SCHOOL:    Charter Oak State College 
STUDENT:  General  
CLASS:    College Writing Workshop   
TIME:     7:00 a.m. ‑ 8:45 a.m.    
DATE:     November 16, 2015

Karasch & Associates    
Captioned by:  Denee 
"This text is being provided in a rough draft format.  Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the class." 

(Class started at 7:00 a.m.)
>>Instructor:  So we are fortunate to have Dr. Steven bachelor here, I'm going to let him introduce himself but quickly I'm going to give instructions to the people watching on the web, if you have questions, use your chat box at nine top of your screen and if it cements like the right time, I will interpret and convey your questions, or we can wait until the end, Dr. Bachelor has a presentation, if you need some clarification of something that seems like you want to ask the question now because it's pertinent, go ahead, if you have something that's personal, a work sample or an example of something that's going on with your writing, feel free, but well do questions and answers at the end.  Okay?  So I'll let you introduce yourselves.
>>Instructor:  Good evening thank you for coming, since I have an opportunity to introduce myself I guess I can make up a biography of myself and ‑‑ I'm from the planet marches.
(Laughter)
>>Instructor:  I've been on this planet, your planet earth for a couple of decades now, I have been teaching, writing and research for quite a while, um, my research special is Mexican politics in the 20th century that's where my accomplish scholarship, 20th century Latin America Mexico, more specifically, I have given a number of lectures and presentations at international conferences and worked with students as young as sixth grade with writing through graduate school, so I worked with a variety of age groups of different background, and enjoy helping students develop their writing because a lot of people I've noticed they have the skills in them, but they're certain blockages that get in the way that prevent them from demonstrating their true talents, it was a problem I had as a student I didn't realize until after I graduated from college that I didn't really know what a thesis was X I felt that it was strange that I had been able to graduate from college without knowing whether or not this was truly a thesis or not, I still had doubts about it and I realize, doubts were part of the problem.  That there's a certain confidence that comes when you can convey the information back to someone, so in other words, if you're able to teach something back to someone, then you know that you know it better than if you just received it as knowledge.  So I see this as a very informal workshop where I can help you with some of the tips that in my, I'm going to age myself, almost 30 years of being past college, um, of doing this.  And these are our tips that on the one hand they're common sense so if you hear me say a lot that this point is really important, this is one of the most important points that I'll be making, I'm going to be saying that probably, a lot because each one of these points, I will in the moment think is the most important point that I'm making, because these are ideas that have that I have carried with me throughout my years of teaching and research.  So I've tried not to overdue the slides, I've tried to under do them so we can really just focus on the particular topic at hand X I can give a sense of what I mean by each tip.  Or trick.  So the title ‑‑ is the form title of the presentation is sparkling words ‑‑ the reason why I came up with that as a title is it conveys the two aspects of what is most important about academic writing, this is a workshop that's geared toward academic writing but in a variety of levels so you can be a first year student who's doing um, the introduction to research methods, or liberal arts thinking, the habits of thinking associated with liberal arts education or doing more advanced research paper, these are habits or traits that cross the disciplines and that operate at every level, be it a first year first semester course in college or even in graduate school working at the doctoral level, those two main points are, you want your writing to be effective, it doesn't have to be dazzling, but it should sparkle a bit and most importantly, you want to make sure that you are making good arguments.  They don't necessarily need to be cold or hard but you need to be making an argument, proving your point.  Otherwise there's no sense in really writing a research paper.  If you're writing a review or an overview, sure, you might be reviewing or serving other peoples writings, but if you are presenting a research paper where you have done research, you should be offering some kind of argument.  Now, as we move forward we'll get into what constitutes an argument how do you know if you've made an argument or not, but I thought before going into those particulars, we would start very broadly.
>>Woman:  ‑‑
>>Instructor:  Okay.  So one of the first things I tell my students, is tune in and turn off.  What I mean by that is, turn off your phone, turn off the television, if you're working on a laptop, that's fine, turn off the internet.  If you are working on paper, then close the laptop, now, there's a problem with this, though.  Because it's not easy to turn off the phone.  It may be is dangerous in some of your lives to turn off the phone especially if you have kids, so it might not be realistic to turn off the phone in a literal sense, but if you can put that phone in another room, if you can tell the people who might text you regularly, I need the next 20 minutes alone, there's this wonderful anecdote by Woody Allen, the filmmaker, every single day except weekends between 9:00 a.m. and 12 noon in the morning, he goes into a room and shuts the door, no one is allowed to speak to him.   
>>Instructor:  That's how he was able to make 43 films, it might not be realistic to find three hours uninterpreted five days a week, right, I wouldn't expect anyone to do that, even if it's 20 minutes, maybe not the same twenty minutes every day, just some time where everyone who is in frequent contact with you knows, no interruptions.  That's what turning off is ‑‑ making sure that there are no distractions.  I sometimes I get this from students, I can work fine with the television on, in fact I need that distraction.
(Laughter)
>>Instructor:  Yeah, and maybe so, but I think in all of those cases they would work better with the distractions off, if you need some background noise, get a white noise machine or tune the radio to static, play some music, instrumental.
>>Student:  ‑‑ well I'm typing the song.
