• In this section you will learn strategies for responding usefully and respectfully to others’ writing.

    Why?

    Responding usefully to others’ writing not only helps you help others; it also helps you learn how to read and revise your own writing.

    How?

    Click the five “LearnIt” tabs to read paper drafts from four students and practice responding—and to receive feedback to your responses and see how teachers respond.

    • Hints and Tips for reading drafts

      Click the options below to learn more.

      • Know what kinds of feedback the writer needs.
      • If a writer needs feedback on the order of ideas, it is useless to correct spelling because the words you correct might go away in the revision. If a writer asks for help and does not specify what kind, ask. (By asking, you also help the writer to articulate what the writing needs.)
      • Read twice.
      • Take notes during a first reading, while you get a sense of what the writer is trying to do. Then reread, looking for what in the writing most supports what the writing is trying to do, and for the parts that aren’t as supportive. Then write comments.
      • Read generously.
      • Keep in mind that you are responding, not criticizing. Look for what works in the writing as well as for what could be stronger in support of the paper’s purpose. Telling a writer what works in a paper, and why, is as useful as telling a writer what could be stronger.
      • Read rhetorically.
      • As you read, look for how the writing supports the writer’s purpose and for how the writing helps a writer connect with the audience. Also consider whether the order of ideas and paragraphs best helps readers follow the writer’s argument. Giving feedback on these matters helps writers develop more effective writing—and helps you develop abilities for making your own writing more effective.

      Hey! I’m Ajay and I’ve really gotten into this paper. I’m really getting interested in

      whether students should think of themselves as customers.

      When you read my draft, please let me know if you can tell what my argument is. And

      have I provided enough evidence?

      And please let me know if there’s enough transitions to help you understand why my

      paragraphs are ordered as they are.

      And anything else you can think of. I really want to get this right.

      Ajay Chaudry
      Professor Wysocki
      English 102
      April 21, 2013
      DRAFT: Are students customers?
      Here is a quotation from a college student:
      Students are most definitely customers. We pay don’t we? And isn’t that one of the
      definitions of a customer: “Someone who pays for a service”? We pay the university
      for the service of teaching classes, so we can attend the classes and earn a degree.
      (Denning)
      I guess I had never thought about it before, but it was strange when I heard people in my
      class complaining about not getting good grades because they’d paid a lot of money to go
      to school. What does it mean to think of school as a place where we buy something, where
      we are customers?
      According to the dictionary, students learn something, customers buy something. But
      when I read more about “students” and “customers” in academic journals, I learned that
      what they learn and what they buy are very different things—and I realized that most of
      the time we shouldn’t think of students as customers.
      According to my readings, it’s the TQM movement that got people to think of students
      as customers. According to George O. Tasie, TQM started with businesses:
      The total quality management (TQM), born in the 1930s among the management
      circles in the United States and nurtured in post World War II Japanese business
      and industrial communities, has spread rapidly through higher education in
      various parts of the world during the past decade. There is no single theoretical
      formalization of TQM, but the American quality gurus, Deming and Juran, and the
      Japanese writer, Ishikawa, provided a set of core assumptions and specific
      principles of management which can be synthesized into a coherent framework…
      TQM is a business discipline and philosophy of management which
      institutionalizes planned and continuous business improvement. The real test of
      quality management is its ability to satisfy customers in the marketplace. (310)
      So that’s how the notion of “student as customer” came into universities and colleges,
      along with some how TQM works: The customer is placed first.
      Some of the articles I read argue that sometimes it is right to think of students as
      customers. “The areas of institutions that conduct discrete business-like transactions—
      e.g., student services, registration, food services, maintenance—do seem amenable to
      streamlining and improvement via TQM methods” (Schwartzman, 216). But most of the
      articles I read on this topic argue that students should not be customers. “Students lack the
      expertise to judge exactly what constitutes quality in a particular subject, although they
      certainly have the competence to recognize degrees of courtesy, promptness, and
      reliability that generalize across disciplines.” (Schwartzman 220)
      When the writers I read argued about what we shouldn’t think of students as
      customers, they started by asking how a student might be a customer. If a student is a
      customer, what is the product a student is buying? Some writers also ask who the customer
      of education really is.
      But the most important question is how education is like the kind of products we all
      buy every day, like hamburgers or hair products. When I buy a hamburger, I don’t have to
      do anything. I stand at the counter, place my order, and they give me a hamburger. I eat it.
      That’s it. But the articles I read argue that an education isn’t consumed all at once—and
      that students have to have a part in making an education happen. Many of the articles I
      read also argue that education is a process, not a product:
      Business, typically speaking, is product oriented, although the product is often the
      delivery of a service. Education, by contrast, is process oriented in that it ideally
      seeks to train people to continue to educate themselves. Thus, a high quality
      experience or outcome can really only be assessed well over time and in multiple
      ways. Consumers engage in many discrete transactions, always with an identifiable
      product or service about which they can say, “I bought this.” However, when
      seeking an education, students do not buy a specific product or service external to
      themselves, except for books and supplies. Further, the quantifiable results of
      education--salary earned, positions obtained, rewards gleaned--are not the only
      objectives here. Rather, our students contract with us to be challenged and to
      exceed their previous intellectual limits. Unlike consumers, students never really
      get an education. They, like all of us, are involved in the process of becoming wiser.
      (Cheney, McMillan, and Schwartzman)
      My sources also argue that learning is very different from consuming because
      Satisfying learners often runs counter to the conditions necessary for learning
      because learning often involves some discomfort, disequilibrium, and challenge.
      Students learn through the cognitive conflicts that occur when they face new points
      of view, new information, and new perspectives. Students learn when they are
      encouraged to reflect actively on the information that is unfamiliar and initially
      illogical or even threatening. In such situations, the dynamic tension created
      between the known and the new causes new thinking, analysis and reevaluation.
      (Tasie, 312)
      Education is supposed to be uncomfortable because it challenges and changes us. “The
      teacher is not there to satisfy the student but to dissatisfy; not to provide but to demand.“
      (Love, 28)
      What are effects on students when they think of themselves as customers? Some
      articles argue that thinking of themselves as customers make students more passive.
      Students speak about how lecturers should be responsible for capturing and
      holding their interest. While lecturers have a clear responsibility to offer
      appropriate guidance and support and to present their material in interesting and
      pedagogically sound ways, there is a passivity implied in some of the students’
      responses that raises questions about how students are seeing themselves as
      learners. (White 599).
      Or: “The stance is of ‘the customer’ who has minimal obligation to engage and contribute a
      satisfactory outcome, and who irrespective of the contribution made, has an entitlement to
      satisfaction with the service being provided.” (White 600)
      Other articles argue that when students think of themselves as consumers, they want
      immediate satisfaction, even though education takes time:
      …with the business model comes this seemingly inexorable need to ‘get faster,’
      resulting in a form of temporal disjunction between competing educational
      models. The business ideal, with its customer orientation, calls for constant change
      and rapid response, resulting in an educational sector that is ‘[o]bsessed by
      cultivating the ability to stay on top of the latest trends.’ Lasch points out that
      under such circumstances practitioners ‘find it difficult to imagine a community of
      learning that reaches into both the past and the future and is constituted by an
      awareness of intergenerational obligation.’ Education is divested of its heritage and
      revalued; it is deemed useful only in as much as it can respond to the business
      needs of the moment. (Love 21)
      But the effect is not just on students. I found a blog comment where someone claimed that
      “When students are ‘customers,’ the academic institution becomes a business, seeking to
      maximize profits, rather than educate.” When the university is a business, it becomes
      concerned with numbers: How many students can we teach?
      All of this leads me to think that it is more important to ask: Who am I in school—and
      what am I becoming? What do I think I should be—what should my attitudes be—toward
      learning and a noble self? The readings, while frustrating, also seemed to call at me to push
      myself to be something other than someone who buys.

      WORKS CITED

      Cheney, George, Jill J. McMillan, and Roy Schwartzman. “Should We Buy the ‘Student-As-Consumer’ Metaphor?” Montana Professor 7.3 (1997): 8-11. Web. Denning, Peter J. “Are Students Customers, or Not?” Oct. 12 2002. Web. 4 May 2012. http://cs.gmu.edu/cne/pjd/PUBS/StudentsCustomers.pdf Love, Kevin. “Higher Education, Pedagogy and the ‘Customerisation’ of Teaching and Learning.” Journal of Philosophy of Education 42.1 (2008): 15–34. Print. Schwartzman, Roy. “Are Students Customers? The Metaphoric Mismatch between Management and Education.” Education 116.2 (1995): 215-222. Education Research Complete. 3 May 2012. Tasie, George O. “Analytical observations of the applicability of the concept of student-as-customer in a university setting.” Educational Research and Reviews 5.6 (2010): 309–13. Academic Journals. Web. 5 May 2012. White, Naomi Rosh. “‘The customer is always right?’: Student discourse about higher education in Australia.” Higher Education 54.4 (2007): 593–604. Academic Search Complete. Web. 5 May 2012.

