The Graduate Center Writing Exchange

• An introductory descriptive paragraph, which should include a problem statement, and say *what* your tool/thing will do. This is your abstract, or elevator pitch. This should not have the full theoretical framing of the project. That will come in the final.

Writing is capital. The economy of academic success is defined, in large part, through the ability to write well and write in a very specific way. This includes of course writing academic essays and assignments, and a dissertation, as well as the ability to write application letters, teaching statements, grants of various scopes, and of course, publications. But while writing determines many of the opportunities that one gets as a student and as an academic, it is not sufficiently taught at the Doctoral level nor do students consistently receive feedback on their writing. There is an assumption that one already knows how to write, and one may. However, the type of writing required within academic genres is distinct. While this tool does not address the full scope of support needed for graduate students in learning or refining academic writing, it does provide a forum for structured, focused and timely peer feedback. The Writing Exchange is an online platform where students are able to digitally exchange pieces of writing, and request feedback on specific elements of their paper.

 

• A set of personas

Yasmina is a first year Doctoral student in the Sociology program. She has not been in college for over four years and is very nervous about writing her first midterm paper. Her cohort members are very supportive but each of them is engulfed in working on their first major writing assignment. Yasmina would love to have someone look at the first draft of her essay to ensure that the ideas are clearly articulated and that it is well organized and structured. She doesn’t need a content expert, but some feedback to on the clarity and structure of her paper. She is not sure who to ask and does not know if there is an writing center where she could seek assistance.

 

George is a Doctoral student in the Public Health department who has just finished his coursework. He is beginning to plan for his dissertation research and must submit a proposal to his department in a month. While there is a writing group that he could join, his work schedule has not allowed him to consistently participate, and so he finds himself with a high stakes writing assignment and no opportunities for timely feedback. He is especially concerned about his sentence structures and grammar, and would like someone to suggest edits.

 

Aminthia is a third year Doctoral student in the Music program and just quit her job to focus her attention on finishing an incomplete so that she can move on to the next level. Her job and family obligations have made completing all her coursework difficult, and she is dedicated to finishing the program. Aminthia has a final paper that she owes Professor Jenkins which she would like to finish before the end of the semester. The paper is only half complete, and the momentum has passed. She wishes that she had someone who would read it for her and give her some suggestions on how to move forward. She is especially struggling with tying together some of the concepts she had begun to explore in the paper two semesters earlier.

 

Farah is in her final semester as a Doctoral candidate in Urban Education, and she is editing her dissertation. While she has received plenty of feedback from her committee and her writing group, she would like fresh eyes to go over her conclusion/final chapter. Farah wishes that she had an informal outside reader who can look over one part of her dissertation.

 

• A use case scenario (where would someone find your tool/thing and how would they use it). Keep it short.

 

As there is no writing center at the Graduate Center, any student who has a writing assignment and needs a specific type of feedback would have the opportunity to exchange their work with that of someone else at the Graduate Center. Yasmina for example would upload her midterm paper and request edits on clarity and organization. George would upload his proposal and request style edits. Because these components happen to be strengths of the other student, they would be matched and would have 7 days to provide feedback. The forum would allow them to be matched based on strength and need, to ask for specific types of feedback, and to have a time frame in which to accomplish this work. The writers must both be ready to submit their work to exchange the feedback back.

 

• How you will make the full fledged version. This is your “ideal world” version that fulfills all of your visions and fantasies (what tools you will use, how you will get them, how confident you are that all the moving parts will work together, etc)

I am not sure what tool I would use to make this tool. This is probably beyond the scope of my technical knowledge and expertise. I would envision this as something that is hosted on the CUNY Commons. One would sign up, add info about their assignments and needs, and be matched with another student who also needs writing feedback. The switch would require an algorithm (ie. if content knowledge in disciplines, grammatical/style edits, organization and clarity etc). The switch would also need to have some sort of communicating mechanism, a mechanism of embedding a timeline or deadline, and to switch back fairly.

