Writing Fundamentals: Part 2

Office of Graduate Studies Author

12/19/2016 Added

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Part 2 of a 10-part Research Writing Fundamentals workshop presented by Dr. Rick Lombardo

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[00:00:00.000]This workshop is not about writing.
[00:00:03.124]It's about readability.
[00:00:05.201]And if you focus on the reader, and you put yourself
[00:00:08.109]in the reader's needs, and if you ask yourself
[00:00:10.603]at all times when you're writing, will the reader
[00:00:13.919]understand this, you will be way ahead.
[00:00:18.570]That's the paradigm shift I want you to go through
[00:00:21.226]at the end of this trip I'm taking you on.
[00:00:24.876]Readability.
[00:00:26.721]And we'll get into that in a little bit.
[00:00:33.023]Let's take another look
[00:00:35.666]at a more complex example.
[00:00:41.653]Could we have,
[00:00:43.186]would you mind right here reading that.
[00:00:47.460](student reads the paragraph)
[00:01:47.517]Thank you very much, that was not easy to read.
[00:01:50.153]I call this Caribbean writing.
[00:01:52.626]Going to the Caribbean.
[00:01:54.570]Now, there are complete sentences here.
[00:01:56.930]All the information is in this paragraph, yes.
[00:01:59.999]Now any one of us, even though we're not involved
[00:02:02.543]in this topic, should be able to understand it.
[00:02:04.650]We know about magma, we know about leachates,
[00:02:08.109]we know a little about what a leachate is.
[00:02:11.890]But the problem, this fellow wrote in what I call
[00:02:16.482]going to the Caribbean writing style.
[00:02:20.034]That means,
[00:02:21.118]that,
[00:02:22.785]about here when you start reading it,
[00:02:25.529]you start packing your bags.
[00:02:28.818]Here you're climbing, you're in the airplane
[00:02:31.539]by here,
[00:02:32.664]you're on the beach,
[00:02:34.442]listening to Bob Marley music
[00:02:36.109]and drinking margaritas.
[00:02:38.373]You have lost interest.
[00:02:40.566]And the question is,
[00:02:42.286]if this is good English, and all the content is here,
[00:02:46.766]what's wrong with this?
[00:02:48.913]What is wrong with this writing.
[00:02:51.963]Anybody guess?
[00:03:01.321]It's boring.
[00:03:03.337]Why is it boring, he said it's boring,
[00:03:04.949]why is it boring.
[00:03:06.566]It's monotone.
[00:03:08.497]It's monotone, OK what else.
[00:03:10.763]It's really dense.
[00:03:13.051]It's dense.
[00:03:14.656]There's a lot of information in this paragraph.
[00:03:16.995]Let's move on and take a look at this
[00:03:20.090]completely revised.
[00:03:26.713]Would you take this mic, stand up and read this now.
[00:03:32.018](student reads the paragraph)
[00:04:43.872]Thank you very much.
[00:04:45.283]So, all of the sudden,
[00:04:48.582]meaning comes to the surface here.
[00:04:51.194]Yes.
[00:04:52.050]It was easy for you to follow.
[00:04:54.095]It's easy for the reader to follow.
[00:04:56.512]What are some reasons for that.
[00:04:58.587]Transitions.
[00:05:00.013]Transitions.
[00:05:02.406]Transitions at the right place.
[00:05:06.138]At the place where they're needed.
[00:05:07.976]We're gonna talk about transitions later.
[00:05:11.513]What else.
[00:05:14.974]It's active, vivid and visual.
[00:05:17.233]It's active, vivid and visual.
[00:05:19.224]Why is it active, vivid and visual.
[00:05:21.722]What about the logical order of the sentences.
[00:05:25.710]They flow from point A to point D.
[00:05:29.931]He summarizes at the end of the paragraph
[00:05:32.463]with a nice summary sentence.
[00:05:35.058]Ideally, the measuring and reporting
[00:05:36.494]of leachate results should be standardized.
[00:05:38.901]Which gives you, a reader, what,
[00:05:41.311]an indication of what the next paragraph's
[00:05:43.340]going to be, yes.
[00:05:46.463]This is where,
[00:05:48.710]your meaning has to come to the surface.
[00:05:51.553]Writing is not you talking to yourselves.
[00:05:55.457]Writing is you communicating with the reader.
[00:05:58.693]So the reader understands.
[00:06:02.321]That's what writing is.
[00:06:09.207]And that's the paradigm shift I want you to go through here.
[00:06:12.173]He changed the order of some of these sentences.
[00:06:14.888]You're in charge of that.
[00:06:16.641]And he stepped back or she stepped back and said
[00:06:19.095]how can I make this paragraph more readable.
[00:06:22.621]Not what is right or good writing,
[00:06:25.192]how can I make it more readable for the person
[00:06:28.161]or persons who are gonna read this.
[00:06:32.343]Many of you have come in here with some myths
[00:06:35.905]about good writing.
[00:06:37.592]I'm gonna go through a couple of them.
[00:06:39.769]See if you don't own some of these.

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Writing Fundamentals: Part 2

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