Narrative or Voice

Whenever possible, write using third-person omniscient academic narrative. That is, don’t use: I, me, my, you, your, we, us, one’s or our, to make your point.

 Besides, the omniscient narrative makes it sound like you know what you’re talking about. "In Paradise Lost, Milton demonstrates that predestination robs virtue of its meaning," sounds way better than: "I think that in Paradise Lost, Milton is trying to say that virtue cannot exist unless one has the freedom to make one’s own choices." If you don’t understand, Google it, then go to the university library’s website and read an academic article.

You shouldn't use contractions in academic writing.  This quiz will prepare you for the rigors of knowing when to say "they are coming", as opposed to being totally tacky and accidentally saying, "there coming."

http://www.grammarbook.com/grammar_quiz/their_vs_there_vs_theyre_1.asp


Besides, you should bookmark the Grammar Blue Book, too.  You'll be using it for four years.

Technical tips

You can have a clear thesis, logical outline and present killer evidence, but if you use confusing, grammatically iffy language, you will never make an A. Use these first two tips and you will make an A, on virtually everything you ever write.

Only use: Am, are, is, was, were, be, being, been, have, has, or had, once in every three sentences.

When you find yourself typing, "…ing," backspace, backspace, backspace and find a different way to say it. Be-Verbs set you up to make grammar errors. The more you use them, the higher the chance that you will make tense and agreement errors. When you use Be Verbs, punctuation becomes more confusing than it already is. So, avoid them as often as possible. Stick with simple present and simple past tense. Your writing will be easier to understand and your vocabulary will grow.

This is the most important part of academic writing. No matter what anyone says, don’t write like you talk. You’ll sound smarmy at best and stupid at worst. Learning how to write without using Be-Verbs will do more to make your writing stand out than any other thing you can do. Writing with an active voice helps your vocabulary grow and leads to a deeper understanding of your subject, for you and your reader. Writing with an active voice is hard, but so is flunking out and working at a call center.

Beware of: Can, could, shall, should, will, would, may, might, must, which, whether, or whom.

 

These words confuse and dilute your voice and they usually have to be followed by Be-Verbs. Besides, in a literature class, if you use "must" in any kind of research, you had better have a Works Cited or Reference List entry that won the Nobel Prize to back you up. If you use "whom," you’ll be wrong, so think of a different way to say it.

Count the number of times Robert frost uses those words.


 

Prewriting

Prewriting

Even if you just write a little, prewriting gets you started. Prewriting gives you a database of nouns and verbs to use in the body of your paper. Don’t worry about grammar or word choice; you are the only one who will see your prewriting. Prewriting starts the moment you get the assignment.

Create a new document in your word processing program and dump nouns, verbs, quotes and research into it. Take off and start writing whatever comes to mind. Use the prompt; underline key verbs and nouns in the prompt and try to reduce the assignment to one short, concise sentence. Focus on nouns, verbs and phrases. Use the text. In freshman composition you’ll encounter a wide variety of texts as prompts for assignments. When you have to buy a book for a course, it’s yours, use it. Underline while you read. Then, use the words from the prompt and the text to develop your thesis statement. The main goal of prewriting is to gather research information, produce a working thesis statement and come up with nouns and verbs to use in your paper. Prewriting helps you clearly state your thesis, and helps reveal the main points that support it. As you dump information in to this document, at some point a logical way to present it will become apparent. That’s when you start putting the information in outline form.

Prewriting is a great place to practice citing research properly.  If using MLA or APA, Book mark:
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/

Read the introduction for the citation style you'll be using, then ... just do it.  I know, it's supremely, not fun, but you have to do it.  Might as well start here.



Introduction

Written specifically for college students taking Freshman Level English Composition, this blog contains tools, and details concepts that facilitate effective written communication. The goal here is to help students develop good habits and learn how to express their ideas effectively.

Congratulations, you made it to college. Now, you can go weeks without seeing your parents. You can wear whatever you want and sleep as late as you like. You can cut four classes per subject, per semester and not get in trouble. Besides that, you can literally sleep all day on Saturday and Sunday and no one will care. There’s nothing like your freshman year in college. You’re practically an adult, but you don’t have to act like it unless you want to. All you have to do is pass college algebra, take two more English classes, and then you get to the cool subjects for your major. For the most part it’s all good news.

However, deep down inside, you know the bad news is coming. That’s what I’m here for. This will help you through what is probably the worst part of your college experience-- writing. The bad news is, those two freshman composition classes consist primarily of writing. You’ll have three or four major papers due each semester. But wait, it gets worse. By the time you’re a junior or a senior you will live and die by the written word. You see, you are in college now. Your teachers are instructors who have PhD’s. That means they’re experts at what they do and they really don’t care if you show up next semester or not. They are interested in the folks that try and actually get it. So, the whole benefit of the doubt thing doesn’t apply here. You either make it, turn fantasy into reality, or flunk out and go away.

To that end, this blog will absolutely help you make an A on your next college paper. The tools and concepts outlined here facilitate good grammar and effective communication. There really are no shortcuts when it comes to writing. Writing is hard—always has been, always will be. However, learning how to apply these tools to structure your thoughts enables you to focus on what you want to say, rather than freaking out over what to write. Once you start using good writing technique you’ll find yourself recognizing parts and pieces of those mind crushingly, funkadelic grammar worksheets from freshman composition. At that point, you will have harnessed enough knowledge to make grammar and punctuation work for you to present your work professionally, (believe it or not, that’s what we’re here for).