Tag: writing advice

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Growing, Writing, and Learning

Before I became a consultant at the WRC, I made over 50 appointments as a student, and I don’t plan on stopping.

Allyson Lowe ’23

In my first semester of college, I confused an author’s middle name for his last name. The following year, I described William Shakespeare as “commenting on nineteenth-century sex politics” instead of the seventeenth century’s. Then, in an upper-level English seminar, I forgot to double- and triple-check my spelling, stringing words together without spaces for half of a sentence. 

Now that I’m a rising senior, you would think I’ve learned all I can when it comes to writing, but no.

While amusing and sometimes obvious, these errors reflect where I was as a writer: growing. I came to William & Mary with a thick Appalachian drawl and no idea what a “college-grade” paper looked like. As the first in my family to attend a four-year university, I was also the first to stumble through an essay’s first, second, and third drafts, let alone the first to make the above mentioned mishaps. My mom, who has always been my biggest supporter, couldn’t advise me on what tense to write in or how to format my paper.

So, I made an appointment with the Writing Resources Center, or the WRC, as I’ve come to know it.

After my first few visits to the WRC, it was clear that my home, albeit seven hours away, heavily informed my authorial voice. Before attending William & Mary, I attended a high school in an educationally and financially underserved community with limited access to writing preparation courses. I wrote a lot, yes, and had a couple of classes that helped hone my writing abilities, but I couldn’t answer questions about what makes a strong thesis statement or the difference between Chicago style and MLA, or why you shouldn’t end a sentence with a preposition. These questions made me feel I was “behind” academically, like I would never make it to my senior year.

I did make it to my senior year (I’m writing this blog post now, two weeks away from my last first day at William & Mary), and that’s because of the support I found at the WRC. The peer consultants I met with answered these questions and didn’t make me feel embarrassed to ask them because, at the end of the day, they were students like me who faced similar challenges when writing. We found the answers together, talking through how a thought-provoking, argumentative claim is key to a good thesis and that the difference between Chicago and MLA boils down to footnotes and endnotes versus in-text citations. I even found the answer to my preposition question: you can end a sentence with a preposition. The conversations I had in the WRC with peer consultants also taught me how to grow from my middle name-last name, Shakespeare, and spelling blunders because to become a better writer, I had to accept there is no such thing as a “perfect” writer. Realizing that I’ll never produce error-free papers has allowed me to grow into myself as a writer, organically and positively. 

Before I became a consultant at the WRC, I made over 50 appointments as a student, and I don’t plan on stopping. I’ve made 65 and plan to exceed 70 by the time I graduate this year because each consultation presents a new learning opportunity. Thanks to the WRC and its supportive team, I know I’m not a small-town girl who’s “behind;” instead, I’m a proud, educated woman moving forward, ready to take on any essay topic, word limit, or deadline–mistakes and all.

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A Simple Introduction to Scientific Writing

Unlike other types of writing, scientific writing is purely a tool to communicate information. Forget the eloquent prose, flowery descriptions, and exclamation points—the goal is not to impress or exaggerate but simply to convey ideas and results clearly and efficiently. For many students, acclimating to this new way of writing can be difficult. Here, we have assembled some of our best advice on how to write in the sciences.

Precision

One of the most important things for a scientist to keep in mind is precision. This is equally true when writing in the sciences. By this, we don’t just mean accurately reporting results–because, of course–but also in your word choice, detail, and description. Be aware that your reader may not be as familiar with the material as you, so leave nothing to the imagination. Be confident and clear in what you say, and be as detailed as possible, prioritizing quantitative over qualitative descriptions. Take care to leave out anything distracting or irrelevant, but help the reader follow along as you guide them through your reasoning, methods, and results.

Clarity

Along with precision, it is important to keep scientific writing as clear and concise as possible. Avoid trying to fit too many ideas in one sentence, as this may confuse readers. It is also important to use familiar terms in your writing, as long as those terms don’t introduce ambiguity. Keep your audience in mind and be sure to include definitions for technical terms when possible. 

Additionally, avoid unnecessary phrases and wordy sentences. A quick way to check for the addition of unnecessary phrases is to ask yourself the question: do you feel out of breath after reading your sentence aloud? That means it is too wordy. Another way to shorten convoluted sentences is to remove unnecessary interjections. 

Objectivity

Passive voice, while loved by scientists, is not preferred by others. Why? Well, passive voice can be a useful tool for objectivity, but it can also introduce ambiguity. But to use passive voice, we first need to understand what it is. A very simple rule for passive voice is, if you can put “by zombies” at the end of the sentence, it’s likely passive voice. For example, “The sample was taken.” We can add  “by zombies” to the end to get “The sample was taken by zombies.” Compare this to “The scientist took the sample,” where adding “by zombies” doesn’t sound right. By focusing on the object of the sentence rather than the actor (e.g. the sample being taken rather than who’s taking it) we are viewing the situation more objectively. A word of caution: sometimes, passive voice can be detrimental, even in scientific writing. If you don’t specify who is doing the action, you introduce ambiguity, which we want to avoid. However, knowing the mechanics and function of passive voice can strengthen your scientific writing overall.

