Dylan Nice #10

My experience reviewing work outside my discipline is somewhat limited. I can, however, recall a few clear examples: giving feedback on a sample essay for a friend’s application to a philosophy program, or reading over a legal memo for another friend in law school. In each instance I felt much less confident in reviewing the content of the essay, since I knew next to nothing about audience expectations. Is this philosophical concept commonplace or does it need to be explained? Is it part of conventional legal language to drop articles or is that a mistake? Thus many of my comments were posed as questions.

But in each instance, I found something critical and productive to discuss. However, most often these issues were at the local level: a sentence fragment, pronoun confusion, bloated construction, needless use of passive voice, or monotonous, choppy sentences. Luckily, these kinds of observations were exactly what the authors were looking for from me, so I did not gravely disappoint them. Relatedly, what’s interesting is how often students writing within my discipline only want me to look for these same kinds of sentence-level errors. Like someone fully dressed to go out on a date who asks, “how do I look?” they are only asking if their hair is out of place or they have something in their teeth. Suggesting they change their outfit is an unwelcome observation.

My suspicion is that the longer one works in the writing center and reviews essays outside their discipline, the more comfortable they become with the conventions and expectations of other modes of writing. For instance, there once was a time when I was just as clueless as my students concerning what made for a good personal statement. (I think my limited professional successes up until that point had come despite my dreadful personal statements). But, after many more years in professional life, I now feel I have a little bit more grasp on the subtle demands of that occasion for writing.

Comments

  1. RbtaylorNovember 10, 2020 at 5:45 PM

    Dylan,

    I appreciated your "friend on a date" analogy. When I read that, something clicked, and I let out an audible, "Huh." Many students who come to the writing center, at least on the appointment side, seem to think all we do is sentence-level revision, and it is interesting to navigate these appointments when papers need global revision work.

    I think your suspicion is correct about getting more comfortable with writing outside of our discipline with more practice. It's that way with teaching in general, I've found. There are certain things that get easier the more time we spend doing them.

    Thanks for your thoughts!

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  2. David KimeNovember 10, 2020 at 5:53 PM

    It's interesting that you point out that your comments were questions largely because you're right. When I don't understand some jargon, I usually have to ask or ignore it. Thinking about it as a comment makes it seem far more productive than just getting them to elaborate on things that may further confuse you. That said, I think there are opportunities to aid a student in restructuring or finding places where they need to elaborate, regardless of whether or not you understand the terms. Those more big picture items should still be relatively clear, just in how they relate ideas and transition through topics. And, hey, those local concerns are important too. Sometimes that's what they need to see in order to revisualize what they have in front of them.

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