2 Writing Reports 2a. Developing a Perspective on Reportscollege.cengage.com/english/dodds/ready_reference_handbook/4e/assets/... · --“Eye Gouging in the Backwoods,” Harper’s

Copyright © 2006 by Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Pearson Longman

222 Writing Reports

2a. Developing a Perspective on Reports

1. The Aims of Report Writing The word “report” comes from the Latin reportare, “to carry back.” Writing as a reporter, you carry back to interested readers the information you’ve gathered about people, places, things, or events. You aim to tell the whole truth and nothing but--or at least as much truth as you can find or your readers require--and in the process answer the journalist’s five questions: “Who?” “What?” “When?” “Where?” and “Why?” Some people regard this factual writing as less worthy than other kinds, such as the imaginative writing of fiction or the thoughtful writing of essays of opinion. After all, they reason, facts are such small things, as common as leaves, “mere facts,” trivial and transitory, the stuff of old newspapers, heaped in a recycling bin. But this is a short-sighted view, for what is a rare idea or a sound opinion without facts to give it weight? Facts are not the leaves on the tree of knowledge but its root and trunk, the nourishing source for good ideas and opinions.

2. Assignments: The Reporter’s Options Informal report. An informal report is not necessarily written in an informal style. Its name refers to the fact that it is designed to flow, like an essay, from paragraph to paragraph, without the distinct parts characteristic of formal reports. An informal report might also be called an “informative essay.” A biography is an informal report, as are many of the assignments you’ll write in humanities or social science classes in college and the memos or brief documents you’ll prepare at work. A special form of the informal report is the “New-Journalism” report, in which reporters use the narrative and descriptive tools of novelists both to report on a topic and tell the story of their encounter with that topic. Formal report. A formal report, often referred to as a “technical report,” presents a formal design, with distinct parts. Formal reports are frequent assignments in the sciences and on the job and appear in several versions: the lab report to present the results of an experiment, the periodic or progress report to bring readers up to date, the field report to give the results of an on-site inspection, or the research report to answer a research question or solve a problem. (See The Ready Reference Handbook, 62f.) Case study. The case study is a special kind of technical report, most common in the social sciences, medicine, and wherever investigators trace the course of a phenomenon as it appears in one individual’s life. The reporter aims not only to tell one episode from a person’s life but also to explain that episode according to current theory or to draw conclusions that might help explain the behavior of other, similar people.


Book report. A book report is a special kind of technical report, one unique to school. When you write a book report, you aim not merely to summarize a book you’ve read but to demonstrate your understanding of it and, frequently, to evaluate it.


2b. “Inventing” a Report

1. Gathering Information Choosing a topic. Reporters are frequently assigned their topics. If you choose your own topic, find one that provokes your curiosity and that makes you feel like a curator, wanting to gather, understand, preserve, and share valuable information. Time limits, your knowledge, or the complexity of a topic may require you to focus on one interesting part. At the beginning, before you start your investigation, freewrite to discover what you know about your topic, what you don’t, your feelings, and opinions. This freewriting will establish your perspective as you gather information. Discussing your topic. Discuss your topic with others, in person or online, to see other perspectives. (See The Ready Reference Handbook, 2a3.) Writing questions. To begin your investigation, pose questions to answer. But don’t be surprised if, in response to your growing understanding, they change during your research. These questions may come from readers, the assignment, or a request for information. Or they may be more pointed versions of the questions in the “How to Think Critically” box (see 1a of The Ready Reference Handbook) that you’ve adapted to your topic. After you’ve formulated questions, rewrite to make them clear and precise. Computer experts have an acronym, GIGO, relevant to reporters: “Garbage in--garbage out.” The answers to your questions will be only as good as the questions themselves. A good research question is clear, precise in wording, unbiased, single rather than multiple, and well focused. If you can do so, avoid asking “yes/no” questions; their answers may short-circuit your investigation or prevent you from considering alternatives. Answering questions. Answer your questions by reading, observing, experimenting, interviewing, and sampling with surveys or questionnaires. Record your information in carefully prepared notes. As you investigate your topic, use the guidelines for evaluating information sources in The Ready Reference Handbook, 49a; for note-taking guidelines, see 49b, c, and d. Your notes will probably include the following kinds of information:

Facts, figures, and definitions of important terms.

Explanations of whatever information may be unclear.

Step-by-step descriptions of events or processes.

Descriptions of people, places, and things to make your report interesting, especially details readers might have difficulty imagining or understanding.


Figurative comparisons, especially analogies, to help readers see and understand your subject (see The Ready Reference Handbook, 6b7 and 26c).

Quotations of experts or eyewitnesses to illustrate, explain, or dramatize.

Visual information contained in tables, charts, graphs, and photographs. (See 1c of The

Ready Reference Handbook for guidelines to interpreting this information.)

Careful and complete information about your sources so that you can acknowledge where you’ve borrowed information, quotations, or others’ opinions. List author names, titles, dates, and publication information.