      Hi! I’m Ajay. Thanks for being willing to read my draft.

      Click the pages to the left to read hints & tips on reading drafts, and then read my notes on the feedback I think I need now.

      Then—read my draft!

    • Dear Ajay,

      • This was fun to read! Your writing has a conversational and questioning tone, and that pulled me in and made me have a sense of YOU thinking. That ethos made me want to follow how you were thinking. (And, yeah, your transitions helped for that. They helped me see why you were moving from one paragraph to the next: I almost always felt like I knew what you were doing and why.)
      • This was fun to read! I wish I could write like you.
      • Thanks for starting with words from an angry student! I can so identify. I am angry about how much I have to pay and I’m getting nothing out of it.
      • Mostly I liked reading this, but some of those long quotations really got in the way. I’ve been working hard in my own writing on summarizing and integrating others’ ideas, and so maybe I’m more sensitive to this when I see it. But remember that conversation we had in class about introducing quotations and about summarizing? I think your argument would be stronger if you did more of that in your revision.
      • I don’t like it that I keep going into debt and what am I getting out of it? I haven’t earned any As and look at all the money I am putting in! Why don’t you say more about that? That’s what I am interested in.
      • You asked if I could tell what your argument is. It sounds as though you want us to see that thinking of ourselves as customers gets in the way of us really benefitting from school. I liked a lot how you appeal to our desire to be better—even noble!—people. I got sucked in by that, and it made me start thinking about what I think I should be getting out of school.
      • Your argument looks to be that being a student is very different from being a customer. And that if we really want to learn and become better humans that we need to back away from being customers. But I wish more of that were in your own words. All those long quotations shift the tone of voice and make it harder to read.
      • I like how you help me think about how students and customers are different. I didn’t see anything wrong in your grammar, but I wonder if Teacher will like how informal your tone sometimes is.
      • I like how you end with questions. And you make me want to be noble! No one’s ever talked to me like that before. Thank you!
      • I’m really impressed by your sources. There’s some serious sounding titles in there, and when I look at those sources I feel like your argument must be pretty authoritative.
      • So I wish you’d write more about why school costs so much and how come teachers don’t treat us better because of how expensive this is!
      • Because of what I think your argument is, I honestly don’t think you need that TQM stuff. It was interesting, but I don’t think it helped your argument. We all know people who act like customers in school because of how much school costs, and so you don’t need that history. If you were to take that out, you would have more room to describe the differences between what is supposed to happen in school and what is supposed to happen in stores. I think you could do more with those questions you ask in your last paragraph—those really made me think!

      I hope this is helpful to you. Let me know.

    • Your Feedback

      Please go back to step number two and leave feedback for paragraphs 1, 2 and 3. Be sure to sign your name as well.

      Dear Ajay,

      • This was fun to read! Your writing has a conversational and questioning tone, and that pulled me in and made me have a sense of YOU thinking. That ethos made me want to follow how you were thinking. (And, yeah, your transitions helped for that. They helped me see why you were moving from one paragraph to the next: I almost always felt like I knew what you were doing and why.)
      • This was fun to read! I wish I could write like you.
      • Thanks for starting with words from an angry student! I can so identify. I am angry about how much I have to pay and I’m getting nothing out of it.
      • Mostly I liked reading this, but some of those long quotations really got in the way. I’ve been working hard in my own writing on summarizing and integrating others’ ideas, and so maybe I’m more sensitive to this when I see it. But remember that conversation we had in class about introducing quotations and about summarizing? I think your argument would be stronger if you did more of that in your revision.
      • I don’t like it that I keep going into debt and what am I getting out of it? I haven’t earned any As and look at all the money I am putting in! Why don’t you say more about that? That’s what I am interested in.
      • You asked if I could tell what your argument is. It sounds as though you want us to see that thinking of ourselves as customers gets in the way of us really benefitting from school. I liked a lot how you appeal to our desire to be better—even noble!—people. I got sucked in by that, and it made me start thinking about what I think I should be getting out of school.
      • Your argument looks to be that being a student is very different from being a customer. And that if we really want to learn and become better humans that we need to back away from being customers. But I wish more of that were in your own words. All those long quotations shift the tone of voice and make it harder to read.
      • I like how you help me think about how students and customers are different. I didn’t see anything wrong in your grammar, but I wonder if Teacher will like how informal your tone sometimes is.
      • I like how you end with questions. And you make me want to be noble! No one’s ever talked to me like that before. Thank you!
      • I’m really impressed by your sources. There’s some serious sounding titles in there, and when I look at those sources I feel like your argument must be pretty authoritative.
      • So I wish you’d write more about why school costs so much and how come teachers don’t treat us better because of how expensive this is!
      • Because of what I think your argument is, I honestly don’t think you need that TQM stuff. It was interesting, but I don’t think it helped your argument. We all know people who act like customers in school because of how much school costs, and so you don’t need that history. If you were to take that out, you would have more room to describe the differences between what is supposed to happen in school and what is supposed to happen in stores. I think you could do more with those questions you ask in your last paragraph—those really made me think!

      I hope this is helpful to you. Let me know.

      Ajay's response to your feedback

      Dear ,

      Thanks for reading my first draft.

      • THANKS for this feedback on my tone and transitions. I was worried that my tone was too conversational (and I am curious about what Professor Wysocki says about it) — but I really was using this writing to think out loud, like Professor says we are supposed to.
      • Hey, thanks! Would you send me an e-mail telling me what you liked about my writing? I don’t know yet what works in it, so that would help me a lot.
      • Hey, I’m sorry you don’t like school. I guess my argument about how learning can help us be better people didn’t come through?
      • THANK YOU for letting me know that the long quotations get in the way. I don’t feel like I have any authority for saying this stuff (especially since I really feel like I’m stretching to make an argument that sounds important). I’m nervous about summarizing. So I guess I just have to do it, huh?
      • You know, I really wasn’t writing about how expensive school is. I mean, yeah, school is expensive, but I am trying to figure out if it’s bad to think of ourselves as customers. Do you think there’s a way I could make that clearer in my writing?
      • This is so good to hear. You say clearly the general shape of what I want to do in this paper. And your comment about how I appeal to “our desire to be better”—I hadn’t really thought about that, so you’ve given me something to think about in my revision, whether I should emphasize that.
      • This is all so good to hear. You say clearly the general shape of what I want to do in this paper. And, yeah, I guess I have to face up to summarizing my sources. It makes me nervous, but I also want this paper to read well.
      • So you are seeing in general what I am doing, that students and customers are different. Is there anything I could have done to have made you care more about why it matters that they are different? And, yes, I too am waiting to hear whether Professor Wysocki thinks my tone is too informal.
      • It’s cool to know that ending with questions works for you. Could you let me know if anything else about the ending worked, or if the paper built up well to that ending?
      • I did work hard to find those sources. It took longer than I thought—and I think I might need some more because I think I still need to develop why being students (instead of customers) matters. Do you think that part of my argument needs more support?
      • Um, I hate to say this, but this isn’t at all what my paper is about, really. I mean, it sucks that school is so expensive, but that’s a different argument! What do you think about the argument I actually did write?
      • This feedback about the TQM stuff is really helpful. You are helping me see that I really don’t need that history. If I take that out (and do more summarizing of my other sources) then I can put more time into explaining why being a student is important. And I’m hearing from others that those questions at the end are helpful, so I think I need to stay with that.

      Thanks,

      • Ajay

      • Dear Ajay,

        Your writing works as a first draft. I can see that you are building an argument about why we need to pay more attention to differences between learning and buying.

        I think your argument is a bit buried in your writing now, though, for three reasons:

        1. You use up a lot of space describing how the Total Quality Movement contributed to why schools think of their students as customers. How do you think that background helps your readers understand why thinking of students as students—and not as customers—matters?
        2. Right now, your writing is mighty close to being what writing teachers call “patch writing.” Patch writing results when writers string together quotations they’ve copied from their sources. Often this happens when writers don’t have the confidence they should in their own writing. But I know from all your preceding work that you have done good research and have a solid idea of why your ideas matter. So have the confidence your hard work deserves!
        3. Following from points 1 and 2, then: There are not yet enough of your ideas and argument in your draft. Given your thesis statement, I think you need to spend more time making clear to readers why we should be worried when students are seen—by themselves and by their schools—as customers. (And maybe a few more sources would help you find more supporting ideas?)

        I look forward to seeing your revisions, based on this good start and the ideas you have been developing.

        Sincerely,
        your professor, Anne Wysocki

      • Hi Ajay,

        Given that your classmates are your audience, I think you have both an intriguing topic for them and an appropriate way of pulling them in with your introductory question.