In scientific writing, we try to acknowledge any limitations in the studies we’re writing about and avoid gross overgeneralizations. This means we stay away from drawing conclusions that are too broad. In scientific writing, there is very little we can conclude is 100% true – science largely consists of observations that have the potential to be proven false (even those made in controlled experimental conditions).

Scientific writing may seem daunting at first, but hopefully with this guide, you’ll be ready to tackle any STEM assignments that come your way!

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Where Am I In This Paper?: Honing Your Academic Voice Through Journaling

I can’t remember a time in my life when I was without a trusty little journal. When I was five, it had a princess and castle on the front cover with pink, lined pages inside. It turned purple when I read Anne Mazer’s The Amazing Days of Abby Hayes in elementary school, as I adopted the book series’ purple pen-wielding, budding journalist of a protagonist, Abby Hayes, as my writing hero. A teacher gifted me a new hardcover journal with an embroidered, flowery cover when I entered middle school and, upon filling it, I switched to a sleek, black Moleskine on the first day of January 2020. That same Moleskine is currently tucked in my backpack as I sit here, three hours into my train ride home for spring break.

After packing last night, I picked up my journal and wrote for the first time in a while. It always feels familiar, as this was my routine almost every night before going to bed for around 14 years, until about halfway through my freshman fall semester, when, as is the case for most folks, schoolwork and life started to intervene. Even still, I’ve made it a point to journal after the big moments: the first day of classes, the last day of exams, birthdays, the major triumphs, the occasional emotional breakdown- you know. After I finished writing that night, I flipped through my older entries and found myself pleasantly surprised by what I had written over the course of the last two years. My pensive entries, as well as the short, hurried scribbles that divided them, effectively graphed my experiences and personal development since arriving at William & Mary. Like a sine function, my journal entries depicted peaks and troughs in how I’ve felt along the ride, but one thread running consistently through every entry, whether joyous, anxious, or any mood in between, was the sense that those scribbles all originated from, and were unique to, me.

Finding Ourselves in Academic Writing

With all this said, you may be wondering: What does journaling have to do with our role as academic writers? How can journaling be applied to our work here in the Writing Resources Center? Sure, journaling is undeniably a form of writing, but it’s often viewed as fundamentally different from the academic writing we do as students. However, I’ve found that journaling, even just once in blue moon, has benefitted my academic writing in terms of honing a personalized voice. We’ve all written something over the course of our academic careers that felt like pure word-vomit, completely disconnected from ourselves. In those academic situations, how can we make our writing our own every time? A unique academic writing voice isn’t something that one can be taught; it arises out of experience and lots of experimentation. This can be risky, however, especially in graded, academic situations. This is where journaling comes in handy. My English major advisor encouraged me during my freshman fall semester to return to my journal after submitting a paper for her class for precisely this reason. She posed a question that still sticks with me every time I sit down to write or revise: “Where are you in this paper?” Reading back over that first paper after receiving her feedback, I remember asking myself, “Yeah… where am I?” What I saw on the page were robotic-sounding, analytical sentences that contained my insight, but were lacking a definitive style that would distinguish them as belonging specifically to me. My professor urged me to uncover what makes my voice stand out amongst the crowd. So, I retrieved my journal from its shelf and wrote about anything and everything that came to mind for 30 minutes. It felt good; it was as though I was reeling in a piece of myself that takes off running in the other direction whenever my writing shifts into serious mode.

She posed a question that still sticks with me every time I sit down to write or revise: “Where are you in this paper?”

Try It Out

My journal serves as a place in which I can explore and trial-and-error my unique voice without pressure to sound eloquent or meet anyone’s standards but mine. I encourage you to try it out sometime: Grab a pen or pencil and a piece of paper. Set a timer for 15 minutes and just write. Need help getting started? Here are a few ideas to get the ball rolling:

You might find that snippets of your voice shine through when writing passionately, whether it be an analysis of whatever it is in that song that draws you to it or an expression of something that made you smile over the course of the day. You don’t have to do this every day but, making time for it every now and then can help in getting more in touch with your voice, which you can then extract and incorporate into your academic work. From here, you can experiment with personalization, such as anecdotal introductions if appropriate in the context of your assignment. Enjoy the experimentation and, through doing so, I hope you find something that you can identify as your own. It’s a skill that I certainly haven’t perfected but, nevertheless, am constantly seeking to improve. Ultimately, there’s no better feeling than asking yourself, “Where am I in this paper?” and being able to point to something, no matter how small it may be, and answering, “That’s me. I’m right there.”