College Writing Tips: Check Your Logic

My teaching career began in the fall of 1997 when a faculty member experienced a heartache about a week before the semester began. During the intervening years between then and today, my peers, colleagues, and even those in business & industry, have noticed a tremendous decline in people's ability to write.

College Writing Tip Six:  Check for consistency and congruence errors.

Some exams, quiz, short answer and essay questions can be validated within an exam, if one is paying attention. Some questions are deliberately written to see if students are paying attention. An early question, for instance, may contain the answer to a later question. Or, a question deep in the exam may be the answer to an early question. Objective exams, those exams with multiple choice, true/false, or fill-in-the-blank questions are very good for placing "easter eggs."

"With the exception of Malta and Monaco, which European country has the highest urban density?"
(a) Portugal
(b) Belgium
(c) Spain
(d) Tripoli 

"Of the following traits, Belgium represents the country with"
(a) the highest IMR in Europe
(b) 99% population
(c) the highest rate of natural population increase
(d) the highest overall population

These questions dovetail; they are nearly the same question, approached in slightly different ways. The first question represents a small-scale question, asking the taker to consider all of Europe. Then, make a choice concerning which country applies to the prescribed condition.

The second question is a larger-scale question, focused on the quality of a single country with respect to all others. To remain consistent, the taker should select (b) in the first question and select (b) to satisfy the second question. Educators encourage students to go back over exams to verify answers because we know exams contain questions in these forms. Now, a 100-question exam is not going to be 50% redundant, with reflections of questions throughout. Perhaps only 10% of the questions will be reflections of other questions. However, 10% is a letter grade.

In writing assignments, be congruent in your responses. In teaching Weather and Climate, one of the concepts nearly all students struggle with is the notion of Air Pressure. Air molecules are susceptible to gravity like every other aspect of our physical world (though at the quantum level, I'm not so sure). Our Earth's gravity pulls air molecules to the surface, creating air pressure of about 14.7 pounds per square inch (14.7 psi) acting upon our bodies at mean sea level (MSL). As we elevate ourselves, whether by climbing a mountain, hang-gliding, or diving from a high-altitude aircraft, fewer air molecules are around us, pushing and bumping into us, thus the pressure of air on our bodies is less. At 8,000 ft, for example, air pressure is about 10 psi, about 33% less pressure than at mean sea level. Denver, Colorado is the "Mile-High City," being about 5,280 ft above MSL.

Most people understand as we climb a hill or mountain, the air becomes thinner, oxygen becomes less prevalent, and breathing becomes labored. However, in my Weather and Climate course I ask two questions. The first question asks students to explain why air pressure decreases as altitude increases. The first question tells the student air pressure decreases with altitude, and requires them to explain why. More than 50% of the responses consist of explanations similar to the following:

"Air pressure is less at high altitude because the molecules are more spread out."

The response is not entirely wrong. The air molecules are more dispersed. Dispersion does not answer the question; dispersion only describes a characteristic of the upper atmosphere. Dispersion does not explain the fundamental physics behind the dispersion. Dispersion of air molecules does not explain the better answer of gravity pulling molecules down. Air molecules move very fast, faster than you might imagine. Air molecules do not reach escape velocity; otherwise they would all eventually shoot off into space, leaving behind a cold, lifeless world. Gravity compels the molecules back to Earth, thankfully. The primary concern with the above responses is the lack of attention paid to lecture notes, lecture videos, and the textbook content, as the answer is clearly stated in all three resources.

The second question involves climbing.

"You have won a trip to Tanzania to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro, elevation 19,341 ft. Would you expect to experience more ear popping from the surface to 10,000 ft, or from 10,000 ft to the summit at 19,341 ft?"

The second question is the application of the knowledge evidenced in the first question. Over 50% of students respond with some form of the following reply.

"A person will experience more ear-popping from 10,000 ft to the summit because the air gets more dense as one climbs the mountain."

"Because air pressure increases with altitude the person will have painful ear-popping the closer he gets to the summit."