        As you revise, I want to encourage you to summarize more! I know from your work in class how well you read and can summarize, so I hope you will do that important work in this paper. I encourage this because I don’t think you yet provide sufficient evidence to lead to your ending: you spend so much time with long quotations that you give up space for your own thinking. You do indeed start to describe how an education is not like a product we can buy at any store, but just as you get warmed up, you run out of space. Consequently, the questions you ask in your conclusion (though inspiring!) come a bit out of nowhere.

        I think those questions probably do get your readers thinking, but I wonder how much stronger they would be if you led up to them more both with more evidence in in using some of that same inspiring tone a little bit earlier.

        Please come chat if you have any questions.

        Thanks,
        Professor Lynch

    • Hints and Tips for reading drafts

      Click the options below to learn more.

      • Know what kinds of feedback the writer needs.
      • If a writer needs feedback on the order of ideas it is useless to correct spelling because the words you correct might go away in the revision. If a writer asks for help and does not specify what kind, ask. (By asking, you also help the writer to articulate what the writing needs.)
      • Read twice.
      • Take notes during a first reading, while you get a sense of what the writer is trying to do. Then reread, looking for what in the writing most supports what the writing is trying to do, and for the parts that aren’t as supportive. Then write comments.
      • Read generously.
      • Keep in mind that you are responding, not criticizing. Look for what works in the writing as well as for what could be stronger in support of the paper’s purpose. Telling a writer what works in a paper, and why, is as useful as telling a writer what could be stronger.
      • Read rhetorically.
      • As you read, look for how the writing supports the writer’s purpose and for how the writing helps a writer connect with the audience. Also consider whether the order of ideas and paragraphs best helps readers follow the writer’s argument. Giving feedback on these matters helps writers develop more effective writing—and helps you develop abilities for making your own writing more effective.

      Hey!

      I think I need the most help with these things:

      • Can you summarize my argument in one sentence, so I can see if my argument is coming through?
      • I used a lot of quotations from my sources because I think they bring authority to my paper. Do you think there are too many quotations?
      • I started my paper with a quotation from one of the women helped by microloans because I want to be sure my readers are moved by my argument. Does this work for you?

      Thanks,
      Riley

      Riley M. Savage
      ENG2001
      17 Nov. 2013
      Money Makes the World Go Round
      Says Nyamba Konate, a USAID microloan beneficiary, “I can now ensure that my
      children go to school, and I can better support my husband by buying food and stocking
      it to get us through the difficult rainy season.” (“Microloans and Literacy")
       
      Everyone wants poverty to go away, and microloans have been described as one way to
      do this.
      A Google search with “microloan” gets over 2,000,000 hits, many to organizations that
      offer very small loans to people who otherwise would not qualify for traditional bank loans. The
      websites tell stories of the changes microloans can make in the lives of poor women all over the
      world. But anyone who thinks microloans are always good has obviously not read enough.
      Grameen Bank was the first to give microcredit.
      The inspiration for Grameen Bank came to Dr. Yunus during a trip to the
      village of Jobra in Bangladesh during the devastating famine of 1974. He met a
      woman who was struggling to make ends meet as a weaver of bamboo stools. She
      needed to borrow to buy materials, but because she was poor and had no assets,
      conventional banks shunned her, and she had to turn instead to local moneylenders
      whose extortionate rates of interest consumed nearly all her profits.
      Dr. Yunus, then a professor of rural economics at Chittagong University,
      gave the woman and several of her neighbors loans totalling $27 from his own
      pocket. To his surprise, the borrowers paid him back in full and on time. So he
      started traveling from village to village, offering more tiny loans and cutting out
      the middlemen. Dr. Yunus was determined to prove that lending to the poor was
      not an “impossible proposition,” as he put it. When he later formalized the loan-
      making arrangement as the Grameen Bank in 1983, the bank adopted its signature
      innovation: making borrowers take out loans in groups of five, with each borrower
      guaranteeing the others’ debts. Thus, in place of the hold banks have on wealthier
      borrowers who do not pay their debts—foreclosure and a low credit rating—
      Grameen depends on an incentive at least as powerful for poor villagers, the threat
      of being shamed before neighbors and relatives. (Giridharadas and Bradsher)
      Almost everyone talks about how good microloans are. As though poverty as we know it
      will end. Women will be liberated.
      But one writer says that most studies of microcredit programs “find very small increases
      in income for quite large numbers of borrowers; in only a very small number of cases are there
      significant income increases” (Mayoux 39). It most often benefits women who are not at the
      lowest levels of poverty, while the poorest of the poor lose ground. Microcredit also doesn’t last
      long because the borrowers often can’t use their loans for anything but tonight’s dinner or an
      emergency. Or maybe the women do work that doesn’t make much money, like selling home-
      made food on the streets, cleaning the houses of others, or working at home. So women are still
      stuck at home or in small jobs. Meaning their communities will still be poor. “Bangladesh and
      Bolivia are two countries widely recognized for having the most successful microcredit programs
      in the world. They also remain two of the poorest countries in the world.”
      And the loan often added to what women have to do in a day. When women use their
      loans to make and sell food or other stuff, they do this on top of running households and taking
      care of children sometimes they have to pull their children out of school to help out, in order to
      stay on top of the loan to pay it back (Cheston 25). And rather than learning how to use and work
      with the loan money themselves, a lot of women give their loans to men in their families because
      they live in communities where men are supposed to make money decisions. Because of this the
      men sometimes get mad and are both verbally and physically violent against women.
      Why are women supposed to be liberated by microloans? The United Nations says that:
      Women’s access to microfinance not only benefits women but also their families
      and communities, by generating:
      – Increased income, awareness, and bargaining power for women;
      – Increased resources available to the family for investment in nutrition and
      education;
      – Growth in local economies through local increases in women’s spending;
      and
      – An expanded view in the larger society of social and economic norms that relate
      to women.
      FINCA says that it lends primarily to women because
      Seventy percent of the world’s poor are women, largely because of their limited
      access to education or to productive resources like land and credit. Another
      worldwide trend is an increase in woman-headed households, in which a mother
      provides the sole support for her children. Most victims of severe poverty are
      children. According to UNICEF, at least half of the 12 million children aged five
      or younger who die each year, die from malnutrition associated with severe
      poverty. The most direct way to improve childrens’survival and welfare is to
      strengthen their own mothers’ ability to take care of them. (“Frequently Asked
      Questions”)
      Microloans are supposed to help women be confident taking care of their own money and
      taking part in their communities. They are expected to use any money they earn from their loans
      for their families. Because the families are supposed to improve, their communities are supposed
      to improve, too.
      Research supports this, some. Susy Cheston says that:
      According to research by microfinance impact assessment specialist Suzy Salib
      Bauer of Sinapi Aba Trust, an Opportunity International microfinance institution
      (MFI) in Ghana, 42 percent of mature clients (those in the program two years or
      more) had an improvement in their poverty level—either moving from “very
      poor” to “poor” or from “poor” to “non-poor” status, as measured by a standard
      household asset and income index. ASHI, an MFI in the Philippines that
      exclusively targets poor women, found that 77 percent of incoming clients were
      classified as “very poor”; after two years in the program, only 13 percent of
      mature clients were still “very poor.” (23)
      Another writer describes a program that had an important positive impact on a large
      number of women members.
      Over one third of the sample had been able to begin market work with a loan, and
      the loans had enabled women to keep marginal businesses afloat in family crises
      without recourse to moneylenders. Access to loans was also estimated to have led
      to increased earnings for a quarter of all the sampled women, often through
      enabling them to switch jobs and trades to more lucrative ones. Some had
      diversified their activities, adding a second line of work or a secondary job. For
      other women the loan kept them out of further debilitating debt through diversion
      of the loan in times of major stress events such as illness, flood, death or desertion
      of husband and enabling them to carry out their ritual responsibilities necessary to
      maintaining social status. (Mayoux 39)
      So no one is wrong to think that microloans can have positive effects in the lives of
      women.
      Microloans have helped some women. But anyone who believes microloans will cure
      the world is way off. MacIsaac has written a report that shows how microloan programs ought to
      work. If we really honestly do want to end poverty, we must help women be in big business. We
      must help them make their own decisions. We must give them what will help them deal with the
      family and community stuff that stands in the way of them getting ahead, and so we must give
      them support groups and economic classes in addition to the microloans.

      Works Cited

      Cheston, Susy. “Women and Microfinance: Opening Markets and Minds.” Economic Perspectives: An Electronic Journal of the U.S. Department of State 9.1. Feb. 2004. Web. 29 Oct. 2013. “Frequently Asked Questions.” FINCA. Web. 28 Oct. 2013. Giridharadas, Anand, and Keith Bradsher. “Microloan Pioneer and His Bank Win Nobel Peace Prize.” New York Times 13 Oct. 2006. Web. 28 Oct. 2013. Mayoux, Linda. “From Vicious to Virtuous Circles? Gender and Micro-Enterprise Development.” United Nations Research Institute for Social Development. 1995. Web. 20 Oct. 2013. “Microloans and Literacy Are Contributing to Food Security in Poor Upper Guinea.” USAID Africa Success Stories. 2005. Web. 20 Oct. 2013.