>>Instructor:  Right, because the next thing you know you're dancing and it's the next day and you are having drinks and friends are over.
(Laughter)
>>Instructor:  It might be more fun than doing the assignment but you won't graduate from college.  So the element of this is to tune in, to figure out what the assignment is asking of you.  Sounds like common sense, but oftentimes, the ‑‑ I wouldn't say the answer, but the suggested answer is in the assignment itself.  Maybe some of you have gotten an assignment that says, um, discuss the impact of the atomic bomb in World War II, well, discussing something isn't really doing anything.  It's just ‑‑ what the instructor is most likely asking you is to talk about the consequences of the atomic bomb in World War II and they're asking you to take a position.  So the assignment itself will often, especially at the under graduate level will have the suggested answer in the question.  So read the assignment closely.  So an assignment that I often give will ask students to come up with a literary analysis of some characters in a short story, I tell the story what I'm looking for in their analysis.  I don't expect them to really make some novel analysis for me.  If they were able to do that, they would have already have a Ph.d in literary analysis, so I'm coaching them by getting them to think just beyond the just the basic comprehension of a story, so if a character is highly educated and yet continues to do foolish things, the author is telling us something about the limits of book learning.  So my question would guide them in that direction, what might the author be saying by having the character be highly educated yet foolish?  The answer isn't there because it's still a why question or a what question, what might the answer be doing, it's really kind of a why question, why is the author doing this, the answer is in the question, the author is doing this because the author is trying to remind us that book learning isn't the same as common sense, that's a thesis right there and it's in the question that I've asked.  So you want to get any kind of clarification that you can for your assignment, you want to eliminate the distractions because there's only one job that you should be doing at a time.  I don't believe that someone can multi task well.  You might have some wonderful ideas come to your head doing the dishes but you can't write a research paper do the dishes at the same time, I failed every time I tried.  So cracking the assignment, what that refers to is determining what exactly is being asked in the assignment.  The question might not be there or the answer might not be there but more often than not it is.  And if you're truly at a loss you can always ask the professor or the instructor for clarification.  Or maybe you have a hunch or suspicious.  Run it by them before you sit down to do the assignment, again that sort of common sense, but there have been times where students will wait to do an assignment, they dreed it and put it off until the night before and thin they know it's a little too late to ask for clarification because if you are asking for clarification for an assignment that's due and it's mid night the night before, you might not get that clarification in time.
>>Student:  There's a question from one of our students ‑‑ she wanted you to repeat your thought about ‑‑
(Inaudible)
>>Woman:  The simple framework you used ‑‑
>>Instructor:  Okay to reiterate what the thesis was?
>>Woman:  I'm not sure because ‑‑
>>Instructor:  Because there is a slide where well clarify thesis.  Yeah, in fact, the thesis is fundamental.  So you want to clarify, the answer is frequently within the question itself.  The next step is do your research.  But in order to do the research, you need to determine how much and what kind of research you need to do.  So the example I gave of literary analysis, the only research that would be required there is to read the short story that I've assigned.  There, of course are other research questions that entail years of research.  So what you need to determine is what the expectation is for the level of research.  So if it's an undergraduate course, obviously, the first step is to do the reading that's assigned on the syllabus.  You'll then want to determine whether or not you need to be doing outside research.  Oftentimes learners will not ask that question.  Do I need to do outside research?  There is never a problem with asking that question.  Ever.  That should never be a question that someone should be embarrassed to ask.
(Raising hand)
>>Student:  What's outside research ‑‑
>>Instructor:  Good question, so here is the difference between outside research and inside research though you don't hear that term too often, the inside research refers to the work, the assigned reading that's on the syllabus, all of the required reading that you would ordinarily be doing.  Outside research is research that falls outside of the assigned reading that requires you to either visit a library or go online and consult peer review journals or text, or primary sources.  So there's a very important distinction teen primary sources and secondary sources and it's a fundamental distinction that one should know.  And I apologize if this is something that all of you already do know.  Secondary sources mean referred to studies done by authors that have appeared in scholarly publication, peer review journals, textbook, so there's secondary because someone has studied the primary subject and then has drawn conclusions from that evidence.  Primary evidence is as the same suggestions it's primary.  So anything can be theoretically a primary source that you can use to write a secondary study.  It depends on what questions you ask of it.  So a good example that really convolutes things, but I think you'll see there will be some clarity here, a newspaper article is a secondary source.  Because if a journalist is reporting about a fire, the journalist is reporting and even though the journalist will want to be as objective as possible, it's still that person's perception of the fire.  So the journalist might say, "residents of the house suspect the fire was caused by oil over heating on the stove."  But the newspaper account is a secondary source, a primary source would be, if you went into that burned out kitchen and you found the oil there and you were able to piece together forensically that it was oil that spilled off the stove and caught the kitchen on fire.
>>Student:  The fire chief giving you his professional opinion of what started the fire is that primary or secondary.
