The Loft Writing Center Plus Blog

2009 Loft Poetry Contest

2009-04-30T09:01:00.000-07:00

We have just completed our 2009 Loft Poetry Writing Contest. Thanks to all who participated. We received 29 excellent submissions - all of which showed a tremendous amount of talent and potential.

I would like to thank our panel of judges Elinor Appel, Steve Quig, Alice Gillette, John Newman, and LeAnne Laux Bachand for taking the time to read and consider these submissions. We would also like to thank Student Leadership for their generous and enthusiastic support as well.

Currently, we only have permission to share the first and third place poems online, so we hope you enjoy the work of these talented NSCC students.

First Place

Viaje Bien
Ryan Belcher

She’s gone, when did she leave?
She was here to keep the seat full,
to keep the untrustworthy sorts away from me.
She smiled at me—but not too long—when I got on;
I could trust her kind old face.
And now she’s gone.
The cluster of high schoolers (high scholars? no, schoolers)
joke about someone’s butt too loudly;
their cackling and hooting shake the bus awake.
They are the Indian peafowl, waving their plumage
shamelessly, making too much noise.
Use auriculares
I am the ostrich in the wrong exhibit.
One of these days I will be plucked for a duster.
I shuffle around in my seat, pretending to read real estate ads and poetry.
Obliquely, I confirm the vacant seat, but I dare not stare at it.
Strange people stare at empty bus seats. Everyone else stares at strange people.
The seat shouldn’t be empty; there are so many people here.
Are they saving it for some especially cruel tormentor—
someone who will breathe on my neck,
talk about my book, punch me in the head,
ask for my name?
No acose a otros pasajeros.
An old man boards at this stop.
A younger man, lanky and swaggering, gets to the only empty seat
(Is this the one they sent?)
and lounges—sprawls broadly upon it.
Haga lo Correcto, jerk. Viaje Bien!
I shout, but no, I could never never, not here.
My shifting disturbs the woman sitting on my coat.
Get off my coat, and quit smelling like sautéed onions, please.
The old man picks his way down the aisle, pole by pole,
fingers gripping like the tendrils of a dry beanstalk.
We lurch, he stumbles,
I clench my fists in my lap.
My neck is tight, my back is sore.
My jaw clamps tighter, and another piece of molar flakes off.
(What has she been doing all day? It can’t be foodservice, so why does she smell like onions?)
A grating whisper announces the cross-streets.
I pull the cord, and the yellow line is all that’s keeping me here.
Stop the bus. Come on, come on.
Stop.

Second Place

Tiananmen
by James Berglund

Not available yet

Third Place

After/Before
by Autumn Straker

We are (too) close(d).
I can see the (s)k(in)
ch(apt) on your (s)lips
\\of doc”u-ment”s
(and fin(e/ished) p((r(ed))ints)//.
You can see the hairs/hands
(se)ar(ch)ing [on/my]
eyebrows/forarm and neck.
We are (two)
({c)[los(e}/t)](s).
I can see you ((for))got to
(s)have this ((morn)ing)).
You can see my eye(lin [g]er/s)
(fa(ul)t)igue (a)t
its (little) ((black))
tail{s hin(g)[e/r] s}.

Who’s/its (to) c(h/l)ose when we(;)
can(‘t) (he)ar
each o(the)rs {w\d)eep
(b(r)ea(t)(h(in(g)))/k).
When we‘,re(turn) breathing,
in/out the same ex-hale.
This is why I hold my breathe
and close my eyes
Before/after we kiss
hope/fearing it might
(not) salve young
{sanguin
tumn Straker

Simple Present Tense with the Coyote

2009-03-30T09:02:00.000-07:00

Practice Simple Present Tense with the Road Runner and Coyote. There are practice exercises at the end.

Present Continuous (Progressive) and the Road Runner

2009-03-30T08:51:00.000-07:00

Learn Present Progressive (Continuous) Tense with the Road Runner and Coyote. There are practice exercises at the end of the video.