2. Focusing Your Report You won’t get far in your investigation before you begin taking stock of what you’re finding and draw conclusions to focus and unify your report. Your conclusions may be:

Summaries that sum up or give the gist of the information.

Generalizations that compare, classify, or estimate the size, number, or amount of groups of things.

Cause-effect statements.

Value judgments evaluating the morality, usefulness, or pleasures of a subject.

Predictions.

Proposals recommending specific actions or policy.

To write conclusions, try one of these formulas:

What my information seems to show is . . .

What I want my readers to know about ___________ is that . . .

My subject is important because . . .

The causes/effects of my subject are . . .

The actions these facts require are . . . Choose the most appropriate formula; combine them if necessary. Write several versions until you find one that says what you want it to say. Good conclusions are:


Complete, accounting for all relevant information.

Sound, supported by the information you’ve gathered.

Clear, precise, and unambiguous in wording.

Qualified, containing words such as “some,” “may,” “possibly,” “many,” “rarely,”

“often,” “seldom.” Rarely do conclusions contain categorical words like “all,” “never,” “no,” “every.” Good conclusions never claim more than the information allows.

Grammatically complete. Conclusions are declarative sentences that make statements,

not questions. Here, for example, is the conclusion to a student’s formal report investigating reduced tax funding of state colleges in Illinois. Note how thoroughly the conclusion responds to all of the information the student has gathered: the causes and consequences of reduced taxes, the problems and their solution.

As a result of reduced state taxes, public funding of state colleges has been reduced. In response to shrinking payroll budgets, faculty have begun leaving for better-paying positions in business or at colleges in other states. Class sizes have been increased, preventing many students from taking required courses and delaying their graduation. Some colleges have even been forced to reduce enrollment, thus denying students access to higher education. Ultimately, budgetary reductions for higher education will affect not only faculty, staff, and students; it will diminish the state’s overall economic competitiveness. The solution is an increase of state taxes, an action that surveys show a majority of citizens support.

--Kevin Kravitz


2c. Planning a Report

1. Profiling Your Audience As you draw conclusions about your subject, begin thinking about your audience. You’ll almost never address readers directly in your reports--as “you”--but you’ll acknowledge their interests by what you say about a subject and the way you say it. As a reporter, you’ll address two kinds of audience:

Audiences motivated by natural curiosity. These readers want to be entertained as well as informed. They probably know little about your subject, so you’ll provide detailed background information and define specialized terms.

Audiences who want information for their jobs or for technical

purposes. These readers want to act on your information, to fulfill the responsibilities that brought them to your report; they don’t expect to be entertained. Because they probably have a general knowledge of your subject, you’ll provide less background information and define fewer terms. These are the audiences for formal reports and for most academic writing.

To help you decide who your readers are and what information to include in your report, prepare an audience profile. Use the questions in the “How to Profile an Audience” box in 1d of The Ready Reference Handbook.

2. Organizing Information Following are conventional organizing patterns for reports. Whatever your design, if your information is complex or unfamiliar, you’ll have to write an outline to put everything in the right order (see The Ready Reference Handbook, 3c). Informal report. You’ll likely organize an informal report or informative essay in one of two ways:

Narrative order. If you’re reporting on people, you’ll probably organize your report in chronological or “time” order. In addition to dramatic details and events, you’ll emphasize the significance of people’s lives, the causes and consequences of their actions, and the features of their personalities.

Logical order. Other subjects you’ll organize topically, to answer the relevant

journalist’s questions. Or you may organize according to causes and effects, classification, comparison/contrast, problem/solution, or answers to readers questions in the order in which they were asked.


Formal report. A formal report is divided into clearly labeled sections that appear in a customary order:

Abstract. An abstract is a brief summary that often precedes a report. (For an example, see The Ready Reference Handbook, 55d.)

Statement of the Problem. This is the introduction to your report. “Problem”

means whatever requires a report. It may be an actual problem that needs solving, a question that needs answering, a request for information so that an audience can take action, a misperception that needs correcting, or some phenomenon that deserves investigation.

Background. Depending on your subject, you’ll describe the causes of the problem,

present background information or history, define important terms, summarize relevant research that others have conducted, identify the materials or methods used in an experiment, or explain the techniques of your investigation.

Results and Discussion. You’ll present and explain your findings in detail. In

some reports, the “results” section contains only the factual information you’ve gathered; the “discussion” contains explanation, interpretation, and evaluation of this information.

Conclusion. You’ll summarize the results of your research, draw any conclusions

that your information has led to, describe solutions to the problem, recommend action, policy change, or the course of future research.

Reference list or works cited. Here you’ll give full citations for all the sources of

information you’ve used in your report. (For Modern Language Association guidelines, see The Ready Reference Handbook, 53b; for the American Psychological Association guidelines, see 55b; for guidelines in other fields, see Chaps. 56 and 57.)

