First, don’t set out to seek and destroy all errors and problems in the writing.You're not an editor. You’re not a teacher. You’re not a cruise missile. Anddon’t rewrite any parts of the paper. You're not the writer; you’re a reader. Oneof many. The paper is not yours; it’s the writer’s. She writes. You read. She isin charge of what she does to her writing. That doesn’t mean you can’t makesuggestions.
These sentences make more connections and are kind of funny.
Consider yourself a friendly reader. A test pilot. A roommate who’s been askedto look over the paper and tell the writer what you think.
Making connections and metaphors so we can understand.
Okay.You’vegotastudent paper you havetoread andmakecommentsonforThursday.It’snotsomethingyou’relooking forwardto.Butthat’salright,youthink.Thereisn’treallyallthatmuchtoit.Justkeepitsimple.Readitquick-lyandmark whateveryousee.Saysomethingabouttheintroduction.Somethingaboutdetailsandexamples.Ideasyoucansayyoulike.Markanytypos and spellingerrors.Makeyourcommentsbrief.Abbreviate wherepos-sible:awk,goodintro,giveex,frag.Trytoimitatetheteacher,Markwhathe’dmarkandsoundlikehe’dsound. Butbecoolaboutit.Don’tpraiseanythingreally, but noneedtogetharshorcutthroateither.Getinandgetout.You'reokay,Pmokay.Everybody’shappy.What’stheproblem?
This intro is written like you're talking to a friend.
The whole thing wouldbe so long and incoherent and hideous that for the rest of theday I’d obsess about getting creamed by a car before I couldwrite a decent second draft.
Again with this dark tone. The dread of the first draft really hangs with this writer and maybe I am the audience for this but I don't have a major problem with the first draft.
It’s over,I'd think, calmly. I’m not going to be able to get the magicto work this time. I’m ruined. I’m through. ’m toast. Maybe,I'd think, 1 can get my old job back as a clerk-typist. Butprobably not. I'd get up and study my teeth in the mirror fora while. Then I’d stop, remember to breathe, make a fewphone calls, hit the kitchen and chow down. Eventually I'dgo back and sit down at my desk, and sigh for the next tenminutes. Finally I would pick up my one-inch picture frame,stare into it as if for the answer, and every time the answerwould come: all | had to do was to write a really shitty firstdraft of, say, the opening paragraph. And no one was goingto see it.
They way this person makes this picture I can imagine it perfectly in my head. The language she uses as well is very human and not like a professional which I love.
There may be somethingin the very last line of the very last paragraph on page sixthat you just love, that is so beautiful or wild that you nowknow what you’re supposed to be writing about, more or less,or in what direction you might go—but there was no way toget to this without first getting through the first five and ahalf pages
I like this because I did something similar in a past paper where I delayed an answer with dialogue and it was a big climactic ending to the paper.
In fact, the only way I can get anything writtenat all is to write really, really shitty first drafts.
I don't think this is accurate because some of my first drafts are shitty but a good amount of them are pretty good. I have turned in first drafts and have had very little (if any at all) edits and even then it was minor things.
One writer I know tells me that he sits downevery morning and says to himself nicely, “It’s not like youdon’t have a choice, because you do—you can either type orkill yourself.”
This is very dark but very interesting because this can be how a good amount of people view writing and it gives a perspective I haven't thought of before.
All right, one of them does, but we do not likeher very much. We do not think that she has a rich inner lifeor that God likes her or can even stand her. (Although whenI mentioned this to my priest friend Tom, he said you cansafely assume you've created God in your own image when itturns out that God hates all the same people you do.)
I'm very confused on why they added this because it goes way off topic.
Now, practically even better news than that of short assign-ments is the idea of shitty first drafts. All good writers writethem. This is how they end up with good second drafts andterrific third drafts.
I like that they say this because it really humanizes authors and grounds them with a sense of "oh they aren't perfect right away."
On a practical level, I write this from the level of students whodon’t lobby Congress but who must learn to value the dignity ofall languages, most importantly the languages of all our nation’scommunities and families.
This confirms my point that I made in my last annotation.
These huge misconceptions are at the root of U.S. English’sarguments dismissing bilingual education, literacy learning, andimmigrant involvement for a mythologized monolingual UnitedStates, which are bad ideas for all writers in a democratic soci-ety.
I like that they call out that "English only" Is a bad thing and make our state less united by taking away the multicultural melting pot we call The United States of America.
Official English urges that officialgovernment business at all levels be conducted solely in English,including signs, applications, public documents, records, officialceremonies, and meetings.
This I agree with because important information should be communicated in a concise and effective manner.
We use the perception of improper communication as evidenceof others’ lesser character or ability, despite recognizing that thiscountry was united (if only in name) after declaring independencefrom that King.
I like that they make this point since it is in direct conflict with what this nations first intentions were.
In essence, it sends the message starting at a veryyoung age that who they are and where they come from is some-how lesser.
This is a very real concern for people that are in a minority. I us to feel lesser in elementary and I decided to expand the thing that I felt insecure about which was my vocabulary.
In adhering to so-called correctlanguage, we are devaluing the non-standard dialects, cultures, andtherefore identities of people and their communicative situationsthat do not fit a highly limited mold.
I like that hey are calling in other dialects because I personally am learning Japanese and it's very different. For starters, people address other people with their last names first.
In other words, the rules for writing shiftwith the people and the community involved as well as the purposeand type of writing.
This is very true considering the way we communicate now a days with the abbreviations we use like idk, ttyl, btw, omw, and so much more.