Mike Jackman, Words & Music

Category: composition lessons

After decades of giving writing workshops and over 15 years of teaching college I’ve developed hundreds of original lessons and assignments. Now it’s time for me to give back in thanks for the opportunity to teach and have a writing career. These materials are presented at no charge for you to download and use. Please credit: Ⓒ Copyright Michael Jackman. All Rights Reserved. You can help support my ability to present free online writing lessons by donating a suggested amount via the Paypal link. Any amount is welcome and thank you for your support!

  • How to Succeed in an Online Course

    How to Succeed in an Online Course

    Dear Students and Teachers:

    With many of us transitioning to teaching and taking courses online, we are learning that we need new ways to approach these courses. This tip sheet is one I present my students at the beginning of the semester, based on issues that come up in my courses. Though some tips specifically refer to Canvas, which is the course management system used currently at IU Southeast, they are easily adaptable to your own online course management system. I hope you find them useful. Please share in the comments section any tips you have for surviving online courses!

    An online course has the culture of a class but experiences it and delivers it through a Web browser. It superficially resembles, but it is not, the culture of social media. 

    Tip 1: Web Browsers and their Pesky Issues

    • If you have an ad blocker installed in your browser or have disabled pop-ups, turn off ad blocker for Canvas Web pages and re-enable pop-up windows to make sure you have all the functions of Canvas working correctly.
    • If you find something you need still doesn’t work, try logging in on another browser. What works in Chrome may not work in Firefox or Safari, etc. etc. etc. 

    Tip 2: Finding Out When Assignments Are Due

    • There are several ways to find out what is due in your Canvas course. You can click on the Calendar, you can view the Course Stream, you can click on the Syllabus and see a list of assignments on the right and by scrolling to the end of the syllabus, and you can click on “Assignments.” I recommend simply looking at our schedule which will be displayed on the home page and which I organized for you. 

    Tip 3: OMG, I lost all my work when the internet went down.

    • Why, oh why, do we never remember this happens? I hate doing work over again. I’m entirely too trusting of the Internet, and then when the internet goes belly up, I’m sunk! So here’s what I’ve learned to do:
      • Choice A: Write your discussion forum reflections and responses and your peer reviews using another program. NOT in your Web browser. Save your work, then copy and paste it into the appropriate box. This way, you’ll never lose your work. NOTE: If your battery runs out or if you lose electric power in a storm – this tip will not help!
      • Choice B: Be foolhardy and trust the Internet will have 100% up time. Type right in your browser. But every minute or so, click “select all” (ctl-A) and copy your work to the computer clipboard. That way it will be saved and when online goes offline you won’t lose everything. 
      • Choice C: Do none of this. We will hear you scream from the adjacent county. 

    Tip 4: If You’re Already Impatient With These Tips, This Tip Is Especially for You

    • During the last couple of years I’ve noticed that many students are too impatient when they are online, and that many students do not read the complete directions. Therefore, they fail assignments due to incompleteness or doing the wrong thing. Partly, this is due to skimming rather than paying attention to the words and to the screen. This is what you need to do:
      • Turn off distractions while doing coursework. A good way to avoid applying social media and Internet habits inappropriately and self-destructively to an online class is to Close all other screens during your class time. Study and write some place where it is quiet and you are not tempted to divide your attention between college-time screens and social-time screens. Research shows that there is no such thing as multitasking. Divided attention, research has discovered, also divides intelligence and accomplishment.
      • Take time to revise and proof-read before you submit. 
      • Read instructions as well as your work aloud to catch errors and other problems (and to simply hear how your English sounds and flows). If you are in a public place you can whisper.
      • Make sure you scroll down to read all the instructions. Sometimes only part of the instructions will be visible on the screen and it may not look like there is more. Always scroll down. Don’t assume you’ve read it all.
      • Do not skim instructions. Force yourself to pay attention to what the assignment is asking you to do. For example, if the assignment states that using new terms correctly is an important part of the assignment, and you skim over this instruction, you will fail the assignment. If the assignment requires that you cite specific examples, then details that give evidence for your points, and not vague, generic references or summaries, are needed in order to pass. 
      • Recognize that you need to read and study course materials more than once. Especially in an online setting, you will not retain what you have only read or skimmed once from a screen.
      • If you have enough screen “real estate,” open study guides and other material in another window to use as a reference while completing assignments. You can print your study materials and keep them in a notebook to refer to. Remember, it’s required that you make connections between the lessons and your other assignments and writing.

    Tip: you can right click your mouse over a link to open that link or menu item or document in another tab or another window of your browser. That way you can open something you need for the course without having to close the page you are on.

    • Don’t confuse online cultures.  An online course has the culture of a class but experiences it and delivers it through a Web browser. It superficially resembles, but it is not, the culture of social media. In that culture, text messages are short, people post short status updates, and usually are satisfied by saying the first thing that comes to their minds, often without revision. Accurate grammar, spelling and punctuation are often unimportant. Our culture is not that culture even though it looks like it on the screen.  Our culture is online academia. Don’t make the mistake of confusing an online class with social media.

