Amy Guptill - Writing in College: From Competence to Excellence

Amy Guptill

with Aly Button, Peter Farrell, Kaethe Leonard, and Timothe Pizarro

Open SUNY Textbooks

2016

2016 Amy Guptill

ISBN: 978-1-942341-21-5 ebook

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This publication was made possible by a SUNY Innovative Instruction Technology Grant (IITG). IITG is a competitive grants program open to SUNY faculty and support staff across all disciplines. IITG encourages development of innovations that meet the Power of SUNYs transformative vision.

Published by Open SUNY Textbooks, Milne Library (IITG PI)

State University of New York at Geneseo,
Geneseo, NY 14454

About the Book

Writing in College is designed for students who have largely mastered high-school level conventions of formal academic writing and are now moving beyond the five-paragraph essay to more advanced engagement with text. It is well suited to composition courses or first-year seminars and valuable as a supplemental or recommended text in other writing-intensive classes. It provides a friendly, down-to-earth introduction to professors goals and expectations, demystifying the norms of the academy and how they shape college writing assignments. Each of the nine chapters can be read separately, and each includes suggested exercises to bring the main messages to life.

Students will find in Writing in College a warm invitation to join the academic community as novice scholars and to approach writing as a meaningful medium of communication. With concise discussions, clear multidisciplinary examples, and empathy for the challenges of student life, Guptill conveys a welcoming tone. In addition, each chapter includes Student Voices: peer-to-peer wisdom from real SUNY Brockport students about their strategies for and experiences with college writing.

While there are many affordable writing guides available, most focus only on sentence-level issues or, conversely, a broad introduction to making the transition. Writing In College, in contrast, provides both a coherent frame for approaching writing assignments and indispensable advice for effective organization and expression.

About the Author

Amy Guptill is an Associate Professor of Sociology at The College at Brockport, SUNY where she has a joint appointment with the Delta College Program, an alternative interdisciplinary General Education option. Her research focuses on spatial and structural shifts in agriculture and food systems with recent work on innovative agricultural marketing. She teaches courses in the sociology of food, development and globalization, community and social change, social statistics and college writing. In addition to Writing In College: From Competence to Excellence, and she is the coauthor of a recent college textbook entitled Food & Society: Principles and Paradoxes (Malden, MA: Polity, 2012).

Reviewers Notes

Writing in College: From Competence to Excellence assists well-prepared high school students as they transition to college writing, helping them understand how they, as young independent scholars, fit into the university and can improve their writing to succeed in their new environment. Focusing on the argument-driven essay, Guptill guides beginning college students through the sometimes arcane practices of the academy and does so with warmth, enthusiasm, and humor. The textbook takes students through deciphering assignments, developing sophisticated arguments, finding and using appropriate sources, and some basics of paragraphing, sentence structure, and style. Instructors will find this textbook to be a handy tool for explaining the argument-driven essay and reference for addressing common college-level writing issues. With a diverse range of examples, useful references to other sources, and purposeful exercises, Writing in College focuses on developing students skills in practical waysand helps students understand why their instructors have them do what they do.

Jennifer Haytock is professor and chair in the English Department at the College at Brockport, SUNY.

About Open SUNY Textbooks

Open SUNY Textbooks is an open access textbook publishing initiative established by State University of New York libraries and supported by SUNY Innovative Instruction Technology Grants. This initiative publishes high-quality, cost-effective course resources by engaging faculty as authors and peer-reviewers, and libraries as publishing service and infrastructure.

The pilot launched in 2012, providing an editorial framework and service to authors, students and faculty, and establishing a community of practice among libraries.

Participating libraries in the 2012-2013 pilot include SUNY Geneseo, College at Brockport, College of Environmental Science and Forestry, SUNY Fredonia, Upstate Medical University, and University at Buffalo, with support from other SUNY libraries and SUNY Press. The 2013-2014 pilot will add more titles in 2015. More information can be found at http://textbooks.opensuny.org .

Chapter 1

Really? Writing? Again?

Obviously you can write. And in the age of Facebook and smartphones, you might be writing all the time, perhaps more often than speaking. Many students today are awash in text like no other generation before. You may have even performed so well in high school that youre deemed fully competent in college level writing and are now excused from taking a composition course.

So why spend yet more time and attention on writing skills? Research shows that deliberate practice that is, close focus on improving ones skillsmakes all the difference in how one performs. Revisiting the craft of writingespecially on the early end of collegewill improve your writing much more than simply producing page after page in the same old way. Becoming an excellent communicator will save you a lot of time and hassle in your studies, advance your career, and promote better relationships and a higher quality of life off the job. Honing your writing is a good use of your scarce time.

Also consider this: a all of which depend on effective communication.

Writing is one of the most important skills to our society, and it almost always has been. Having the ability to write is what separates history from pre-history! Thats a pretty big deal! Because most professors have different expectations, it can be tricky knowing what exactly theyre looking for. Pay attention to the comments they leave on your paper, and make sure to use these as a reference for your next assignment. I try to pay attention and adapt to the professors style and preferences.