These large sections of a formal report may be subdivided into shorter sections, each with its own heading. For guidelines to effective section headings, see The Ready Reference Handbook, 46b. (For further guidelines to formal reports, see The Ready Reference Handbook, 62f.) Case study. A case study is usually arranged chronologically, like a story, but explanations frequently interrupt. It really contains two stories, that of the patient, client, or other person under observation and that of the observer who selects facts, explains them, draws conclusions, and applies those findings to other instances. To write an effective case study, you’ll need to describe accurately and vividly to bring your subject to life yet avoid “loaded” language that might color or distort your facts. Book report. A book report usually contains:

An introduction. You’ll give information about the book, including its kind, history of composition, important facts about the author’s life relevant to the book’s contents, and publishing information (editor, publisher, place of publication, date of publication, and length).


Contents. A systematic summary, describing the book’s design, major subjects, style

or method of presentation, and conclusions.

Positive and negative features of the book.

Conclusions. An identification of the book’s intended audience and uses, a comparison with related books, and your judgment of its value.

3. Placing Your Conclusion Statement As you organize your report, decide where you’ll place your conclusion statement for greatest impact. In many reports, conclusions appear not at the end but in the beginning, immediately following the introduction. This is frequently true of informal reports and of formal reports that may not always be read in their entirety, as often is the case in business. A conclusion placed in the beginning will sum up your findings and point the way through the report. A conclusion placed at the end assumes readers have read the entire report and that it represents a logical end to a chain of reasoning.

4. Creating Your Persona As you get organized, decide how much of yourself to put in your report. In most reports, the conventions of objectivity require that you not refer to yourself. Stay in the background, out of the way of your information. You’ll put yourself in a report, as an “I” in the following situations:

When you’re part of the story you’re reporting, often the case in “New-Journalism”-style informal reports.

When you’re reporting primarily to inform yourself, often the case for reports assigned in school.

When you’re describing your point of view (your background, values, or vantage point for viewing your subject). If your point of view differs from that of your readers, you must acknowledge that difference, usually in your introduction.

When you give your credentials as a reporter or describe your methods of gathering information.

Rarely will the occasion for your report be so formal that you’ll refer to yourself as “this reporter,” “the writer,” or “one.”

5. Planning an Introduction The introductions to your reports will usually be brief. Most readers will begin reading your report already interested in your topic, officially as part of their jobs or naturally as an expression of their curiosity. When reporting about people, begin simply, by introducing the person and describing the


conditions of your observation. If your subject is complex or unfamiliar to your readers, you may begin illustratively, with some fact, detail, or event that identifies your subject and dramatically sums up the results of your investigation. Here, for example, student John Chen opens an informal report of interest to urban and suburban commuters:

In a car-crazy culture like that of the United States, citizens measure the quality of their lives, in part, by the quality of their drives. Whether traveling for work, leisure, or family obligations, Americans yearn for “good drives,” and often change their addresses just to make travel easier. Increasingly, however, Americans are unhappy travelers. Highways, expressways, and local streets are crowded and getting more crowded. In many parts of the country, the seasons of the year are now divided into winter and road-repair, and millions of orange traffic cones, months-long lane closures, and roundabout detours make American roadways even more congested. Incredibly, no sooner are many of these roads repaired than they begin to show new pot-holed signs of wear and tear. Even travelers like me, who try do as much of their local travel as possible on foot or by bicycle, encounter difficulties as we navigate neighborhoods without walkways and streets ill-designed to accommodate both motorized and human-powered vehicles. I wanted to find out how we have created road systems seemingly so at odds with our traveling needs and desires. In particular, I wanted to learn the process and principles by which US roads and streets are designed, how their construction and maintenance are funded, and how they are constructed to ensure durability.

--John Chen With a few brief observations and by summarized research questions, this writer focuses his report and prepares for the information to follow. In most reports, readers expect the introduction to give your purposes for reporting, point of view if different from theirs, methods of investigation or sources of information, some clue to your pattern of organization, and, often, the conclusions you’ve drawn. This is a lot to do in only one or two paragraphs. No wonder professional writers spend so much time on their openings! You should, too. (For an example of an introduction to a formal report, see The Ready Reference Handbook, 6c2.)


2d. Writing and Revising a Report

1. Choosing Words As you draft a report, present facts objectively, using a vocabulary that is concrete, precise in denotative meaning, heavy with nouns and verbs, and as specialized as the subject requires and readers will allow. Here, for example, is an excerpt from a report investigating college students’ self-perceptions and expectations:

Contemporary college students believe their academic and career prospects are bright. According to students interviewed here at Harper College and 252,090 students at 464 colleges and universities surveyed by the Higher Education Research Institute, fifty-six percent rank themselves in the top ten percent in academic ability. Fifty percent expect to get at least a B average. Of special interest to English teachers, forty percent rank themselves in the top ten percent in writing ability. Twenty percent, up from eleven percent ten years ago, expect to graduate with honors. After graduation, forty percent plan to go on to earn master’s degrees, and fifteen percent, to earn PhDs. Seventy-four percent expect their college preparation will earn them good jobs. Said one Harper faculty member, “It’s not unusual for students to tell me they expect to make $50-70,000 a year right out of college. Can you believe that?”