>>Instructor:  It depends on the question your asking, it would still be a secondary source because the fire chief is basing his or her conclusion on the primary source evidence so if you were, however, this is where it gets a little complicated, if you're writing a paper that's researching the views of fire chiefs, the perspective of fire chief, then that fire chief is a primary source, so let me give another example.  If I'm writing, researching an election, and I have determined that candidate A won the election because that person had a majority of the ballets, the ballets are the primary evidence, if however I'm asking people why did you vote for candidate A, they then become the primary source.  Because my question is about them.  And not about the raw data, so it really becomes a question of what subject position are you investigating?  Are you investigating the perception of people or the exam ballets?  So leave is another example.  A telephone book.  A telephone book is a primary source because it just has ‑‑ you do remember telephone books?
(Laughter)
>>Instructor:  It has the names and addresses of people and their phone numbers, so you can use that as a primary source to see where are the preschools and church this is a particular town, but if you are using that phone book it has adds in it to draw some conclusion or make a conclusion about a town and the way that they market their preschools, then you're using the phone book adds a primary source but to ask a very different kind of question, so it depends on the kind of question that you're asking.  What you need to do when you have an assignment is determine whether or not outside research is going to be required.  So I over heard some of you before we got started, talking about a research paper and having to do peer review journal research.  So that's secondary evidence where you will be using the research of someone else to make conclusions.  So if someone is doing a study of obesity in men, the men, the obese men are the primary sources.  The article written about the men with obesity is then, the secondary source.  So in many cases, secondary research outside of the syllabus isn't required but usually that's explained and one of the ways to know is whether or not you're being asked to make citations in a particular format.  Okay.  So the next step is really the hardest part.  Form late a strong thesis from a compelling question.  So there are two components to this, the strong thesis and the compelling question.  So a thesis, the best theses, are the ones that are formulated out of or from compelling questions.  So you want to make sure that you're starting with a good question.  You probably all know the 5W questions, what, even though they are not all Ws, what when where who how and why, the how and why are the pivotal ones, the others are not compelling because they are answered factually.  Where am I standing?  Right here.
(Laughter)
>>Instructor:  There's no argument about that unless you're being a smart ass.  Or drunk.
(Laughter)
>>Instructor:  But otherwise we agree that here is right here, there's no argument there, right, I'm here.  When?  Right now, why, well okay, there could be a variety of reasons why I'm here now.  How am I doing right now, depends on who you ask, what am I?  I'm a martian, when, where, those there's no disputing them, so they're not compelling enough to form late a thesis around so the best questions always to ask are how and why and especially, the why questions.  Because the answer to a why question necessarily points to causation.  And causation or causality is the whole point of doing research, if you can't explain a cause of something, you're just, you're not going far enough, that's the whole point, why are we here?
(Raising hand)
>>Student:  Philosophy is the biggest problem with this type of when you're trying to create a thesis like what is the mind, body, problem.
(Laughter)
>>Student:  You have to try to you know, because he dispels so many they thinks and took everything off of the table so it's kind of difficult in that regard when you're writing a paper.
>>Instructor:  It is, so what you want to do is ‑‑ so um, hope asked or brought up a very wise point. 
(Person Coughing)
>>Instructor:  That philosophically speaking, this is a very difficult question because if it's an open ended question, there are a variety of ways you can go where you could end up arguing just for the sake of argument, is this a chair?  If it is a chair where does the chairness start and where does the chairness end?
(Laughter)
>>Instructor:  Good luck with that one.
>>Student:  Philosophy ‑‑
>>Student:  Well, history of systems of psychology, but it stems from philosophy so it's philosophy based.
>>Instructor:  Right, so what you need to do in cases like that is set limits so that's an important point, setting limits so that you don't get into these unanswerable existential dilemmas because then you go down a worm hole.
>>Student:  Yes.  That's where I was.
>>Instructor:  Avoid the worm holes which sounds easy by just sticking to the topic at hand.
>>Student:  Okay.
>>Instructor:  And you're not being asked ‑‑ imagine if you needed to go that existential in an answer, it would take you pages after pages to do that and your probably being asked, to write a five to 20 ‑‑ page paper so if you narrowly define your limits.
>>Student:  Okay.
>>Instructor:  Then you're on safer ground and you can actually, you can stipulate in your paper, I'm defining the following concept this way:  And it allows you to benchmark.
>>Student:  Okay.
>>Instructor:  So that you don't end up going off on tangents.  And if the assignment is formulated well, there should be some safeguards there.
>>Student:  Okay.
>>Instructor:  Like some clues, in the assignment itself, if you are supposed to write a paper on ‑‑ you probably are comparing it to other philosophical systems of the day or you're probably being asked to comment on what the contribution that decart made the philosophy at the time.
>>Student:  Can I ask a question, something that's come up for some of my students ‑‑ might be some sort of comparison or they're interpreting it as a comparison and they get lost how you make a thesis ‑‑ in comparison.
