CompScholar

The CompScholar Rhombus

The CompScholar Rhombus replaces triangular attempts to illustrate the writing situation.  The rhombus, diamond shaped, fits the four cornerstone concepts of the writing situation: time, topic, writer and writing.

The CompScholar Rhombus revolutionizes geometric representations of the writer's situation. The beautiful diamond shape of the rhombus, like a wedding ring, unites geometry and writing in harmonious marriage. Keep in mind, for no particular reason, the mathematical fact that every square is a rhombus, but not every rhombus is a square.

The rhombus rocks these cornerstone concepts: time, topic, writer and writing. A little alliteration (topic-time and writer-writing) only enhances the thrill of the rhombus. In this Information Age, these are the factors writers must consider if they are to write successfully.

To be practical, educators cannot idealize students' writing process. Getting students to allocate hours and days to each assignment is certain failure. But students will produce more successful writing if teachers challenge them to work like project managers who are busy and who lack resources.

Like project managers, writers must seek success by determining the quality that can be achieved in the time allotted given the available resources. The best project managers know that they never have enough time and hardly ever get enough resources, so they aim to complete the work creatively so quality doesn't suffer.

Here is a likely experience for a writer with Rhombus factors (in bold):

The time frame is the first factor a writer must consider (time). Then the writer needs to have awareness of how many pages, or how many words, she can produce in such a time (time/writer). I recommend a writing race early in the semester so students can discover how much they can write in one hour and at what level of quality.

The next matter is the writer's knowledge of the topic (writer/topic). The topic might require some research, which affects the time frame (topic/time). Time, so important, will affect the degree of focus the writer will take on the topic (time/writer/topic). A writer with only 5 hours for an essay might need two hours for research, leaving a three hour window for composing. Three hours for the essay could mean a tight focus: perhaps just two pages so some revision and editing can happen.

The focus results in a thesis (topic/writing). Once begun, the writing and the writer battle (writer/writing). The author struggles to solve problems to produce the essay composed of word choice, sentence length, paragraphing, structure, style, tone and purpose (writing). Not all parts of the product are decided consciously. Tone often just happens as a result of an early word choice that dictates how subsequent sentences are written. But, young writers improve anyway through repetition and ideally discussion of their process and focused feedback.

The CompScholar Rhombus doesn't represent the great institutions by allowing quality to suffer when time and resources are taxed. But the rhombus represents reality. Should writing teachers force an impossible situation on students or teach them on their home courts? That is, teachers too must do what they can given the time and resources available: all too brief semesters, course-load flustered students and useless textbooks preaching impossible process.

Time: Some honest students would start with a small window of writing time: 3 hours the night before the paper is due. Such planning might not please the professors and parents of the world, but it is realistic. The key is to know that schedule and plan a paper that can be written in that time frame.

Topic: Topics will be treated according to a writer's existing knowledge of the topic and their access to useful information about it. The most important question about a topic is focus: How can I compress this topic--what part of the topic can I feature in an essay?

Writer: The person doing the writing matters. The writer might default to certain attitudes about a topic. Controversial topics like gun control cause most writers to think and feel for or against them. the feelings and opinions of the writer will affect their motivation to complete an assignment. The writer might be a high achiever, focused on good grades, or the opposite: a person happy with an average grade. (For more on grades, see the meta section below*.)

Writing: The triangular models tried unsuccessfully to fit writing issues into that silly three-sided shape. It was doomed from the start because factors like purpose and tone are too elusive to be pinned down by the corner of a mathematical figure. Writers will grow to know those concepts, but more immediate writing concerns for students are words, paragraph length and essay size: word count or page count.

Looking for links! Do you know of websites to link to for similar content or to enhance and extend the material in this post? Paste the URLs in a comment.

* Key Question About Grades: If students manage an assignment like a project and have little time, they might set realistic expectations, knowing, for example, that by the due date they will have only three hours to produce a two page paper that would earn a B or B+. But if right, producing such a B-level essay, shouldn't they receive an A on the project?

I also have some questions that might help writers if you comment below and answer them:

1. Why does framing the writing situation help writers?
2. With only a few in English, what is your favorite "rh-" word--is it rhombus?

Here are links to related content:

• The Rhetorical Situation
• Writing Decisions

Please share this blog with friends and followers all over the web.

CompScholar M3 Plan

The CompScholar M³ plan has three parts: a micro beginning, macro middle and meta end.

CompScholar encourages writers to use the M³plan for blogs, essays and articles. The simple plan promotes crisp writing and appeals to online readers.

This post is an example of the M³ plan in action. The three parts have distinct headers to visually separate the micro beginning, macro middle and meta ending. By presenting information in these three sections, writers make reading easier by meeting the readers' expectations of order.

Micro: The beginning section briefly states the main point. The micro section is an executive summary, so busy readers can locate the main point without reading the whole thing. Today, with hyperlinks removing hierarchies, everyone is an executive. Writing must appreciate readers' time.

The micro message should be no more than 280 characters, twice the limit for a tweet on Twitter. Unlike Twitter, the writing should be full words and sentences: avoid texting language. The 280 characters is about 50 words.

Although that limit is flexible, meaning the section will not cut the message at the 280th character, a longer micro section is evidence that a topic is too large. The limit guides writers to keep writing crisp and focused on one topic.

Use of websites like Facebook and Twitter have become so widespread that, "Micro messages and micro messaging are essential to modern communication." Writing micro sections will improve writers' micro messaging skills for any website, email or text.

Macro: The macro section presents the main point and the supporting information. Using this blog as example, this macro section states the main idea (the M³ plan is useful and has three parts: micro, macro and meta) and includes the supporting details (like this explanation of the micro, macro and meta sections that you are reading now).

If a tweet on Twitter is a micro blog, then a "normal" blog is the macro forum. Just think: micro means small, macro means big.

In the macro section in M³ plan, writers state all the information, details, examples and explanations needed to express their main point.

Meta: The meta section is for community. The meta section appeals to readers for comments and offers links to relevant material. Writing direct questions that readers can answer is a good way to inspire comments. Inviting readers to share links to their work helps to create community, too. The meta section is not for final comments--all points should be expressed in the macro section.  Using this blog as example once more, the final comments appear after this sentence ends but still in the macro section.

On other websites and in The CompScholar Ebook (forthcoming), experts recommend writing in different formats to suit various writing jobs. A business proposal, for example, is likely to be composed in a different format than a blog post.

Successful writers think carefully about how to lay-out their work for the best outcome. That best format will depend on the topic and time (deadline) as well as the type of writing and the writer--factors discussed in another post on the CompScholar Rhombus.

With all those factors to consider, why would CompScholar encourage the M³ plan so exclusively? Without even knowing what people are going to be writing about?

The answer is pressure. Boundaries force innovation. Deadlines create action. The M³plan for writing establishes boundaries, and they are boundaries that make sense to online readers today.

I hope some of you readers can find examples of well-organized writing online and share links in the comments. Maybe you have a blog that is a perfect example.

I also have two questions I hope to get some answers to:

1. Do you think the M³ plan makes sense?
2. Since the macro section can be lengthy, how can writers plan that section to be reader-friendly?

Here are links to related content:

• Web Content: Writing With Purpose
• 10 Rules of Successful Communication

Please share this blog with your friends and followers all over the web.