--Larry Barnett This student-writer may have definite opinions about his fellow students’ illogical self-perceptions and their naiveté about their careers, but he avoids judgments and chooses neutral words, without connotative meaning. The more technical your report, on the job or in school, the more you should choose words for their informative precision. This principle of objectivity, however, does not mean that you must use words as flat and faceless as the language of road signs. If you’re writing informally, if readers want your evaluation, or if your conclusions require you to make judgments, present your information in descriptive words with connotative as well as denotative meanings. Here, for example, historian Eliott Gorn contrasts a particularly brutal form of nineteenth century boxing and the genteel tradition of dueling with pistols:

A rough-and-tumble [boxing match] was more than a poor man’s duel, a botched version of genteel combat. Plain folk chose not to ape the dispassionate, antiseptic style of the gentry but to invert it. The gentleman’s code of honor insisted on cool restraint, while eye gougers gloried in unvarnished brutality.


--“Eye Gouging in the Backwoods,” Harper’s Magazine The connotative meaning implied by words such as botched, ape, antiseptic, cool restraint, gloried, and unvarnished brutality suggest Gorn’s conclusion that rough-and-tumble boxing had a social importance and human value that duelling lacked.

2. Paragraphing in Reports As a reporter, you’ll occasionally write narrative and descriptive paragraphs. But most of your paragraphs will be informative, organized logically (see The Ready Reference Handbook, 5a and b). Such paragraphs often begin with topic sentences to introduce their topics and make a point. The body of the paragraph explains the topic or supports an assertion. Singly or in series, informative paragraphs are often like mini-essays, with their own introduction, body, and conclusion. Here, in a report on standardized testing, student Ashley Sheffer describes the problems of these tests: Topic sentence Clarification of the assertion in the topic sentence Support: expert opinions Explanation of the causes for the bias asserted in the topic sentence Transition/topic sentence for a paragraph describing other forms of bias Information and explanation about the

A third cause of the decline in the popularity of standardized tests [as college admission tools] is their bias against test takers who might be considered “different”: the poor, minorities, and women. Kohn (2001, p. 348) explains that when schools, towns, or states are compared for the test scores of their students, “an overwhelming proportion of the variance” in these scores can be accounted for by the socioeconomic status (SES) of the test takers. “The truth of the matter,” he declares, is that [standardized tests] offer a remarkably precise method for gauging the size of the houses near the school where the test was administered.” It would be more honest, says Harvard professor Lani Guinier, to call a standardized test a “wealth test,” and Peter Sacks, author of Standardized Minds, refers to disparity in scores between wealthy and poor students as “the Volvo effect” (Zwick, 2001, p. 34). Such disparity exists, Zwick reasons, because “students who come from wealthier families are more likely to have achievement-oriented environments and to attend resource rich schools staffed by better-trained teachers” (p. 34). In addition, Owen and Doerr (1999) note that it is the wealthy students who are able to pay the $1000 tuition for test coaching schools to help them prepare for the supposedly “uncoachable” ACT and SAT tests. Involved with this economic bias, as both symptom and result, are ethnic, gender, and geographic biases that “stack the deck” against women, minorities, and rural students (Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory Equity Center, 2001). It is widely recognized that African-American and Hispanic students tend to score lower than whites or Asians (Zwick, 2001, p. 33). Why? Jay Rosner (2003), Executive Director of the Princeton Review, a test-coaching service, explained:

If you look at all of the SAT questions on the test, every question is pretested and preselected, and they just happen to favor whites over blacks. That is, higher percentages of whites answer every SAT question correctly than blacks, and the test makers know this before they choose the questions to appear on the test.


causes of these other forms of bias

The gap between male and female test takers is less pronounced than that between white and minority test takers but just as constant: “despite the fact that girls earn higher grades throughout both high school and college, they consistently receive lower scores on [ACT and SAT tests] than do their male counterparts” (FairTest, “Gender Bias,” 2003). Again the question, why? Those at the National Center for Fair and Open Testing argue that just as the test makers tend to be white and upper middle class, so do they tend to be male. And the test questions they write tend to reflect the values of the white upper middle class, as well as knowledge important to males and male problem-solving strategies (FairTest, “Gender Bias,” 2003).

3. A Revision Checklist Be sure you’ve covered your topic in a way helpful to your intended audience. Have

you defined specialized terms? Have you provided background information and explanation?

Outline your drafts after you’ve written to see that you’ve organized in a logical

manner. Readers can’t follow a report as easily as a story, so you’ll have to help them with headings, transitions, and repeated key words. (For more on coherence, see The Ready Reference Handbook, Ch. 7.)

