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Weekly Writing Tips for ENGL 3110

Week 1

This week you’ll be writing a 2-4-page memoir. Struggling with how to begin? Try one or two of these strategies to get your mind working and your fingers typing:

  • Sketch a time line of your life and pick one event or period to focus on.
  • Free-write for 15 minutes and then look over the material. Circle any ideas that are intriguing and worth exploring.
  • Choose a creative nonfiction prompt from Poets and Writers magazine.
  • Look at photographs to trigger important memories.
  • Explore these other ways to beat writer’s block.

Week 2

When integrating research into your essay, you’ll need to give credit to the original source. A typical in-text citation includes the author and year. If you are directly quoting the source, you’ll also provide the page number. Here is an example: Multiple sclerosis affects “one-fourth of the world’s population, either directly or indirectly” (Webber, 2012, p. 2). More examples of citations appear on the Walden Writing Center website.

Week 3

It’s poetry week! For your poems or lyric essay, remember to focus on description, including sensory details.

Tips for description:

  • Be careful about using the words thing (also something, anything, everything) and stuff. These aren’t very precise or specific. Remember that you want to paint a picture in the reader’s mind with your words; it is hard to visualize what a thing is.
  • When writing, ask yourself how the person, place, or experience looks, smells, sounds, feels, and tastes.
  • Avoid clichés and popular sayings in favor of originality. Readers want to hear your unique perspective and voice rather than often-used phrases like “I’m on cloud nine!” and “She was the apple of my eye.”

Week 4

As you critique another student’s writing, keep these points in mind:

  • Be specific. In order to understand and grow, fellow students need specific (rather than general) feedback. For instance, instead of “Nice job!” you could use “Your strength was the dialogue. It seemed realistic, as if I was eavesdropping on that childhood conversation with your mother.”
  • Be respectful. Creative writing is personal, so sharing one’s work can be scary for some. In the online environment, we also sometimes forget we are communicating with actual people (rather than a computer). While critiquing, make sure you remain respectful and supportive, even if you don’t particularly like the poem or essay.
    • Instead of: The rhyming was horrible!
    • Use: I found the rhyming in the first stanza distracting, so I couldn’t really concentrate on the rest of the poem.

Week 5

Revising your work based on a critique (even from a peer and not an authority figure) can be intimidating. Read the tips under Approaching and Optimizing Feedback to help navigate the initial shock. Then comes the in-depth activity of actually revising. Revising is more than simply correcting spelling and grammar. In fact, that is what I’d call proofreading. To revise means to truly see your essay, memoir, and poems in a new way. Some suggestions:

  • Revisit any areas where the reviewer was confused or wanted more information.
  • If you tend to rely on narration (“This is what happened to me…”), try adding some scenes with action and dialogue instead. Scenes often work to lure the reader into the world you’ve created.
  • Think about the overall theme you wanted to convey or story you wanted to tell. Is that theme reflected in every sentence, every detail, every character?
  • The title should be working toward that same theme as well. Strive for a short phrase that is unique, memorable, relevant, and perhaps even a little bit mysterious.
  • Cross out extra, unnecessary words. Particularly in poetry, concise writing holds greater power.
  • If you have written your poetry in one long block, think about creating stanzas in your revision. With separate stanzas, you can group related images, indicate a shift in focus, or slow the poem.

Week 6

Reflecting on one’s work—and on one’s drafting process in general—is the main way to improve as a writer. To reflect,

  • find a quiet, comfortable place to sit.
  • read through your entire portfolio of drafts for this class.
  • jot down the strengths and weaknesses that you see (as well as the strengths and weaknesses in your process, including managing time, prewriting, and revising) and keep these notes by your writing desk.
  • maintain a file of various drafts, instructor comments, and peer critiques you’ve received. You can return to these for quick bursts of inspiration or a visual of how you’ve improved.
  • make plans for your next essay or poem!

Creative Writing Techniques

Not sure what another nonfiction or poetry technique means? Look it up in Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary. 

Revision Strategies

Feel free to explore resources on revision in addition to the strategies discussed in Week 5 of the Weekly Tips.

Below are selections from the Walden Writing Center Blog that confront the topic of revision: 

Still more revision techniques appear on the Writing Center website.

Video: How to Write Creative Non-Fiction

Click on the image below for a short video on being creative: what it means, and why you should persevere as a writer.