Congruence between the first question and the latter question collapses for most students. Even though they realize the air is thinner at altitude, they mistakenly conflate ear-popping as being an issue with higher pressure, rather than pressure change, and then wrongly invert the atmospheric pressure column. A person climbing will experience greater ear-popping from the ground to 10,000 ft because the greatest change in atmospheric pressure occurs at lower altitudes. Air pressure does not change in direct proportion to changes in altitude; air pressure change is more logarithmic, changing rapidly with small changes in altitude. From 10,000 ft to the summit, less air is pushing on the ear drums so ear-popping should be less painful and less frequent.

Student writing assignments often contain errors in logic and congruence. These errors can be significant and can indicate a lack of true learning, flaws in conceptualizing theories, techniques, and methods used in science.

We call this phenomenon, "missing the point."

Next: "Point Values"

College Writing Tips: Respect Yourself and Spell-Check Yourself

My teaching career began in the fall of 1997 when a faculty member experienced a heartache about a week before the semester began. During the intervening years between then and today, my peers, colleagues, and even those in business & industry, have noticed a tremendous decline in people's ability to write.

Writing Tip Four: Use proper grammar, punctuation, and spelling

Nothing can kill a good bit of writing like poor grammar, lack or misuse of punctuation, and, of course, spelling. While I am very evangelical about writing, and writing well, I often find errors in my own writing. I get in a hurry, I can't type as fast as I think, and words and phrases I often omit. I spend time to review my drafts, spell-check, look for grammatical mistakes. Despite my own efforts I cannot catch every error. I rely on spelling and grammar-checking apps to help me, one of which I mention below.

The journal writing activities popular in Primary and Secondary education appear to be worth little. I say they are worth little because of the lack of structure, organization, and the limited attention given to spelling and grammar. When students who have learned to write using the "journal paradigm" reach college, they often believe the journal writing which they were allowed to use in high school will work well at university. Wrong.

From what I gather, journal writing in middle and high school are a component of academic portfolios and are required. The problem with journals lies in their evaluation. Journals are not evaluated for grammar, punctuation, nor spelling. Journals are essentially a "stream of consciousness" exercise where the students are allowed to "free write" and not worry about the last 8-10 years of English, grammar, spelling, or punctuation they have been taught, or are being taught.

Nowhere in the world is writing allowed which permits students to write junk to my knowledge. Nowhere in the world will you find books, articles, web sites, or any other professional media written without adherence to formal writing rules. Except in the United States. Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Saudi, German, French, you name the culture, students of English in all of those cultures are learning formal English writing rules and expected to use them at all times.

Too many U.S. high school students believe their college writing is fine because they were allowed to get away with writing abysmal works in high school. Poor writing leads to poor thinking, and poor thinking leads to poor communication. Nothing good comes from allowing students to write whatever they want without critical input. In fact, doing so encourages laziness and can carry over to other courses and work environments.

Poor writing leads to poor thinking, and poor thinking leads to poor communication.

Worried about their fragile little egos? Wait until they reach college or university and fail their first semester, and second semester, because they have been led down a candy-colored lane of lies and false accolades. Then, after they have washed-out in their first year of college because of sugary-sweet coos and watered-down criticisms, will the realization their efforts in high school, and the people they trusted to prepare them for life after high school was nothing but a charming deceit.

I personally blame my peers. My peers are the ones changing policies today, attempting to build a "kinder, gentler," and altogether reckless education system based on their own personal anathema to their own educational experiences. My memories of high school involved listening to the whines of homework, complaints about the relevance of some subjects, and the foreshadowing of today's educational conditions, e.g. "When I have kids, they'll never have to go through this. This is stupid."

The only people who do not believe writing is fundamental to society are those feckless individuals who seek to control people through fear and manipulation of facts and information. Writing lies at the heart of Reason, Logic, Thought, critical to the pursuit of knowledge, and vital to the continuance of free and open societies. Damage writing, and society become inflicted with a potentially fatal disease.

