INTRODUCTION TO ACADEMIC WRITING: February 2009

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

BEING A GOOD TEAM MEMBER (ARE YOU?)

Being a Good Teammate

If you’re like most people, much of your professional life will be spent working on teams.

Why? Because most projects that are economically interesting are too large and complex for individuals to do alone. Teams of talented people can accomplish great things that seem almost impossible, such as sending a man to the Moon. Such objectives would obviously be impossible if we had to work alone. Therefore, it is important that you learn to work effectively as a team member.

While teams allow us to accomplish far more than we could alone, there are also significant downsides to teamwork. As the number of people on a team increases, so does the amount of communication and coordination required to keep the team organized and moving in the same direction. Meetings, emails, phone calls, etc. increase, and these things take time. Also, the more people you add to a team, the more likely it is that at least one of them will be unreliable, antisocial, cranky, lazy, distracted, uncommitted, or otherwise difficult to work with. Such people take more energy from a team than they contribute, and often the team would be better off without them.

You should try very hard to not be one of these people. There are specific things you can do to make yourself easy and enjoyable to work with. In the context of this class, here are some important things you can do.

Be reliable. Be someone your teammates can count on. Do what you say you will do.

Attend team meetings. Complete the deliverables you’ve committed to produce (design documents, source code, etc.). Don’t be the one your teammates talk about behind your back as the one who just isn’t getting the job done. Be early. Be on time to meetings. Get your part of the design document done early so your teammates will have time to review it and give you feedback.. If you get things done at the last minute, it will be very hard on your teammates, and your reputation will suffer. Part of getting your piece done is getting it done early.

Be prepared. Prepare well for team meetings. Read the specs before the meeting. Think about how you would solve the problem before the meeting. Have your part of the document done before the meeting. Whatever the purpose of the meeting is, make sure you are prepared for it. Such preparation will allow you to be a productive contributor rather than a drag on the meeting. If you show up unprepared, meetings will be longer because your teammates will have to bring you up to speed before the productive part of the meeting can begin.

Be responsive. Communicate with your teammates. Send frequent emails letting them know the status of your work. Send them your documents so they can review them. It will make your team feel a lot better if they can see evidence that you are making progress and getting the job done.

Don’t disappear for extended periods of time without explaining to your teammates what happened to you. If your wife is going to have a baby, tell them. If you get sick, tell them. If you have to focus on another class for a few days, tell them. Don’t just disappear for a week without explaining to your teammates what is happening. If you tell them what is going on, they will understand completely. If you just disappear, they will see you as unresponsive and unreliable. If one of your teammates disappears without explanation, talk to your instructor quickly before the situation gets out of control.

Be willing. Be eager in accepting assignments. Do your fair share of the work. Don’t always be the last to volunteer. Don’t let one or two members of the team do all the work.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

REAL WORLD WRITING CASE # 6: AMBIGUOUS PHRASES

Hello, all.

This week, our real world writing problem is the use of ambiguous phrases in writing.

If you use a common term, let it mean what most people think it does. Do not wrench it around to mean something new, or unfamiliar.

Before:
Store the list in the library.

After:
Store the list in the file called lib.txt.

Before:
You have now killed the spawned consumer process.

After:
You have stopped the process that the host program started, expecting to collect the data for its own calculations.

If you use a pronoun such as he, she, it, or they, make sure that the referent appears as the noun just before the pronoun, in the same paragraph. Or replace the pronoun with the noun you were
referring to.

Before :
The report from the budget group suggests downturns in sales, manufacturing, and orders. They are working on recommendations.

After:
The report from the budget group suggests downturns in sales, manufacturing, and orders. The budget group is working on recommendations.

Before:
Degas was unhappy with Monet, one of the leading artists in the movement, because he advertised the exhibition.

After:
Degas was unhappy because Monet, one of the leading artists in the movement, advertised the exhibition.

Do not start a sentence with a solo This or That referring vaguely to the whole previous discussion. Say what you are talking about. This what? That what?

Before:
The sales of extra-thick glass have risen, despite the economic downturn, and, in particular, slowed construction. This now leads to a workdown in our home and office space supply inventory.

After:
Despite the economic downturn, and, in particular, slowed construction, the sales of extra-thick glass have risen. This growth in sales means that we are now working down our inventory of supplies for home and office construction.

Use the same term for the same idea every time. Do not indulge in creative variations.

Before:

Click the Outline option on the View menu.

Click on Outline on View.

Choose Outline on the View menu.

Pick Outline off of the View menu.

After:

Choose Outline on the View menu.

Choose Outline off of the View menu.

Preserve relative pronouns, such as who and that.

Before

The index containing all of your entries appears on the left side of the work window.

Send an alert to users logged in during the last session.

After

The index, which contains all of your entries, appears on the left side of the work window.

Send an alert to users who have logged in during the last session.

Use the articles "a," "an," and "the," to avoid telegraphic density.

