How to Get Feedback On Your Writing

Contrary to popular belief, reading alone will not improve your writing.  Sure, your vocabulary will increase (if you take the time to look up the words!) and you will see writing that is well crafted (depending on what it is that you read).

Writing alone isn't enough to help you improve; you need FEEDBACK.

Before you go and say "Wait a minute! I get feedback all the time and it hasn't done me a bit of good," allow me to clarify what exactly I mean by feedback.

What Feedback IS and ISN'T

Feedback, in its most broad sense, is any response to some process or activity. For our purposes, the "process or activity" is writing. Much harder to nail down is what exactly constitutes a "response" to writing that will help a person improve said writing.

NOT helpful:

• Your parent cooing over his/her child's latest "masterpiece."
• Your friend giving your paper a quick one-over and saying "Looks fine to me."
• Comments (from friends, family, strangers, bosses, even teachers!) such as "Good" or "I like it."

MORE helpful:

• Any comment explaining WHY someone did or did not like your work.
• Any comment pointing out WHAT about your writing is good or bad.

Surprisingly (or not), the kind of feedback that is most beneficial to writers is the kind of feedback that is most beneficial to non-writers as well.

Why Feedback is Important

Without any input about your output, there is absolutely no reason to believe you would change anything you are doing enough to significantly alter your product.

For example, say you throw some ingredients together into a bowl and two hours later have a vanilla cake. Unfortunately, one of the ingredients that did not make it into that bowl was vanilla extract. Even more unfortunately, you didn't taste your cake before serving it to people eagerly anticipating vanilla flavored cake.

Now let's assume you made enough batter for as many more vanilla cakes as you want to bake. Unless someone tells you that your vanilla cake is lacking in the vanilla department, you won't know to add vanilla extract to the batter. "I don't like your cake" just isn't going to cut it when it comes to helping you improve your recipe.

Online Sites to Get Feedback on Your Writing

Now that you know why you simply cannot mature as a writer without receiving constructive criticism about your writing, here are some sites to help you GET that feedback (listed in no particular order):

Absolute Write - http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums You can post your academic essays on the forum titled “The Soapbox (P&CE Writing Lab),” or you can look at the essays already posted to get inspiration for research paper topics and/or to see models of essay writing (and what readers look for in essays). This website provides SO much more than just a forum to post your essays. There's a forum for practically every aspect and genre of writing!

Essay Forum - http://www.essayforum.com This forum deals exclusively with academic essays. Since it's free, don't expect to get a reply immediately (scroll through and see how many essays are still waiting for someone to comment). Even though you have to be patient for feedback, it's better than nothing if you have no one else you can turn to for essay writing help.

Writing Forums - http://www.writingforums.org Scroll down to the “Non-Fiction” essay and see the subsection labeled “Essays.” The number of other forums the site has for general writing help is worth noting.

Fiction Press - http://www.fictionpress.com Go to the “Essay” section to find the academic essays. Again, be aware of how many essays on the site actually ever get reviewed.

Write, Submit, Get Feedback! - http://www.tutorwriting.com This young woman is actually offering her FREE tutoring services online for essays. You e-mail her your essay and if she chooses to use it on her blog, she'll e-mail you back and give you in-depth feedback for how to improve your writing assignment. Look through her previous blog posts for great examples of writing that needs improvement and the very useful advice she gives to each writer.

Booksie - http://www.booksie.com This site is mainly used for writers of fiction works to get feedback on their writing. If you go to the “Non-Fiction” section, though, you'll find subsections for essays and articles.

Critique Circle - http://www.critiquecircle.com This site is ONLY for non-academic stories. If you enjoyed the creative writing assignment and want to continue to write short stories but cannot or don't want to take a formal class, this site will provide you with the feedback you'll need in order to improve.

Keep in mind that if you post your work online, you must be able to prove YOU are the original author of the work because your writing WILL be found through general search engines (leaving you open to accusations of plagiarism).




Photo credit: Karl Horton

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Interjections: The Nitty Gritty

Believe it or not, there are words that we use everyday that have no grammatical significance whatsoever. Syntactically, they do not exist. These marvels of communication are called interjections.

Interjections Defined

Interjections are words or short phrases used to show emotion and have no grammatical connection to the rest of the sentence.

Don't let the formal definition throw you off; we use these words all the time in casual conversation.  In fact, most people can't go a single day without uttering an interjection!  The following are a few examples:

• Darn
• Eh
• Hey
• Oh
• Oops
• Ta da
• Well
• Wow
• Yay

Punctuating Interjections

What you might not have known (or perhaps have forgotten) is that interjections should always be set off by commas. They are, after all, non-essential to the sentence.*

Let's look at how the aforementioned interjections would be punctuated as part of a complete sentence:

Darn! I left the milk out on the counter again!
I'd like some rice and, oh, some broccoli too.
That Sharon is somethin' else, eh?

