, and the tools offered by professional writers, it is possible for anyone to write a worthy-of-publication article. Before taking this class, my only experience with writing was keeping a teaching journal where I write down the strategies, methods, and activities I use in my daily teaching practice. I focus on the ones that did not work as expected and reflect on changes for those activities in the future.

Reference:

Lamott, Anne. "Shitty First Drafts.” Language Awareness: Readings for College Writers. Ed. by Paul Eschholz, Alfred Rosa, and Virginia Clark. 9th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2005: 93-96.