      Hi! I’m Riley. Thanks for being willing to read my draft.

      Click the pages to the left to read hints & tips on reading drafts, and then read my notes on the feedback I think I need now.

      Then—read my draft!

      Left quote image

    • Dear Riley,

      • I do like how your paper starts with words from a women helped by a microloan. It made me care about a real person, because the rest of the paper is a little dry with all those long quotations. But you do have an interesting topic.
      • Your writing is so easy to read and I think you have a cool topic.
      • You start with a quotation that lets me know I’m probably going to be reading about women in other countries. In the first two paragraphs in your own words, you let me know that you are writing about microloans. You also let me know that if I think microloans are always good, then I don’t know enough. This does give me a pretty good sense of what is to come. I like reading a paper that helps me know in the beginning what is to come.
      • Why should I care about people who live in other countries? What they do doesn’t affect me.
      • I can’t tell what your argument is.
      • You asked if we could tell what your argument is. Let me tell you how I understand your paragraphs. It looks like first you define microloans. Then you tell how microloans don’t always help the women who receive them. Then you describe why the loans mostly go to women. Then you tell how microloans really do sometimes help women. In your last paragraph, you bring in new information about how women could do even better if there were more education about using their loans. So I have to admit that I feel a little bounced around by your paragraphs. Is it about how microloans can be even more effective for women—and how a lot of the bad things could be avoided—if there were classes and support groups?
      • I like how many sources you use. I had trouble finding useful sources on my topic.
      • You are writing about women and microloans and about how microloans sometimes work and sometimes do not, I think. In your conclusion, you bring in a new source you haven’t used elsewhere (and the source isn’t listed in your Works Cited!). Are you making new claims in your conclusion? Is that your main claim in your last paragraph?
      • Meanwhile, I need to say that there are a LOT of LONG quotations from your sources. It made it hard to tell what YOU wanted me to learn from the sources. (I had the same trouble in my own paper—so I wish you a lot of luck with your revision!)
      • When I finished reading, I felt smarter. Now I know about microloans, which I didn’t before.
      • I’m sorry I have nothing useful to say because I didn’t like your topic.
      • I’ll end by saying that I do think you have too many quotations. I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but I wanted to hear how you understand what your sources are saying; it made your points harder to follow. Sorry!

      I hope this is helpful to you. Let me know.

    • Your Feedback

      Please go back to step number two and leave feedback for paragraphs 1, 2 and 3. Be sure to sign your name as well.

      Dear Riley,

      • I do like how your paper starts with words from a women helped by a microloan. It made me care about a real person, because the rest of the paper is a little dry with all those long quotations. But you do have an interesting topic.
      • Your writing is so easy to read and I think you have a cool topic.
      • You start with a quotation that lets me know I’m probably going to be reading about women in other countries. In the first two paragraphs in your own words you let me know that you are writing about microloans. You also let me know that if I think microloans are always good then I don’t know enough. This does give me a pretty good sense of what is to come. I like reading a paper that helps me know in the beginning what is to come.
      • Why should I care about people who live in other countries? What they do doesn’t affect me.
      • I can’t tell what your argument is.
      • You asked if we could tell what your argument is. Let me tell you how I understand your paragraphs. It looks like first you define microloans. Then you tell how microloans don’t always help the women who receive them. Then you describe why the loans mostly go to women. Then you tell how microloans really do sometimes help women. In your last paragraph, you bring in new information about how women could do even better if there were more education about using their loans. So I have to admit that I feel a little bounced around by your paragraphs. Is it about how microloans can be even more effective for women—and how a lot of the bad things could be avoided—if there were classes and support groups?
      • I like how many sources you use. I had trouble finding useful sources on my topic.
      • You are writing about women and microloans and about how microloans sometimes work and sometimes do not, I think. In your conclusion, you bring in a new source you haven’t used elsewhere (and the source isn’t listed in your Works Cited!). Are you making new claims in your conclusion? Is that your main claim in your last paragraph?
      • Meanwhile, I need to say that there are a LOT of LONG quotations from your sources. It made it hard to tell what YOU wanted me to learn from the sources. (I had the same trouble in my own paper—so I wish you a lot of luck with your revision!)
      • When I finished reading, I felt smarter. Now I know about microloans, which I didn’t before.
      • I’m sorry I have nothing useful to say because I didn’t like your topic.
      • I’ll end by saying that I do think you have too many quotations. I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but I wanted to hear how you understand what your sources are saying; it made your points harder to follow. Sorry!

      I hope this is helpful to you. Let me know.

      Riley's response to your feedback

      Dear ,

      Thanks for reading my first draft.

      • I was worried about starting with that quotation, and so I am glad to hear it worked for you. Do you think if I used more quotations they would help make my paper even more interesting at the beginning?
      • I am glad it was easy to read.
      • It helps to hear how you read my opening paragraphs, and that my introduction did what I hoped it would. But do you think it could be stronger?
      • I am sorry my topic wasn’t immediately interesting to you. Do you have any suggestions for how I could make it interesting to you?
      • I am sorry you can’t tell what my argument is—but could you tell me at least what it sounds like I’m trying to do, so that I could see if I am doing some of what I want?
      • By describing what you understand happens in each paragraph, you really help me see how someone else is reading this. This helps me a lot to see why my argument isn’t clear. I hope I can make it clearer in my revision.
      • It’s good to hear that you like my sources. But do my sources really help me with my argument?
      • Thank you for pointing out that my last paragraph brings in new information and a new source. I was wondering about that conclusion, and you help me see what’s not working.
      • This feedback on my quotations is hugely helpful. I was worried that there were too many quotations and that they were too long. I guess I should start summarizing, even if it’s hard.
      • I am glad my paper was helpful to you. Do you have any final suggestions for how I could make it stronger?
      • Thanks so much for your feedback on my quotations. It’s hugely helpful. You don’t have to apologize at all!

      Thanks,

      • Riley

      • Dear Riley—

        This is a fine start: I can see that the paper is building an argument that, even though many people believe microloans always have positive results and that they can make big changes in the world, microloans won’t solve poverty and don’t necessarily help women. Your paper provides strong evidence for the shortcomings of microloans: you have done your research!

        I sometimes get lost in the paper’s argument, though. Most importantly, I wonder about the paragraph order. After the introduction, your paper gives a history of microloans, and then describes how they are bad and then how they are good. Why discuss the bad before the good? Also, I often have trouble understanding why the paper moves from one paragraph to the next; I think your paper could provide more direct transitions in order to help readers.

        Finally, one last thing I noticed: the paper ends with a call for women who receive microloans to be helped with support groups and to be given business classes. I have to tell you that, for me as a reader, this comes out of the blue. The paper offers no evidence that support groups and business classes overcome the problems the paper describes, and so as a reader I can’t help but feel unsatisfied with this recommendation. Could the argument about microloans stand without it?

        I look forward to seeing your revisions of this. You should take confidence from the strengths of this draft so that, as you revise, you focus on the matters I’ve suggested above. Please come talk if you have any questions.

        Thanks! Professor Maathai

      • Riley—

        As you know from what most everyone in class has said, and from our earlier discussions, you have found a useful and intriguing topic. You have done good work in finding a range of useful sources and have written a draft focused on women, poverty, and microloans. I have two main suggestions for how I think you could strengthen this draft.

        First, although all your writing is focused on women, poverty, and microloans, I have trouble following the steps of your argument. Can you describe why the paragraphs are in the order they are? And can you see how you bring in a new claim in the final paragraph, one for which you offer no evidence?

        Second, you have an awful lot of long quotations! You are clearly reading your sources with a critical eye and asking what they have to say to each other—and so I want you to know that you are ready to summarize! I can see that you are working toward a solid and smart argument in this draft, and you will have more room for your arguments (and your ideas will have more authority!) if you summarize what you have been reading.

        Thank you for your hard work—and I look forward to reading your revision.

        Professor Lynch

    • Hints and Tips for reading drafts

      Click the options below to learn more.

      • Know what kinds of feedback the writer needs.
      • If a writer needs feedback on the order of ideas it is useless to correct spelling because the words you correct might go away in the revision. If a writer asks for help and does not specify what kind, ask. (By asking, you also help the writer to articulate what the writing needs.)
      • Read twice.
      • Take notes during a first reading, while you get a sense of what the writer is trying to do. Then reread, looking for what in the writing most supports what the writing is trying to do, and for the parts that aren’t as supportive. Then write comments.
      • Read generously.
      • Keep in mind that you are responding, not criticizing. Look for what works in the writing as well as for what could be stronger in support of the paper’s purpose. Telling a writer what works in a paper, and why, is as useful as telling a writer what could be stronger.
      • Read rhetorically.
      • As you read, look for how the writing supports the writer’s purpose and for how the writing helps a writer connect with the audience. Also consider whether the order of ideas and paragraphs best helps readers follow the writer’s argument. Giving feedback on these matters helps writers develop more effective writing—and helps you develop abilities for making your own writing more effective.

