Existing Tutor Log Forms:

Student:

Hucek, Brianne

Writing Consultant:

Devin L.*

Appt. Date:

2011-03-03

Scheduled Start:

7:30pm

Scheduled End:

8:00pm

Actual Length:

30 minutes

Instructor:

Course:

Topics Discussed:

: Grammar
: Organization
: Understanding an Assignment
: Forming a Thesis Statement
: Introductions and Conclusions
: Developing my Paragraphs
: Brainstorming
: Citing Sources and Using Quotations
: Paraphrasing/Summarizing
: Transitions and Topic Sentences

Summary:

This was a face to face appointment at the writing center: Brianna wrote a paper on the book Silence. Her paper was a two-part summary and analysis of the book. She had not started on the analysis portion but a rough draft of her summary portion was finished, so we discussed that. I told Brianna to watch out for making assumptions about the way other readers are going to interpret the book, as that is not something we can accurately speak to. Statements such as "any reader will cringe when they read..." or "The details in the sex will make you..." are beyond our scope of knowledge. All we have is our own experience. We can alienate readers who don't share that experience when we suggest that it is universal. I told her about my idea of the "unnecessary twins", two words that appear in a couplet yet are very similar to each other, such as "explain and describe" or "punish and suffer". These couplets do several things: They weaken the writers voice by making them appear less confident and their argument less direct, they offer nothing more to the core idea of the sentence, they imply that, although one word is not enough, two words accurately encompasses the entire range of the thought, and too many of these kinds of couplets can over-complicate a sentence needlessly. I have seen papers with these couplets in nearly every other sentence, so I have taken it upon myself to preach the good news of their villainy and subsequent persecution by the pen of revision. These were just a few of the notes that we talked about in our session. Brianna will now make these changes and begin working on her analysis of the book, which we have already begun about through our own definition of the word critique.

Existing Tutor Log Forms:

Student:

Morris, Edie

Writing Consultant:

Devin L.*

Appt. Date:

2011-02-24

Scheduled Start:

7:30pm

Scheduled End:

8:00pm

Actual Length:

30 minutes

Instructor:

Course:

Topics Discussed:

: Grammar
: Organization
: Understanding an Assignment
: Forming a Thesis Statement
: Introductions and Conclusions
: Developing my Paragraphs
: Brainstorming
: Citing Sources and Using Quotations
: Paraphrasing/Summarizing
: Transitions and Topic Sentences

Summary:

This was a face to face appointment at the writing center: Edie came into our session with a peace paper about the consequences of associating a terrorist group unilaterally with a specific region of the world, thus damaging the civilian life in the area and precipitating more resentment and violence for the counter-terrorist country. We talked out an introduction to the paper, ending with a thesis that summarized the point Edie wanted to make. Then, we wrote out the thesis and pulled out the portions of it that needed to be explained in order to effectively convince someone of the argument. These extractions became the outline of the paper, ordered logically starting with the definition of terms to proving relationships such as "civilian casualties beget additional violence," etc... Edie will now finish the outline of her paper and start her first draft.

Existing Tutor Log Forms:

Student:

Raymond, Christiana

Writing Consultant:

Devin L.*

Appt. Date:

2011-02-23

Scheduled Start:

7:00pm

Scheduled End:

8:00pm

Actual Length:

60 minutes

Instructor:

Course:

Topics Discussed:

: Grammar
: Organization
: Understanding an Assignment
: Forming a Thesis Statement
: Introductions and Conclusions
: Developing my Paragraphs
: Brainstorming
: Citing Sources and Using Quotations
: Paraphrasing/Summarizing
: Transitions and Topic Sentences

Summary:

This was a face to face appointment at the writing center: Christiana came to our session with a paper on title IX, an anti discrimination act to improve the situation of Women's sports in high-school and college education programs. The paper was very well written, and there wasn't much of a need to talk grammar, syntax, or sentence structure. We spent the session discussing the argument, and rearranging paragraphs to reflect our discussions. For example, we identified testimonial arguments as a method of pathos, and grouped all of the pathos arguments together, with the idea that some might be eliminated in the future. We didn't want the paper to be over-weighted by arguments or pathos, seeing as logic takes a backseat to celebrity or common anecdotal appeals. We also reorganized the paragraphs to move the argument along in chronological order, so that the "life before title IX" paragraph came after the introduction followed by the introduction of Title IX and its history of amendments. Then, we moved into the testimonials, providing cursory defense for title IX specifically as it pertained to the Olympics. But, we cut out of one these paragraphs because Christiana's argument is ultimately not about Title IX success, but about the misconception over Title IX's affect on male athletics programs--a misconception prompted by the schools illicit distribution of funds to men’s basketball and football programs at the sacrifice of men’s less-revenue making sports. So, then we proceeded to discuss effective arguments for different audiences, because you cannot just keep screaming 'gender equality' to the capitalism mentality, as it doesn't care about social/humanitarian needs. Why would an economically vested bureaucrat want to remove money from high-grossing sports such as men’s basketball and football and invest them in low or non-revenue making sports to make financial distribution equitable among all sports? So, we further developed Christiana's argument that no matter how much money is put into basketball and football, the funds are not enough to sustain the current costs of the sports, and either way the capitalist is losing money. A more equitable distribution of funds does not necessarily correlate to loss in viewership from these sports, as the audience is captive by their long-standing cultural influence and interest towards these specific male-dominated sports. We also talked about topics of inequitable television exposure, i.e. what causes it and how it’s related financial discrimination over sports. Christiana will now re-outline her paper, more or less, and use that mental outline to re-order the paragraphs of her argument. She may also include other argumentative elements directed towards different audiences, such as the capitalist example suggests.

Existing Tutor Log Forms:

Student:

Fochtman, Julia

Writing Consultant:

Devin L.*

Appt. Date:

2011-02-21

Scheduled Start:

6:30pm

Scheduled End:

7:30pm

Actual Length:

60 minutes

Instructor:

Course:

Topics Discussed:

: Grammar
: Organization
: Understanding an Assignment
: Forming a Thesis Statement
: Introductions and Conclusions
: Developing my Paragraphs
: Brainstorming
: Citing Sources and Using Quotations
: Paraphrasing/Summarizing
: Transitions and Topic Sentences

Summary:

This was a face to face appointment at the writing center: Julia came into our session with her WRD 104 paper on cyberbullying. She had developed a great thesis, but her evidence was vague and non-topically relevant, such as citations of the constitution from three hundred years ago, and basic theoretical overviews of the question at hand. We used our imaginations to construct a world where the school's jurisdiction over cyberbullying extended to all children's homes, and faculty were tasked with the job of sifting through all of students’ private social media for cyberbullying evidence. We hypothesized all the dangers that could arise in this world--all the problems with the school over extending its jurisdiction. Then, we countered the counter-arguments that she had previously included in her paper. For example, we discussed the complex nature of suicide to arrive at the conclusion that multiple factors are responsible for a student’s decision to commit suicide and cyberbullying cannot be indicted as the sole cause. If cyberbullying were stopped, we predicted that not only would students develop new social media outlets for old nefarious purposes, but suicide rates would not drop. We discussed how the school is not better fitted than parents to monitor a child's internet activity, and given faculty could fail a child in the same way that parents previously failed children through failed communication and whatnot. Self-esteem is a complex psychological phenomenon that leads some students to ignore cyberbullying largely unaffected by it and others to be deeply injured. A school's regulation of student's internet activity off campus also does not address the root causes of one’s inclination to bully someone else virtually. These are many of the argument points we discussed using the Socratic method in order to establish arguments that were relevant, topical, contextual, modern, etc... Julia will now integrate these arguments into her paper.

Existing Tutor Log Forms:

Student:

Massey, Nikolaus

Writing Consultant:

Devin L.*

Appt. Date:

2011-02-17

Scheduled Start:

6:00pm

Scheduled End:

7:00pm

Actual Length:

60 minutes

Instructor:

Course:

Topics Discussed:

: Grammar
: Organization
: Understanding an Assignment
: Forming a Thesis Statement
: Introductions and Conclusions
: Developing my Paragraphs
: Brainstorming
: Citing Sources and Using Quotations
: Paraphrasing/Summarizing
: Transitions and Topic Sentences

Summary:

This was a face to face appointment at the writing center: Nikolaus came to our session with a paper topic for his Focal Point class on the moon. We framed some sample research questions around his paper topic, such as "what factors contributed to the evolution of 17th century moon drawings?" We examined these factors and ended up eliminating many as unrelated to the specific thesis or as subcategories of the larger group "technology". We framed a hypothetical thesis and outlined a paper around it, but we did not settle on a thesis that directly corresponded with Nikolaus' intentions because we didn't want to project an answer to a question he has not yet researched. Nikolaus will now begin his research before he constructs a thesis from his chosen research question.