 

• Your assessment of how much time this will take, and how much of the skills you currently know and what you would have to learn.

More time than I have honestly. I would have to invest in investigating a tool and building on it. I don’t know how the mechanisms if what I need would even look like.

 

• How you will make the stripped down version. The stripped down version is the minimally viable product. It is the most *bare bones* version to prove that what you are trying to get at is viable. (what tools you will use, how you will get them, how confident you are that all the moving parts will work together, etc)

The stripped down version would be an online writing group on the CUNY Commons that uses Social Paper to solicit peer-review and exchange.

 

• Your assessment of how much time this will take, and how much of the skills you currently know and what you would have to learn.

I would not have to build a tool as much as put two pre-exisiting tools on the Commons together.

 

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Essay Developer

 

• An introductory descriptive paragraph, which should include a problem statement, and say *what* your tool/thing will do. This is your abstract, or elevator pitch. This should not have the full theoretical framing of the project. That will come in the final.

Writing a research essay can be an extremely daunting task for undergraduate students. Yet for many courses, it is a requirement. Thoughout the course of undergradute studies, students are expected to write research papers of various scopes acrossan array of disciplines. Some courses may provide instructions on how to write a research paper, while many will expect the student to have some prior experience and therefore will not give any direct instruction. Furthermore, many general education curricula and departmental requirements have both writing and research as a course learning objective where students are assessed without sufficient instruction in writing the research paper. Finally, many capstone projects will be in the form of a research paper and actas a gatekeeper to fulfilling departmental requirements. My tool is a website that scaffolds doing a research paper in a series of steps that deconstruct the process into small manageable tasks. The Essay Developer is a critical tool that helps guide, structure and support the student in creating a developed and well-organized essay. While it does generate the essay itself, the tool enables the student undergo a process of shaping ideas and sources into a research essay. This begins with a forum for brainstorming, to crafting a clear and succinct thesis statement, to generating research and annotating sources, to writing parts of the essay based on those notes and annotations. The Essay Developer is not a mode of instruction and does not give direct instruction on how to write a research paper. Rather, it is a process that guides students in small maneageable tasks that scaffold up to a research paper.

 

• A set of personas

Professor Alfredo is teaching social psychology at Hostos Community College. Prof. Alfredo has 28 students, all who are taking the course to fulfill their requirements in Psychology. As a required course, he understands that he has to provide the students with the means of acquiring a basic understanding of canonical theories and theorists in the field, and in fifteen weeks, this seems a daunting task. In addition to a departmental exam that he must administer in the midterm, he is required to assign a 15 page research essay for the final. Prof. Alfredo had taught this course for five years and knows that on average about half the class is not able to construct a good quality fully developed research essay of that scope. He has encountered numerous students whose grades suffered as a result of their low scores on the final research paper even though they performed well on other aspects of the course. He wishes that there was more he could do to guide them through writing a research paper, but there just is not enough class time for instruction. He has used the writing center before as a resource, but finds that while it has helped some students, it has not provided adequate support throughout the process of doing research and constructing the paper for majority of them. Prof. Alfredo wishes that there was a tool out there that he could give to his students to help them with the final research paper. 

 

Nadia Greer is a Doctoral candidate in English and has just been assigned her first course to teach as an instructor at City College. She is required to teach students how to write in three genres, one of which includes a 10 page research essay. Nadia has only been a tutot and therefore does not have any instructional materials to guide her through teaching 30 students how to write in three genres. She has the summer to gather her thoughts, locate some teaching materials and consult with friends and peers who have taught writing before on ideas for activities and projects. While there are a lot of promising materials, she wishes that she had a digital tool that she could use in helping her devise lessons for writing a research paper.