      I’m Tyler, and I’ve been working on this paper that I’ve gotten kind of passionate about.

      The more I read about my topic, the more scared I get.

      I hope my writing persuades you to be as creeped out about electronic voting machines

      as I am. So here’s how you can help me with my draft:

      • Do I give you enough evidence to persuade you that we need to be very, very, very careful about electronic voting machines?
      • Do I give you enough evidence without me coming across sounding like a conspiracy theorist? Have I put together an ethos that sounds trustworthy and balanced?
      • Is my paper organized so that it develops in a way that seems logical?

      Thanks for reading my draft!

      Tyler Hunt
      October 17, 2013
      DRAFT: Electronic voting
      “It’s not the people who vote that count. It’s the people who count the votes.”
      —Joseph Stalin
       
      The current use of electronic voting machines in U. S. elections threatens voting
      accuracy. These machines are so poorly designed that anyone with evil intentions and
      basic computer knowledge can hack them. Many states have decided to use electronic
      voting machines for the foreseeable future. It is important to understand how this system
      can be unreliable. Much of the praise of electronic machines, also called direct recording
      machines, hinges on their ease of use. They can make the entire voting process, from
      registration to counting, efficient. Technically, electronic voting includes any electronic
      means of casting a vote in a referendum or an election, including the use of the Internet,
      but I only want to focus on direct-recording electronic voting machines, or DRE voting.
      Many systems of DRE voting are currently in production or being designed. Most
      of them work on a principle similar to that of the Diebold model. And the Diebold model
      gets the most criticism. One author describes what has happened with Diebold as a “five-
      step plan guaranteed to make an obscure company absolutely notorious”:
      First get into a business you don't understand, selling to customers who barely
      understand it either. Then roll out your product without adequate testing. Don't
      hire enough skilled people. When people notice problems, deny, obfuscate and
      ignore. Finally, blame your critics when it all blows up in your face. (Gimbel, 2006)
      This just about sums up the basic flaws of most electronic voting machine production: a
      desire for efficiency outpacing security and safety issues. It almost seems like Diebold and
      the other companies that make voting machines assumed that if they just made the
      machine as simple as possible for voters to use, that would be enough. But in their haste to
      get a product on the market, to supply machines to many states, and to simplify a hectic
      electoral system, Diebold did really sloppy code work for its machines. Flaws, omissions,
      patches, bugs, and other problems in the Diebold code gave anyone—hackers, political
      manipulators, even a team of professors from Princeton—the ability to make changes.
      Those professors were able to open a Diebold machine and install a virus, all in
      under two minutes—which is all the time someone might normally take in a voting booth
      (Feldman, 2006). The professors’ virus could influence election results however they
      wanted. It could spread to other machines that shared cards with the infected machine,
      and it would eventually delete itself so as to be undetected.
      So its possible that someone involved in the design, manufacture, or distribution of
      voting machines could manipulate the software before the machines even go to states.
      Vote fraud could be perpetuated on a large scale. Despite this possibility, companies like
      Diebold refuse to make their operations transparent. They are unwilling to let outsiders
      observe. Some believe that their loyalties may be to certain political groups and interests
      rather than to a fair voting process (Rubin, 2006). Others see this as normal business
      procedure and a desire to maintain safe control of their operation. And still many states
      are still very much interested in their new machines.
      The main selling point of most electronic voting machines is their simplicity.
      Unfortunately, this simplicity has eliminated features that would go a long way toward
      ensuring voter security. According to some scientists, including Professor Aviel Rubin
      (2006) of John Hopkins University, most potential crises in electronic voting could be
      avoided by providing a separately printed and counted paper record of each voter's
      decisions. Currently a voter has no way to verify his or her vote beyond trusting the
      machine into which the vote has been entered. These machines claim to store votes
      securely. If a program has been compromised to change your vote, it still might falsely
      reassure you that your vote has been recorded as you intended. Doug Jones says: "For over
      a decade, all direct recording electronic machines have been required to contain redundant
      storage, but this redundant storage is not an independent record of the votes, because it is
      created by the same software that created the original record" (qtd in ProCon.org, 2007).
      An independent paper trail that each voter could use to verify the result would eliminate
      the possibility of election machine fraud. Though some disagree.
      The concern with electronic voting machines is not that their has been fraud on a
      massive scale but that such fraud is possible (Levy, 2006). Yet few people seem to
      understand or even to consider this issue important even though it puts all of democracy
      at stake. The system is susceptible to "wholesale fraud," fraud that affects more than just
      the machine directly attacked (Rubin, 2006). This is possible through the installation of
      software or evil code at the time of manufacture or the spread of a virus through systems
      that use a contaminated memory card. These viruses can steal votes and delete themselves
      before any detection of their activities can take place. Despite these problems, electronic
      voting machines will have a bright future if the companies that design and manufacture
      them can improve them so that they are safe, reliable, and affordable.

      References

      Feldman, A. (2006, September 13). Security analysis of the Diebold AccuVote-TS voting machine. Retrieved from http://itpolicy.princeton.edu/voting/ Gimbel, B. (2006, November 3). Rage against the machine. CNNMoney. Retrieved from http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/ 11/13/8393084/index.htm ProCon.org. (2007). Do electronic voting machines improve the voting process? Retrieved from http://www.votingmachinesprocon.org Rubin, A. D. (2006). Brave new ballot: Battle to safeguard democracy in the age of electronic voting. New York: Morgan Road.

      Hi! I’m Tyler. Thanks for being willing to read my draft.

      Click the pages to the left to read hints & tips on reading drafts, and then read my notes on the feedback I think I need now.

      Then—read my draft!

      Left quote image

    • Dear Tyler,

      • Your draft really does start to creep me out like you wanted. But I think you could make it more persuasive. I think you could do so much more with all the things you brought up in your notes to readers: your ethos, your evidence, and your organization.
      • Wow, dude, I’ll never vote again now. Can you trust anyone these days?
      • I’ll respond to your notes one by one. First, you ask if your paper has enough evidence. I don’t think it does: it only cites 4 sources (and 2 are popular)—and they are all kind of old. So do problems with voting machines still exist? So while the evidence does make me nervous, are my nerves justified?
      • The writing in this paper is very clear and focused. The paper’s objective is apparent. I have already been reading about this topic, so I was supremely interested in what this paper had to say.
      • And you asked about your ethos. Yeah, you do sound a little over heated here and there, but you don’t help yourself if you can’t tell the difference between “its” and “it’s” or “there” and “their”!
      • Mostly, I am missing a counterargument, I think that the counterargument in a rhetorical piece of work defines the argument. It's like positive and negative; life and death, physical and mental: You cannot come to know one without the other. So I am wondering what you consider to be the counterargument to your argument.
      • The ethos can be a little overblown: how many times is “evil” in the paper!? The ethos also feels a little stiff. Maybe your revision could have sentences with differing patterns, like we discussed in class. As a reader I do get tripped by some awkward sentences and the “evil” stuff. And more evidence would also give the ethos more credibility.
      • Your ethos does get a little conspiracy-theory-ish. When you write that a company‘s poor coding “puts all of democracy at stake,” for example, this starts to sound a little out there. There’s not too much of this, but—in combination with all the evidence being from over 6 years and there being only four sources (and one a cranky rant from someone at CNNMoney)—well, I am not as persuaded as I could be.
      • Your organization could be more persuasive, too, I think. The paper first states the problem, then describes the problems with Diebold, then how the machines are hackable, then the paper questions Diebold again, then it talks about how we could verify the machines and the possibilities of massive fraud. It’s hard for me to feel I could explain the problem concretely. I guess if in the writing there was something that said, “There are three categories of problems” (something like that?) I would have a better hold on the overall structure. This first draft really makes me curious and makes me want to learn more!
      • And I caught some sentence fragments, too, and I know the teacher hates those. So if you fix all that up, I know you’ll have a really good paper.
      • Arguably, one might say that the Internet has given society more of a centralized social brain. If your argument is to address all the content it needs to address, then you need to address how this social brain affects the response to voting machines that tap on society’s call to the Internet.
      • I’ll end by talking about the paper’s organization. It’s not the easiest to follow. I mean, I can tell what your overall argument is—that we shouldn’t trust voting machines now—but there’s no real order to the paragraphs. So when I finish reading I know I’m not supposed to trust the machines (and probably should write to my legislators about them) but I have a hard time remembering why!

      I hope this is helpful to you. Let me know.

    • Your Feedback

      Please go back to step number two and leave feedback for paragraphs 1, 2 and 3. Be sure to sign your name as well.

