1.

Read, recall, and reflect: Recall something you read so far this quarter (maybe go back to
Perusall or the Course Reading Folder to jog your memory) and reflect. What caught your
attention? What sparked your curiosity? What gave you food for thought? Capture these here
in this brainstorm doc.

Writing is impacted by identities and previous experiences

I’m quite interested in this topic because of my identity as an international student. I firmly
believe that my Chinese identity impacts me a lot when writing essays in another language, but
I’m curious about to which extent that impact can be. Also, I want to explore how the
environment in which I grow up impacts my writing style, and how my previous experiences in
writing lead to current writing preferences. I believe that everyone’s thoughts are largely shaped
by the environment around them, so it’s really an interesting topic to dive into.

2. One of the goals of the Wikipedia Initiative in Writing Studies is to correct

misperceptions about writing. Look through the Table of Contents of Bad Ideas about
Writing (also linked on GauchoSpace and the Project 2 assignment) and write down a few
ideas that look interesting to you. Why are you interested in these ideas?

The More Writing Process, the Better

The writing process generally refers to five sure-fire steps: prewriting, drafting, editing, revising,
and eventually publishing. As we have increasingly valued this writing process, we have moved
further away from valuing writing itself as a wonderful, finished thing. This resonates with my
own experience in writing. When I was a child, I would say I enjoyed writing quite a lot. I like
using words to record my thoughts and feelings. But when I grew older, writing became more
like a task than a simple record. Primary school teachers told us a set of rules for the writing
process. To make the writing paper neat and organized, we needed to first write the draft, then do
the revision, and finally copy the edited version onto the paper. To be honest, I hated this
process. After 3-5 times of revision, I felt bored about the process of “copying” words. I no
longer had any thoughts about what I wrote, and just wrote down the article as a robot. This
process really made me fear writing at that time. I agree with the statement that “writing is a
process, not a product.” When we get rid of the idea that writing is to get things done, perhaps
we can find more joy when exploring our thoughts.

The Passive Voice Should be Avoided

Since childhood, English teachers have always told me that when we write, we should avoid
using too much passive voice. At that time I was confused about this rule, but since English was
not my first language, I just took it as a costume in English language. Since then, I just followed
the rule without questioning the inherent logic behind it.
I originally thought that perhaps it was because the passive voice was not as direct as the active
voice in expression. But I got some new ideas after reading this article. In this article, the writer
claimed that “active verbs are characterized variously as direct, vigorous, concise, forcible,
lively, and emphatic”. I’m also intrigued by the opinion that “passive voice can be used to
obscure responsibility or accountability”. This is an aspect that I have never noticed before. But
Williams emphasized cohesion among sentences over injunction against the passive voice, which
I think is quite reasonable. I usually combine active and passive voice in my writing to reach a
balance and convey my opinions more clearly.

3. Look through the Writing Spaces (also linked on GauchoSpace and the Project 2
assignment) word cloud and write down a few topics that seem interesting to you. Why are
you interested in these ideas?

Four Things Social Media Can Teach You About College Writing—And One Thing It Can’t
How to transform what we write on social media into a formal writing? This is an interesting
topic that piqued my interest. I have never considered posts on social media as “writing” before.
When we see works of others, we don’t simply copy the essay, but to figure out its moves and
meet the challenge by replicating those moves in our own ways. Just like we use different emojis
on social media, when we write formal essays, we can use punctuation to signal readers on how
to interpret the message. Also, when we take ideas from social media and expand it into a college
essay, we should elaborate on those ideas and make them more thought-provoking.

Who We Are Matters Our Writing

Being an international student whose first language is not English, I always feel curious about
how our multilingual workings of languages contribute to the making of our academic writing.
Do I still maintain my Chinese language habit in writing English essays? How does that impact
my logical thinking, word choice, etc? In high school, when we wrote essays, English teachers
always told us that we should consider how native speakers would write the sentence - and this
puzzled me. I was not a native speaker, so what I could do was to read more and find patterns,
imitating their writing style. However, this article offers a new perspective: standard written
English is not an objective set of criteria. Instead, translingualism views our different and varied
language practices as critical in inquiring, supporting, and sustaining the full range of richness in
our voices. I should indeed value my language and think of myself as a language architect.

4: Look through the Wikipedia Writing Studies Articles in Need of Improvement (also linked
on GauchoSpace and the Project 2 assignment) and find a few topics that seem interesting
to you. Click through to the pages and see what kind of work might need to be done.
Code-switching
Chinese writing
Collaborative writing
Plagiarism
PB3: Write three topic ideas for this project. Tell me a little bit about your idea, why you
are interested in it, and why you think it would make a good topic. Provide links to the
Wikipedia pages you are considering working on. (You have until 11:59 pm on Friday, 2/3
to complete this, add to it, and/or change your ideas. Sometimes our brains keep thinking
after an activity). Post the link to this brainstorm doc to the forum at the bottom of this
week’s GauchoSpace page.

*Chinese writing
- As a Chinese student, I’m very familiar with how Chinese writing works, and how it
differs from writing style in English.
- I can talk about how Chinese teachers teach writing, how students write, and how these
writings are evaluated (the criteria of good writing)
- There are also many topics to explore, such as the history and transformation of Chinese
writing (from ancient Chinese language to modern Chinese language)
- How Chinese writing is related to the culture
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_characters#Typography_and_design

*Collaborative writing
- It’s interesting to discuss how people write collaboratively, since usually people tend to
have different ideas and writing styles.
- How collaborative writing is used in education (why is it important, and is it indeed
effective?)
- How to balance people’s ideas when doing collaborative writing? What if they have
conflicts in opinions?
- Are there examples of collaborative writings?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaborative_writing

*Plagiarism
- With the development of artificial intelligence, nowadays AI can do a large amount of
writing for humans. For example, ChatGPT has been a heated topic recently.
- How do we define plagiarism? How softwares detect plagiarism?
- Should the criteria of defining plagiarism update with the development of technology?
- How does the development of technology change the way we treat plagiarism?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagiarism#Reverse_plagiarism