Writing Across Berkeley

Teaching Writing in the Biological Sciences

November 21, 2016
Kim Freeman

The recent election has reminded us of the importance—and difficulty—of communicating our work in academia, of “translating” expert or specialized knowledge in a way that is both understandable and relevant. Climate change provides a poignant example of this problem. While 97% of scientists agree that its causes are manmade, many, including the president-elect and some of his proposed cabinet members, insist it’s a “hoax.” A failure to understand the science is only a part of the problem; poor communication among and from scientists also plays a role.

CW 161 Writing in the...

Library Anxiety

March 30, 2017
Lynn Jones

The University Library is one of the most intimidating institutions on campus to undergraduates. It represents much that is both impressive and alienating about the University. They know it’s big, they intuit that it probably has lots of amazing resources, but they feel ashamed of their ignorance and don’t know where to start. Librarians call this “library anxiety.”

The Library (as an institution and as a group of educators) reaches out to undergraduates in many ways, but the reality is unless students are assigned research they rarely use library resources. While the process of...

College Writing in London

May 20, 2017
Anna Isabella Dell'amico

Immediately after I graduated high school, I enrolled in the Global Edge Program in the summer sessions at Berkeley, after which I spent my first regular term in London in Fall 2015, taking a number of courses in College Writing (CW R4B), Art History, and Political Science, courses designed to make the most of my experience in London.

For my College Writing course, I was assigned a final paper that required that I develop a research question focusing on a place of my choice in London and addressing its significance in spatial and symbolic terms.

I decided I would use this...

The Folly of Weakening the Analytical Writing Placement Examination and Promoting Directed Self-Placement

September 15, 2018
John Briggs
Originally posted September 15, 2018

We need to take history into account when we hear any proposal to change the University of California’s Entry-Level placement system for composition. That history begins with the early years of the University. It emerges from the University of California’s conception of itself. UC was formed, and continues to be formed, by the people of...

Algorithmic Literacies for Research and Writing

September 17, 2018
Cody Hennesy

This article provides a brief introduction to algorithms, and considers how new forms of algorithmic literacy might play a role in education.

In the past few years, emerging forms of algorithm-based machine learning tools have begun to compose original works of literature.

I would like to propose here that directing students to actively interpret these new works of literature could provide a novel means to introduce them to traditional rhetorical skills as well as to emerging literacies related to...

Unlearning the Five Paragraph Essay

June 28, 2019
Jonathan Lang

A key challenge for our freshmen students in the transition from high school to college is to unlearn the five paragraph essay.

I call the five paragraph essay a hot house flower because it cannot blossom in the sun. No professional writers actually use this form. College instructors may be baffled when they witness it. Yet it is the main form that our freshmen students know and deploy.

Unlearning the five paragraph essay may be a greater challenge for our students than learning how to write—with all its messiness—in the first place. As anyone who has tried to master a second...

Developing a Thesis: Finding the Umbrella Idea

July 19, 2019
Karen Gocsik

Developing a good thesis is often the result of finding the "umbrella idea." Finding this idea requires that students move back and forth between a text's particularities and its big ideas in order to find a suitable "fit" between the two that the students can write about. This fit is then summed up in the "umbrella idea," or the big idea that all of their observations can stand under.

For instance, in an exploration of the Gospels as rhetoric, a student makes the specific observation that, in three of the four gospels, Jesus is reported as saying dramatically different things...