Please review the Conference Preparation Form, complete it, and take it to each of your individual conferences for each major assignment. Review the information below to understand the point of an individual conference so that you can complete the form appropriately. The individual conference with the lecturer will focus on language. This includes grammar, usage, punctuation, citation, spelling, sentence structure and style. As you prepare for the conference, keep these language considerations in mind and think carefully about what you want to ask the instructor. In preparation for the individual conference, you are required to prepare your questions in advance. As you prepare your questions:
- Make note of things you’re not sure about and identify parts of your draft you think are more problematic than others or need to be improved.
- Try to figure out what might be making some parts of your draft less good than other parts.
- Formulate questions about how your work can be improved.
Here are some suggestions about how you can prepare so as to get the most out of individual conferences:
- Analyze your use of source material.
- Check paraphrases and quotations against the original texts. Quotations should replicate the original author’s words, while paraphrases should maintain the original author’s meaning but have altered language and sentence structures.
- For each source, make sure that you have adhered to the preferred style guide (we are using APA).
- Consider individual sentences in terms of grammar, mechanics, and punctuation. Many Lower Order Concerns (LOCs) can be revised by isolating and examining different elements of the text. Read the text sentence by sentence, considering the grammar and sentence structure. Remember, a sentence may be grammatically correct and still confuse readers.
- If you notice a pattern—say, a tendency to misplace modifiers or add unnecessary commas—read the paper looking only for that error.
- Read the document backwards, word for word, looking for spelling errors. Throughout the writing process and especially at this stage of revision, keep a dictionary, a thesaurus, and a writing handbook nearby.
- Note that by default Google Docs underlines errors; keep the Tools > Spelling > Underline errors feature on. You can also check spelling in Google Docs by selecting Tools > Spelling > Spell check. Prior to the conference make sure you accepted or rejected all suggestions and resolved all comments in your draft.
- Strategies such as reading aloud and seeking feedback are useful at all points in the revision process. Reading aloud will give you distance from the text and prevent you from skimming over what is actually written on the page. This strategy will help you to identify both Higher Order Concerns (HOCs), such as missing concepts, and LOCs, such as typos. Additionally, seeking feedback will allow you to test your ideas and writing on real readers. Seek feedback from readers both inside and outside of your target audience in order to gain different perspectives.
- In the conference, take lots of notes. After the individual conference, make any changes to your draft that you consider appropriate and prepare a polished hard copy of your final draft to be uploaded via Blackboard.
- Remember that deadlines are here.
– Adapted from Lumen, English Composition 1, “Writing Process: Revising,” accessed August 9, 2018 text-lower-order-concerns