(Inaudible)
>>Student:  So I don't know if you want to talk ‑‑
>>Instructor:  Yeah.  I think.  Let me finish up the question, so the compelling question really is your starting point.  If you don't start with a compelling question you don't get very far because if your question is who won the world series game, well, there's no essay there, there's no argument there.  But if you ask and I'm sure this argument is being had over beers in a bar right now, why ‑‑ whoever won the game last night, I think it was last night, um, I'm sure there are people out there that will give you all sorts of reason, I bet if you turn an sports radio, they are giving all types of answers, there might be a how built into it, the how comes out of the why because the why is the explanation.  So you want to make sure that you ask a question that's not only ‑‑ you want to ask a question that's not only debatable, but worth debating.  And this is where learners will often get stuck because I'm going to say something that might sound contradictory, a thesis is an opinion but there are some opinions that are worth arguing more than other opinions.  Blue is the greatest color ever.
(Laughter)
>>Student:  It is.
>>Instructor:  No it's red.  It's red.  I'm not going to win that ‑‑ I defer to you, I'm not going to win that argument.  Such and such is a greatest religion.  Um, so those are opinion laden questions.  Yes, you could ‑‑ put up an argument about why blue is the best color, but it's possible to go back to your philosophical question, maybe I perceive blue differently than you, what is before blue to you might not be blue to me, so we have to agree to disagree, you want to make sure that your question if it's an opinion it's going to be debatable and worth debating, so what that means is worth arguing, it's disputable so it can have a counter argument, have it's opposite.  But it needs to be provable.  And that's the important distinction between a thesis and a mere opinion, it has to be provable.  Now this is where there's some disciplinary distinctions, differences depending on majors.  In philosophy, the field is wider, because what is reality?  Well, if two different people can't even agree on that, obviously it's a wide open terrain, but in other disciplines, like, history where there's a heavy reliance on primary sources, it's easier to prove something so there's an example that I use in class, quite a bit, why did the United States drop the atomic bomb on Japan?  We're all taught answers in school, there are some answers that are more provable than others, it might not entirely settle the score, but based on the primary source evidence, you can get closer to truth.  So and notice I said closer to truth, it doesn't mean you can get to truth but you can get closer to it and the closer you can get to truth, the more the stronger grounds you're on, the more provable your point is which is why primary source evidence is primary, it's first.  Because the raw data itself is the forensics of your argument.  So if you start with a question that isn't provable, you might be going down a worm hole, so that's one of the most important limits to set, can I prove this, what is reality?  Skip that assignment, do another one, can I prove by the United States dropped the atomic bomb on Japan, yes, there might be a variety of answers, there are usually two main answers given, I will offer them up so you can see what I mean by provable, so the conventional wisdom is the United States developed the bomb because it prevented the U.S. from having to mount a land invasion on Japan and saved a lot of U.S. lives, yes.  We can prove that, we can prove that a land invasion would have cost hundreds of thousands of U.S. lives, we can prove that Japan had said that the only way they would surrender is if the United States took Tokyo and forced them to surrender, that's good evidence there, sounds like you have your thesis, what if you have a diary entry from Harriet Truman from the President that said I decided to drop the bomb because we had it and I knew if we used it would scare the Soviet Union and they wouldn't bother us afterwards?  That's closer to the truth because that's better Ed he's the commander in chief who made the decision, the question is did he say that?  He didn't, but people in his cabinet did and those records were later declassified so that evidence is out there and I think it's ‑‑ that's how I teach World War II, the end of it, you find in my reason judgment that to be closer to the truth than the issue about lives of soldiers, so you want to make sure that you are making an argument that you can prove.  Because if you get to the conclusion of your essay and haven't proven it, you have not done your job.  Okay.
>>Student:  Can I ask a question from a student? 
>>Woman:  Are there any sources that can help you check to see if the thesis is a strong thesis?
>>Instructor:  Yes.  Okay so a couple of different ways to check that.
>>Woman:  Can you repeat the question? 
>>Instructor:  The question is are there any resources out there or ways to help you determine whether or not your thesis is a strong one.  One of the first things you want to do is ask yourself, is this thesis a fact or is it an interpretation that I can prove?  If it's a fact, then it's not a thesis.  A thesis is an interpretation based on evidence.  A thesis is an interpretation based on evidence.  To go back to the Harriet Truman example, the diary entry doesn't exist and when he did make that decision there were probably a variety of reasons.  That's why we can only get close to the truth we don't know if there was one specific reason or if there were a compilation of reasons.  So one of the best ways to determine whether or not you formulated a workable or provable thesis is to ask is this an interpretation or is it a fact?  If it's an interpretation, the next check you want to do is ask yourself can I argue it's an 30 a sis, it's opposite and if you can it's likely a thesis.  Two plus two is five.  No.  Two plus two is four that's a fact not a thesis, yes philosophically we can get into what constitutes twoness, but we'll leave that aside, I can't argue the opposite, can I argue that the reason we dropped the bomb was to save U.S. lives, yes I can find a bunch of evidence to support this, and I can find evidence to support the other side, that's why it comes down to interpretation so you as scholars are reading evidence and advancing a thesis based on your reading of the evidence.  So you're the scholar, you're the one being asked the question, so your thesis will depend on what the evidence tells you.  And that's the other check, how you know if you're working with a good thesis, because it's something that the evidence tells you rather than I think blue is the greatest color.  Because that, how would you prove blue is the greatest color, everyone is going to have a different take, you might be able to prove that more people think blue is the greatest color but that doesn't prove it, it just proves more people think blue is the greatest color.  So if you let the evidence speak to you, you make a more convincing argument so this is definitely, an advertisement for doing as much research as possible.  Obviously, limit yourself to determine whether or not you need to research a topic for years and years and years, but it never hurts to do outside research because if you're writing on some topic and you discover a peer reviewed a journal article that corroborates and supports your point then site that because that's more convincing evidence so this next slide short verse, this is important.  The best way to work You find is in short ‑‑ these days it's impossible to find a chunk of three hours.  Anybody here has a chunk of three hours, I think I'm going to sit down and do school work for three hours.