Notice in the preceding examples that interjections can occur anywhere in a sentence, not only in the beginning. Also note that they can be followed by a variety of punctuation marks. When being used as an exclamation of excitement (!) or as an interrogative word (?), it's not difficult to figure out which punctuation mark to follow the interjection with. The tricky part is remembering to set them off with commas when they occur inside a sentence.

The key to remembering to put those commas before and after interjections is to think about how interjections are actually spoken. Almost every time you use an interjection, you pause for a fraction of a moment before and after uttering it.

If I've helped even just one person understand what interjections are and how to punctuate them, this post will have been well worth it.

*Stay tuned for a post explaining non-essential sentence clauses!

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Why Clichés Should Be Avoided

One of the hardest tasks any writer faces is coming up with the right words to accurately and completely describe a situation, person, or thing. Sometimes it may feel like no amount of time searching the recesses of your mind for obscure word pairings will result in finding just the right combination to fit your need.

Whatever you do, do NOT resort to using a cliché.

It may seem like an easy solution to the problem at hand, but using clichés in your writing is actually one of the worst things you can do. Here's why:

Clichés imply you lack the creativity to come up with something original.

Even using a bland combination of words to get your point across is better than giving a teacher, college/scholarship acceptance committee, or potential employer the impression that you are too unimaginative (or even lazy!) to come up with an original description.

The successful avoidance of clichés is a topic that cannot be contained within a single blog post.  Definitely expect to see more about how to navigate your way through (and find alternatives for) the old, worn-out phrases of the English language.

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Getting in Touch With Me

Comments (both good and bad), suggestions, and questions are always welcome.  Feel free to e-mail me anytime at: Carmen@writingsimplified.com

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7 Great Citation Resources

Properly citing a source of information is something that seems to exist only in academia.  It doesn't have to (and shouldn't!) be that way. There are resources online that will create a perfectly formatted citation for you in considerably less time than it takes to look it up the old fashioned way.  If that's not appealing, I don't know what is!

These magical time-saving tools are called citation generators.

Why is a writing instructor endorsing the use of these tools? Because I don't care HOW you get the citations, just as long as you HAVE  them. The easier attributing a source becomes, the more people will start citing their references.
 

The following is a list (in no particular order) of web pages and applications that will help you cite sources in a variety of citation styles.

Citation Builder	This online tool will let you cite in MLA, APA, CSE, and Chicago style. The variety of sources (e.g. cartoon, e-mail, MUD posting, musical composition, etc.) that you can choose from is almost too good to be true!
Citation Center	This automated citation generator is a little less intuitive than the others on this list. It offers MLA, APA, and Turabian styles.
Citation Maker	Simple and easy to use, this tool will create MLA and APA style citations. Don't forget to save your work!
EasyBib	This webpage will create an MLA style bibliography for you that you can then export to Word.
KnightCite	Available only for MLA style citations, this tool covers almost every kind of source possible. Click on the resource options down the left-hand side column.
NoodleBib Express	The Express version of NoodleBib is free to use to generate MLA, APA, and Chicago/Turabian citations. Not being able to save your work isn't a problem; just copy and paste the citations you generate into your document.
Zotero	A behemoth of a research tool, this Firefox extension allows you to store, manage, and cite your sources.

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The Blogger Behind the Blog

Welcome to Writing Simplified! My name is Carmen Seitan and I'll be your hostess during your visit here.

Who is Carmen?

I am a lover of language who spends my days teaching English composition to community college students.  I actually began this blog to help my mom improve her writing.  After a while, I realized my students could benefit from seeing some of my posts as well. 

O.k., but what gives you the right to tell others how to write?

I'm glad you asked! In a day and age when anyone can write anything about everything, it's absolutely essential to question the veracity of every single thing you read online.  Far too many people accept everything they read as fact without stopping to question who wrote the piece and for what purpose. 

Here's what gives me the “right” to consider myself an authority on the subject of writing:

• I have a Bachelor's degree in Linguistics
• I have a Master's degree in Linguistics
• I teach English Composition at the college level
• I am passionate about helping others improve their writing (It sounds cheesy, but it’s actually true :P). 

We live in a literate society where you have to know how to read and write to get around at all. You have to know how to read and write well to get ahead. If I can help just one person improve their circumstances, I'll have done my part to make this world a better place.

Everyone wants to make a difference, to leave their mark on this world. This blog is my way of doing just that.

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Writing Made Simple

The vast majority of people fail to appreciate just how important knowing how to write (and doing it well) is. There is not an occupation that exists that does not utilize writing in some form.

Quality writing is becoming harder and harder to find in modern literature. It doesn't have to be confined to dusty bookshelves of a pre-internet era, however. The web has given us tools that make writing more accessible than ever before.

My goal is to create a website that will become one of those tools that people can turn to for help with writing. So, for those of you who want to improve your writing skills, I invite you to sit back and enjoy Writing Simplified!

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