Haley, 3/15/13:
Haley submitted the final draft of her first paper this week. She had sent me two or three drafts during the weekend and had met with a writing tutor. The first draft she sent me during the weekend was a great improvement over her previous draft. It contained a clearer argument, additional relevant sources, and a smooth organization. After that draft, she was really just polishing things off. I wrote her a formal letter detailing things she had done well and places where she could improve. I started the meeting by asking her how she felt about the paper. She said that she had had particular trouble finding a good concluding sentence, ultimately giving up, but also said that she didn’t feel the need to go over the paper any more. She still seemed to be somewhat worried that she hadn’t done very well on the final draft, but she felt better about her effort when I told her that another TA, after hearing her topic, had said, “This is a first year?!” (I decided to tell her about this because she needs the confidence.). We both discussed the fact that this article was hard to write about. I decided we should spend some time looking for her next articles together (she was supposed to write about the article she wrote about for the first paper, but switched the readings by mistake). We found some possible articles and topics and discussed things to look for in potential articles. She seems to be very interested in her next topic. I did not want to dwell on her first paper too much longer, but she had expressed concern over her conclusion so we discussed ways to improve it. We read the conclusions of one of the possible articles for her next paper and of the sample biology paper in the Wellesley Hacker guide and discussed the ways the authors did or did not write successful conclusions. She found looking at the sample biology paper very helpful, so we looked at the entire paper, particularly the thesis, discussing ways in which the author stated and supported her thesis. The thesis, although it contained an argument, was not arguing against anything in particular, a type of thesis we had already discussed. For our next meeting, Haley will be compiling an annotated bibliography for paper three and writing a thoughtletter about her chosen articles for paper two.
Maud, 3/15/13:
Maud submitted the final draft of her first paper this week. I wrote her a letter discussing the strengths and weaknesses of her paper. The final draft had improved organization, clarity, and sentence-level problems. I noticed that her paragraphs were organized well, but the sentences within the paragraphs were somewhat jumbled. I plan to discuss this issue when she writes her next paper. I started the meeting by asking her how she felt about her paper. She said that she felt ready for the next paper and that she learned a lot from the first paper, although she knew it wasn’t perfect. I decided that we had discussed the paper enough and brought some sentence clarity quizzes and handouts. She does need to improve her sentence clarity and the quizzes gave us a nice little vacation from complicated paper discussions. I used three handouts from Purdue OWL:
Sentence clarity handout:
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/600/01/
Eliminating wordiness exercises (the first is a paragraph, the second is sentences):
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/exercises/6/9/57
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/exercises/6/9/24
She completed them first, and then we went over them together. She asked many questions and said that she found these exercises very helpful. For our next meeting, Maud will be compiling an annotated bibliography for paper three and writing a thoughtletter about her chosen articles for paper two.