Rather than become complicit in damaging society, work against the damaging effects of bad writing in our global society and pay attention to the details of your thoughts made manifest in words.

Learn to use the spell-check technology in Word, or any other editing environment. Not using spell-check technology, or proofreading, is inexcusable in our Age.

Try the app, Ginger [link]. Ginger will read writing aloud to help the author find inconsistencies in grammar. Reading a work aloud is the best way to repair problem writing.

Writing well is almost subversive in today's culture.

Next: "Count Your Reasons"

College Writing Tips: Respond to Both "X and Y"

My teaching career began in the fall of 1997 when a faculty member experienced a heartache about a week before the semester began. During the intervening years between then and today, my peers, colleagues, and even those in business & industry, have noticed a tremendous decline in people's ability to write.

Recently, I spent many hours grading writing assignments. These writing assignments ran the gamut from "short answers" to "essay" to 3 page response-type papers. My response papers are based on listening to two podcasts. One podcast is an economics podcast discussing the geographic traits of snack food. The other podcast is a mesmerizing account of a couple of Americans traveling throughout a South Asian country.

The more I read, the more patterns in writing emerged. Not just patterns in though; writing involves considerable thinking. I tend to reason writing reveals thinking, how a person thinks, how a person organizes thoughts and information. Writing reveals a considerable amount of information about a person, and I can understand how writing makes people nervous. I'm nervous merely writing this post, but I'm dealing with it.

Writing for higher education doesn't have to involve the level of stress people attach to writing assignments. Understanding some simple concepts, requirements, goals, and using the education which was provided from ages 6-18 (maybe 16 in Kentucky) can alleviate anxiety surrounding writing.

Below, I am going to walk through some of the common errors I find in writing. Not only will I identify errors but I'll explain how to adjust thinking processes to help direct attention to formulating better academic responses to writing assignments.

Writing Tip Three: Answer both "x" and "y"

Most students, probably close to 85% of students, actually, do not answer questions in the form of "how is X different than Y?" appropriately. These "compare and contrast" expect the student to answer both sides of the argument. Both "X" and "Y" must be addressed. Failure to discuss "X" and "Y" results in incomplete answers. To remove ambiguity, I'll use an example.

"Why is population density not as good of an indicator of Quality of Life as physiologic density might be?"

(A)Population density describes the number of people per square mile. The higher the number of people per mile, the more crowded a place is. Crowded places are sometimes not nice places to live.

(B) Population density is a measure of the number of people per square mile; how disperse people are. The population density is calculated by dividing the number of people by the number of square miles in a state or country. Physiologic density is calculated by dividing the population not by the total area of a state or country but by only the amount of farmland in the country. Rural areas usually have less people living on the land. More people live in cities. So, a high physiologic density can mean more urban life, less rural life. The population density figure will be lower, indicating people are more spread-out, more elbow room, and perhaps give a false indication of a better quality of life, whereas the physiologic density may provide a better measure of how crowded a place is, how close people may live to one another, and how little elbow room is truly available.

Yes, (B) is more verbose than (A). However, (A) is not enough. (A) is not a good answer as only one side of the comparison is considered, and no supporting examples are provided. 

Response (B), on the other hand, is far more complete and discusses both population density and both physiologic density. Furthermore, (B) makes an attempt to compare and contrast (A) and (B). (B) also provides a limited example in contrasting rural vs. urban populations.

"Why is the Kelvin temperature scale for scientific measurements than either Fahrenheit or Celsius?"

(A) Zero (0) on the Kelvin scale is true zero, the lowest temperature anything can be.

(B) Zero (0) on the Kelvin scale is absolute zero, the absence of molecular movement. Nothing can be colder than 0 Kelvin. Both the Celsius and the Fahrenheit scale have somewhat arbitrary measures which are identified as zero (0). For instance, on the Celsius scale, 0°C is the temperature at which water freezes, while on the Fahrenheit scale, water freezes at 32°F. Neither Fahrenheit nor Celsius temperatures indicate a complete lack of heat.