2009-03-10T15:00:00.000-07:00

To Celebrate National Poetry Month in April ---

The Loft Writing Center Plus is Sponsoring Our First Annual Student Poetry Contest

The theme: Fear/Hope

Students can submit a one page poem exploring the ideas of fear and hope in whatever poetic fashion they want to address them.

They can also come into the Loft to work with some of our writing tutors to develop and refine their poems for submission.

The top three winning students will:

Win cash prizes

Be featured in a public reading,

And be published in the 2010 edition of the Licton Springs Review.

The deadline for submission is Friday April 17th @ 1:30 pm. All entries may be dropped off at the front desk in the Loft.

The entry form can be picked up at The Loft Writing Center or downloaded at http://facweb.northseattle.edu/dtarker/poetry submission form.pdf

Grammar Toones

2008-12-31T09:35:00.000-08:00

Whoever said grammar couldn't be funny has never watched this series: Grammarman.

The Loft Writing Center’s First Annual Essay Writing Contest

2008-10-06T16:21:00.000-07:00

Calling all student writers attending classes at North Seattle Community College!

The Loft Writing Center Plus is now accepting submissions to its first annual student essay writing contest. If you fancy yourself a budding writer or just have a story you’re burning to share, you should consider writing an essay and submitting it to this contest. Not only will you have a chance to win a cash prize, but the first place winner will also be published in the Licton Springs Review, North Seattle Community College’s literary journal.

Content Criteria:

The essay should be a personal narrative, which means a story about something that has happened to you. It could be about learning how to drive, immigrating to America, eating a strange food, playing chess for the first time, or even shaking hands with a celebrity or politician. The topic is wide open. The most important requirement as far as content is that the essay must conform to the genre of a personal narrative.

If you’re not certain what a personal narrative essay looks like, you can always come visit the Loft and ask one of our writing tutors to help get you started.

Format Criteria:

The essay should meet the following format guidelines:

• 12 point font
• Double spaced
• Times New Roman font
• 3,000 words or less

Submission Criteria

Essays should be submitted to the Loft Writing Center by Sunday November 2, 2008 at 4:30 pm. You can drop your submissions at the greeter station as you enter the Loft.

Please remember to turn in a submission form along with your essay. You can download a PDF of the submission form by following this link.

http://facweb.northseattle.edu/dtarker/essay%20submission%20form.pdf

All entries will be judged anonymously, so please do not write your name on the essay. Only write your name on the entry form.

You may also submit electronically at dtarker@sccd.ctc.edu

Prizes

Beyond just enjoying all the praise that will be showered upon you by your peers and instructors, the top three winners will win the following prizes.

First Place = $100.00 and publication in The Licton Springs Review
Second Place = $75.00
Third Place = $50.00

Awards will be announced at a celebration during the first week of December.

We would like to thank the Education Fund and Student Government for providing funding in support of this writing contest.

Now get writing!

Happy Punctuation Day

2008-09-24T09:15:00.000-07:00

Today is Punctuation Day!

To learn more, visit this web site:

http://www.nationalpunctuationday.com/

Fall Quarter Hours

2008-09-12T09:17:00.000-07:00

Loft Tutor Dean Wingfield

The Loft Writing Center Plus will be opening September 25th. Our hours of operation for fall quarter will be:

Mon-Th. 8:30-6:30
Fri. 8:30 – 1:30
Sun. 12:30-4:30

The Loft will be closed on November 11, 27, & 28

Writer's Resources Training

2008-07-10T09:46:00.000-07:00

Get an overview of our Writer's Resources program by following this link:

http://facweb.northseattle.edu/dtarker/writer's%20resources/writer's%20resources.htm

Bad Essay Writing Tips

2008-07-03T15:37:00.000-07:00

The next time you're preparing to write an academic essay, listen to this young college student...and do the opposite!