      Dear Tyler,

      • Your draft really does start to creep me out like you wanted. But I think you could make it more persuasive. I think you could do so much more with all the things you brought up in your notes to readers: your ethos, your evidence, and your organization.
      • Wow, dude, I’ll never vote again now. Can you trust anyone these days?
      • I’ll respond to your notes one by one. First, you ask if your paper has enough evidence. I don’t think it does: it only cites 4 sources (and 2 are popular)—and they are all kind of old. So do problems with voting machines still exist? So while the evidence does make me nervous, are my nerves justified?
      • The writing in this paper is very clear and focused. The paper’s objective is apparent. I have already been reading about this topic, so I was supremely interested in what this paper had to say.
      • And you asked about your ethos. Yeah, you do sound a little over heated here and there, but you don’t help yourself if you can’t tell the difference between “its” and “it’s” or “there” and “their”!
      • Mostly, I am missing a counterargument, I think that the counterargument in a rhetorical piece of work defines the argument. It's like positive and negative; life and death, physical and mental: You cannot come to know one without the other. So I am wondering what you consider to be the counterargument to your argument.
      • The ethos can be a little overblown: how many times is “evil” in the paper!? The ethos also feels a little stiff. Maybe your revision could have sentences with differing patterns, like we discussed in class. As a reader I do get tripped by some awkward sentences and the “evil” stuff. And more evidence would also give the ethos more credibility..
      • Your ethos does get a little conspiracy-theory-ish. When you write that a company‘s poor coding “puts all of democracy at stake,” for example, this starts to sound a little out there. There’s not too much of this, but—in combination with all the evidence being from over 6 years and there being only four sources (and one a cranky rant from someone at CNNMoney)—well, I am not as persuaded as I could be.
      • Your organization could be more persuasive, too, I think. The paper first states the problem, then describes the problems with Diebold, then how the machines are hackable, then the paper questions Diebold again, then it talks about how we could verify the machines and the possibilities of massive fraud. It’s hard for me to feel I could explain the problem concretely. I guess if in the writing there was something that said, “There are three categories of problems” (something like that?) I would have a better hold on the overall structure. This first draft really makes me curious and makes me want to learn more!
      • And I caught some sentence fragments, too, and I know the teacher hates those. So if you fix all that up, I know you’ll have a really good paper.
      • Arguably, one might say that the Internet has given society more of a centralized social brain. If your argument is to address all the content it needs to address, then you need to address how this social brain affects the response to voting machines that tap on society’s call to the Internet.
      • I’ll end by talking about the paper’s organization. It’s not the easiest to follow. I mean, I can tell what your overall argument is—that we shouldn’t trust voting machines now—but there’s no real order to the paragraphs. So when I finish reading I know I’m not supposed to trust the machines (and probably should write to my legislators about them) but I have a hard time remembering why!

      I hope this is helpful to you. Let me know.

      Tyler's response to your feedback

      Dear ,

      Thanks for reading my first draft.

      • Thanks for letting me know that the paper is starting to do what I hope it does.
      • I realize that your response is one I don’t want! So thanks for saying this! I think this helps me think about how I can shape my writing to end with a different response!
      • Thanks for letting me know about the evidence. I was wondering about this (which is why I asked) so I know now I need to go find some more (and more recent) sources.
      • Thanks for letting me know that the paper works overall.
      • Could you let me know where I sound overheated? That would help me know how to write so I sound less weird.
      • I honestly don’t know what the counterargument would be here. It’s okay that voting machines are bad because… ? Can you help me out here?
      • This feedback on my ethos and evidence helps. I hadn’t thought about how the way my sentences sound shapes how people read, and so I have to wrap my head (and I guess my sentences!) around that.
      • This feedback is hugely helpful. I guess I need to dial back how some of my fear appears in the writing. And I’m realizing that I really do need more sources, and sources that are more recent.
      • And this feedback on organization is huge. By describing the order back to me, you make me see why this doesn’t hold together. I can’t thank you enough for doing that for me! I hope my response to your draft is as useful!
      • Sorry about the sentence fragments. I guess I was too busy paying attention to my argument to care about grammar and mechanics right now.
      • I think what you are recommending (if I understand it) would be a completely different paper. And it might be an interesting paper, but it’s really not what I am trying to do here. So, sorry…!
      • It does help to know that you aren’t seeing an order to the paragraphs. I’ll work on figuring out how to make the order more memorable.

      Thanks,

      • Tyler

      • Dear Tyler,

        I can tell from your writing that you’ve gotten into this issue of electronic voting. You’ve got a fine first draft here, and I think you have some clear paths for making it even finer—by attending to exactly those areas you remarked in your note to your peers about your draft. So:

        EVIDENCE: You have found some solid sources, but—given that you are hoping to encourage readers to question the institution of voting—don’t you think that a few more very trustworthy (and academic? and more recent?) sources would add weight?

        ETHOS: I think you are going to learn the high usefulness of revising for style with this draft! You’ve got a strong and compelling topic, and so the sentences could be more flowing, with fewer choppy simple sentences.

        ORGANIZATION: I honestly have to say that the arrangement of your middle paragraphs seems a little random to me. You introduce the issue well, but then as a reader I cannot figure out the main points you want me to take from your paragraphs listing problems—and this ties into purpose for me. Do you want readers to walk away simply knowing that voting machines are not yet ready for prime time, or do you want them to write to legislators or resist using the machines if they are asked to use them, or…?

        I am happy to talk about this paper with you. This is a wonderful beginning.

        Thank you for your hard work on this.

        Anne

      • Tyler—

        I really like the direction your research is taking you.

        In response to your questions about your draft, I do think you could offer more—and more timely—evidence. Although the writing is compelling, it is possible for readers to think there isn’t enough evidence to support the claim solidly, or, importantly, that electronic voting machines were an issue some years ago but aren’t an issue now.

        I don’t think you come across as a conspiracy theorist, but, as some of your peers mentioned, there are places in the writing where the tone is perhaps more judgmental than will appeal to readers who want fairness.

        In addition, the writing is composed of mostly simple sentences. I understand that this helps you control your writing, but combining sentences helps make visible and clearer for you and your reader the connections between your ideas (and thus your overall purpose). Put otherwise, working on your style might strengthen your arrangement.

        I also think your presentation of it would be more effective if you gave your reader more context in several places. For instance, you might tell us something about the Deibold company when you first refer to them (just a few sentences about what kind of company they are).

        Finally, I think you could strengthen your introduction. You might make use of the Stalin quote to clarify why this issue should matter to us, and you should explain more why you won’t talk about the internet (instead of just asserting you won’t).

        Thanks, Dennis

    • Hints and Tips for reading drafts

      Click the options below to learn more.

      • Know what kinds of feedback the writer needs.
      • If a writer needs feedback on the order of ideas it is useless to correct spelling because the words you correct might go away in the revision. If a writer asks for help and does not specify what kind, ask. (By asking, you also help the writer to articulate what the writing needs.)
      • Read twice.
      • Take notes during a first reading, while you get a sense of what the writer is trying to do. Then reread, looking for what in the writing most supports what the writing is trying to do, and for the parts that aren’t as supportive. Then write comments.
      • Read generously.
      • Keep in mind that you are responding, not criticizing. Look for what works in the writing as well as for what could be stronger in support of the paper’s purpose. Telling a writer what works in a paper, and why, is as useful as telling a writer what could be stronger.
      • Read rhetorically.
      • As you read, look for how the writing supports the writer’s purpose and for how the writing helps a writer connect with the audience. Also consider whether the order of ideas and paragraphs best helps readers follow the writer’s argument. Giving feedback on these matters helps writers develop more effective writing—and helps you develop abilities for making your own writing more effective.

      Hi—

      Here’s how I think I need the most help with my first draft:

      • I need help with my argument. Can you tell what it is—and does it work? Do the pieces hold together?
      • Do I define civility in a way that makes sense?
      • Does the introduction work for this paper?

      Thanks for your help.

