Writing How, why, when and what? Professor Tristram Hooley

Writing “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” Ernest Hemingway

Overview Product Process Genre Audience Why write

Overview Product Process Genre Audience Why write

Why write? My main reason for writing is simple: I do not know what I think until I have written it. In conversation one can get away with loose, exploratory thinking, but in writing it down one has to weigh up the arguments and the evidence, and decide what it all means and where one stands. It is hard work, but important; and if published, it adds to the body of knowledge on which others can draw. I commend it to you as a professional practice. Tony Watts, 2014

Why do we get you to write? Students will: understand the implications for professional practice of their own values and those of their employer, clients, and society; be reflective career guidance professionals; have the necessary knowledge, skills and attitudes to plan, conduct and evaluate careers development intervention; enable clients and others to access and act upon appropriate information about local and national educational and career opportunities; have an underpinning knowledge of career theory which will allow them to innovate and adapt their practice to new contexts; have an awareness of relevant public policy and how it impacts on career development practice; be able to effectively utilise networks to support their clients; have the capability to plan, deliver, provide and develop careers provision within organisations; have the necessary research and information-handling skills for postgraduate study and professional practice; and be able to enable clients and others to access and act upon appropriate information in the context of the local and national opportunity structure To develop To demonstrate

Writing and thinking Writing and thinking are simultaneous and symbiotic. One does not precede or proceed from the other. In most cases reading will also be intertwined with writing and thinking. But there are various kinds of writing and thinking…

Overview Product Process Genre Audience Why write

Who is/are your audience? Who are they? What do you know about them? Why will they be reading? How will they be reading? What do they know? What do they not know? What impression are you trying to create?

Overview Product Process Genre Audience Why write

What is genre?

What genres are we going to ask you to use? Report/Essay Reflective and critical account A improvement plan Employer study Resource Network and partnership map Reflective portfolio Independent study/dissertation Etc. etc.

Research the genre How long? What kind of references? What style? Can you read something in this genre? Do they use ‘I’ or ‘we’? What do you know and notice? What isn’t there?

Regardless of genre Clarity Brevity Purposefulness Accuracy Consistency

Theories make things simple It can scarcely be denied that the supreme goal of all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience. Albert Einstein - On the Method of Theoretical Physics, the Herbert Spencer Lecture, Oxford, June 10, 1933.

Overview Product Process Genre Audience Why write

Which one is you? Writing takes too long Too many notes Little or no planning On the last minute

Planning styles Planning writers… make detailed notes use notes to create an outline of possible content write a first draft according to the plan Generative writers… gather ideas from reading and some use of notes begin to write early in order to generate ideas write the first draft quickly and structures it as ideas occur This is to do with how you plan

Planning Tips Planning writers create a plan from your notes All writers need to set deadlines for the completion of key stages analyse the task and brainstorm initial ideas make focused notes on information gathered Planning writers create a plan from your notes write a first draft refer back to your plan to review structure Generative writers write a first draft from your notes create a plan from the draft and review structure

Overview Product Process Genre Audience Why write

What should you produce? The harder you try the more you will have learnt.

There is no such thing as a good first draft! 1. Edit for argument Large scale reorganisation. Identify your argument and structure. Address the structural and argumentative weaknesses. 2. Edit for clarity Control the detail of your writing. Improve how your prose reads. Rewrite paragraphs and sentences for clarity. 3. Edit for accuracy Looks at small but important issues. Ensure attention to detail. Proof read. Check things that you usually get wrong.

Tristram Hooley Professor of Career Education International Centre for Guidance Studies University of Derby http://www.derby.ac.uk/icegs t.hooley@derby.ac.uk @pigironjoe Blog at http://adventuresincareerdevelopment.wordpress.com

Questions and exercises Free writing? How do you spend your time? Are you a planning or generative writer? The features of a good essay.