What is Plagiarism?

2008-05-03T20:54:00.001-07:00

At its core, plagiarism is intellectual theft. In academia, a plagiarist is comparable to a burglar, stealing others intellectual property and passing it off as their own for profit…in most cases a passing grade on an essay or research paper. Since college students are expected to conform to the rules of academic integrity, it is important to understand exactly what constitutes plagiarism and what the penalties are if a student is caught passing another’s work off as his or her own.

A Definition

According to Dictionary.com, plagiarism is: “the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one's own original work.”

In other words, if a writer borrows any words or ideas from another writer without giving proper credit, he or she has committed plagiarism.

As the Writing Tutorial Services at Indiana State University points out, plagiarism can take many forms….each with increasing degrees of severity.

At the beginning of the spectrum are students who paraphrase or summarize an author’s ideas without citing the source. This may seem like a light offense, especially if the student is only taking a small or obvious idea, but it still constitutes a violation of academic integrity. Writers and scholars invest a great deal of time formulating their ideas, theories, and research, and so deserve credit for the work they have done.

Another more egregious form of plagiarism is copying a writer’s text word for word and using it in your paper without giving proper credit. It is perfectly fine to quote a writer and cite them in your footnotes or works cited page, so there really is no reason to engage in this activity. Yet many students still get caught doing just this sort of thing.

Worse still, however, is submitting another student’s paper as your own. The purpose of academic writing is to help students learn to develop, organize, and express their own ideas. Turning in another student’s work is one of the most severe violations of academic integrity.

The penultimate form of plagiarism, however, is purchasing an essay or research paper from a friend, classmate, or online source. If any explanation is needed to answer why this is wrong, you may want to pursue a career in crime rather than a earn a college degree.

Consequences

There are few greater crimes in academia worse than plagiarism. Therefore the consequences when caught can be devastating. Receiving an F or a “No Credit” for the assignment is only the tip of the ice burg. A first offense can lead to academic probation or, at some universities, expulsion from the school.

It should be noted that professors and scholars in academia, meaning your college instructors, are held to the same standards. Many scholars have seen their reputations ruined and careers destroyed getting caught for plagiarism.

For more on this issue, visit the following links:

http://www.indiana.edu/~wts/pamphlets/plagiarism.shtml

http://www.wadsworth.com/english_d/special_features/plagiarism/definition.html

http://www.chem.uky.edu/Courses/common/plagiarism.html

Top 5 Ways to Spice Up Your Introduction Paragraph

2008-04-21T20:18:00.000-07:00

What makes a successful introduction paragraph in an academic essay—or any essay for that matter?

First, it must capture the reader’s attention. This is often described with the fishing metaphor “hooking the reader.” Let’s unpack this metaphor so we completely understand it.

When we go fishing, we don’t just walk up to a lake or river and cast out our line without any bait. What fish in his right mind would willingly chomp down on a pointy little hook unless there was a worm attached? Fish are busy creatures by their very nature—they’ve got to keep swimming in order to breathe after all. They’ve got no time to bother with empty hooks. They’ll just swim on by, leaving you with nothing to eat for dinner except a can of baked beans.

Thus, the metaphor “hook the reader” implies that you must use some bait to grab the reader’s attention and entice her to read your composition. After all, most people are far busier than some trout paddling around a pond. They’ve got bills to pay, yard work to do, people to talk to, and an infinite number of issues to address in their lives. If you don’t use the right bait, you won’t catch any readers.

Yet, how do we do this? What techniques or strategies can we use to “hook” our readers?

Ask a Question:

Asking a question at the beginning of an essay immediately engages the reader in the topic you want to inform them about. Look at the following example:

The Federal Reserve lowered interest rates in 2001, which immediately fueled the housing boom during the early part of the decade.

Vs.

What fueled the housing boom during the early part of the decade? Could Federal Reserve be to blame for lowering the interest rates so drastically?

