i went running tonight in spite of the rain. normally i run on treadmills, because by the time i was 19 i'd already busted my knee twice, and every year about this time it reminds me that no matter how young you are, permanent damage is still permanent. but i spent the day getting caught up on grading and emails, and reading 80s composition theory for a conference paper, and i needed out.
i often use exercise as part of my writing/reading/grading process. i grade 2 papers, then do pushups. i promise myself a run if i read one more chapter. the breaks help keep me sane, and i think they help me process material. i come back to a paper i'm not sure what to say about with a clearer head after 10 pushups. i've planned classes on the treadmill, or untangled arguments while lifting weights. the thing many writers forget, and that less experienced writers have trouble believing, is that writing is a physical, situated thing. i often find that students write one way in class, and another way on papers they did at home. they write yet another way in a collaborative setting. if you've always sat down with music, and panicked your way through a paper - get up. go somewhere else. see if you write better with the buzz of starbucks in the background. see if you write better with pen and paper or with a keyboard. turn the music off, or on. shake things up. if you always sit in the same place, doing the same things, it's too likely that you'll keep writing the same way.
the point, though, is that while i was running i thought of two genres i might put together to work up a sample of the genre analysis for project 2. one is an abstract for a conference paper, and the other is the prospectus i had to write for my, well, prospectus exam.
before i even think about an analysis of these two pieces, though, i feel like it's worth saying something about how i wrote them. they were both completely new genres for me. i had learned to write a paper abstract as an undergraduate, and that sounded...kind of like a conference abstract. same word, right? so i wrote one of those the first time. it got accepted, but as i grew more experienced, and started seeing abstracts written by my peers, i realized i hadn't quite done it correctly. usually an abstract like i wrote takes place *after* a paper is written, and summarizes the argument for a prospective reader. that abstract lets them know whether it's worth their time to read your article. the kind of abstract i was *supposed* to be writing doesn't summarize the argument. instead it hints at the main questions of the paper, and suggests the importance of the argument that eventually will get made. it's a vague promise.
and just about the time i thought i'd got the hang of the whole abstract thing, i showed Dr. M my abstract for the Thomas Watson paper, back in May. he took a pen to it, and immediately started crossing things out "don't use the virtuoso and the techne frame here, keep it simple...don't invoke this many theorists -you sound insecure..." etc. it was a bit of a shock, but a reminder i probably needed that i'm still learning how this works. i'm still making the transition from self-conscious, apologetic student to confident peer.
the prospectus, again, was something i'd never written before. it's a short description of your dissertation, which you first defend in an exam, and then file with the department and the graduate school. what i knew going into it was 1. most of the people who will ever read it know nothing about your field, and 2. these lunatics wanted me to summarize a 200-page argument i hadn't even started writing yet?! so i did what i normally do under these circumstances. i collected 5 or 6 of them from people who'd already written one, and i modeled mine on theirs. the prospectus values being very clear (because the 4 people on your committee will exam you on it) but not too technical (remember all those OTHER people who know nothing about your field who are going to read it?). so i wrote a draft, which immediately seemed stupid to me. too short, too vague, too uninteresting. i let my fellow student, MLM, read it and suggest changes. i made them, and then emailed the draft to Dr. M. who promptly changed everything back to more or less the way it was before MLM got his hands on it, and told me to submit it (he was dead on when he said i'm still insecure, or maybe i'd have trusted my original draft).
the point here is that anytime you're writing in a new genre, there's a certain amount of anxiety. it's like going to a party where you don't know anyone. that's normal. so is the trial and error of not getting it quite right the first time, which is why we think of writing as a process, something that happens over a series of steps. but maybe the biggest takeaway is that the first step for writing in a new genre is finding samples of that genre and examining them with the panic of someone whose academic career is riding on the outcome. this can't be done in a vacuum.
i already *knew* this, but apparently i needed to be getting hit in the face with cold rain before i thought about how useful it might be to articulate those experiences and say it explicitly. thank you, lupe fiasco, for your part in this epiphany.
No comments:
Post a Comment