Document the information you’ve borrowed, whether from books, magazines,

interviews, the Internet, or other sources. Document whether you quote, summarize, or paraphrase. (For guidelines to the fair use of sources, see The Ready Reference Handbook, Chap. 51. For the Modern Language Association’s documentation style, see 52 a and b. For the American Psychological Association style, see 55b. For other styles, see Chaps. 56 and 57.)

Check your language for “loaded” words that reveal inappropriate bias. Draw

conclusions about your information, but remember that your purpose is to report, not argue or express your feelings. Also check to see that your language is concrete, precise, and specific. Reporting unfamiliar subjects, you may have written vaguely and wordily as you try to understand your subject and fit all the facts together (see The Ready Reference Handbook, 25a and b, and Chapter 28).


4. Questions for Peer Reviewers of Reports Writers: If you’re passing out copies of your writing for peer reviewers to read, number your paragraphs to make your report easy to discuss. Then make a brief introduction:

1. Identify your audience--your intended readers.

2. Identify the kind of report you’ve written: informal report (informative essay), formal report, case study, or book report.

3. Describe your intentions. “In my report I’m trying to tell/show. . . .” 4. Tell your peer reviewers about the feedback you want from them. Ask questions,

describe problems, or pose alternative solutions for which you want opinions. Then take notes as you listen to this feedback. Use the your reviewers’ suggestions where they’re helpful, but remember, this is your report. It should say what you want it to say.

Peer reviewers: Answer the following questions to help this writer see his/her report clearly and begin planning revisions.

1. The reporter’s role. Has this writer written consistently as a reporter? Does the writer occasionally sound like an autobiographer (focusing on him/herself more than the subject), like a teacher (trying to teach something or prove a point), or like a critic (praising or condemning)? Identify paragraphs in which the writer does not sound like a reporter. Point out language that seems biased.

2. Does this project have a unifier, a conclusion about the meaning, significance, or uses

of the information in the report? Identify it by paragraph and summarize it.

3. Development. Has the writer said everything necessary to inform his/her audience about the subject of the report? Does the writing provide enough detail to support its conclusion? What should be added: description, facts, quotations or dialogue, definitions, metaphors or similes? Identify by paragraph where additions would help readers get the writer’s message.

4. Organization. Will the audience for this report be able to follow it from start to finish?

What reorganization would make its ideas clearer or easier to follow?


5. Does the report have the appropriate features of an informal or formal report?

Title (Does it capture attention, identify the topic, or suggest the writer’s

conclusion?) Introduction (Does it interest the audience and help them see where the report is

going?)

Point of view (Does the writer identify his/her perspective if it differs from that of his/her audience? Point of view, remember, refers to the cultural, psychological, or physical vantage point from which a writer views a subject.)

Headings (Do they signal the function or identify the topic of each part?)

Topic sentences (Does the writer use topic sentences to introduce the topics of

paragraphs?)

Source citations (Does the writer introduce his/her sources of information by name?)

List of sources (Does the writer provide a list of sources at the end of the

report?)


2e. Student Examples—Writing A Report

1. Code Switching—Spontaneous Occurrence (an informal report) ASSIGNMENT: As a bilingual person, observe the conditions when code-switching occurs. Report your experiences, i.e., the occasions when you and family members or friends use one language as opposed to a second or third language.

Code Switching—Spontaneous Occurrence

by Eva Kuznicki

Although the term “bilingual” is generously granted all individuals who speak two

languages, in fact, for most there is always one of those languages that they feel more

comfortable using. The native language, the tongue of comfort, is the one that they grew up with

and acquired during their childhood and adolescence.

While social situations demand that bilinguals choose a particular language in the

presence of a person who is monolingual, often the absence of that foreigner does not necessarily

signal a conversion to the native language between bilingual speakers. Among bilingual

individuals, code switching happens automatically, depending mainly on speech circumstances

and the topic of communication. The players of the scene remain the same, yet regardless of their

ability to communicate in both languages, bilingual speakers go back and forth from one tongue

to another to convey different messages. These statements are very general and perhaps cannot

be applied to all individuals who consider themselves bilingual. Code switching often depends

on the extent of their command of the second language.

My observations are based on the behavior of a typical immigrant family, my own. The

parents, that is, my husband and I, came to the United States with no knowledge of English.

Through work and social experiences, we slowly learned some “Pidgin English,” but more

embarrassed by it than satisfied with that minimal progress, we took English classes.


Unfortunately, we were both in our late twenties when first exposed to our second language, and

even though English is the language that we speak exclusively during daily routines, Polish will

always be the language we “feel.” That does not mean that we both automatically switch to

Polish when we get home. It all depends on our emotional attachment to the topic. When my

husband talks about his work, he speaks English to report his daily tasks. However, if there was

a problem with a client or something unusual happened, he immediately switches to Polish. The

same code switching occurs when, after discussing a TV program that we saw, we begin talking

about our family. We both automatically convert from English to Polish because we are

emotionally attached to that topic, not for lack of knowledge of English words.