 

Claude Mbakou is a senior finishing his degree in Chemistry at Hunter College, and in his last year he must do an independent study where he produces a 25 page research paper. Claude is an excellent student who has focused his attention on scoring well on exams and doing stellar lab work. Writing has always been an area of weakness for him, and the idea of writing a paper that long is daunting. Claude is working with an advisor, Proffessor Damas, who is able to help him gather his thoughts and provide feedback on his work. However, his advisor is not responsible for instructing him on how to write a research paper. Claude wishes that there was a resource that would take him through small steps in putting together a research paper. 

 

• A use case scenario (where would someone find your tool/thing and how would they use it). Keep it short.

The Essay Developer is a simple digital tool that any student can use in writing a research paper. It is a resource for educators who require studentsto write a research paper but may not have sufficient time and resources for individualized attention. While there are many different processes for writing, the Essay Developer poses one efficient and effective process of constructing an academic research paper. Prof. Alfredo can assign this tool as a resource for students to complete the final research paper in his class. As he does not have time to instruct them on research and writing, this tool is an excellent supplement that will support his students through a critical component of their learning and production in the course. Nadia can also use this tool in her course. She can provide instruction on the individual steps in the Essay Developer, and ask students to do the tasks at home. As such, the tool would be an integral part of her instruction both in the classroom and as homework Claude and Professor Damas can check out the Essay Developer together, and can use it as a structure and timeline to help Claude complete his independent study. It can be used as a common platform to check in at vital points in the project and ensure that Claude is receiving adequate structure in doing his work.

 

• How you will make the full fledged version. This is your “ideal world” version that fulfills all of your visions and fantasies (what tools you will use, how you will get them, how confident you are that all the moving parts will work together, etc)

The fulle fledged version of the Essay Developer is a friendly, simple and intuitive interface between an overwhelmed student and a tool that deconstructs the research essay into small manageable tasks. The student would only be faced with doing one task at a time, where each accomplished task builds on the one before (so once a task is accomplished, it functions as the foundation for the next step or two). The screen would also populate with an interative timeline that visualizes for the students where he or she is in the process of completing the essay. The screen would also have digitial sticky notes with vital informtation to keep in mind at various steps in the process; this would include the thesis statement/research question, keywords, and important notes on the assignment requirements such as citation style, minimum number or type of sources etc. This ismeant to act as a workspace soley for the essay, and keep the student on track. The Essay Developer would also have an annotation tool and a citation tool for various tasks. I would also need some sort of drag and drop mechanism at one step in the process when students are mapping out their research ideas. The Essay Developer in its full version would require a number of tools (between 5 and 6) that are built around one another. The foundational tool would be a website that has the capacity for moving in a pre-determined path or modules, and then other tools within the website that enable annotations, citations and exporting work into a Word Document. 

 

• Your assessment of how much time this will take, and how much of the skills you currently know and what you would have to learn.

It would take at least 2 months to finalize the list of tools that would be required to make this work; these would need to be evaluated individually as well as how they would work together on one platform. Building the Essay Developer from this point onwards would take another 4 months at least. The entire project, with learning curve and exploratory phase included would take at least 6 months with focused work (I know I am probably being rather naive here).

 

• How you will make the stripped down version. The stripped down version is the minimally viable product. It is the most *bare bones* version to prove that what you are trying to get at is viable. (what tools you will use, how you will get them, how confident you are that all the moving parts will work together, etc)

The stripped down version will focus on a few of the steps to constructing a research essay, instead of the full 11 steps that woudl be required to take the student through the full arch. It would need to focus on one component of it writing a research paper rather than the entire process. I would eliminate the interactive timeline, the sticky notes and the brainstorming step that requires drag and drop/drawing functions as wellto further strip down. 

 

• Your assessment of how much time this will take, and how much of the skills you currently know and what you would have to learn.

The stripped down version will realistically take about half the time. I will need to explore and interact with less tools. I will still need a learning curve to acquire dexterity with the tools that I would use to build the Essay Developer.