      Harley Williams
      Professor Komova
      ENG102
      01 Dec. 2012
      I want to eat dinner without yelling
      My father can roast a chicken so perfect it looks like a magazine ad. Every Sunday
      when he carries that to the dinner table (where I’m sitting with my mother, brothers,
      grandfather, uncle, and aunt) I think we will have a dinner like I see in those old black
      and white happy family movies my granddad watches on TCM. But our dinners always
      turn out awful. Everyone ends up screaming at each other about healthcare or unions.
      My stomach is in knots. I don’t know why we keep doing this.
      Are your family dinners like this, too?
      For this paper I researched families and political arguments. I discovered quickly
      that what happens at our dinner table is a sign of something much larger. Many families
      have trouble with controversial topics, but so do we as a country. From my research I
      learned that being able to talk about controversial topics is necessary for having a
      democracy and for having the freedom that we seek in a democracy. Being able to talk
      about controversial topics helps us avoid government repression. To argue why being
      able to talk (and not scream and rile up our stomachs) about controversial topics is
      necessary for the kind of country I think we all want, I need to define “civility.” I need to
      describe the behaviors and attitudes that make civility possible. I need to describe what
      happens when people don’t try to be civil.
      I found several writers who define “civility.” Chesire Calhoun writes that, “The
      civil citizen exercises tolerance in the face of deep disagreement about the good. She
      respects the rights of others, refrains from violence, intimidation, harassment and
      coercion, does not show contempt for others’ life plans, and has a healthy respect for
      others’ privacy.” (256) He argues that:
      First, civility signals others’ willingness to have us as co-participants in
      practices ranging from political dialogues, to campus communities, to
      funerals, to sharing public highways. Second, for those who are not
      already coerced into sharing social practices with us, civility may be a
      precondition of their willingness to enter and continue in cooperative
      ventures with us. Third, civility supports self-esteem by offering token
      reminders that we are regarded as worth respecting, tolerating, and
      considering. (266)
      Similarly, Nicole Billante and Peter Saunders define “civility” as “behavior in public
      which demonstrates respect for others and which entails curtailing one’s own immediate
      self-interest when appropriate” (33). A virtue that “aids social cooperation,” and is an
      “alternative to repression.” Without civility there is a danger of repression because
      different individuals will always want and desire different and
      incompatible things, and their unfettered pursuit of their own objectives
      will inevitably bring them into conflict. The question, therefore, is how (as
      well as how far) individual liberties are to be restricted or restrained. In the
      end, this will either be done by external political agencies of the state, or it
      will be achieved through enlightened self-regulation. (34)
      Calhoun argues that “A principal point of having norms of civility is to regulate
      discussion of controversial subjects so that dialogue among those who disagree will
      continue rather than break down” (269). So according to Calhoun if we do not have an
      ability to talk with each other, there is danger of society breaking down; Billante and
      Saunders argue that if we want a society with “individual liberties” we either have
      civility—where we respect each other’s opinions no matter whether we agree—or we
      have a repressive government that forces people to live together in one country under
      imposed rule.
      If we don’t want our country to fall apart into chaos, or to become a place where
      the government tells us what we can or cannot say to each other, then we have to learn to
      be civil to each other.
      The definitions I gave above of civility imply what we each need to do in order to
      be civil to each other. Billante and Saunders describe that being civil requires: 1) Respect
      for others; 2) Behaving well in public; 3) Self-regulation. In terms of respect for others,
      even George Washington, when he was 16, described what we should do in order that we
      get along; as Calhoun restates Washington’s words, “The civil person refrains from
      humming, finger drumming, nail biting, bedewing others with spittle, eye rolling, lolling
      out the tongue, gaping, killing fleas and lice in others’ sight, wearing foul clothes, and
      falling asleep while others speak” (257). Instead, we should act toward others in such a
      way to show that we believe they are worthy of respect—even if we disagree. In terms of
      behaving well in public, this depends on “a generalised empathy and sense of obligation
      which we feel with all who share our society with us.” (page 33). Finally, self-regulation
      “involves holding back in the pursuit of one’s own immediate self-interest—we desist
      from doing what would be most pleasing to us for the sake of harmonious relations with
      strangers.” (33)
      For the sake of living in one country (or eating a family dinner without an upset
      stomach), these definitions and descriptions show that we need to learn how to respect
      what other people believe, even if we disagree. From what I’ve seen at our table, this
      means listening and nodding rather than telling others they don’t know what they’re
      talking about. In the course of my research, though, I came across articles that described a
      psychological concept that should help us be able to do this. This concept is called
      “confirmation bias” or “selective exposure.”
      “Confirmation bias” and “selective exposure” are terms that come from
      psychological research. This notion names how people have a “tendency to seek out and
      interpret new evidence in ways that confirm what [they] already think” (Haidt 78). In
      their article, “Preference-inconsistent recommendations,” Schwind, Buder, Cress, and
      Hesse also discuss how people resist information that does not support what they already
      believe. A result is that “confirmation bias is detrimental to unbiased opinion formation”
      (788). It sounds to me as though if people aren’t aware of this that they get caught in a
      vicious circle, only looking for and believing information that confirms what they already
      know.
      Writers claim that cognitive bias affects all we believe, not just politics. For
      example, three researchers in behavioral and political sciences from Stony Brook
      University claim that “cognitive biases influence a wide range of healthrelated attitudes,
      from broad, national decisions about health reform to individual decisions about caffeine
      consumption and smoking” (Strickland, Taber, and Lodge 1). “Although fair-mindedness
      and objectivity are desirable qualities of thought, particularly for weighty issues such as
      gun control, health care reform, and affirmative action, evidence has shown that human
      information processing often does not operate in that manner” (6). I found other writers
      who discuss this, too (see, for example, Edwards and Smith; Balcetis & Dunning; or
      Nickerson). Researchers Taber and Lodge, for example, claim that, “In the extreme, if
      one distorts new information so that it always supports one’s priors, one cannot be
      rationally responsive to the environment; similarly, manipulating the information stream
      to avoid any threat to one’s priors is no more rational than the proverbial ostrich” (767).
      What “confirmation bias” and “selective exposure” show us is that none of us is
      perfect. Unless we have been very careful and purposefully sought out the broadest
      possible information on any topic, our information will be biased. What my research has
      shown me is that civility is necessary if we are to be able to talk together about what
      matters to us as families and as a country. But civility isn’t enough. Civility is about how
      we think about and act toward others; if we are civil only, we can still think that our ideas
      are all the right ones, meaning we still won’t really be listening. Bringing awareness of
      confirmation bias together with civility helps us be aware that our own ideas are rarely as
      well-informed as we think. If we are aware of that, then maybe we will listen more
      closely to others and really be able to figure out together how to solve our problems.

      Works Cited

      Balcetis, Emily and David Dunning. “See What You Want to See: Motivational Influences on Visual Perception.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 91.4 (2006). PsycARTICLES. Web. 19 Nov. 2012. Calhoun, Cheshire. “The Virtue of Civility.” Philosophy & Public Affairs 29.3 (Summer, 2000): 251-275. JSTOR. Web. 18 Nov. 2012. Edwards, Kari and Edward E. Smith. “A Disconfirmation Bias in the Evaluation of Arguments.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 71. 1 (1996): 5-24. Westlaw. Web. 19 Nov. 2012. Haidt, Jonathan. The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion. New York: Pantheon, 2012. Kindle file. Nickerson, Raymond S. “Confirmation Bias: A Ubiquitous Phenomenon in Many Guises.” Review of General Psychology 2.2 (1998): 175-220. PsycARTICLES. Web. 19 Nov. 2012. Schwind, Christina and Jürgen Buder, Ulrike Cress, Friedrich W. Hesse. “Preference-inconsistent recommendations: An effective approach for reducing confirmation bias and stimulating divergent thinking?” Computers & Education 58 (2012) 787–796. Web. Elsevier. 18 Nov. 2012. Strickland, April A., Charles S. Taber, and Milton Lodge. “Motivated Reasoning and Public Opinion.” Journal of Health Politics, Policy & Law. December, 2011. Web. Westlaw. 18 Nov. 2012. Taber, Charles S. and Milton Lodge. “Motivated Skepticism in the Evaluation of Political Beliefs.” American Journal of Political Science 50.3 (Jul., 2006): 755-769. JSTOR. Web. 18 Nov. 2012.

      Hi! I’m Harley. Thanks for being willing to read my draft.

      Click the pages to the left to read hints & tips on reading drafts, and then read my notes on the feedback I think I need now.

      Then—read my draft!

      Left quote image

    • Dear Harley,

      • I like how your draft starts with a family dinner. I’ve so been there. I hate it. And so your opening starts with something I care about -- and so I am interested as you start to talk about civility, especially in how you connect it to larger political issues.
      • I don’t think it’s good to write about your own family dinners. Who cares about your family? There’s nothing your family does that can matter to anyone else.
      • I think your writing is very nice.
      • I enjoyed reading your draft because it was easy to read and interesting. The way you connect how we talk at family dinners to how we talk politically makes sense to me. It helps me think about how what happens at our table affects what happens in the bigger world. So your introduction does make me want to read the rest.
      • I like how you talk about civility in your paper. I never thought about civility before. I will think about civility in the future because of reading your paper.
      • There’s some sentence fragments in your writing and some places where you don’t introduce sources but just put in quotations. You also have some really long quotations. It would be good if you changed those.
      • Almost all your writing is about civility, what it is and its consequences. I can follow the paragraphs of the writing, and see that it argues that if we are not civil to each other then bad consequences follow. But I have to honestly say that I am not yet seeing what the good benefits of civility are. I mean, your writing helps me see how being civil would make the dinner table easier. But I am not yet seeing how being civil really helps us as a country. I am not really seeing how being civil prevents government repression—that seems like a huge jump to me, sorry!
      • I want to talk about the sentences where you move from defining civility to talking about how our country could “fall apart into chaos.” I have to admit that I don’t follow it. It seems a huge leap to get from not being able to talk to each other individually to chaos. This seems to be a main part of your argument about why we need to be civil, but because I have trouble accepting this link I have trouble accepting the rest of the paper.
      • I want to end by saying I like how you write transitions between paragraphs. I have trouble with transitions, and your transitions really helped me understand why your writing moves from one paragraph to the next.
      • Your conclusion really made me think. Can I really justify my own ideas? You made an interesting argument, and I think I followed it all.
      • Thank you for this writing. I enjoyed reading it.
      • As I read, too, I get a little lost with the turn to the psychology stuff. I was following the civility arguments just fine, but the confirmation bias stuff came up pretty quickly and I had trouble connecting it back to civility. Some more explanation of the connection might have helped me.

