From the Center – Page 7 – Reflections from W&M's Writing and Communication Center

October 22, 2019

Communication: It’s Everyone’s Game!

Image of hand, pen, and paper. As a consultant at the Writing Resources Center, I have the opportunity to work with intelligent colleagues from a variety of academic disciplines.

People are often surprised to find out that not everyone who works at the WRC is an English major. In addition to English, the WRC has economics majors like me, chemistry majors, public health majors, government majors, and more. Like the consultees we work with, WRC consultants are diverse in both their backgrounds and skill-sets; but one thing we all have in common is recognizing the importance of communication, both written and oral.

Good writing, and more generally good communication, goes beyond papers in English or the humanities. Writing and expressing yourself clearly is essential in a variety of fields, both inside and outside academia.

STEM students often find writing to be a frustrating experience and feel that it isn’t entirely relevant for their current and future work beyond simply checking off a gen-ed requirement. For some, getting through humanities-based classes is more of a struggle than the STEM courses with which they’re comfortable.

(Humanities students, on the other hand, sometimes cringe when faced with math-based courses. Both types of students should keep in mind that pairing oral and written communication with some numbers or statistics can lead to stronger, more evidence-based writing.)

When STEM students hit the job market, they’ll find that employers are looking for both hard and soft skills. Hard skills are the technical abilities that are unique to a particular occupation or industry, while soft skills are interpersonal or “people” skills which include writing and communication. In STEM careers, now more than ever before, candidates with soft skills are actively sought out by employers. Today, “U.S. employers are facing a major gap in employee preparedness in ‘soft’ skills, which account for approximately one-third of skills requested in all U.S. job postings. The soft skills gap impacts the short- and long-term employment prospects of graduates of highly technical STEM degree programs” (Donahue 2016).

Why are these soft skills so important? Effective communication is essential, for example, when interpreting numerical data or visual data representations. Imagine standing in front of a boardroom making a presentation to key players internal or external to your organization; what truly matters isn’t whether you understand the data, but your ability to help your audience understand. To do so, you’ll need to communicate complex information in a clear, concise, and efficient manner. This takes practice: you have to determine what information is relevant for your audience, and decide the best way to deliver it. You don’t want to under-inform, but you certainly don’t want to over-inform either.

Developing your communication skills takes time, and college is the perfect place to practice. Instead of considering gen-ed and other required classes to be irrelevant to your future, think of them as learning opportunities. Use these classes to fine-tune the oral and written communication skills that will serve you well regardless of your major or future career path. And if you get stuck on the way to confident and effective communication—don’t stress—the Writing Resources Center is here to help!

Source: Murphy Donohue (2016). “Tackling the ‘soft’ skills gap: How you can prepare STEM students for employment,” Expert Perspective, July 29.

April 22, 2019October 4, 2019

Starting Over: Why Computer Crashes Aren’t Always the Worst Thing

notes-macbook-study-conference While sitting and writing in Swem last week, I panicked.

Microsoft Word had crashed, and the recovery document was blank. All seven pages I had written were gone. I quickly realized there was nothing I could do but start over. Facing a tight deadline, I knew my time was better spent writing than worrying, so I set out to re-write the paper.

Although still not perfect, my second draft was considerably better than my first. It also took far less time to write. After agonizing over the first draft, I re-wrote those seven pages in one sitting. The difference was that the second time around, I finally knew what I wanted to say. This allowed me to be more creative, to rethink the organization of my paper, and to consider which examples would best sustain my argument. Having already had a go at it, I did not simply re-create the same paper. Instead, I took my memory of the fragments and made them into something new.

I gained from this experience an important reminder about the slow process of writing. That is, writing is a process, and each stage of that process matters. By writing, we are thinking and learning, and we need to slog through the sometimes arduous process to come out on the other end.

As a writing consultant for the History Writing Resources Center, I wish I could advocate for everyone’s Microsoft Word crashing at some point in their writing process. We are often too tied to our first drafts, too unwilling to start over. While I don’t think this applies exclusively to history writing, it can be particularly useful in terms of producing strong analytical arguments, a requirement of all history papers.

History papers should do two things:

First, they need clear guiding arguments (or thesis statements) that are analytical rather than descriptive. That is, they should try to explain “why” or “how” something happened, rather than simply saying that it happened.
Second, they should make use of evidence to bolster these arguments. They should use examples from sources (both primary and secondary) to support the main point.

This is much easier said than done. The process of figuring out how pieces of evidence are connected and what sorts of arguments they might yield is a difficult one. For those of us who think as we write, it is often not until we have already written about and explained all of our evidence that we figure out exactly what we are trying to say. A common refrain in the HWRC is “I didn’t know what I was arguing until I got to the end of my paper.” This isn’t a bad sign, but it means your work is not finished.

So, here is my advice. Once you have written a draft, start over. Since we are often pushing up against tight deadlines, this need not be taken too literally. At the very least, once you are finished with a draft, take out a clean sheet of paper or open up a new document and try once again to voice your argument. Take this opportunity to map out your paper and to make sure that the organization of your evidence fits your thesis statement. Once you have a draft, take the time to figure out if your paper actually says what you want it to say. I would also highly recommend re-writing your introduction after you have finished. Remember, you knew the least about your paper when you wrote your introduction. Your introduction deserves the knowledge of hindsight.

And every once in a while, go ahead and delete the whole thing. You’ll thank yourself later.

Caylin Carbonell is a Consultant in W&M’s History Writing Resources Center.

Image: https://www.pexels.com/photo/notes-macbook-study-conference-7102/

March 11, 2019

The Virtue of Handwriting

cookie_crisp Did you know that Jerry Seinfeld wrote every episode of Seinfeld by hand? The same goes for nearly all of his stand-up material over the years. When asked why, he answered that the blinking cursor makes him feel anxious, like he’s being asked, “So? What do you got?”

Though I’m not on Seinfeld’s level, I’ve also begun writing important papers by hand. Besides avoiding distractions on the internet, I’ve found writing long form to be helpful for two main reasons:

Pace

When you’re typing, the speed of your fingers can easily outpace clear thinking. Additionally, many people find that as they write, they further develop and understand their ideas. I find that the slower pace of handwriting allows for more of these discoveries as my brain can outpace my hand. I feel more in control of the paper and less stressed about hitting word counts or paragraph lengths that seem passable.

Necessary Revision

Of all the steps in the writing process, I find revision is the easiest to blow off. After all, I wrote the paper. I know already that it’s very good. Why waste time going back over it? Won’t that just puff my ego up more? My rationalizations can get convoluted. The truth is, everyone needs revision. That may sound trite, but it’s true. Papers, especially first drafts, need revision. Writing by hand forces you to allot the time to revise more as you write as well as when you transfer your written words to the computer.

Hopefully, as you read back over your work, you won’t just copy it verbatim from page to screen. You’ll see sentences that aren’t working or notice typos. You’ll develop a sense of the flow of your paper broadly. Once I see words on my screen, I always struggle to delete them. They look so final in Times New Roman 12 pt. font. However, when they are in pen, and I’m weighing whether they should be typed up, I’m much more honest and critical.

Consider writing by hand. Your first draft will be more coherent and insightful, and it’ll force you to review the paper as you type it up, improving your final draft. Slow and steady wins the race.

Image: Jerry Seinfeld Breaks Down a Joke