- Vocabulary & Grammar -
Writing and your college career
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Job Fair Held For Positions At San Francisco Area Strip Clubs
Job seeker LaShawn McCoy fills out an application during a job fair for the adult entertainment industry July 20, 2009 in San Francisco, California. Hundreds of job seekers attended a job fair that featured eleven San Francisco strip clubs offering jobs ranging from bartender and cashiers to exotic dancers and waitresses.
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READING PASSAGE 1
At school or college the ability to write well is essential to your success. New demands will be made on your ability to express ideas and communicate information as clearly and concisely as possible. Your achievement is measured by how accurately you express what you have learned. Your room at college can be the loneliest place in the world, especially in those early hours of the morning, when you are screwed into the chair at your desk, the light glaring down on the blank page in your typewriter. It’s the sixteenth sheet you’ve rolled into the machine. You’ve crumpled up the first fifteen and tossed them into your waste-paper basket; and you still don’t know how to get started on that paper due for your English seminar or for your science class.
You may be a plane fare away from home, and there are no parents handy to turn to for advice. You’re on your own. At no other time of your life have your writing skills, your ability to write well and effectively, been so crucial to your success or failure. And your reliance on these writing skills will not diminish with time; on the contrary, as you move up from class to class toward that ultimate cap and gown and the coveted sheepskin, the demands on your writing skills and techniques become more critical. The instructors and professors become less lenient with your writing. They want to see evidence of original thinking in your research papers, a précis which is concise, and examination papers that show your mastery of style and content.
You undoubtedly appreciate this concern with how you handle your written assignments, and you try to meet this high standard. But people tend to develop the writing skills demanded of them by way of trial and error; and this can prove a time—consuming and often costly method of learning for the college student.
“Your report lacks organization,” writes your instructor at the top of the report which took weeks of sweat and sleepless nights as well; and the grade you receive seems hardly worth the effort you invested.
“Where did you get your facts?” demands your learned professor in the margins of your report on the history of the American tariff; and there goes another unsatisfactory notation into his little black book.
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"Your ideas are muddy."
"I asked for a précis, not for your profound observations!"
"Your writing is sadly lacking in clarity."
You may slap the returned papers down on your desk, and mutter some dire threat, some heartbroken protest, but no one sees you and no one hears you. What is even more painful in such moments is the knowledge that these criticisms by the earnest members of the faculty are eminently correct.
You know, as a matter of fact, that nothing is going to help you write that acceptable book report, précis, or that admirable science report except study and practice of the techniques of good writing. And you know that different kinds of reports require different skills.
“WHAT SHALL I WRITE ABOUT?”
That’s the first question you put to yourself, when you’ve been asked to produce a research paper for your history class, your English class, art, science, or any other class.
“What’s a good topic?”
Friedrich Nietzsche, that ailing, pessimistic philosopher of the past century, said that selection, too, is an act of creation. The creative element is perhaps the most important element in any kind of writing you may do, in or out of school.
Think about that topic. Is it something to which you can bring a new slant, a new viewpoint? Will it be of interest to your fellow classmates, to your instructor? Are you sufficiently interested in the topic yourself?
Do you think you can give it all the time and energy it will need? Think about it.
Once you’ve made your decision in this most important initial step, you’ll begin to jot down thoughts and ideas. You’ll have some notion of the facts and figures, names, places, dates necessary for the report, but you know, too, you’ll have to do some considerable research in the area you’ve selected. The thing to do now, of course, is to dig up, not the research material itself, but the sources for such material.
GETTING THE FACTS TOGETHER
For anyone planning a research paper there are two principal types of sources, primary and secondary. Primary sources include original manuscripts and documents, transcriptions of speeches, and first-hand observations; secondary sources consist of reports, analyses of documents, and scholarly comments on texts as well as any second-hand treatment of a subject found in books, articles, and encyclopedias.
As a student you will probably stick with the secondary sources you find in the college library, but if primary source material is available, you would be wise to use it. In either case, you must become familiar with those reference books which can supply you a road map for the specific books, items, and articles you will need for the substance of your report.
You must know how to select the more important data from all the reading you cover in your research. You can learn how to study old facts and develop your own new conclusions. You can learn to take old material and give it a new interpretation in the light of your own, modern outlook or to utilize your own experience to offer a fresh and novel viewpoint. You must know how to write yourself cogent notes, and how to file them for quick and easy reference. You must be able to develop an outline from your notes and use these references in your footnotes and in whatever bibliography you supply with your paper.
Chapter 12 is an invaluable guide to writing good research papers. It shows you how to tackle and solve the problems we’ve mentioned.
Chapter 13 covers that frequently requested précis. It tells you exactly what a précis is, and what it is not. It offers you numerous examples of the précis, ways of planning it, improving it, developing it, cutting it down to the essentials. It also spells out for you the more common faults which creep into the précis, and how to avoid them.
Chapter 13 also takes up the book report and the science report. It describes the main elements in a good book report and helps you develop guidelines as well as answers to all the questions you put to yourself about the book. It will tell you exactly what to look for in a novel, in a biography, in a book on some particular chapter of history, in a book of essays. It also describes the techniques involved in writing a one-paragraph review. You will learn the steps necessary in the of a science report: the gathering of data, analysis, and conclusion.
"Taking Written Examinations” deals with the skills and techniques of writing good answers to exam questions and how to take much of the fear and trembling out of the process. It tells you how to allocate your time so that you don’t End yourself with two or three unanswered questions when the final bell rings. It explains the best way to read the examination questions, defining for yourself exactly what is required in their answers. It shows you how to plan your answers by taking the time to organize your thoughts before you put word to paper and by writing out a short outline for your answer. And of course, it tells you how to prepare yourself for your exam.
AFTER GRADUATION
Then, looking beyond the boundaries of the campus, there is a most important chapter on how to write an application for a job. It may be a summer job you want because you are tired of loafing on the beach, or because you would like a little more money in your pockets this next school year, or because you must help with tuition costs. And, of course, there is the career job you will have to find after graduation from high school or college.
You will be expected to write a résumé of your background and education, the traveling you have done, the languages you speak and write, the jobs you have held in the past. There are examples of such résumés in this chapter, along with suggestions for describing your scholastic and athletic honors, your fraternity or sorority, and on how to bypass the red tape of personnel departments.
You may have little or no experience in the type of job for which you are applying. This chapter will tell you how to cope with such a contingency. It will also give you advice about what to write if you are already out of school and were fired from your last job. It will also tell and show you how to answer a want-ad and how to write that difficult shot-in-the-dark letter to a company or organization which hasn’t advertised any openings; how to make much of your interests and impress with your potential.
Whether or not you are a student, there is much you can glean from the next four chapters. But for the college man or woman who knows he still has something to learn about the writing skills and techniques and who is willing to learn, these chapters are required reading.
