The Fix is to make sure that the first word of the works cited entry is the word you use in your in-text citation, every time.

It feels like sitting in a movie theater, everything going as expected, when suddenly the opening credits start for a movie I didn’t plan to see.

ou’re con-fused because he just dropped in and expected you to understand the context of what was on his mind at that moment, much like when readers step into a paragraph that begins with a quotation

Kyle D. Stedman246appeal to initially set a tone of someone that is tired of being misunderstood.Alexsandra prepares us for the quotation, quotes, and then analyzes it.

That’s why they’re conventions and not rules.

People are often unreasonably picky, and writers have to deal with that—which they do by trying to anticipate and preemptively fix whatever might annoy a broad range of readers.

And it will be a lot harder for readers to take you seriously if they think you’re ignorant or rude.

But here’s the thing: writers can forget that their readers are sometimes just as annoyed at writing that fails to follow conventions as drivers are when stuck behind a car that fails to move over.

I am not writing for you.

I finally learned how to read smarter, not harder. Perhaps the strangest part of my reading transformation was that I came to like reading those dense scholarly articles;

He was a long limbed runner and smelled scrubbed—a mixture of laundry detergent and shampoo. He had black hair and startling blue eyes. Did I find him sexy?

I’d read a gorgeous passage, snuggle deeper into my chair, and glance out to the sunset and fall leaves outside of the library window.

When student writers are given the space and tools to be critical think-ers and writers, we have learned that they have a greater stake in the knowledge that they produce, recognizing their value as contributing members of the university.

Reflect on what you may have talked about that was originally not on your list.

In dis-cussing the interactive nature of writing and communication,

Highlight, underline or circle these main ideas in your bul-lets. You may want to use different color highlighters to differentiate between your starting, central idea and those that are supportive and expanding.

Invention as Inquiry Based Learning in First Year Writing137Visual OutliningAfter locating common themes from your bullets, try to visually think about the best way to represent the arrangement of your ideas for what we call a visual outline.

We encourage you to visualize, hear, and talk through important information generated from your critical freewriting using the techniques of bulleting, drawing, and dialoguing that we detail below

process called flexible outlining that can help you arrange your ideas into more complex, thought provoking material.

Critical freewriting encourages recursive thinking that enables you to create a body of ideas and to further decide which ones might be worth researching and which themes might work together in con-structing a coherent, yet flexible pattern of ideas.

“How does my stance on teenage pregnancy align with existing viewpoints on abortion?” or “What are the consequences for sex education in high schools?

Steven Lessner and Collin Craig134•developing new perspectives and then asking more questionsCritical freewriting gives you permission to grapple with an idea and even explore the basis for your own beliefs about a topic.

Using personal narrative, she is able to explore the concept of acqui-sition in how her baby sister learns how to communicate.

Do not worry about the quality of the writing, grammar, or what to write. Just write!

“I want you to speak English. Pa’ hallar buen trabajo tienes que saber hablar el ingles bien. Que vale toda tu educacion si todavia hablas ingles con un ‘accent,’” my mother would say, mortified that I spoke English like a Mexican.

What stylistic moves does the text do to draw readers in?

Invention as Inquiry Based Learning in First Year Writing129ideas but also situates them within a rhetorical situation (context) and works towards determining how the message, intended audience, and method of delivery work together for the purpose of persuasion and ef-fective communication.

Steven Lessner and Collin Craig128The invention activities we offer in this chapter will help you begin to see invention as more than formulaic correct or incorrect approach-es for producing writing. We want these invention activities to be ones that you can try out and, ultimately, make your own as college readers and writers. Let us be clear in stating that no one invention activity may work for all writers. Some of these approaches for beginning your writing assignments will be more useful than others. However, each invention activity has been crafted with you in mind and as a genera-tive way for you to begin thinking about your writing assignments. Through the invention strategies of reading rhetorically, freewriting, focused freewriting, critical freewriting, flexible outlining, bulleting, visual outlining and auditory/dialogicgenerative outlining, you will begin inventing in ways that stretch your writerly muscles. You will see how beginning papers can be a process that invites you as a participant to share and build on your experiences and knowledge in productive ways. And much like Professor DeWitt’s engineering father with his tools in a garage, you will learn to choose your invention tools with care when starting to write.Reading Rhetorically As a college reader, finding an author’s intent is a commonly learned critical thinking strategy that works for analyzing texts.

are drawn on as invention tools that his father selects depending on what project he is starting and what tool will ultimately help him the most (17).

We hope this chapter will encourage you to see the diverse invention possibilities available when beginning a writing assignment.

sitting near you asserts that he has trouble generating more supporting ideas once he has chosen a topic to explore.