There are, however, some words that did not exist or we had never heard when we were

acquiring our first language. For example, the entire computer-related vocabulary or expressions

pertaining to the stock market, we learned in English first, and we always use this language

whenever we talk about computers or finances. In fact, even when a whole sentence is spoken in

Polish, those words are said in English. The same expressions translated to Polish sound very

strange, as if they were spoken in some foreign language. We became so used to the way we

speak that we started to believe that those words are actually Polish. It took a great deal of

explanation before my mother, a bookkeeper, who came for a visit, was able to convince us that

there is no such word in our native language as “transfer.” We had not used the Polish “przelew”

very often, erased it from our memory and replaced it with the English equivalent “transfer” that

we accepted as the “comfortable” one. Another example of mixing two languages in one

conversation is the simple word “screen.” We use this word to talk about computers even when

we speak Polish because we were first introduced to that topic in English. However, the TV

screen, in the same conversation, remains the Polish word “ekran” because we knew television

before we came to the United States.


We want all of our children to be bilingual. However, they were born while we were at

different stages of learning English. When our oldest son was a child, Polish was the only

language he heard at home. Whenever he wanted to communicate with us, he had to speak

Polish because we did not understand English. As a result, he is fluent in Polish, even though

when we have a conversation now, it is usually in English only. There is an exception, however.

When we want to enforce a rule that our oldest is not too thrilled about, we speak Polish. There

are two reasons for such language conversion. Obviously, both my husband and I feel more

comfortable using our native tongue in stressful situations. In addition, we are fully aware of the

flaws in our pronunciation and English grammar. To maintain whatever authority we still

possess, we have to sound knowledgeable. Unfortunately, no matter how wise the message is,

the way we convey it in English, our accent and other imperfections make us sound ignorant. To

avoid mistakes and have our son respect our opinions, we switch to Polish. Ultimately, my son

jokes about the whole experience, saying, “I know I am in trouble as soon as my mom starts

talking Polish to me.”

There is a substantial age difference between our oldest son and our two younger

children. They were born, respectively, twelve and fourteen years later. At that time both my

husband and I spoke fairly good English. Even though Polish was the language of their early

childhood, English became their first language as soon as they were introduced to the outside

world of neighborhood, playground, preschool, and television.

Nowadays, when we talk to them, we instinctively speak English because that is the only

language we know that they understand. Sometimes it is a challenging task, especially when I

have to help my daughter with her homework. I know the problem, I know the solution, I can do

it for her; however, to make her arrive at her own answer, I have to explain it in the same manner

and use the same words as her teacher did. That is difficult enough to do even in your own

language. To explain a math problem in a second language is twice as hard, so I mix English


and Polish words, hoping that she will somehow understand the idea. As a result, my daughter

looks at me in disbelief when I tell her that I really know arithmetic and that it is my English

deficiency that makes me sound uneducated.

One example will validate the results of my observations. My upbringing was very

traditional. Topics such as male and female body parts of their sexual functions were taboo in my

parents’ home. These subjects are still embedded in my mind as something too embarrassing to

talk about. Even when I am forced by circumstances to say anything pertaining to human sexual

behavior, I cannot utter those words without a great deal of resistance and blushing. All this

happens when I speak Polish. The same subject when I speak English does not make me blush at

all. I do not feel embarrassed talking about sex in English because I do not “feel” the words or

their consequences.

In my experience, code switching happens spontaneously, depending on the speakers’

unconscious reaction to a subject of their speech. There is always one language, the first one,

that they sense; the second one is reserved for official or unimportant topics.


2. A New Brain (a “New Journalism”-style informal report) ASSIGNMENT: Write an informal, “New Journalism” –style report on a topic of interest to college readers.

A New Brain

by John Tolan

“Fovea Capitis, Fovea Capitis, Fovea Capitis.” I repeated these words over and over,

sometimes with my eyes closed, trying to brand them into my memory. I chanted the words. I

even sang them in an operatic voice. I paced back and forth, reciting them in cadence with each

step.

Earlier that day I had mentioned to Duncan, a friend of mine, that I was taking a class in

physical anthropology, and that I had a test coming up, a test I was quite concerned about. I took

out the text and showed him all the parts of the bones I was trying to memorize. I mentioned the

“fovea Capitis,” that little hole in the femur, and he glanced at it without much interest.

Duncan and I work for an airline and we were flying together all month. The next day he

asked me if I had gotten much studying done. “Quite a bit,” I said. “Let me see. On the femur,

you have the lateral and medial condyles; you also have the patellar articular surface and uh, a

thing.” I drew a blank.

“Could it be the Fovea Capitis?” Duncan asked.

“Yes,” I remarked, surprised. “Did you know this from another class you’ve taken?”

“No, remember, you showed it to me yesterday.”

“What’s this? I must have gone over that term a hundred times, and you heard it once

and remembered it. How did you do that?”