>>Student:  I spent eight hours last Saturday researching.
>>Instructor:  If ‑‑ so if you do have that large chunk of time that's wonderful, I would still strongly recommend every 45 minutes getting up and walking or something just to liven yourself.  It makes a difference.  You'll enjoy the work more actually.  So it depends on what your schedule is, for me it's tough for me to get more than 30 minutes at a time so you want to make them productive, I'm the kind of learner and I know this about myself, if I sit some place for three hours that last hour of the third, I'm not really accomplishing anything.  By that point I'm you know, surfing the internet, surfing for real, not being productive, I tend to work in eight to 35 minute bursts, 45, I know I'm taking a break.  I'm getting some tea, walking around doing something, something with my body most likely.  Because I just, I get tunnel vision.  And you want to keep your ideas fresh and there's all sorts of research that supports movement and cognition.  Einstein is the best example, whenever we had a thorny problem, he would go for a walk and during that walk he would resolve whatever the issue was.  The next step is, um, is to connect the dots, so you've done your research, you're working in short productive bursts, I'm not even yet talking about writing, this is religious outlining, a lot of learners go straight from assignment, to computer and typing.  That's a mistake.  You really don't want to do that, because if you're sitting down writing, it's like going for a run and not knowing where you're going, I will get somewhere, it's not to get somewhere it's to prove your argument, so you want to have your art, your evidence before you.  You want to make an analysis, so that you can prove your point or explain your argument.  Now you should be able to see vaguely what that is ‑‑ the moan Lisa.  But it would look better if those dots were connected, that's the other thing as the writer of research papers, you want to do, you want to consider your reader, your job is to explain yourself.  So you want to consider the audience, is this person who's reading it the instructor?  Reading 50 other of these essays on the same topic?  Yes.  So you want to do something to distinguish your work.  You also want to do the work for the reader by explaining yourself.  That doesn't mean interjecting yourself in the fist person and saying what I'm really trying to say here is this.  You want to keep to the third person, which I will explain in a little more detail in a moment, you want to make sure that your point, your argument gets proven and the best way to do that is to write out your thesis and then come up with a the points that prove it.  And that is your outline and the next step is, this is going to seem counter intuitive I think, is to arrange your evidence from weakest to strongest.  You actually don't want to reveal your strongest evidence first.  You want to build your argument so that the final piece of evidence is that nail that final that final nail in the coffin.  And then the body can get buried, it's sort of a bad metaphor, but ‑‑
>>Student:  The exact opposite.
>>Instructor:  This is the way to go.
>>Student:  Okay ‑‑
>>Instructor:  Always.  Because you're building an argument.  So by the end, the person is left confronted by super woman, I don't like it's gender male, I think it's gender male, but if your paper starts here and ends there, the last thought on the reader's mind is I'm underwhelmed, now you're overwhelmed, you want the evidence to build, if you do have this diary entry, that's the last piece.
>>Student:  ‑‑ first paragraph. 
>>Instructor:  Right and I bet you find that it's difficult to write the rest of the paper.
>>Student:  It is.
>>Instructor:  So if you arrange it this way, here is the other thing that's wonderful about this way of arguing, the paper starts to write itself, because this is good, this is better, this is better, but this is even better, better, best, there's a flow to this, my argument is getting better and you actually are not only strengthening your argument but you're strengthening your confidence in your argument.  Which means when you get to the conclusion you feel that you can robustly conclude what it is you're including, so you're able to end on a high note and that's ‑‑ it does seem counter intuitive, if you have the best piece, the smoking gun there, just give it, but no, the smoking gun, it is a smoking gun but imagine how much stronger that smoking gun is if it's in the context of every last bit of evidence, it gives your argument a comprehensiveness that's beyond dispute, so the other thing you want to do though, and it's sort of being contradictory here, you do want to offer a counter argument and rebuttable.  There are a couple of different place this is a research paper where you can do that.  And it doesn't ultimately matter but a lot of times people will give their counter argument after their strongest bit of evidence.  And you may wonder, why if I have just proven my point would I acknowledge the opposition?  Because acknowledging them shows that you're aware of their position, you've taken it into consideration and hopefully you can rebut it.  So you don't want to sweep objections under the rug because that exactly, you're not going to get away with it, the learned reader is going to be left with a doubt, but like they didn't raise this issue and that issue really because they didn't raise it, it's not a convincing analysis.  Now, there might be some points that you just simply cannot rebut, but more often than not, you will be able to see how a counter argument can actually strengthen your argument.  So the atomic bomb example again, so the counter argument is that the U.S. wanted to save lives.  If you were able to find evidence that shows that an inobservation wouldn't have been that costly, that's one way to rebut it, that a land invasion wouldn't have cost that many lives or if you can find evidence that this would be most convincing, evidence that showed Harriet's Truman didn't really care about how many lives were lost ‑‑ he was driven more by the concerns having to do with after the war rather than concerns about Japan, that's a way of introducing the objection or counter argument and then rebutting it, because you can say yes, there is another way of looking at this but this is not the most convincing analysis because there's this really over writing interest in the Soviet Union for example.  So the best counter arts are the ones that use the oppositions evidence against them.  I'm trying to think of an example where you can use taxes.  There's an issue that gets debated, we need to lower taxes to burst economic growth.  Well, what if, what if higher taxes bursts economic growth?  Then you just effectively rebutted that art.  Just a hypothetical.  So you want to consider the objections, but you want to rebut them, now we get to the stage of writing.