The second example immediately engages the reader, who may or may not have her own opinion on this topic. Once the reader is engaged, you’ve just increased the odds that he or she will continue reading your paper.

Tell a Story

If there has been one constant during the evolution of mankind, it is a love of stories. From our earliest ancestors huddled around a fire spinning yarns to explain where lightning comes from to people today huddled around their television sets to watch the latest episode of “The Office”, we thrive on stories. So, why shouldn’t we use them as “bait” for our readers?

Compare these examples:

The character of Superman premiered in 1939, just as America was on the brink of entering World War II.

VS.

One can imagine a little boy peddling his bicycle up to a newsstand on a warm summer in 1939. Amidst countless newspapers featuring headlines about Nazi aggression in Europe, the boy finds a slim comic book featuring a man in red and blue spandex lifting a car over his head.

Does the latter introduction reel you in more than the first? Of course it does. Although true stories are undoubtedly more effective, you can still use a hypothetical story like the one above as long as it is reasonable. One thing to note: Effective storytelling, even in an essay, requires writers to use concrete details to help the reader visualize the events in your story.

Using a Quote

Many students misinterpret this device. They go to one of the countless boos of quotations in the library or find a nifty Web site of quotations and just cherry pick some random quote from a famous person and force it into the introduction of their paper. This does not work. The quote must have some relevance to the topic you are introducing. The best strategy is to keep an eye out for interesting or compelling quotes while you are researching your paper.

Startling Statistics

Some may say statistics are boring, but it all depends on how you use them. (Mark Twain was never more correct than when he said “There’s lies, damn lies, and statistics.”) However, I’m not encouraging you to use the statistics to bend the truth. We’ll leave that to the politicians. In academic writing, we want to use accurate statistics to help make your case. Yet, if you do find some statistics during your research that you believe will make your reader look twice, these statistics should come right at the beginning of your paper. For example:

For all the money America spends on education, the country still has a high illiteracy rate.

Vs.

Currently, one-third of Americans cannot read at the high school level.

A Surprising Statement

Once again, approach this technique with caution. You cannot just make any old surprising statement. It must lead into your topic. As a writer, I would not try and use this strategy until after I had finished a rough draft of my introduction. You can tweak your introduction during the revising stage of the writing process to find the appropriate startling statement to use. Again, an example:

America failed to act swiftly to the brutal genocide taking place in Rwanda during the late 1990s.

VS.

America was party responsible for the genocide in Rwanda.

Concluding Thoughts

Remember, you don’t need to use these right from the start. You can…and maybe sometimes should…wait until you’re revising the paper before choosing one of these strategies. Don’t let uncertainty over which method you will use keep you from actually writing your paper.

Dan Tarker

Comma Use and Writing Style

2008-04-21T13:43:00.000-07:00

Are you a heavy punctuator or a light punctuator?

Don’t know the difference?

Read this article http://www.startribune.com/business/17860429.html in the Star Tribune to find out which camp you belong to. You may also learn a thing or two about mandatory and optional commas…not to mention how your use of commas impacts how the reader may interpret your writing style.

Mortal Syntax

2008-04-02T21:45:00.000-07:00

Unlike other disciplines, grammar should not be treated as a list of iron clad rules designed to make writers sweat every prepositional phrase or infinitive they use. As this recent National Public Radio story highlights, grammar, like all language, is creative and constantly evolving. Listen to June Casagrande, author of Mortal Syntax, share her thoughts on these and other grammar related issues by following this link:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89307936

Truth...It's in the Eye of the Beholder

2008-03-06T19:48:00.000-08:00

Despite the recent spate of scandals surrounding bogus memoirs, stretching the truth or even blatantly fabricating supposedly “true” events is not something new to this literary genre as this Salon.com article whimsically illustrates. http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2008/03/07/memoirs/

Celebrate National Grammar Day on March 4th

2008-03-03T12:21:00.000-08:00

March 4 is the First Annual National Grammar Day. To learn more about this event, visit http://nationalgrammarday.com/ This Web site lists numerous ways you can celebrate this unusual day from policing your friends about their grammar to keeping an eye out for subtle grammar errors in newspapers and billboards.