Duncans’ expression told me that he was about to reveal a great secret, but first he

wanted to bask a moment in his intellectual triumph. “All right,” he said, “but are you willing to

change your brain?”


Willing to change my brain? No, not really, I thought, but to satisfy Duncan, sure, why

not? “Yes, Duncan, I am willing to change my brain. Do you have another handy?”

“You know what I mean. You don’t actually change your brain, but you change the way

you learn, especially learning new words and most especially words on a list.” He then

proceeded to share his great secret. “When I heard the term, my mind broke it down into

individual words, different words I am more familiar with. This is a habit I developed five years

ago, when I first started college, and it has stayed with me. For the term Fovea Capitis, I took my

career, as a first office of an airline, and that became FO. We travel; that was the VIA. And we

fly with a captain, that I related to Capitis, and thus, Fovia Capitis. The spelling isn’t always

correct, but it’s all you need to remind you of your word. If I didn’t use memory aids, I don’t

think I would have done nearly as well in college.”

I mentioned that I had heard of such aids before and had even used them without

realizing it. “Duncan, do you know what this memory tool you’re using is called?” I asked.

“Oh, yeah, they’re called mnemonics, and some teachers don’t like ’em. They think

we’re not learning or something, but I think they’re wrong. Just look at how smart I am.”

I think Duncan was making a joke, but then again, maybe not. I decided to look into

mnemonics, and even though it sounds like it would be a good name for a sixties soul group,

there could be something to it. Who knows—it might help me on that test I have coming up.

The memory aid books and Internet pages I researched each seemed to have a different

definition for mnemonics. Some authors leave it out of the text yet teach the techniques as if they

were the inventors. Webster defines mnemonics as, “Pertaining to, aiding or intended to aid the

memory.” That definition is of course correct; however, the term typically refers to rather

unusual, artificial aids.

The word “mnemonic” is derived from Mnemoysne, the name of the ancient Greek

goddess of memory. That fact I found interesting. I realize that ancient Greeks had gods for just


about everything, but I was surprised that they had one for the memory. I was not able to find a

picture of her, but I bet she was beautiful.

The earliest use of mnemonics dates to 500 BCE. Greek and Roman orators used it to

remember long speeches. What they did is amazing. They would visualize a familiar place

(usually parts or rooms of a building) and mentally place their speech fragments in many

different areas in this building. As they made their speeches, they would visualize this place in

their mind, going from one room or place to another, picking up their speech fragments as they

went along. This is how they remembered their oration. It seems to me the Aztecs used a

similar mnemonic device. Since they did not have a written language, they used runners to

communicate from one village to another. Chewing coca leaves for energy, men would run from

settlement to settlement. They carried a rope with many knots in it. Each knot stood for a

memorized message to be delivered. If the message was not delivered correctly, the next

message delivered could be “you have permission to tear my heart out and feed it to the people.”

Today, mnemonics consists of many different techniques. Probably the simplest and

most common method is the “first letter association.” An example would be remembering the

four great eras of time by using the phrase, “Can Men Pick Peppers.”

C – Cenozoic M – Mesozoic P – Paleozoic P- Pre-Cambrian Simple, but effective. But did I learn anything by memorizing “can men pick peppers?”

Let’s try another one. Imagine a new boat owner who cannot think of a name for his boat.

Finally, he comes up with, “Pan Ca Iv.” The words are meaningless, but if a person remembers

the story, one should be able to come up with the eight parts of speech.

P – Pronoun A – Adjective N – Noun C – Conjunction A – Adverb


P – Preposition I – Interjection V – Verb

Okay. Enough with the lists. They take up plenty of page space, and I don’t have space

to waste. Did I learn anything by learning these funny sounding phrases? Will any of these help

me with my upcoming exam? It never astounds me to hear students recite strange sounding

utterances before an exam, trying to relate a word they don’t understand to a word they do. Take

Duncan’s example on the “Fovea Capitis”—he knew he didn’t know the meaning of the term,

but the words he invented within the word had a message. How hard could that be to remember?

I asked the smart one if he could remember anything else about the Fovea Capitis.

“Oh yes,” he replied. “It’s the little hole on the ball joint of the femur.”

“How could you have known that?”

“Well, let’s just say remembering the word helped me remember the place; however, it

doesn’t work all the time.”

I discovered that that there are many types of mnemonic devices, from simple rhymes to

complicated link and peg systems. In the link system a person relates one item to be

remembered to the next by making up a story in his or her mind’s eye, with visualization as the

key in recalling the items to be remembered.

Some people (and some psychology textbooks) have dismissed mnemonics with the idea

that it is effective for certain kinds of rote memory tasks, and that many learning tasks involve

understanding more than memorized facts. The implication is that mnemonics is not worth

learning because it does not help with understanding.

