It's been a good month and a half since I completed my coursework for English 383, but I'm proud to say a few things:

1. Hopefully, if I continue in my adventures as a Writing Consultant, I will have more things to post on this blog as life develops.
2. I am still continuing to post on my personal blog (though entirely unrelated to the Writing Center or English 383) at http://raelh.blogspot.com. If you have at all enjoyed getting to know me over the past few months or reading my thoughts on things, that's the place that's most likely to continue to spread a bit of Rachel-related wit and cheer.

Stick around, it should be a fun ride.

Physical Stress, Emotional Stress, and Burnout in the Writing Center

The other day, Dr. Essid spoke to our class about making sure that we keep on top of our stress levels and mental and emotional health while working as consultants. He warned us that several current consultants in some way burnt out this semester: some went on medical leave, others just got too stressed out with their current workloads.

He also made it clear that there are a lot of options for consultants who are feeling overwhelmed. There are on-call consultants and other consultants who are willing to take on a little extra to help out someone who needs the break from all the stresses. But none of these options can be useful if the consultant doesn't admit that they're feeling stressed out or overworked in the first place. A lot of Richmond students, especially the kind of students who would look into working as writing consultants, don't know how to admit they've taken on too much and they need help.

I guess it's fitting that I'm writing this post this week, because I spent a good portion of this week ill. And I feel like this might be an area that I, like a lot of Richmond students, struggle. My life seems to be a pretty constant cycle of alternating physical and emotional stresses. A stressful work week means less sleep, fewer regular meals, and just an all-around neglect for my physical well-being. And then, once the emotional stresses of a hectic week let up, my body responds with the physical stresses of fatigue and illness.

This is a pattern that I'm going to have to work hard to break if I want to be an effective consultant. I think it's important to recognize that it's okay to ask for help and to admit when you're too stressed. Before you enter burnout mode. I cannot possibly be effective at helping other people if I cannot take the time to help myself when I need to take care of myself. Sometimes I might get overwhelmed, but I think if I want to be a decent consultant, I am going to have to learn to admit when things are getting to be too much and when I need help. I just hope I haven't learned that lesson too late already.

Can I Please Be Someone's Sempai?

Yes means maybe and maybe means no. Or at least that’s how Bouchra Moujtahid explains a major cultural difference between Arabic, Japanese, and English speakers (4). Because the Arabic and Japanese cultures both rely heavily on politeness, the implications of directly saying no are being considered rude and insulting. This difference in cultural meanings of words is merely a small example of a larger issue – the grammatical rules and clarity of language as they translate from another language to English for an ESL student rely on cultural rules that may result in difficulty bringing a writer from a Japanese or Arabic background into the English stylistic rules. Moujtahid cites the idea of organization and syllogistic reasoning. In English writing, syllogistic reasoning is the basis for a logical and well-written academic essay. A claim is made and then clearly and logically argued and supported. Moujtahid explains, however, that in Japanese culture, writing in this style would be considered boring and simplistic (4). Because Japanese writing focuses on moments of brilliant insight, clearly explaining how those insights were reached would detract from their spontaneous brilliance. Because of this cultural difference, I can see potentially insulting a Japanese student or demeaning their work (unintentionally, of course) by asking them to clearly explain how they reached the conclusion they stated or how their ideas interconnect. As a matter of fact, according to Moujtahid, pressing a Japanese writer for exactness could be seen as “extremely offensive” because the Japanese have a culture of ambiguity (4). Especially in a system where traditional modes of polite recognition (like the Japanese honorific system) do not translate, it would be incredibly easily to accidentally insult a Japanese student when they are already uncomfortable. Though I certainly wouldn’t mind being addressed as “sempai” if it would make a Japanese student feel more comfortable. It would probably make me feel special. I focused a lot more on the Japanese cultural elements than the Arabic, because there were some elements of the Japanese culture that I already understood which put these ideas in context. The idea that I most drew from this article, however, was that an understanding of the culture behind a student’s writing can explain the reasons for the stylistic choices they made and can also help a consultant figure out how to address these issues in a way that will both make sense and not insult the culture the ESL student is coming from. And that seems kind of important.

Prospectus: The Poli Sci Major and the Writing Center

Because Political Science is likely my major, and because I have had a significant amount of interaction with the department, it made sense for me to do my final project on the Political Science Writing in the Disciplines page on Writer’s Web (http://writing2.richmond.edu/writing/wweb/polisci/index.html). The current page already contains faculty advice and information on how papers are generally assessed in the discipline. There are still several ways in which I hope to increase the scope of the page. The first way I would like to expand the site is by incorporating information on APSA (American Political Science Association) citation, which would also probably link back to the original Writer’s Web citation page, because there is apparently a problem surrounding a lack of knowledge of the citation style. Luckily, there are several websites online with information on APSA citation. I would also like to incorporate rubrics and, potentially, dissected assignment sheets, since Kendall emphasizes the importance of understanding and decoding an assignment sheet to gather insight into the expectations of the assignments (3). I would also like to incorporate, with professors’ and writers’ permission, old papers with written commentary. Posting these on the Political Science site will demonstrate what a well-argued, organized, clear and precise paper looks like, because several professors explained that those are the major criteria they seek in Political Science papers (http://writing2.richmond.edu/writing/wweb/polisci/grading.html). Aside from that, including commentary will help remove the stigma of professorial commentary as “negative criticism” and “unproductive pronouncements about [students’] failings” (McGlaun 5). It will provide, hopefully, examples of useful, clear, and critical (though most likely directive) commentary that will help to clarify professors’ expectations for future students. And though directive commentary can often appear overbearing, from a professor, it is more acceptable from a professor and, as Straub points out, can often be helpful (233).

Fear and Loathing in the Writing Center

I think I have admitted before that I am often bothered by bad grammar. I’m also really bothered by sloppy word choice and awkward sentence structures. Sometimes, in fact, I am so bothered by these smaller issues that I get distracted from looking at the larger picture. A mistake like that can really mar a well thought-out paper.

My biggest fear as a consultant, though, is probably letting a smaller error that I shouldn’t waste my time on distract me from a larger issue. I kind of felt like this happened a lot with one of the essays I was working with in a tutoring session last week. The writer used the passive voice. A lot. To the point that her use of the passive voice was distracting me from the points she was trying to make because I was actually getting lost in her sentences. While that may be a grammatical issue that needs to be addressed, because it subverts meaning and clarity, there were other smaller issues that were irritating me as well. Lazy word choice that didn’t adequately make the point. Contractions in formal writing. Simple things that the writer should be able to fix on her own anyway. But in getting so fixated on them, I almost missed the fact that her thesis wasn’t really making a point.

The best way to prepare myself for this is, honestly, probably to try and desensitize myself to the immediate urge to take a red pen to a grammatically messy paper. I have also found that reading through a draft more than once helps me get around this issue slightly. While the smaller issues tend to taint my first view of the draft and also tend to distract me from the larger picture, a lot of times the second read through allows me to look at the larger arguments being made. Though the grammar and conventions may have initially detracted from my understanding and my ability to look at a paper for its central arguments, a second read through tends to make things clearer and helps me really focus on the more serious issues.