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Sunday, January 25, 2009
Writing in Plain Sight
I participated in an interesting on-campus event last Friday called “Write Here in Plain Sight.” Here’s a bit of the publicity blurb:
First introduced to the world in 2007, Write Here in Plain Sight (WHIPS) is a bold adventure in teaching. The project is based on the premise that, as with other skills, learning how to write an academic paper can be significantly enhanced by observing expert behaviour.
Every word, every typo, every moment of writer’s block will be projected on large screens in four different rooms. Audience members witness the horror, the struggle, and the triumph of writing as it is practiced.
Watching the writers will reveal exactly how messy and idiosyncratic the writing process is and how it actually happens. The writers will share their inner-most thoughts as they plow through the process. The audience will get to question what they see as it evolves.
Writing with people watching is an odd feeling: as one of my colleagues remarked, it’s a bit like taking a bath in public! I found it interesting trying to articulate my own approach to writing in response to audience questions. One thing I think all the participants demonstrated is that writing is not a linear process (as so many of our students seem to assume) in which you start at the beginning and go on until you reach the assigned word limit and then stop, but a messy process of putting pieces down and considering their coherence and usefulness, roughing in outlines, shuffling things around, adding quotations, shuffling things around again, and so on. Editing is also not a separate stage or even a distinct process (I find students typically think ‘editing’ means ‘proofreading’) but a pervasive attitude of inquiry ("is that right? that’s not the best word… should this go here or somewhere else? what am I trying to say here?"), a kind of perpetual dissatisfaction. In the end I didn’t get much writing done, but I thought and talked a lot about writing, which was valuable in its own way. I found one discussion that broke out a few times on Friday of particular interest, and I wondered what people over here might have to add to it: the topic was writing and technology.
I was asked a couple of times about writing by hand vs. composing online. I explained that I still find some stages of the writing process much easier or more comfortable to do by hand. One issue for me, for instance, is taking notes from a book. Physically, I find it easier to hold the book with one hand and write in a notebook with the other than to prop the book open and look back and forth from it to a computer screen while using both hands to type. We talked about working with electronic files and ebooks: I don’t yet have experience with using ebooks for my work, but I can imagine naturalizing note-taking on the computer once I can have the book (or an article) open in one window and my word-processor in another. In theory, I can do this already with articles, but I don’t (yet) have software that enables me to highlight or comment right in the margins of a PDF file, and this remains a typical step in my processing of sources. I still feel there’s something in the physical, tangible connection between pen and paper that helps me own the material and the ideas it is generating. There are also things I don’t know how to do on a computer, such as roughing out brainstorming ideas in diagrams and charts. Sometimes I need to be messy, and I don’t know that a computer can let me do this--though I did learn that there is software that lets you simulate the mapping-out steps of brainstorming (but I can’t remember what the program is called). While in some ways I draft much more efficiently now that I do almost all of my actual composing on my computer, then, my own process is still a hybrid one. Of course, the limits of the technologies I have or know how to use are important factors here. How much time do I want to invest in learning to use new toys, though, rather than, say, actually getting words in order? (Relatedly, we wondered if concerns about electronic waste are going to inhibit the current momentum towards going paperless.)
I’d be interested to hear from others what their own writing habits or tricks are. If you work all on your computer, what devices or programs have you found that help you get the job done? Are there things you still prefer to do on paper? How has your ‘writing process’ changed as you’ve integrated computers into it? Do you think technological changes have affected other aspects of your writing?
Comments
First, I wrote my dissertation with a portable electric typewriter. I didn’t own a word processor until several years after that, and that word processor was crude, crude, crude. Still the difference between typing things out in hardcopy and using that first word processor was a major event, and of greater consequence than the improvements wrought by successively more sophisticated word processers - my second wp program as McWrite on the old 128K Mac.
These days I rarely take notes by hand, though I do mark up books and articles with occasional underlining, marginal marks (checks etc.) and notes. When I want to make notes on books I will type those notes into a file, most often one crudely organized by subject. The actual writing process is just plain sloppy. I may or may not do a simple topic outline. I don’t necessarily start writing at the beginning of a piece—in fact, I generally don’t. I do lots of cutting and pasting and reorganizing.
I write by hand to take pressure off when I’m terrified to write something (and any time I have to write, I’m terrified).
If I sit down with a pen and paper and nothing comes out, or what comes out stinks, I don’t feel too bad. It was just a trial run. But when I’m in front of the computer, it’s business time, and I had better do what I need to do.
I also remember notes taken by hand better than notes I type out. Once I copy all the bits by hand, they’re lodged in my brain. (I still use index cards, too, for research projects, because you can move them around easily and see twenty or so at once on a table top.) I type so mechanically that when I’m copying from a text, I don’t need to think about what I’m typing. Hand-copying, though, forces me to pay attention to each word and punctuation mark. I tell my students to hand copy a poem before writing about it for this reason.