Information Competency and Your Health

2008-02-21T11:25:00.000-08:00

Information Competency will inevitably help your academic career, but it may also save your life---or the life of someone you love. This article on CNN.com http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/02/21/ep.web.sites/index.html describes how a Web savvy mother found an innovative treatment for her son’s case of Cat Scratch Fever by searching .gov and .org Web sites. The article also provides some helpful hints about researching accurate medical information on the Web.

Verb Tenses and the Law

2008-01-13T13:52:00.000-08:00

Why is grammar important? Beyond just helping us create clear sentences, it may also protect us from criminals as a recent legal case in Georgia illustrates.

Apparently, a convicted sex offender accused of killing a Georgia hiker has been set free because of a technicality in the wording of the federal sex offender registration law.
The defendant’s lawyers argued that the law is written in the present tense, implying that the sex offender must be actively moving from state to state in the present moment to be affected by the legislation, but their client traveled between state lines in the past.

A judge agreed with their argument…until Congress revises the verb tense in the law. Read more at: http://www.wfrv.com/entertainment/weirdnews/story.aspx?content_id=13438fba-cb9a-42ce-b6f6-22758e7e0d67

Lake Superior State University Releases Its Banned Words List

2008-01-01T12:32:00.000-08:00

Lake Superior State University just released its annual list of banned words. Some of the honories included on this list include such politically loaded words as "surge" to such redundant phrases as "it is as it is". See the full story at:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071231/ap_on_re_us/banned_words;_ylt=AmkqbUysYKY_b86reHktamVH2ocA

What words would you liked to see banned?

Great News for Two Loft Tutors

2007-12-28T14:58:00.000-08:00

Two Loft tutors reach new milestones.

On a note that is both happy and sad, part-time North instructor and Loft tutor Prairie Brown has been hired as a full-time writing consultant at the CWU branch campus in Des Moines where she will be serving as the primary instructor for their new writing center. Prairie has been a strong advocate for the Loft and a dedicated member of our staff for the last two years, so we wish her the best as she embarks on this exciting career opportunity.

Also, Loft tutor and creative writer Michael Overa was selected as a finalist for the Glimmer Train New Voices Competition this year. You can learn more about Michael’s writing at his Web site http://www.thelocalwriter.com/.

All right vs. Alright

2007-11-16T23:12:00.001-08:00

It seems there is quite a debate about the usage of “all right” versus “alright” rampaging among English grammariticians. A cursory review of the debate reveals that traditionalists prefer writers to use the “all right” form of the expression while others argue “alright” is an acceptable evolution, or truncation, of the expression.

Some links to explore this heated debate:

http://www.pearsonlongman.com/ae/azar/grammar_ex/message_board/archive/

http://p211.ezboard.com/Alright/fwordoriginsorgfrm23.showMessage?topicID=62.topic

http://www.dailywritingtips.com/is-alright-all-right/

Academically speaking, it’s probably safer to use “all right”. However, as many linguists will point out, a language is not static…unless it’s a dead language like Latin…and so it sounds as if “alright” may one day become as acceptable as “all right”. Considering our tendency to shorten words or expressions, this evolution, or “de-evolution” depending on your preference, is probably as good a bet as a $10,000 investment in Google stocks.

Announcing Loft Writing Center Hours for Winter 2008 Quarter

2007-11-16T20:36:00.000-08:00

The Loft Writing Center will be open:

Monday – Thursday 8:30 am – 6:30 pm
Friday 8:30 am – 1:30 pm
Sunday 12:30 pm – 4:30 pm

We look forward to seeing you in the Loft!