Extra Extra!

Extra Extra...read all about it! We have breaking news from the Writing Center that you won't want to miss. Bonus hours will be available Monday and Tuesday, May 3rd & 4th, from 10:00-3:30!

This might be your last chance to strengthen your thesis and sharpen your analysis. Share the news with your friends and sign up for a session today!

~Mary

Writing Warm-up

As the temperatures begin to rise outside, motivation begins to drop. Students find themselves in a sort of tug-of-war...taking a walk with friends or writing a research paper, playing frisbee or taking notes on an assigned reading, hanging out in the courtyard or holing up in the library. It's pretty obvious what the outcome will be. Mr. Sun defeats the competition with its powerful, blinding pull.

But wait! Your paper is due in a week and this might be one of your last chances to boost your grade before finals. Compromise. Brainstorm under an oak tree, draft on your deck, build your body paragraphs on a bench, type in the shade. Use the weather to your advantage. If you love the great outdoors, then this is your perfect writing season.

Finally, learn a lesson from this weather pattern. Don't forget to heat up your own writing. Put passion and fire into your essay. Make your argument so bright your readers will need shades! Craft your own literary heatwave.

~Mary

P.S. Sign up for an appointment at the Center to keep your writing forecast sunny!

Extreme Makeover: Blog Edition

You may have noticed that things look different around here. Over the past week or so, there has been a lot of construction going on, and I'm not just talking about our campus. A lot of work goes into construction, whether for a house, a blog, or even an essay.

Sometimes you have to do a complete overhaul. Maybe your thesis isn't supporting the body of your essay, maybe your web site isn't getting enough hits, maybe your house lacks major curb appeal. So, what to do? Put on your protective gloves, your hardhat and goggles, and get to work!

It can be daunting to start over, but maybe the foundation of your essay can be saved. You don't have to necessarily bulldoze what you've already written...work with it. If you like the quotes you've selected from a text, do some freewriting until you figure out what makes them important. Underline one sentence from each of your body paragraphs that you think sums up that paragraph's purpose.  Voila!  You've just constructed a new topic sentence.

So as you build your own writing, remember that the process will likely be labor intensive. As actress Lily Tomlin says, "The road to success is always under construction." Keep at it!

~Mary

The Science of Writing

There are all kinds of writing out there, from creative to analytical. When you think of writing, maybe a New York Times bestseller comes to mind or a revered classic. Here in the Writing Center, we often consult with students on academic exploratory essays. Whether or not the book's genre is American literature or British or Modern or Medieval, the students' writing itself is geared for analysis. After reviewing mostly English papers, it can be easy to overlook other types of writing, namely the scientific kind.

If you've ever taken a course in Biology, Chemistry, or Physics, then you know that there can be a lot of writing involved. This writing typically comes in the form of the lab report. Within the report, you will likely have multiple sections. First you would include an introduction followed by a section on methods and results. One of the most important sections would be the discussion where you interpret the experiment's results and argue why they are significant. Here, you reflect and interpret and provide evidence. Hmm...does this sound familiar? It is the discussion section which surprisingly looks a lot like a literary analysis.

Can writing be boiled down to a science? I'll argue...not quite. Writing can be fluid, free, and limitless. It does not need to follow a formula to be deemed acceptable. In fact it is often the avant garde writing that grabs our attention as well as acclaim. However, I think that a lot can be learned from both the sciences and the liberal arts. Enrolling in English courses may help you become a better scientist, and vice versa. It all comes down to analysis, whether it's of an experiment or a text.

So, as you get ready for your weekly Chem lab or Physics experiment, embrace the goggles and beakers and microscopes...they just might help you ace your English paper or pen the next great American novel.

~Mary

The Poetry Corner

When I Have Fears

When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain,
Before high-piled books, in charact'ry,
Hold like rich garners the full-ripened grain;
When I behold, upon the night's starred face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love!--then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.
-John Keats (1818)

• How do you deal with writing "fears?"
• What is it that you fear when you put pen to paper?
• Can there be positive aspects to fear?
• How do you overcome your fears or "shadows" (line 8)?

~Mary

Lessons from Lucy

Yes, it's official...the Writing Center is open! And now that the Center is back in business, so is the blog. It's definitely the "write" time of year.

To start things off here, I'm going to give you five good reasons why you should come to the Center....

1) Students who visit the WC for a session almost always achieve higher grades than they would without our help. If it could be the difference between a B+ and an A, why wouldn't you want to sign up for a session?

2) Unlike Lucy, we don't charge 5¢. The WC offers completely free, professional tutoring.

3) As they say, the early bird gets the worm. Here at the WC, the early student gets the greatest benefit. Signing up for sessions in the beginning of the semester and coming regularly helps you to make significant progress with your writing goals.

4) Writing sessions are nothing to stress about. Our writing associates are always happy to help, and we usually begin by asking open-ended questions about your project at hand. A session is a collaboration between the student and the tutor--your own dialogue and participation is essential to the session's success. Even though our friend Lucy may like to lecture Charlie Brown, I can assure you that the WC is much more friendly.

5) If you cannot make a session during our hours (M-Thu. 10-4, Tu. 10-6), we offer online tutoring. Just send us an email at hartfordwriting@gmail.com and include your name, the course, the instructor's name, and a preferred appointment date/time to follow-up with a brief session. You can attach your assignment as a Word document or paste it into the body of the email. Make sure that you provide questions for the tutor to consider (ex. clarity, paragraph development, textual analysis, etc.) as we will not edit or correct your paper. Expect a response within 36 hours.

So there you have it...five good reasons to come to the Writing Center. See you there!

~Mary
(Image courtesy of Flickr)