Before

Turn knob clockwise to start engine.

After

Turn the knob clockwise to start the engine.

When referring to another page on the site, name the section, rather than assuming that the reader has already seen it ("As we have said before…")

Before

The latest news appears at the top.

After

The latest news appears in Press Reports.

Before

On the next level up, look for…

After

In the Oil Change Overview, look for….

Do not refer to another element of the current page by location (above, below, to the left, to the right). Refer tothe heading for that element.

Before

…as shown in the table below.

After

….as shown in the Table of Results.

Before

If you go forward, you’ll see the trends.

After

You’ll see the trends in the Marketing Survey.

Before

To the right, the graph shows that the majority of our calls are for support on the new cellphone.

After

The majority of our calls are for support on the new cellphone. (See the Support Graph).

Source: http://www.webwritingthatworks.com/DGuideCOG5c.htm

Image source: http://nawctsd.navair.navy.mil/Resources/Library/Acqguide/chicken.gif

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

REAL WORLD WRITING CASE #5: 7 Common Writing Errors

[H]ere are seven… common mistakes that can diminish the shine and credibility of your writing.

1. Loose vs. Lose

This one drives a lot of people crazy, including me. In fact, it’s so prevalent among bloggers that I once feared I was missing something, and somehow “loose” was a proper substitute for “lose” in some other English-speaking countries. Here’s a hint: it’s not.

If your pants are too loose, you might lose your pants.

2. Me, Myself, and I

One of the most common causes of grammatical pain is the choice between “me” and “I.” Too often people use “I” when they should use “me,” because since “I” sounds stilted and proper, it must be right, right? Nope.

The easy way to get this one right is to simply remove the other person from the sentence and then do what sounds correct. You would never say “Give I a call,” so you also wouldn’t say “Give Chris and I a call.” Don’t be afraid of me.

And whatever you do, don’t punt and say “myself” because you’re not sure whether “me” or “I” is the correct choice. “Myself” is only proper in two contexts, both of which are demonstrated below.

Many consider Chris a punk, but I myself tolerate him. Which brings me to ask myself, why?

3. Different than vs. Different from

This one slips under the radar a lot, and I’ll bet I’ve screwed it up countless times. It boils down to the fact that things are logically different from one another, and using the word “than” after different is a grammatical blunder.

This vase is different from the one I have, but I think mine is better thanthis one.

4. Improper Use of the Apostrophe

Basically, you use an apostrophe in two cases:

· For contractions (don’t for do not)

· To show possession (Frank’s blog means the blog belongs to Frank)

If still in doubt, leave the apostrophe out. It causes more reader confusion to insert an apostrophe where it doesn’t belong than it does to omit one. Plus, you can always plead the typo defense if you leave an apostrophe out, but you look unavoidably dumb when you stick one where it doesn’t belong.

5. Parallelism

Back when I talked about bullet points, one of the tips involved keeping each bullet item in parallel by beginning with the same part of speech. For example, each item might similarly begin with a verb like so:

· deliver…

· prompt…

· cause…

· drive…

When writing a list of items in paragraph form, this is even more crucial, and failing to stay in parallel can result in confusion for readers and scorn from English majors. Check out this non-parallel list in a sentence:

Over the weekend, Kevin bought a new MacBook Pro online, two software programs, and arranged for free shipping.

Do you see the problem? If not, break the list into bullet points and it becomes clear:

Over the weekend, Kevin:

· Bought a new MacBook Pro online

· Two software programs

· Arranged for free shipping

Stick the word “ordered” in front of “two software programs” and you’re in parallel. Your readers will subconsciously thank you, and the Grammar Nazis won’t slam you.

6. i.e. vs. e.g.

Ah, Latin… you’ve just gotta love it. As antiquated as they might seem, these two little Latin abbreviations are pretty handy in modern writing, but only if you use them correctly.

The Latin phrase id est means “that is,” so i.e. is a way of saying “in other words.” It’s designed to make something clearer by providing a definition or saying it in a more common way.

Copyblogger has jumped the shark, i.e., gone downhill in quality, because Brian has broken most of his New Year’s resolutions.

The Latin phrase exempli gratia means “for example”, so e.g. is used before giving specific examples that support your assertion.

Copyblogger has jumped the shark because Brian has broken most of his New Year’s resolutions, e.g., promising not to say “Web 2.0,” “linkbait,” or “jumped the shark” on the blog in 2007.

7. Could of, Would of, Should of

Please don’t do this:

I should of gone to the baseball game, and I could of, if Billy would ofdone his job.

This is correct:

I should have gone to the baseball game, and could have, if Billy haddone his job.

Why do people make this mistake?

They could’ve, should’ve, would’ve been correct, except that the ending of those contractions is slurred when spoken. This creates something similar to a homophone, i.e., a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning, e.g., of, which results in the common grammatical mistake of substituting of for have.