Order ID | 53563633773 |
Type | Essay |
Writer Level | Masters |
Style | APA |
Sources/References | 4 |
Perfect Number of Pages to Order | 5-10 Pages |
Common Pedagogy in Technical Writing Courses
Scholars (i.e., Hartwell, 1985; Kolln & Gray, 2009) note that teaching grammar out of context largely has no impact on improving students’ writing.
Although the debate between rules-based and content-based approaches to teaching grammar continues (Quible & Griffin, 2007), this article recommends a combination of the two approaches, especially when there is a mix of students from different generations and with varied learning styles. The course design in- cluded the combined approaches because feedback on student deficiencies from faculty indicated the need for a grammar rules review before applying the rules to writing. For the first 2 weeks of the course, I created grammar and editing assignments based on the rules-based approach (e.g., separate grammar exercise worksheets on specific rules), which provided the needed foundation for future writing assignments. Students requesting additional instruction in grammar rules received sources for self-study.1
After the grammar review, the class reviews the American Psychological Association’s (APA) writing and formatting style. This style is required in every public administration core course in our school, yet few students had received formal training. The students were mostly familiar with the Modern Language Association writing style, which the Liberal Arts commonly use in English courses. I reviewed common differences between the two styles and taught APA style in more detail, and then required students to complete an interactive APA online module offered through the university’s library Obojobo system.2 The module is easily incorporated into any course with the website link provided in the syllabus, and the system grades the concluding quiz. As discussed later in this article, including a university’s library or writing center online grammar, writing, or editing module helps overcome the large amount of time required to evaluate students’ writing and use of grammar. Then the course focus shifted for the remainder of the semester to a content-based approach where students apply grammar rules and concepts in their writing assignments.
Multiple Short Writing Assignments In most public administration courses, writing assignments consist of long
research papers. Although this skill is useful to develop if a student is interested in attending graduate school, it is not as useful in the practitioner world (Stanford, 1992). Professional writing consists of brief writing, such as memos, letters, reports, executive summaries, and press releases. When students are being introduced to a new discourse community, Northedge (2003) recommends small, frequent writing assignments that allow students to “position themselves within the discourse” (p. 178). Zeiser (1999) recommends modifying current course writing assignments from research papers to shorter writing assignments, thus allowing students to receive more feedback from the instructor on their writing and formatting.3 Another option is to add small writing elements to a research paper, such as an executive summary, press/news release, twitter feeds, or business letter. These
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Teaching Grammar and Editing
smaller assignments can be completed before writing the research paper and provide students additional opportunities for grammar, formatting, editing, and content feedback.
All assignments in the administrative writing course are examples of writing genres realistic to the public and nonprofit sector. I designed individual and group assignments to mimic the work environment I experienced as a technical writer for 11 years in the federal and local government and the private and nonprofit sectors. Students were encouraged to use a variety of media to complete and submit their assignments, including hard copy and electronic collaborative learning tools (i.e., Google Docs, discussion threads). The eight genres of government and nonprofit writing covered include Rules, Regulations, and Administrative Procedures; Executive Summaries and Abstracts; Policy Handbooks and Guides; Memorandums; Press Releases; Professional Report Writing; Grant Proposal Writing; and Government/ Nonprofit Websites.
Most of the assignments were modified from the course textbook, writing for the Government (Allison & Williams, 2008), and students could customize the topic of the assignment (e.g., the final assignment could evaluate a nonprofit organization website). (See Appendix B). As discussed further in the conclusion, future modifications to assignments should include more peer editing and require students to provide recommendations when reviewing government documents and websites.
Writing for Multiple Audiences Audience-centered writing is a common pedagogy in technical writing courses
and an important one to incorporate in an administrative writing course. Public administrators frequently write for multiple audiences, including internal (i.e., employees, volunteers, supervisor/managers, board members) and external stakeholders (i.e., public, interest groups, community partners, elected officials) in various programs (Lee, 2000; Raphael & Nesbary, 2005). These audiences have different needs and levels of understanding. For the writing assignments, I require students to consider and include the intended audience at the top of the document. For about half of the assignments, I give the document back to the student without reviewing it and ask them to rewrite the document for a different audience. Then students submit both documents—same topic but different audiences—for grading. For example, a memo about a potential public health threat for children will contain varying levels of detailed information when written for parents versus principals of local schools.