A student who wants to separate his (her) self from the pack of students in a classroom, a student who wants to stand-out among their peers, will figure out how to do stand-out. Typically, standing-out does not mean making a spectacle of one's self in the classroom. Standing apart from peers is best done through performance and classroom effort, homework, papers, and effort on projects, leadership in groups, and, of course, class participation. Spectacle students create a facade of interest. Honest, motivated students will apply knowledge from other courses or life experience to augment their work in the classroom.

Faculty take note of excellent work. Excellent work, thoroughness, can result in student being singled-out for scholarships, work-study, grants, or other benefits. Faculty will provide references to motivated, thorough students which can go a long way towards finding better, more interesting, more lucrative employment opportunities.

Faculty work very hard to improve thinking, analytical, and interpretive skills of people, to challenge and coach students. The rigor of university is specifically to coach for these traits. Resistance to coaching is resistance to learning and self-improvement, thus those students who complain are complaining about improving themselves. 

Obviously, a complaining student is essentially arguing for the maintaining the Status Quo of the their own ignorance.

Don't stand in the way of your own success.

Next: "Respect yourself and use spell-check."

College Writing Tips: Use the Lingo

My teaching career began in the fall of 1997 when a faculty member experienced a heartache about a week before the semester began. During the intervening years between then and today, my peers, colleagues, and even those in business & industry, have noticed a tremendous decline in people's ability to write.

Recently, I spent many hours grading writing assignments. These writing assignments ran the gamut from "short answers" to "essay" to 3 page response-type papers. My response papers are based on listening to two podcasts. One podcast is an economics podcast discussing the geographic traits of snack food. The other podcast is a mesmerizing account of a couple of Americans traveling throughout a South Asian country.

The more I read, the more patterns in writing emerged. Not just patterns in though; writing involves considerable thinking. I tend to reason writing reveals thinking, how a person thinks, how a person organizes thoughts and information. Writing reveals a considerable amount of information about a person, and I can understand how writing makes people nervous. I'm nervous merely writing this post, but I'm dealing with it.

Writing for higher education doesn't have to involve the level of stress people attach to writing assignments. Understanding some simple concepts, requirements, goals, and using the education which was provided from ages 6-18 (maybe 16 in Kentucky) can alleviate anxiety surrounding writing.

I am going to walk through some of the common errors I find in writing. Not only will I identify errors but I'll explain how to adjust thinking processes to help direct attention to formulating better academic responses to writing assignments.

Writing Tip Two: "Use the Lingo"

Students frequently lament, "why do I have to take this course? This course is pointless." No, you make it pointless with your lack of imagination and lack of attention. Engage your brain and pay attention. Look, sometimes education is not about the direct knowledge gained from major or minor courses. Education is also about how one approaches learning new topics, regardless of whether or not those topics are interesting. Employers, supervisors, managers, vice-presidents will notice whether or not the information is being applied, if terminology is being used, if someone is a "team-player," or whether their mind is someplace else.

Employers will expect reports, proposals, any document for that matter, to contain clear language and appropriate use of terminology. Not using terminology translates into lack of attention to detail. Lack of attention to detail translates into lack of caring and responsibility. Eventually, one will be passed over for promotions, merit pay, or other special perks. Paying attention to details and using terminology while in school creates good habits for one can use later in employment. Accept the fact some courses and details are not enjoyable and move on.

"Meteorologists have several means of obtaining information about the upper atmosphere. The upper atmosphere is the portion of the Earth's atmosphere which includes in the troposphere, from the surface to about 18,000ft. Many commercial aircraft have on-board equipment which transmits data to ground stations. Radiosondes and rawinsondes (weather balloons) collect weather data near major airports. NOAA and other countries place weather satellites in orbit which collect images of the Earth which track storms, measure water vapor, and measure atmospheric temperatures.

Notice in the above "good answer," terminology is used. Troposphere is defined, for example. NOAA, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration is mentioned, both types of weather balloons are also noted. If the answer had mentioned GOES weather satellites, the response would have been nearly brilliant for a short answer. A short answer, not an essay.