(Raising hand)
>>Student:  Back on that in pyramid ‑‑
>>Instructor:  So what that pyramid showed was the different ways of objecting to someone.  So let's say I am making this argument about the atomic bomb and someone says, what do you know about World War II, you weren't even there.
(Laughter)
>>Instructor:  That's an ‑‑ they're attacking my person and not my evidence.  Like, yeah, you're right, I wasn't there, but I have read this, this, this and this, I have seen these archival sources et cetera, an ad hominem attack, we see these sorts of attacks in politics all the time.  Why would you vote for this person, she's ugly.
(Laughter)
>>Instructor:  That's the worst ad hominem attack around, what does this person know, this person vacations here.  What does that have to do with the issues?  Nothing.
(Laughter)
>>Instructor:  That's an ad hominem, so there's different kinds of objections and that's the weakest.
>>Student:  Do we want ‑‑ 
>>Instructor:  Are you able to go back one?  So I'm going to show you the best way of objecting.
>>Student:  Okay.  Just up one.  So there's name calling, there's ad hominem, where you were not alive during World War II, what do you know, you can say well, these are not effective objections.  These you want to avoid.  So as we go up, we're getting better and better in our ways of rejecting and counter arguing.  So you would point out a contradiction so you state the apposing case but you offer no evidence.  This person is guilty because well, he just looks guilty.
(Laughter)
>>Instructor:  A better way would be to say, this person is not guilty because the glove was worn by the murder and the glove doesn't fit the hand of the person that you believe committed the murder.  
>>Student:  Is that a counter argument. 
>>Instructor:  That's finding a mistake and why it's mistaken so if someone is making an argument that someone is guilty because the glove that we were wearing doesn't or fits them and then you show actually, the glove doesn't fit if both parties agree that that is the glove worn by the assailant, then you have nicely refuted, but notice you're not refuting your central claim, you're not refuting, you're refuting the glove and not the person.  So an even better form of counter arguing is refuting the central point.  My client could not have committed that because my client was in Brazil when the murder happened.  And the murder happened not in Brazil.  
>>Student:  What's the difference ‑‑ responding to tone.
>>Instructor:  Responding to tone, criticizes to the tone of the writing without attacking the substance of the argument so this would be if ‑‑ I'm making an argument about the atomic bomb and you want to counter argue with me and say no, it had nothing to do with the Soviet Union and I know it didn't because I can tell by the way that you're talking about the Soviet Union your a supporter and you're just wanting to protect them, see how it gets at the tone?  And not really the substance of the argument so you always want to get to the substance, the central point of the argument.
>>Student:  Okay.
>>Woman:  There's a question from ‑‑ do you have any tips on how to stay on topic while counter arguing.
>>Instructor:  Oh, okay yeah ‑‑
>>Student:  ‑‑
(Inaudible)
>>Instructor:  So the question is any tips on staying on point with the counter argument?  Ideally you want your counter argument to refute the central point so whatever the thesis is, it will most likely have a direct opposite.  Then what you want to do is find what that evidence is that supports the direct opposite.  And refute it.  So a thesis and a counter argument are really two sides of the same coin.  And if you have a good thesis, it is disputable, but you want to base your conclusion on the strongest evidence out there.  So if you have a thesis, and then you know oh, I need this concession paragraph, where I consider the counter argument I consider the objections, and you're convinced of the counter argument, you've got to go back to square one and revise your thesis, because the counter argument has just convinced you that your initial thesis was a hypothesis and you need to rewrite it, that happens.
>>Student:  ‑‑
(Inaudible) 
>>Instructor:  I was writing I was trying to say that women as leaders are really really different from CEOs than men, once they get to a certain level a CEO is a CEO.  It totally changed my paper.  And the next question is why is that and then there are explanations for that.  So that's a really good example.  You start with an initial suspicion and when you do the research you realize that can be another way, that's a nuance, you are arguing that at certain levels, there can be a femaleness to ones executive operations but then at other levels that all talk of gender has to be taken out of the boardroom, right even though in the boardroom it's still highly gender, it's just gendered male.  Yeah.  So this finally brings us to the actual writing part.  So almost all of this is thinking and planning and reading.  What You find is if you know the topic, you should be able to speak it.  When I say speak it, it doesn't mean that you then sit down and write as if you're speaking it.  You don't want to do that.
