Mastering Freshman Writing

Teens grow into college students. College students take Freshman Writing.

Freshman Writing, in turn, tends to be a loathed course.

The folks in charge of higher education curricula believe that college graduates need at least a rudimentary command of written rhetoric. Current Internet use reinforces this need. Nonetheless, most students are poor writers and find their required writing course(s) threatening at best, nightmarish at worst.

Fortunately, there are means available for coping with this dilemma and for improving one’s expository writing skills. Listed below are five ideas for enhancing one’s Freshman Writing experience.

I. Placement

Most schools offer or insist on written exams, for the purpose of class placement by competency. Although some individuals feel that they ought to always be in the highest echelon of classes and fight with academic bureaucracies accordingly, such thinking and acting can lead to problems.

It is far better to study writing at your current level of ability than to try to skip important writing skills. Analogously, there is little merit, save grade point average, in taking a section of Freshman Writing that is not challenging for you. Take the placement exams. Work with the placement counselors.

II. Resource Centers

In an ideal world, professors would be able to spend five hours per week with each of their students. The economics of running a school prohibit such outcomes; finances dictate that classes enroll more students than makes pedagogical sense and give teachers ungainly loads. A great instructor, outside of devices like Track Changes, can’t give you detailed feedback on your writing, let alone lots of individual office time, on a regular basis.

An academic resource center can. Whereas many resource center employees may not be specialists in writing (or in math or in other topics), they are often good at providing affirmations to students who feel stuck. These employees, likewise, have time to help on an individual basis. It behooves students to tap into this resource.

III. Online Editing Software

Software is only as good as the people who write it. A spell check program will miss subject specific diction and will not always pick up cultural nuances of language, despite the fact that such software can be adjusted to respond to reading level, versions of language, e.g. British vs. American English, and  so on.

Similarly, grammar checks can help identify a majority of errors, but can not be substituted for a working knowledge of syntax. Such software can not always differentiate, for instance, between count and noncount nouns.

Think of these devices as functioning like a ruler used to align a painting on a wall; the stick’s a good tool for the greater part of the adjustment, but not a final check on the finished effort. Use editing software as aids not as substitutes for knowledge.

IV. Peers:

We are often “blind” to our own mechanical errors, especially when the incorrect use of styling or of punctuation has become reinforced by repetition. Having a friend, a classmate, or roommate review your work gives you a second level proof of your product.

If necessary, this second set of eyes can be accessed via Internet. Whereas it’s no fun to chat or to IM about the problems of prose, it is helpful to have someone else comment on your writing before you submit your work for a grade.