      I hope this is helpful to you. Let me know.

    • Your Feedback

      Please go back to step number two and leave feedback for paragraphs 1, 2 and 3. Be sure to sign your name as well.

      Dear Harley,

      • I like how your draft starts with a family dinner. I’ve so been there. I hate it. And so your opening starts with something I care about -- and so I am interested as you start to talk about civility, especially in how you connect it to larger political issues.
      • I don’t think it’s good to write about your own family dinners. Who cares about your family? There’s nothing your family does that can matter to anyone else.
      • I think your writing is very nice.
      • I enjoyed reading your draft because it was easy to read and interesting. The way you connect how we talk at family dinners to how we talk politically makes sense to me. It helps me think about how what happens at our table affects what happens in the bigger world. So your introduction does make me want to read the rest.
      • I like how you talk about civility in your paper. I never thought about civility before. I will think about civility in the future because of reading your paper.
      • There’s some sentence fragments in your writing and some places where you don’t introduce sources but just put in quotations. You also have some really long quotations. It would be good if you changed those.
      • Almost all your writing is about civility, what it is and its consequences. I can follow the paragraphs of the writing, and see that it argues that if we are not civil to each other then bad consequences follow. But I have to honestly say that I am not yet seeing what the good benefits of civility are. I mean, your writing helps me see how being civil would make the dinner table easier. But I am not yet seeing how being civil really helps us as a country. I am not really seeing how being civil prevents government repression—that seems like a huge jump to me, sorry!
      • I want to talk about the sentences where you move from defining civility to talking about how our country could “fall apart into chaos.” I have to admit that I don’t follow it. It seems a huge leap to get from not being able to talk to each other individually to chaos. This seems to be a main part of your argument about why we need to be civil, but because I have trouble accepting this link I have trouble accepting the rest of the paper.
      • I want to end by saying I like how you write transitions between paragraphs. I have trouble with transitions, and your transitions really helped me understand why your writing moves from one paragraph to the next.
      • Your conclusion really made me think. Can I really justify my own ideas? You made an interesting argument, and I think I followed it all.
      • Thank you for this writing. I enjoyed reading it.
      • As I read, too, I get a little lost with the turn to the psychology stuff. I was following the civility arguments just fine, but the confirmation bias stuff came up pretty quickly and I had trouble connecting it back to civility. Some more explanation of the connection might have helped me.

      I hope this is helpful to you. Let me know.

      Harley's response to your feedback

      Dear ,

      Thanks for reading my first draft.

      • Thanks, too, for letting me know that my introduction starts with something that pulls you in to my topic and helps you see why it matters.
      • I am sorry that my opening didn’t appeal to you. Can you suggest any ways I might change it to make my family experiences appeal more broadly? Or do you have suggestions for another way of opening the paper?
      • I am glad you like my writing. Could you say more about why you think it’s “nice”?
      • I am glad you enjoyed reading the draft. It’s so good to hear that you found it easy to read, too. I worked hard on that. It’s also good to hear that the introduction worked for you just in the way I hoped; I did worry about that.
      • It’s good to hear you liked learning about civility. Does that mean you think I defined it well enough?
      • Yes, I was worried about the quotations, and I will work on those. But it would help me work on those if you could tell me what makes sense to you in my argument, and what doesn’t.
      • Oh, thanks so much for telling me about how my writing isn’t yet helping you see how being civil to each other might help us as a country. I was worried about that connection. I am going to have to figure this out for my revision. It’s really helpful to learn this.
      • It’s hugely helpful to hear that you aren’t following the part of my argument where I move from defining civility to talking about chaos. Not that I wanted to hear this ;) but this really helps me know what I need to work on in my revision. Thank you!
      • I am glad my transitions help you!
      • I am glad my argument helped you think about your own opinions. It’s good to hear when my writing is useful!
      • I am glad you enjoyed reading this. What worked best for you?
      • Your feedback about how confirmation bias is (not!) working in my writing is HUGELY helpful. I was wondering if that transition worked, and now I know that I need to focus there. I appreciate such concrete response big time.

      Thanks,

      • Harley

      • Harley—

        This is a fine start: I can see that you have found a good range of sources and are using them to help you think through issues that matter to you. I hope you are intrigued to see how what at first seemed a personal, family issue expands out into larger social issues.

        In defining “civility,” you are working out how to weave together a range of sources to make a larger point. This definitional section still wanders a bit, though; I think you could tighten this by using less quotation and coming up with a more focused summary across the various sources you uses.

        By tightening up that definition, though, I think you could open up space to do more with an argument I see you just starting to develop in your paper. If you look in your last paragraph, notice how you have written a pretty succint argument about how civility is not enough to address the problems you describe in your opening paragraphs. It’s not at all unusual in a first draft for writers to write themselves into discovering a new, more developed argument -- which often shows up in the final paragraph when a tying up is required!

        In your revision, then, you could reframe your argument, and pick up on really addressing how civility is necessary but not enough. You’ve got some smart ideas there, and you piqued my thinking with how you ended.

        Finally, though, I want to mention that I have to admit that I am not yet persuaded by the evidence you offer that connects a lack of civility with government repression. If you want to stay with that idea, I think you need to spell this out more explicitly and perhaps offer more evidence.

        I look forward to seeing your revisions of this paper. You should take confidence from the strengths.

        Please come talk if you have any questions.

        Thanks! Professor Komova

      • Hi Harley,

        It’s been a pleasure to watch you work out your ideas in this paper.

        My main feedback concerns the last part of your argument. I think your writing could do more to help your readers understand better why you think we need to explore confirmation bias. It is an important turning point in your paper and you might give it a little more attention. I have to say that it is not clear to me, as a reader, why your understandable concern with civility led you to do research on confirmation bias.

        Likewise, as you move into the final part of your paper, you might clarify (more than you do now) how becoming aware of one’s tendencies to look for evidence that confirms what one already believes will help curtail uncivil behavior. You seem to imply that being stuck in a circle of belief gets in the way of listening to others or being able to hear what they have to say, which can turn into an emotional blockage… Do you think confirmation bias can turn into an active, aggressive unwillingness to listen that strikes out preemptively in order to avoid having to listen?

        Meanwhile: I think you sometimes rely too much on long quotations rather than trusting your own abilities to summarize sources and include your own ideas—and you might contextualize your quotes a little more for your readers (see pages 181-183 in the Handbook).

        I look forward to reading your revisions. Let me know if you want to talk about this.

        Thanks, Professor Greene

Hints and Tips for giving feedback to your peers' writing

Click the options below to learn more.

  • Read twice before responding
  • Take notes during a first reading, while you get a sense of what the writer is trying to do. Then reread, looking for what in the writing most supports what the writing is trying to do, and for the parts that aren’t as supportive. Then write comments.
  • Prioritize your feedback.
  • You know how unhelpful it is to get a long, unordered list of feedback. When you are preparing feedback for another, pick the two to five most important observations you have—the observations that you think will most help the writer revise toward the best paper—and present only those.
  • Respond to the writing, not the writer.
  • Respond with “This introduction didn’t help me understand what the paper was about,” not with “You can’t do introductions well.” The first response helps a writer understand what revisions are needed; the second just makes the writer feel incompetent and will get in the way of helping the writer improve.
  • Respond by talking about how you read.
  • All writers need help understanding how others understand their words, and so a good way to give feedback is to say something like, “The first sentence of this paragraph made me think that what would follow would be about x, but instead it was about y—so I got confused.” This is much more helpful to writers than, “This paragraph was confusing.”
  • Give reasons for your comments.
  • If instead of, “I get lost in this paragraph,” you say, “In this paragraph you started out writing about the effects of video game violence on children but then you ended by writing about television cartoons, and I couldn’t see what connected those two ideas,” you give the writer information useful for revision. (And if you work to articulate feedback in this way, you’ll find it easier to look at your own writing just as carefully; teachers of writing often talk about how useful to their own writing it is to have to formulate feedback to people in their classes.)