(Laughter)
>>Instructor:  Then there's a lot of ums, and a lot of likes, but what you do want to do is see if you can tell yourself what it is you're arguing.  And then if you can tell yourself what you're arguing, without getting slipped up, then you know you've got an argument and then you can start writing.  But the writing you want to follow the conventions of writing, so you don't want to write as if you're just telling yourself, so avoid stream of consciousness in other words, but use the stream of consciousness to your advantage by telling yourself this is what I'm going to argue, I'm going to argue this you might even want to talk it into your phone.  I do that where I practice, okay, this is what I'm going to argue, here is my thesis and I think this is how I'm going to make my argument.  And then I'll play it back and hear if it adds up.  And then you can start writing, but the writing is really the outlining.  This is a very important slide.  Beware of patch writing, what patch writing is it's a form of plagiarism, it doesn't sound like plagiarism, you wouldn't go to jail for it, I don't think, but it can get you into a lot of trouble and that's where you are paraphrasing from an article or from sources, secondary sources and you're not properly attributing so it's like cutting and pasting but worst.  Because you're ‑‑ I guess it's not technically worst.  But it's like cutting and pasting but you're changing a word here and there to make it your own.  That's plagiarizing unfortunately.  If you're paraphrasing, and then you attribute, you make a citation, you're golden, not a problem.  You just have to site your sources.  So if you are just well, maybe the instructor's never read this article but this article totally proves my point, don't try to hide it, it's a good thing because it means that you're smart.  You know what you're doing because you have reached some conclusion that some scholar and a peer review journal has reached so site it, what you might want to do, they have stolen my thunder, you might want to be able to refine their thesis, they're looking at men with obesity who are aged 30 to 40, maybe I can look at men who are obese, 18 to 29 so there are always ways of refining arguments that are already out there. 
(Person Coughing)
>>Instructor:  So if you are using somebody's work, don't be afraid to site, that means your doing your research, but you want to site them in the appropriate style, there's three main ones, Chicago, used largely in the humanity, history and English, MLA used in English quite a bit and judging by the classes you are in, probably a lot of you are using APA so make sure you know which is the preferred format.  If you don't know how to do these, well that can be another workshop, but there are a lot of resources out there, all sorts of websites that will do the citation for you, like easybib.com easybib.com ‑‑ if you are using Microsoft word there's a citation in side.
(Writing on board)
>>Instructor:  That is right.  I think it's.com, isn't it?
>>Student:  APA.
>>Student:  If you have Microsoft word ‑‑ citation ‑‑
>>Instructor:  I wanted to see.
(Talking at the same time)
>>Student:  You just have to know Mike Microsoft word.
>>Instructor:  There are even Google will even ‑‑
>>Student:  On Youtube there are if you go and Google APA, and MLA format ‑‑ there's a bunch of them.
>>Student:  I use Microsoft word for all of my citations, I have showed 100 people in different class how to use this feature because it's there, it's a tool and so many people are using it and struggling with their citations, it's built in and it makes everything and it's always correct.
>>Student:  You have to show me that.
>>Woman:  We are running out of time.
>>Instructor:  So this next slide save fancy for later, there's no sense in trying to put the super fruition over substance, substance should be the most important element, there's nothing wrong with using a thesaurus, there are some words that are more precise than others, you want to use the most precise words as possible, but don't worry about trying to get really pretty and fancy in the writing.  The more important thing is to develop a style so style does matter, you do want to have a style to your writing, but you want to put care into it and the best way to do that is these are very simple tricks, use active voice.  What's active voice?  Well, active voice is verb that's doing something or there's the noun and then the verb is the action.  But instead of something being done to someone, it's someone doing something.  So here would be an example.  I was buried by an avalanche that's passive voice.  I was buried.  The better way to say it, where it shows the action is the avalanche buried me.  The reason why active voice is so much stronger, is it clarifies immediately.  I was distraught.  Well, about what?  An active verb would tell you exactly distressed you or pained you a low score on the exam distressed you.
>>Student:  Tell me about it.
(Laughter)
>>Instructor:  So the best way to know whether or not you're using passive voice is what you want to avoid, are you saying was something done to you?  So like look for those ED, verbs that end in ED and proceeded by was.  Omit ‑‑
>>Student:  Is it okay to use passive voice.
>>Instructor:  Rarely.  Rarely.
>>Student:  Can you repeat that.
>>Instructor:  The question was is it ever appropriate to use passive voice, the short answer is yes, but very very rarely.  Um, I may ruthless destroyer of the passive voice when I get work submitted to me, it's rare that I do not find a way to turn a passive constructive sentence into active.  Usually, the, it's only ‑‑ it was Thursday.  That's technically passive voice because you're using the to be form, but I don't know how else to say it was Thursday.
>>Student:  It was on a Thursday ‑‑
>>Instructor:  Well, what was?
(Laughter)
>>Instructor:  My meeting met on Thursday, yeah.  Omit need less words.  Don't the paper needs to be five pages, well, I'm at 1239 don't just start stuffing words in.  I have handed papers back to students where their paper really was after I eliminated everything, there's only four sentences there, because the rest was just enough.  Yeah ‑‑ yeah.  I didn't write the word enough, I wrote a stronger word.  Same idea.