Writing Goals and Competencies As with any course, clear learning objectives should be included in the syllabus
and reviewed with students at the beginning of the semester. Some learning goals for the administrative writing course have been discussed (i.e., analyze writing samples for grammar and formatting using editing notations; apply the principles
524 Journal of Public Affairs Education
of understanding an audience and modify the document to better fit the in- tended audience).
As potential managers, students need to learn editing techniques in addition to having a good grammar foundation. Therefore, training students to become better editors is a goal of this course and ties into the recognized deficiencies. Students spend time learning to reduce redundancy, wordiness, and use of clichés and slang. Nearly every writing assignment incorporates editing techniques requiring the student to submit more than one copy of the assignment. I created an APA style editing checklist for the course, which is posted on the school’s website for all public administration students to access (see Appendix C). Instructors could require students to use this checklist, or something similar, when completing writing assignments to encourage incorporating the editing and polishing stage of the writing process.
Evaluating Student Writing A common complaint about incorporating additional writing assignments
is the amount of time it takes for instructors to provide individual feedback. Although a writing course requires more time commitment for the instructor, the literature recommends a number of options to decrease the time commitment (e.g., peer editing, freewriting, online modules, short assignments, group work; Stanford, 1992). As discussed previously in this article, the administrative writing course incorporated some of these options throughout the semester.
Studies of student peer-editing and peer-reviewing exercises have concluded with increased results in student writing and editing skills (Cho & Cho, 2011; Diab, 2010). I incorporated peer editing not only to reinforce editing, grammar, and APA formatting skills but also to reduce the amount of my editing time. Students distributed copies of their writing assignment to two classmates and used the APA-specific editing checklist I created as a guide in the peer-editing process. I recommend students peer edit at least two other papers and include the edited drafts with the final paper. Additionally, students worked in groups on some assignments (i.e., basic grammar, memo, and report assignments); this activity not only lightened my grading load but also mimicked a real-world task.
Pre- and Post-Test Results Results from pre- and post-tests over the first four semesters of the course show
an increase of between 14 and 22.6 percentage points in students’ application of grammatical and formatting rules (Table 1). The pre- and post-tests measured students’ learning with the rules-based approach and included nine grammar questions and 11 APA formatting questions. Grammar questions focused on fragments, comma splices, fused sentences, subject-verb agreement, and pronoun agreement. The APA style and formatting included test questions on quotations and quotation marks, in-text citations, capitalization, and punctuation.
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Teaching Grammar and Editing
Figure 1. Pre- and Post-Test Percentage Increase Results
Although the students’ post-test scores show a measurable increase, there is room for improvement (Figure 1). One way to increase students’ grammar and formatting knowledge is modifying the course design. I taught the rules-based grammar approach during the first 2 weeks of the course; the remaining weeks implemented the content-based approach. Students complete the post-test during the final exam review in the second-to-last week of the semester. A lesson learned is not separating the two approaches, but integrating them throughout the entire semester. A potential solution is to add mini lessons once a week to review commonly missed grammar and formatting rules in that week’s assignment (Weaver, 1996). The first 10 to 15 minutes of class could be set aside for this task and include questions from students. The following section includes additional recommend- ations based on pedagogical literature and future research.
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS Public administration graduates need to possess well-written, concise, and
audience-centered writing skills as well as understand government and the non- profit sector’s discourse community. Implementation of the Plain Writing Act of 2010 and the increasing costs of writing training for new employees provide an opportunity to reevaluate the writing and communication skills of public admin- istration students as well as the writing requirements for these undergraduate programs. This article recommends that undergraduate public administration programs require a technical/administrative writing course in the core curriculum, whether taught in-house or in another department. This article also discusses the design of a discipline-specific administrative writing course and related pedagogical theories. The course design included two approaches to teaching grammar and writing; however, other approaches are available, including sentence-combining
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