    If you have tips about how to survive and succeed in an online course, please share with the class.

    For several decades I have conducted writing workshops of all kinds, and for 14 years I have taught writing on the faculty of Indiana University Southeast. Now I have decided to give back for these opportunities by making my lessons available online. I hope you enjoy this lesson, and the other lessons here on my writing Web site, michael-jackman.com. You may download and use any lesson here free of charge, provided you give credit as: © Copyright Michael Jackman. All Rights Reserved.

    Although the lessons are free of charge, please help support all my work in writing and maintaining this site through a small contribution using the PayPal link on the top right of this post. Thank you for your support! – Michael

  • Quick Thoughts About Writing Good Introductions

    In my second-semester composition course, a student asked a question about how to write introductions to research papers. I jotted down some notes for her, so my musing today is to offer some quick advice on how to get that research paper started by writing good introductions. This isn’t a “lesson” exactly, but I hope the notes are useful.

    I think a good way to think of introductions is to be lean and quick. Many students at the beginning of my writing courses tend to begin with generic, vague, dramatic, and “grand gesture” comments. Do not do this!

    For instance, DON’T write openings such as:

    • “In our complicated [technological] world (or society or culture) of today…”
    • “Since time began…” or “Ever since time began people have studied…”
    • Other variations: “Since the dawn of time….” “As long as there has been history people have wondered…” etc. etc.

    Just get right to the start. For example,

    “Recidivism, known as the rate at which former inmates are re-arrested or re-sentenced for new crimes, is a looming problem for the American penal system.”

    In one sentence you set up the general topic, the problem, give a definition, and are prepared to offer a couple of statements about the problem before informing the reader what the research question or thesis will be, which will typically appear at the end of the opening paragraph or two:

    “This paper will evaluate whether or not prison education programs can provide a significant reduction in recidivism rates.”

    There’s nothing wrong with being simple and plain in research writing. There’s no need to “dress up a topic with significance” because if it weren’t important you wouldn’t be writing about it. You don’t have to “sound smart” because a good research paper will be smart. It will do the talking for you.

    Your introduction wants to:

    • Inform the reader what you are doing and why.
    • Interest the reader in reading further.

    Often, a brief opening statement of a startling and/or significant fact about your topic will create interest and motivation, as well as reveal the need to write the paper:

    “In 2017, 50% of new K-12 teachers hired left the teaching profession within five years (citation)….

    Often, a (brief) anecdote will serve to set the stage for the research paper. It can even be personal.

    “Only four years after receiving my freshly-minted teaching degree, I resigned from my teaching position in middle school and returned to college to pursue a new career.”

    You can combine both approaches:

    “Only four years after receiving my freshly-minted teaching degree, I resigned from my teaching position in middle school and returned to college to pursue a new career. According to the latest statistics, I’m one of 50% of brand-new K-12 educators who quit the profession before reaching their fifth anniversary…”

    Keep it short, sweet, relevant and simple. You don’t have a lot of space to muck around and you want to get on with developing your paper.

    I hope this answer helps you and other students deal with introductions!

    Sincerely,

    – Michael

    You may also be interested in my article: Reducing Repetition

  • Tricks Research Writers Use to Find Primary Sources

    Overview

    Researching primary sources is time-intensive. As I like to say, “there are no shortcuts.” But there are tricks research writers use to gather information. Here are four of these researching tricks that can help you more quickly and efficiently locate primary sources:

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  • How to Use Sources More Critically

    Overview

    Students using research studies often are unaware of how to apply critical attention to details. Yet some details of even the most complicated sources are within even the beginning research writer’s ability to analyze. How to Use Sources More Critically shows how you can and should question source data with enough depth to note weaknesses, debatable issues, and limitations, often brought up by the source’s authors themselves.

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  • Making Claims in Research Writing

    Overview

    A research paper, simply stated, is organized to support a claim, an assertion about the truth or falsity of something. So two of the several ways a research write-up can proceed is by stating that major claim, or thesis, of the paper near the beginning , or by first posing a research question the paper will explore, and then, near the end, make its major claim, a nice method of organization known as a delayed thesis.

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  • How to Support Claims and Use Qualification in Research Writing

    Overview

    A research paper is going to be built around demonstrating a major claim through the use of reasons and evidence. Therefore, it’s important to know how to support claims and use qualification in research writing. 

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  • Reducing Repetition in Your Writing Style

    Overview

    Repetitiveness is tedious for the reader, as it is monotonous. It often comes along with being wordy. A few simple corrections will result in reducing repetition in your writing style. They can make your compositions leaner, clearer, and more professional.

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Mike Jackman, Words & Music

Singer-Songwriter, Multi-instrumentalist, Writer