Once I copy all the bits by hand, they’re lodged in my brain.
For me the same is true of notes I’ve typed into a computer. I don’t re-read many of those notes.
I’ve had an ebook reader with stylus input for about six months now. I mark up a lot of stuff on that, but it’s hopeless for really taking notes—the resolution is fine for underlining, but makes my handwriting huge and messy. So I’m using it only to mark things I want to come back to later. (One advantage here: it’s easier in software to ‘skip to the next scribble’ than in a paperback.)
In theory I could transfer the pdf with underlinings and whatever to my computer; in practise I treat it just like a book and prop it up beside my keyboard (apart from that skipping issue, the only improvement at this stage of the process seems to be that I don’t have to hold the pages open).
So far my impression is, people who read a lot of articles on an ordinary screen will enjoy the ‘electronic ink’, but people who do most of their reading on paper won’t benefit from it much at all.
Back in the day I worked as a reporter and editor at a daily newspaper, and got completely comfortable having someone look over my shoulder as I wrote. I also spent a lot of time looking over other writers’ shoulders. I think the experience helped my writing immensely. There’s deadline pressure, and a monetary incentive to meet that deadline, but quality is not an issue and you know your work will be copy-edited before appearing in print--a good combination for getting over the typical writing anxieties.
One of my favorite teacher tricks is to go through an entire class without ever speaking a word. Instead I just write out my thoughts in Word on the projected computer screen. Ditto for my responses to the students’ comments. Sometimes I respond with textspeak like “WTF??” or “o gr8.” When the kids just sit there silently, I just write “tick tick tick tick....” until someone speaks up. The students respond by paying closer attention and participating in the discussion more than usual. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s just the novelty. Maybe my voice is boring or intimidating. Maybe reading is a more active and engaging mode of communication than listening. Maybe it’s just the glamour of the screen. Whatever the reason, this trick always seems to work. I don’t want to ruin it, though, so I only use it once a semester.
Another trick I use in my composition classes is to write an essay on-screen from scratch. The students give me a topic, we discuss it for a couple minutes, and then I start writing, commenting as I go. It’s all done in real time. They get a kick out of seeing me misspell words (I don’t proofread until the essay is otherwise done). I find it’s a good way to review everything from grammar to sentence variety to paragraph organization and development, etc. The students enjoy the role reversal, as well as the competitive element (I have to finish the essay before the end of class). I encourage them to help me, in particular to tell me when they think I’ve written something strong and when I’m being lame. Because it’s my own writing, I can critique it out loud in terms I would never use in critiquing theirs ("OK, this example is perfect, but this one still bites...."). I like to think the exercise also conveys the idea that hey, this stuff really isn’t that hard.
As for my own writing--jeepers. I still use note cards.
Thanks for all these interesting comments. I’m struck by how many of us still rely on “old-fashioned” paper and pen--and notecard-- methods for at least some of this process.
Hand-copying, though, forces me to pay attention to each word and punctuation mark. I tell my students to hand copy a poem before writing about it for this reason.
Nice point.
Another trick I use in my composition classes is to write an essay on-screen from scratch.
This exercise is very much in the spirit of the ‘Write Here in Plain Sight’ event. I’m thinking that I might try something along these lines next time I’m teaching an intro-level class, partly to demystify the whole process (as you say, “this stuff really isn’t that hard"). I’m intrigued by the “no talking” class session you describe, too. I’m surprised that you say students participated more rather than less: you might think that having their words highlighted like that would be inhibiting.
This is so depressing - not the ps part (like Bill I used a word processor years ago, ‘cutting and pasting’ seemed like a marvel and where I’d be without my laptop now ...) but the part about not talking - ‘Good Grief!’, as Charlie Brown might say. Teachers need to speak, read aloud - communicate for goodness sake. The human voice is our greatest tool as teachers. How can you study Hopkins without reading aloud? It’s all about sound. I honestly thought that ‘Eveningsun’ was joking at first (you’re not are you? I’ll feel a terrible fool if so). In my classes we talk all the time, read aloud, share jokes - all orally, thank heaven, and people use pens. Most professional writers still write like that, in fact, because they can do it anywhere, anytime. Also, you’ll never achieve true verisimilitude like this, behaviour changes when we know we’re being watched and as for observing the writing process - close reading of a text and comparison with facsimiles of original corrected manuscripts, anyone? Dickens’ manuscripts are brilliant for this, you know just what he’s thinking.
I’m paralyzed from chest level so type with a stick but taught myself to write with two hands when first injured. I have voice recognition but never use it - who wants ‘monsters’ every time you say ‘monasteries’? I save my voice for people and you know what? It works! You should try it some time ... (so shoot me, I’m communicating)!
No, Sue, I’m not joking. But remember, I only use the “no talking” trick once per semester. The other 44 class days I talk plenty.