Writing Tips: Keeping Things Clear, Part 1

Academic essays and reports are serious documents.  But while it’s good to keep your writing formal, it’s also important to make it crisp and clear – that is, to avoid crafting sentences that are unnecessarily vague, wordy or pompous.

What makes a sentence clear?  For one thing, readers tend to respond well to statements that feature a clear, concrete actor and a simple, vivid action.   That’s because such sentences are like miniature stories – they’re easily imaginable.

One way to keep the actor clear is to place it at the front of the statement: that is, to avoid the passive voice unless it’s absolutely necessary.  

Consider this: These findings have been challenged, and a number of alternative hypotheses have been suggested, by Smith (2010).

Heavy, thick, murky – right?  Now consider this: Smith (2010) challenged these findings.  She suggested several other hypotheses, including….

See how the second version comes to life? 

Check out this video from Brian Wasko for a helpful discussion of the passive voice:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_YddWkps-A

Congratulations to Michael Wong! U of A’s top undergraduate student convocated this June and exemplifies the qualities of a ‘strategic learner.’ Wong says he was driven by ‘true motivation’ – enjoying the process of learning: ‘The good grades are nice, but they were never my end goal. It really comes down to being interested in the things I’m studying. I never let myself feel like school work was a chore.’ Read more at http://tinyurl.com/mgmtfvp

How can we challenge our own self-handicapping?

Writing about motivation in elite youth athletes, Larry Lauer, PhD, of the Michigan Youth Sports Institute, describes several strategies for addressing self-handicapping. With self-awareness being an important first step, Lauer’s strategies are adapted here for the university setting:

• Use the right kind of self-talk: Avoid comparing yourself too much to the “competition,” negatively or positively. In university, an overconfident “I’m so much smarter than everyone else” is just as likely as a negative “dumbest in the class” thought to derail your optimal exam performance. Focus on what you can do.
• Know how your mind races: Many athletes and students describe how their minds race when they think about an exam or race, often worrying about the “what if” scenarios or what could be. Make lists of the things you can control and those you can’t. Then think about what you can do to enhance the things you do control – you’ll never be able to control the others, only prepare for them as best you can.
• Develop and Rehearse “proxy thoughts” to keep it real: Negative thoughts can cause your exam stress to skyrocket and impede your ability to focus. Develop alternative positive (and realistic) messages to replace the negative ones – I am prepared, focused, etc.
• Use rhythm and routines to your advantage: not having a predictable routine makes focusing on exams all the more difficult. Find a routine that works for you, and stick to it!

Check out Lauer’s complete article here: http://www.podiumsportsjournal.com/2011/08/25/overcoming-a-tough-competitor-self-handicapping/.

Why do we self-handicap?

Put simply, self-handicappers are their own worst enemies. They select alternatives that impair future performance (Berglas & Jones, 1978), and that specifically impact performance that they value in some way (Zuckerman, Keiffer, & Knee, 1998). Self-handicapping helps us avoid failure, or concerns about failure and success, and often does so with excuses that can be hard to dispute and challenging to unravel.

For instance, when a student is called upon to provide evidence of an ability about which they are uncertain, the student may choose to come up with a number of ways to avoid the situation and preserve their self-esteem. They may prepare a number of excuses as to why they cannot perform the task or why they cannot attend the class or meeting, they may become physically ill with flu-like symptoms, or they may invent a crisis that takes them away from having to deal with the situation. Or they may prepare a credible lie to avoid the truth.

Here are some behaviours students may engage in: 

• procrastination
• drug or alcohol use
• lack of sleep due to cramming for an exam
• over-involvement with friends who have problems
• family crisis (the problem was there before but now is really a problem even though nothing has really changed)
• cleaning their living space before the exam to avoid studying
• long term anxiety that causes the student to seek help at the last minute

Focusing on why we want to avoid a situation and valuing one’s own ongoing effort – rather than external perspectives and demands – can help minimize these self-sabotaging behaviours.

The relationship between increasing study time and improving test performance

Many studies have now confirmed that there a poor relationship between the amount of time a student spends studying and exam out comes. In other words, the more time you spend studying does not necessarily mean your grades will be higher. Of course, it is important to study your course material, but your learning outcomes will be determined by the quality of your studying as well as your versatility in using a wide range of study strategies.Retrieved from:  http://works.bepress.com/nola_perdie/41. 04/18/2013.

Ever wonder why it might take you so long to get your reading/studying done?

An interesting study done using IMs showed that students who answered their messages while reading a 5 page article in a psychology class took almost double the time to read the article than those students who did not respond to any incoming messages.

Although the grades on the test the next day didn’t differ for each to the groups, the amount of time reading and studying did. A number of the students who responded to their messages in class had to spend extra time reading the material to get through it.

HOT TIP: Turn off your phone, email, and other digital messaging systems before you start to read or study. You will take less time to study if you focus on your reading rather than trying to focus on more than one thing at a time.

Is memory like a recording or a video?

We tend to think of memory as a kind of library that holds a record of events and facts the can be retrieved as needed.  But this is not an accurate description of memory at all. Memory reinvents itself all the time. Every time you remember something, you change it a little bit. The reason for this is that your memory is always a mixture of many factors influencing the past event - images, words, feelings, facts, fiction – and so the way you feel today as you recall that past event may be different than the way you felt yesterday about it. Those different feelings or images will change the way you encode the memory. Memory really is a re-collection, not an exact replica of an event.

www.Scientific American.com . Speaking of Memory: Q & A with Neuroscientist Eric Kandel. Retrieved 04/17/2013.