full name / name of organization:
Call for First-Year Composition Articles
Writing Commons, an open education resource, welcomes submissions for publication. While we welcome all submissions, we currently have a special call for first-year composition webtexts.
The author guidelines can be found at the following webpage: http://writingcommons.org/about-us/writers-wanted/guide-for-authors. Please email submissions in doc or docx format to Jennifer Yirinec at firstname.lastname@example.org no later than April 20, 2012. Queries may also be directed to Jennifer Yirinec at the above email address. Please note that the incorporation of multimedia components (images from Creative Commons, embedded or linked YouTube videos, etc.) are highly encouraged. Citations should follow the current edition of The MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. Accompanying student exercises and/or activities are also welcome.
About Writing Commons: Our peer-reviewed, online resource is a new media blend of an academic journal and an online book. Like an academic journal, we have an editorial board and a review board, a blind peer review process, and we continually accept submissions for possible publication. Like an online book, we maintain a compendium of all of our published material on our site as one ever enlarging text.
We are looking for the following pieces, in particular:
• “Writing in Narrative Style”
o Explain to students how to write an essay in narrative form, telling a story in a succinct but engaging manner.
• “How to Properly Use the First Person in Narrative”
o Explain how the first person is used differently in narrative form than in academic writing. And explain how to use the first person when telling a story. Please provide both effective and ineffective examples.
• “How to Properly Use the First Person in Academic Writing”
o Explain how the first person is used differently in academic writing than in narrative form. Explain why a writer might choose to use the first person instead of the third person, and identify issues with switching voices. And explain how to use the first person in a more formal, academic essay. Please provide both effective and ineffective examples. Showing students the revision process for an example sentence is especially encouraged.
• “How to Properly Use the Third Person in Academic Writing”
o Explain why a writer might choose to use the third person instead of the first person in academic writing, and identify issues with switching voices. Explain how to use the third person while still writing in an engaging manner. Please provide both effective and ineffective examples. Showing students the revision process for an example sentence is especially encouraged.
• “How to Effectively Paraphrase”
o Explain the difference between paraphrase and summary, and explain why a writer might choose to paraphrase sourced material instead of quoting or summarizing. Mention the need to still cite the information. Show student writers how to effectively paraphrase, providing both effective and ineffective examples. Showing students the revision process for an example paraphrase is especially encouraged.
• “How to Effectively Summarize”
o Explain the difference between summary and paraphrase, and explain why a writer might choose to summarize sourced material instead of quoting or paraphrase. Mention the need to still cite the information. Show student writers how to effectively summarize, providing both effective and ineffective examples. Showing students the revision process for an example summary is especially encouraged.
• “When to Quote and When to Paraphrase”
o This article should guide students in determining when it’s more effective to include quoted source material versus when it’s more effective to include paraphrased source material. Accompanying examples are necessary for this piece.
• Various Articles on Historiography
o Articles are encouraged that deal with writing about history, interpreting historical texts, identifying biases, considering context of pieces, etc.
• “Identifying a Conversation”
o Explain to students that writing is about entering into a conversation and that published pieces are participating in such a conversation even if they aren’t referencing specific authors they may come across. Help students to understand, through a well-developed example, how different pieces that discuss a focused topic are participating in a conversation but perhaps approaching it from different angles, talking about different aspects of the conversation, or are making different claims about the same idea.
• “Understanding How Conversations Change over Time”
o Explain to students, using a well-developed example, how conversations about a focused topic change over time. Please use an example of a conversation that spans at least 10 years. Discuss what factors may cause a conversation to evolve over time, perhaps even providing a checklist at the end of the piece that references possible factors to consider.
• “Seeing ‘History’ as an Evolving Process”
o Explain to students that the term “history” is not synonymous with the term “fact.” Explain how history may incorporate factual information, but note how “history” is an interpretation of such factual information and make take into consideration issues like gender, race, political differences, etc. Providing an example of different “histories” about the same focused topic and noting why they differ is especially encouraged.
• “Breaking Down an Image”
o Discuss images as texts and show students how to break down images into their components. Reference and explain the language (perhaps in bullets or sections) that students should use when analyzing images. Please incorporate a sample image (one that is not copyrighted or has a creative commons license) and analyze that image in terms of these components.
• “Determining an Audience”
o Explain to students how to determine their audience when constructing a remediation. Showing students how to move from a broader audience (i.e., “Americans”) to a more focused audience (i.e., “middle-class American consumers”) is especially encouraged. Provide a checklist of factors to consider at the end of the piece.
• “What to Think about When Writing for a Particular Audience”
o Discuss what students need to consider after they’ve identified their audience for their remediation. Include a checklist of factors to consider at the end of the piece.
• “The Audiences of Various Media”
o Provide bulleted sections for various media (in particular, YouTube videos, social networking sites, Twitter, poetry, songs, etc.), and in each section determine the audience for that particular media and explain why that audience is particularly receptive to that medium.
• “How Medium Affects Message”
o Discuss what translating a message from one medium to another does that message just by virtue of the medium change. Using an example is especially encouraged, but note that any images used must be creative commons licensed.
• “Considering Counterargument”
o Instruct student readers how to identify a counterargument and how the counterarguments about which they’re reading are addressing specific claims. Providing a well-developed example is especially encouraged.
• “How to Talk (Respectfully) about Counterclaims in Writing”
o Help students to talk respectfully and represent fairly counterclaims in their writing. Perhaps provide a table that shows ineffective intro. phrases to quoted/paraphrased counterclaims and (revised) effective intro. phrases to quoted/paraphrased counterclaims. Including a checklist at the end of the piece for students to apply to their writing when revising a piece is especially encouraged.
• “Connecting Claims to Sourced Material”
o Show students how to use sourced material as support for their claims, connecting a claim to a specific piece of support. Effective and ineffective examples of doing this are needed—show and explain revision process.
• “Understanding the Difference between a Guiding Idea and an Argumentative Thesis”
o Different genres of writing require different ways of focusing a paper: explain to students the difference between a guiding idea for something like a narrative or an expository essay and an argumentative thesis in which they’re asserting an original claim. Provide examples.
• “Checklist for Tracing Claims throughout a Paper”
o Provide a checklist that students may use to determine whether they’ve successfully carried their thesis throughout the paper via their claims and whether all the claims support their thesis.
• Active reading / Information Literacy articles
o These pieces should help students think critically about "traditional" texts -- identifying things like type of article (op/ed, scholarly article, etc.), thesis, author's purpose, tone, message, major claims, subclaims, etc. -- rather than visual or audio texts.
• “Learning to Discard Sources Along the Way”
o This piece should instruct students about the need to identify which sources are most relevant to their research aims, discarding those sources that are not. Including a checklist of questions that students might ask themselves as they proceed through the research process is especially encouraged.
• “Interpreting Instructor Feedback”
o This piece should provide students with a framework for considering/interpreting instructor feedback, noting that instructors cannot address every issue with an assignment but rather focus on what they see as the most important issues.