Editing Help

Here's a document that you can work through on your own as you revise. It's a set of focused editing tips that get at a variety of topics, from weeding out unnecessary words to revising for emphasis.

Also, here's a link to a document I've shared with you before, one that walks through typical issues with the profile and how to fix them!

Revising the Narrative: Structure

This is a slideshow we'll work with in class today to help you refine the structure of your Project #1's, where you're shaping a story about an object that's important to you.

Comments on the Profile Drafts

With profile rough drafts, I tend to repeat the same comments. That's why I have a document like this one, which you possibly have looked at before, that walks through the issues I tend to see using student draft examples. There's something to be said, anyway, about learning to self-diagnose, so please use the linked file to examine what you have.

I've also put together this document, as an additional approach to working through those common issues. It's in the form of a checklist. 

Please know that I'm always more than happy to comment in-depth on revisions, the idea being that you've already gone in and attempted to develop and polish the piece on your own before asking for me to take another look. That's true for any of the projects. Just e-mail me or bring a hard copy in if you prefer handwritten feedback. If you e-mail me, simply ask me to look at your revised piece. I can go back in Drive and find it. 

Don't re-share it, unless you're going to add a message asking me to look at the revision. If you simply re-share, I won't know what you want—I'll merely get another e-mail telling me you've set up a share. I tend to delete those! Just communicate with me about what you need, that's all :)

Lab Helpers Today (3/8)

I have a horribly sore throat today, gang, and I will try and speak as little as possible today. You're going to have some time to work, and here's our plan:

1. I do want you to share your draft with your "row": so whoever is sitting in your lab row, please set up shares for the profile draft. As we did last time, go into those other drafts and leave some comments, but try to focus on what you think might be "missing" in the draft. If there aren't a lot of quotes, leave a simple question about that (Will you add more?). If there are no stories, you can comment on that (A story would really be great . . .). If there's no organization, or the structure isn't engaging for you as a reader, you can probably find a way to say something about that (I got most engaged in X section . . .). Please don't just leave a lame pat on the back. Or say, "good draft!" Offering up ONE or TWO serious comments would be better than leaving platitudes strewn about; plus, even though you think you're being polite with that kind of thing, you're actually being a bit of the opposite. 
2. I do have a handout with tips on how to punctuate quotes and edit them. You can Google to find answers to other questions you have, when you have them. It would take you 30 seconds, likely, to get an answer about how to use quote marks. Figure it out.
3. Continuing on with editing, here's the slideshow we worked with today on TRANSITIONS!
4. The final draft of the profile, because it involves you citing research (your interview!), requires a Works Cited page. Here's how to do that entry, since you won't find an example for it on Fister (that MLA guide that's our required text for the course):
   
   Smith, Jane. Personal interview. 12 Oct. 2014.
   
   Remember, at the end of that essay, you should make a Page Break (find that on the Insert menu), since a Works Cited page needs to be on its own page at the end of your paper. At the top of that page, type "Work Cited" (since there's only one "work"!), then give us your entry after that. 

Planning Your Profile Draft, and a Reminder about Tuesday

Group, this document can help you think about the material you got from your interview in a way that can potentially keep you from merely narrating your interview experience (which you really want to avoid!).

For those of you who want a little more help, here is a handout I've often used--one that is an analysis of an entire class's drafts. So it captures the common problems people tend to have with the piece, and uses student examples to illustrate the struggles and what to do about them. You'll save yourself a lot of time, probably, by working with this document. I will likely do another one once I see your drafts, to show how our class is dealing with the drafting process.

Finally, remember that the draft will be DUE on Tuesday (3/8), 11:59 P.M. We'll be in the lab on Tuesday, and we will likely do some draft shares as well as work on some revision techniques. So: HAVE A DRAFT, obviously, so we can be productive.

Slideshow from the Lab, 2/11

We'll shift to revision and editing today, and the activities we'll do in the lab are captured in this slideshow. We're working with larger to smaller concerns as a little introduction to revision, so we'll examine things like structure as a whole, but also sentence level issues as well--especially those that pertain to style and not just mechanics.