Write Now is a newsletter capturing the voice of the CEW community. News and tips coming to you from your favorite CEW writing consultants.
Great news! The CEW has a new Social Media Coordinator – Lauren Friedman! Expect a lot of fun content, community news and notification of upcoming special events.
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Announcing English Conversation Hour!
Tuesdays 1pm - 2pm and Fridays 3pm - 4pm in The Writing lab (128 Capen). Drop by to practice your conversational skills in the friendly environment at The Writing Lab. No need to register in advance. Starting after spring break. Tell your friends!
Avoiding Excessive Procrastination
This tip brought to you by CEW consultant Anna P!
Getting started is the most difficult step in the writing process. Procrastination plagues every writer at some point and can become excessive leading you to produce rushed work. So how does one avoid avoiding? By getting started. Wait, I know that sounds obvious but hear me out! Initiate an hour I like to call, “Hell Hour”. I do this once a day, I carve out an hour on my schedule to get started on all writing that I have put off. For some reason, telling yourself you only need to work on something for one hour makes it a lot less daunting to get started. For me, usually, once I get started I find myself stopping way past that hour mark. And if I don’t, I let myself rest once the hour is finished. “Hell Hour” helps you get started when you need to, but it also helps you recognize when it’s time to stop.
The idea is to write it so that people hear it, and it slides through the brain and goes straight to the heart.
~ Maya Angelou
Organizing Paragraphs in your Essay
This tip brought to your by CEW consultant Samantha S!
Something that I like to keep in mind while writing is that my goal is progress, not perfection. Writing is an intensive activity that requires both reflection and revision. While it may be an uncomfortable realization that there is still more work to be done after drafting, the following tips can help organize your writing more easily in the revision process!
So you’ve finished your draft, now what?
- Review your draft. Read through your draft, and consider how the points made relate to your thesis. Be aware of how the arguments are developed. Remember, you are critiquing your writing, not you!
- Make an Outline. While reviewing your draft, construct an outline that highlights your thesis, main arguments, and supporting points. In a sense, this backwards design will help to check your organization of the draft.
- Reorganize. From the outline you construct, consider how your points build upon each other to support your thesis. Are there paragraphs that would be more effective in another section? Are there paragraphs that have similar points that are consecutive? Do your transitions effectively contribute to your argument? Use these questions to justify the reorganization of your paper.
Bonus Tip: If you work better visually, print out your draft, cut out each individual paragraph, and physically rearrange the sheets to reorganize your essay to flow more effectively.