Writing in the Disciplines
WID Forum
11:00 am, October 18, 2007
The Laboratory Report as a Paradigm for Other Persuasive Writing
Presented by Paul Kramer
Now that the forum has been given, I have placed all materials I used, and
my rewrites of Peter Elbow’s Convoluted Sentences at the links on this page.
| Program (Click for printable pdf version)
In this highly interactive forum, I will ask you to consider and to organize a number of arguments. Some will be in the form of puzzles. Experiment 1.1.1 - Counting Jelly Beans: A lab instruction sheet with no organization specified, about determining the number of jelly beans in a large container. Lab Report - Counting Jelly Beans: Can you place these report sections, which have been typed on separate index cards, in the correct order? An interactive reorganization of an actual lab report. Experiment 1.1.1 - Counting Jelly Beans: The same lab instruction sheet with a specification of the organization recommended by the Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) seminar on lab reports some years ago. Elements of a Laboratory Report: A quick, condensed, look at my own implementation of the WAC seminar recommendations. Experiment B-1 - A Letter to The President: A lab instruction sheet for an exercise in writing a letter to President Keen requesting a special faculty workshop, with food of course. Lab Report - A Letter to the President: Can you place these letter sections, which have been typed on separate index cards, in the correct order according to the lab report paradigm? An interactive reorganization of a letter to President Keen. Click here to see the order according to the lab report paradigm. Peter Elbow's Convoluted Sentences: Can you clean these up? An interactive exercise in restoring clarity through excision of superfluous words and careful rewording of the remainder. A sorely needed exercise in brevity which should be applied to all report language and, by association, to all persuasive writing. Borrowed from Peter Elbow at his workshop at SUNY COW (Council on Writing) last year. I liked my own rewrites though they cannot be the only possibilities. Click here to see my rewrites. PreMed Admissions Letter-First Draft: An interactive reorganization of the first draft of my letter to new students as campus Pre-Med advisor. It's literate, but barely so, according to my standards. PreMed Admissions Letter: The current or "final" version of my letter to new students. I emphasize "current." There is no "final" on any document that I continue to use. Experiment B-2 - Analysis of an Editorial: A lab instruction sheet about analysis of an editorial by a writer most liberals love to hate. The editorial text is included here. The URL for my home page is www.farmingdale.edu/~kramerpr. The easiest way to find it is to Google or Yahoo “kramer farmingdale.” |