So what? Mnemonics is not intended for such tasks as reasoning, understanding, and

problem solving. It was intended to aid learning and memory. Should we discard something if it

does not do what it was not intended to do as effectively as it does what it is intended to do? I

know that I will use mnemonics when a need for it arises. If it can help me remember a term


such as Fovea Capitis instantly, rather than through much repetition and time, then that’s okay

with me.

Oh, just one thing. I showed up for the exam knowing my little fovea. Guess what! It

was not even on the test!


3. Tough Times Ahead for Harper College Students—and Their Professors (a brief formal report)

ASSIGNMENT: Write a brief formal report profiling Harper College students. Focus on an interesting student trait or feature of campus life. Gather information through interviews, surveys, and reading. Draw conclusions based on your research.

Tough Times Ahead for Harper College Students—and Their Professors

by Larry Barnett

Statement of the Problem

Before heading off to college last fall, I had the usual advice sessions with my parents

when they tried to tell me what to expect and how to cope. Inevitably, it seemed, they drifted

back to the old familiar “When we were in college . . .” themes, stressing how hard they had to

work in school and how uncertain their job outlooks were back in the 1970s and early 80s. Now

that I’ve been here for a few months, I can say that college looks little like their descriptions. Nor

do today’s college students fit the picture my parents painted of themselves. Even students who

graduated only a few years ago seem different from today’s students in their self-assessment,

behavior, and outlook.

I wondered whether others had a similar impression of differences between college

“generations” and whether there was any hard information to support this impression. In

particular, I wanted to find out about contemporary college students’ self-assessment, their post-

graduate expectations, and how those assessments and expectations matched the reality of

college life and life on the job.

Background

To investigate my topic and test my impressions, I asked eight long-time Harper

professors and two Harper administrators to compare contemporary college students with those

of ten years ago. I interviewed twenty-seven students in three of my classes, asking them how

they ranked themselves as students (top ten percent, twenty percent, and so forth); how they

ranked their abilities in math, English, and science classes; and what they expected to earn


following graduation. To compare Harper students with those on other campuses, I also gathered

information from a recent Higher Education Research Institute survey of 252,090 students at 464

colleges and universities.

Results and Discussion Student Dreams

In contrast to my parents’ self-descriptions but similar to those of more recent graduates,

today’s college students believe their academic and job prospects are bright. According to

students surveyed at Harper and elsewhere, fifty-nine percent rank themselves in the top ten

percent in academic ability. Fifty percent expect to get at least a B average. Of interest to English

teachers, forty percent rank themselves in the top ten percent in writing ability. Twenty percent,

up from eleven percent ten years ago, according to the Higher Education Research Institute

survey, expect to graduate with honors.

After graduation, forty percent plan to go on to earn master’s degrees, and fifteen percent,

to earn PhDs. Seventy-four percent expect their college preparation will earn them good jobs and

salaries. Incredibly, nearly fifty percent expect to become millionaires before they’re fifty and

retire early. One Harper student, recognizing that he will be graduating during times of

economic and employment uncertainty, nevertheless observed, “In my field, they may not be

giving bonuses to new employees, the way they were a few years ago. But I’ll get offers. The

jobs are there.” Said one Harper faculty member, “It’s not unusual for students to tell me they

expect to make $40-70,000 a year right out of college or within the first few years. Can you

believe that?” The Reality

The reality, as reported by these students, by the colleges they attend, and by their

professors, conflicts with these bright self-assessments and prospects. Harper faculty state that

while today’s students are “eager,” “nice,” “comfortable,” and “obliging,” they are also

“immature,” “undisciplined,” and “unrealistic.” According to the Higher Education Research

Institute survey, thirty-six percent of today’s students claim to be bored in class, compared with


twenty-nine percent ten years ago. Thirty-five percent report oversleeping, missing class, and

neglecting appointments with teachers, compared with thirty percent in 1987.

Regarding homework, only thirty-three percent of today’s students claim to study six or

more hours per week, compared with forty-four percent a decade ago. This last is surprising,

because Harper’s Director of Admissions reports that over ten percent of today’s students come

to college needing remedial work in English, more than twenty-five percent needing extra classes

in math. One Harper English teacher observed, “Many of my students, even the bright ones, are

unprepared for the critical thinking, sound research, and polished writing required for success in

college and, later, for success on the job.”

Conclusions

If these facts and impressions are accurate, students of the new millennium are in for a

rough awakening in their college classes and broken dreams when they go out looking for new

jobs after graduation. Their self-assessments reveal lots of self esteem but an equal amount of

unrealistic thinking. Their teachers, too, may be in for difficult days in the classroom as they

attempt to improve these students’ skills and abilities. My parents no doubt painted a too-rosy

picture of themselves and a too-serious picture of college life back in the 1970s and 80s, but it

does appear that their generation was at least a little better prepared for college and a little more

realistic about themselves and their careers than today’s students.

Documents

2 Writing Reports 2a. Developing a Perspective on Reportscollege.cengage.com/english/dodds/ready_reference_handbook/4e/assets/... · --“Eye Gouging in the Backwoods,” Harper’s