1. Specific and Concrete Language Peer Review
Day 5: Draft Workshop
Writing is a series of decisions.
Specific and Concrete Language
Peer Review

2. Writing with Precision
Specific and concrete language

3. Three Sentences To excel in college, you’ll have to work hard.
To excel in college, you’ll have to do all of the assigned work plus some additional tasks.
To excel in college, you need to not only attend every class and complete the assigned reading, but also revise multiple drafts of each paper and review your notes for each class weekly.
In what way(s) is each of the sentences on the left effective? In what way(s) is it ineffective?
General, abstract
Specific, abstract
Concrete

4. Specific and Concrete Language
Definitions
Principles
General: Referring to a large class of things, e.g. “college classes” or “food.”
Specific: Referring to particular cases, e.g. “8 AM UWP 1 class” or “vegan burrito.”
Abstract: Referring to intangible concepts, e.g. “education” or “unusual taste.”
Concrete: Referring to things that can be known through the senses, e.g. “circling specific details in the student’s draft” or “spicy tofu.”
General language is useful for identifying topics and underlying issues, although it’s weak at expressing ideas.
Specific language demonstrates careful, informed, and honest thinking.
Abstract language is useful for expressing your main points (e.g. in topic sentences).
Concrete language is useful for providing evidence and holding your reader’s attention.

5. Expressing Ideas General vs. specific Abstract vs. concrete
“The study was about asthma.”
“The study, conducted by Dr. Anna Stevens from the University of Washington, surveyed 200 adult asthma patients over one year to determine whether certain weather conditions increase the frequency of attacks.”
“OMG, I hate drama.”
“I hate investing time and emotional energy into conversations about topics that aren’t important to me.”
“This experience taught me how important it is to really put yourself out there and dedicate yourself to a cause.”
“This experience showed me that volunteer organizations can only achieve their goals when people aren’t too shy to identify problems and are willing to dedicate time to solving them.
“OMG, guys are so dramatic.”
“The guys in this debate about the latest Avengers movie are really upset about a plot point that didn’t bother me much.”

6. Providing Details General vs. specific Abstract vs. concrete
“The cat was always getting into trouble.”
“The cat was always getting stuck in unusual places: treetops, rooftops, wheel wells, and once even a storm drain.”
“One morning, I found him sitting outside a bedroom window—on the second story of my house! But he didn’t seem to care at all.”
“One morning, I woke to the sound of plaintive meowing outside my window— and I sleep on the second story! I opened the curtains and sure enough, there he was, with his pink nose pressed flat against the glass, oblivious to the twelve- foot drop just behind his tail.”

7. Moving from Abstract to Concrete
Paragraphs typically begin with abstract ideas, then provide concrete evidence to support those ideas, then end on an abstract summary sentence.
Lower-division courses in my major are boring. Most of them are two hour, two- hundred person lectures. It’s almost impossible to focus on one thing for two hours in any case, but it’s especially difficult when a hard auditorium chair from the 1970s is digging into your back, the student six inches to your left is popping their bubble gum, and the professor is reading off of a PowerPoint slide. I know the equations we’re learning in these classes provide a necessary foundation for the lab work I’ll be doing over the summer, but after two hours in Wellman 126, my brain is so numb that I can’t remember a thing.

8. What’s Wrong with Imprecision?
Someone says: “American voters must be willing to protect our freedoms.”
Which of these do they mean?
“Voters must be willing to give up some individual protections against wire- tapping so that the government can track down terrorists and protect the nation as a whole.”
“Voters must protect their fourth amendment right against illegal searches and seizures by asking their representatives to vote against the administration's warrantless and discriminatory wiretapping program.”

9. Your Draft
Are there any general sentences in your narrative that could be more specific?
Are there abstract sentences in the middle of a paragraph that could be more concrete?
Are there concrete sentences at the beginning or end of a paragraph that could be supplemented with more abstract ones?

10. Break
Transition: Hand out “Literacies” activity.
5 minutes

11. Peer Review
Please use Track Changes and marginal comments to mark up your partner’s draft. When commenting, consider the questions below.
Content
Is the narrative vivid and engaging? Does the writer make good use of specific and concrete detail?
Does anything in the narrative need to be more thoroughly described or explained?
On the other hand, are there any irrelevant or repetitive ideas that can be deleted?
Organization
Is each paragraph focused on a single purpose? Does the beginning of each paragraph make that purpose clear?
Do any sentences feel out-of-place— unconnected to the sentences around them or the paragraph’s larger purpose?
Language
Can you easily follow the writer’s ideas from one sentence to the next? Should any sentences be combined or split up to make the relationship between ideas clearer?
Do any sentences need to be edited for clarity, grammar, or mechanics?

12. Reminders Next class Homework Reminders Rhetorical Situations
What is a rhetorical situation?
What are the parts of a rhetorical situation, and how do they work?
Introduce Assignment 2
Literacy Narrative due by 11:55 PM on Friday
Entry 1 – Reading Response Journal – due Friday
For Monday, read Carroll “Backpacks vs. Briefcases” (Course Reader)
For Monday, complete Homework #3