Volume 5

“I Passed First-Year Writing—What Now?”: Adapting Strategies from First-Year Writing to Writing in the Disciplines

demystifying writing assignments, rhetorical situation, Volume 5, writing across the curriculum, Writing Transfer /

Amy Cicchino Volume 5 Chapter Description This chapter foreshadows challenges you can experience as you adapt your writing beyond your first-year writing course to become a writer in your discipline. The essay contains a student scenario, defines key rhetorical concepts within discipline-specific writing situations, and gives you strategies for adapting these rhetorical concepts to new […]

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Writing Science in the First Year of College: Why It Matters to STEM Students and How STEM Students Benefit from It

genre and discourse community, Racial Literacy, STEM, Volume 5, writing across the curriculum /

Chris Thaiss and Stephanie Wade Volume 5 Chapter Description This essay aims to help students who have interests in STEM fields make the most of their first year by showing them how to find opportunities to explore STEM topics in typical first-year writing classes, as well as in the STEM courses they will take, and

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Navigating Your Collaborative Project

collaboration and group work, professional writing, Volume 5, writing technologies /

Ellen Cecil-Lemkin and Tamara Gluck Volume 5 Chapter Description From school to the workplace, managing team projects isn’t always easy, but this chapter aims to prepare students for success. In this chapter, we guide students through different tools for working with others, maintaining project goals, and completing projects where technology is at the forefront. We

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What’s the Diff? Version History and Revision Reflections

drafting and revising, Process, Volume 5, writing technologies /

Benjamin Miller Volume 5 Chapter Description This essay recommends that writers use digital tools to keep track of what’s changing as they write—and to include a quick comment with each notable change, saying what they’re trying to achieve. These revisitable histories are helpful in several ways. First, when we notice what we’re changing (often unconsciously)

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Changing Your Mindset About Revision

demystifying writing assignments, drafting and revising, Feedback, Process, Volume 5, writing myths and anxiety /

L. Lennie Irvin Volume 5 Chapter Description Many freshmen enter college with a one-draft writing process where revision means tidying up errors and then submitting the final product. This chapter is about changing your thinking about revision as a foundation for changing your practice of revision. The chapter explores the false concepts about writing and

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The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly of Peer Review

drafting and revising, Feedback, peer review, Process, Volume 5 /

Erin E. Kelly Volume 5 Chapter Description Academic writing classes regularly require students to engage in peer review: that is, to read and comment on classmates’ work in progress in an attempt to make that work better. This chapter shows how such class activities connect to the practices of academic peer review associated with academic

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You Are Good for Wikipedia

genre and discourse community, professional writing, Public Writing, secondary source research, Volume 5, Wikipedia, writing technologies /

Matthew A. Vetter and Oksana Moroz Volume 5 Chapter Description In a previous Writing Spaces essay entitled, Wikipedia Is Good for You!?, James P. Purdy introduces us to the idea that the online encyclopedia, often devalued in educational spaces, can serve as a starting place for research and a process guide to research-based writing. By

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Thinking Across Modes and Media (and Baking Cake): Two Techniques for Writing with Video, Audio, and Images

visual/multimodal rhetorics, Volume 5 /

Crystal VanKooten Volume 5 Chapter Description Using the metaphor of baking a cake, this chapter offers students in college writing courses two techniques for writing with video, audio, and images: integration and juxtaposition.1 Knowing more about these techniques enables students to approach the analysis and composition of their own and others’ multimodal texts with more

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What Is Rhetoric? A “Choose Your Own Adventure” Primer

genre and discourse community, rhetoric, rhetorical appeals and argument, rhetorical situation, Volume 5 /

William Duffy Volume 5 Chapter Description Providing an introduction to rhetoric is a foundational component of most first-year writing courses.1 Discussion of rhetorical appeals, for example, is standard fair in these contexts, as are activities that ask students to develop an appreciation for rhetorical situations, audiences, purposes, and even more nuanced concepts such as kairos

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“Doing Research Is Fun; Citing Sources Is Not”: Understanding the Fuzzy Definition of Plagiarism

documentation, plagiarism, quotations, citations, and style, Volume 5 /

Rachel Buck and Silvia Vaccino-Salvadore Volume 5 Chapter Description For many students, the word “plagiarism” invokes a sense of fear: a fear of being caught for doing something wrong and facing sometimes very harsh penalties such as receiving a failing grade on an assignment or being expelled from college.1 You might be familiar with these

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