The use of terminology found within a unit of study or a chapter indicates attentiveness to detail and effort. In fact, students need to be reminded they are paying to be trained, evaluated, coach, and challenged. Students need to be reminded to use the education they have been exposed to over the course of their entire lives.

The last thing a student is paying for is a grade.

Next: "Answer Both X & Y"

College Writing Tips: Read the Question

My teaching career began in the fall of 1997 when a faculty member experienced a heartache about a week before the semester began. During the intervening years between then and today, my peers, colleagues, and even those in business & industry, have noticed a tremendous decline in people's ability to write.

Recently, I spent many hours grading writing assignments. These writing assignments ran the gamut from "short answers" to "essay" to 3 page response-type papers. My response papers are based on listening to two podcasts. One podcast is an economics podcast discussing the geographic traits of snack food. The other podcast is a mesmerizing account of a couple of Americans travelling throughout a South Asian country.

The more I read, the more patterns in writing emerged. Not just patterns in thought; writing involves considerable thinking. I tend to reason writing reveals thinking, how a person thinks, how a person organizes thoughts and information. Writing reveals a considerable amount of information about a person, and I can understand how writing makes people nervous. I'm nervous merely writing this post, but I'm dealing with it.

Writing in higher education doesn't have to involve the level of stress people attach to writing assignments. Understanding some simple concepts, requirements, goals, and using the education which was provided from ages 6-18 (maybe 16 in Kentucky) can alleviate anxiety surrounding writing.

I am going to walk through some of the common errors I find in writing. Not only will I identify errors but I'll explain how to adjust thinking processes to help direct attention to formulating better academic responses to writing assignments.

Writing Tip One:  "Read the Question"

One of the easiest ways to achieve better writing scores is simply to read the question. Qualitatively, I estimate about 1 in 4 students do not actually consider question details. The ratio may be higher, I'll admit. Take an inventory of the requirements of the question. Look for key words, like "explain" or "discuss" or "describe." Such words indicate a simple sentence or two will not pass the muster. Students tend to provide a list of objects, thoughts, or details and consider the list they have provided a "discussion." Whether the items are provided in bullet form, or merely separated by commas, lists are not "discussions."

"Describe the sources of information meteorologists use for collecting information about the upper atmosphere."

A poor answer: Weatherpeople have lots of ways of getting info about the air. Planes, balloons, and satellites give them the info they need to make weather maps.

A better answer: Meteorologists have a few ways of obtaining information about the upper atmosphere. Aircraft can collect weather information, weather balloons are sent into the atmosphere to collect data, and satellites send images of weather systems back to Earth.

A good answer: Meteorologists have several means of obtaining information about the upper atmosphere. The upper atmosphere is the portion of the Earth's atmosphere which includes in the troposphere, from the surface to about 60,000ft. Many commercial aircraft have on-board equipment which transmits data to ground stations. Radiosondes and rawinsondes (weather balloons) collect weather data near major airports. NOAA and other countries place weather satellites in orbit which collect images of the Earth which track storms, measure water vapor, and measure atmospheric temperatures.

Students frequently make the mistake believing their audience is their professor. Yes, the professor may grade the short answer, essay, or paper but thinking the professor was the intended audience can mentally trap a student. If a student believes the instructor is the intended audience important, relevant information may be omitted. I have had students tell me or email me, "Why do I need to be so detailed? Don't you know the answer? I thought you knew this?!"

Whether I know, or do not know, the "answer" is not the real issue. The real issue relates to the informational content of the response. Students should not write as if the instructor is the intended audience. The audience should NOT be thought of as the professor but rather some ignorant individual who needs to learn about the topic. When the student can think of themselves as the educator, then the real learning begins. I tell my students "write as if you are educating someone, not writing to me as if I know something."

Simply put, the student's job is to communicate the breadth and depth of their knowledge to the professor.

Provide enough details, facts, evidence, and examples for us to evaluate.

Next: "Use The Lingo"