Victoria's Blog

I was greatly surprised by how interesting the Take 20 video was. The diversity in the teachers and their teaching styles and emphases was impressive, as was the fact that many of them had similar overall goals in how and what they teach. Particularly helpful were the questions about what books and essays to read, [...]

It took me a while to develop an effect writing process, although I suspect this is not unusual. I used to be one of those students who sat down the night before (or the morning) a paper was due, and churn it out in four or five hours. They were usually pretty good – structured, [...]

A voice that resonates enhances academic voice, because without the former, you simply can’t have the latter. If a writer tries too hard to be purely academic, he or she runs the risk of eradicating voice altogether, producing the written equivalent of a monotone lecture (the horror!). Writing academically with voice does not, however, mean [...]

First Year Composition, it seems to me, is a bit of a jack-of-all-trades class. It’s purpose is to determine and then address any and all weaknesses in the writing skills of incoming freshmen in order to get them up to speed with their peers who managed to test out of the class. Reading some of [...]

The three most important concepts in composition are correctness of writing, the use of logic to arrive at one’s beliefs, and purposefulness that can produce the desired effect on an audience. I feel that formalism is important because all writing, regardless of the field for which it is written, must be correct. Writing that is [...]