(Laughter)
>>Instructor:  A little stronger.  So, the easy way to avoid that is use a noun and then a verb.  And it sounds so elementary.  But it makes a huge difference.  If you use a noun and a verb, you will be saying something.  If you're just stringing words together you might be saying something but you're probably creating a lot of enough.  So there are ideas that you will have and you should stop yourself and say what is it that I'm really trying to say so you want to be methodical in your writing where you are stopping and saying what is it that I'm really saying?  And I only have one noun and one verb.  So it forces you to really choose your words carefully.  So I was writing something last night about this decision that some members of an organization made and the decision created a lot of contention.  And it split the organization in half and I thought how can I say that that's active, split isn't bad, the decision split the organization but I want a stronger word, well, frayed ‑‑ well, frayed means that there were a whole lot of different faxes, leaved, leaved the organization because it splitted in two but divisively, so the words matter greatly, I will probably go back to change it to split, but at least I'm playing with the words and taking them and thinking through them clearly and deliberately, so be deliberate in your writing.  And then this last point use the third person, never ever ever, ever, use the second person in academic writing, second person is you.  You know I have this essay to write and I'm dreading it so that's second person and first person, never use the second person ever.  Ever.  Ever.  The first person, you better have a really good reason to do it.  And that is I.  I think.  Well, what do you think?
>>Student:  ‑‑
(Inaudible)
(Laughter)
>>Instructor:  I think this, well if you eliminate the I think, everything after this is probably a good thesis.  So just take out the I think, because what you want to do is give the appearance of neutrality and objectivity.  So the third person is the convention for academic writing, you should always write in the third person in academic writing, rarely can you use the first person, only if the instructor has let you know that this is a reflection piece.  Where you can then interject yourself.  You, the second person is never used because it's considered rude.  It's considered offensive because you're telling someone, you and that just ruffles the feathers of academic, they are a very delegate bunch and they just can't take that.  So how do you get around that?  Because you're probably thinking, there are times where I want to say you or I, one thinks, one may consider this ‑‑ you can do he, she, but one, one may think the reason true man dropped the bomb had to do with this.  But the evidence indicates otherwise.  Yeah, not I think, no.
>>Student:  So if you're writing your thesis instead of saying I will argue as apposed to, so if you are writing a thesis and it says I will argue just take out I will argue.
>>Student:  So the argument.
>>Instructor:  You can say this essay argues, this essay will argue, in fact that's very appropriate, in fact your instructor will most likely appreciate it because he or she will then know, there's this thesis.  And on the rubric thesis discernible.
(Laughter)
>>Instructor:  It has a thesis, so yeah, exactly a very acceptable convention, the following essay will argue that and then whatever it may be.
>>Student:  Are you still accusing if you use plural, instead of saying you you say some people or many have thought.
>>Instructor:  Okay.  That's third person.
>>Student:  It is.
>>Instructor:  That's third person, many have thought it's just third person plural so it's they.  That's fine.
>>Student:  Okay.
>>Instructor:  Second person plural is you'll.  It's even worst than first person singular, it's like you just ‑‑ all y'allare wrong.  That is no.
>>Student:  ‑‑ is that being used for it's effectiveness with the whole avalanche thing, it's almost like your thought of the snow falling came later as apposed to the avalanche burying me, having the visual of it.
>>Instructor:  You can picture it immediately, that's the strength of an active verb proceeded by an active noun, that will clarify your writing greatly, if you have the appropriate noun or subject, it's the matter of finding the right verb for it.  And if you have the right verb proceeded by the right subject or noun then you're really good because there's clarity to that it doesn't mean you can't start a sentence with a dependent clause.  At the end of the day ‑‑ you can do that, you want to vary your sentence length but that comes after.  You first want to zero in on what is it you're actually say something that's why the noun and the verb is so important, because if you can't identify it, you know you're probably doing enough fee thinking if you're doing that, you are doing enough fee writing, sometimes learners sit down and start writing without knowing what they're saying they might get five pages, but they can be distilled down into two tight writing which the instructor will like.  So I tell my college students frequently, because they always ask, how long do you expect the paper to be, I see it being in the five page range but if you can make a convincing argument in a page and a half yeah, I prefer it, it means you are saying meet tee stuff in a page and a half, in the academy in mathematics, there's an honor of having the shortest dissertation, if you have a Ph.d dissertation that's three pages long but it takes you a year and a half to get through it, if it's 900 pages, you are probably going on and on. 
>>Woman:  What if you are an expert in that subject matter ‑‑ what if she has a culinary degree and writing about ‑‑ would she be the subject or expert used as first person.
>>Instructor:  Maybe.  But it would be even better to find sources from others that are not her because what it does is it raises the issue of bias.  And a stronger authoritative source would be someone who's not the author, because it's like footnoting yourself and you can do it like I can imagine an indication where that might be okay.  But if that person can find some sources where someone is talking about particular sauces and they can footnote that and site that, that's a better source.  I think it depends on the assignment if the assignment is written in a way where the person is asked are there any family traditions of sauces that you have in your own family, then by the very definition of that assignment it would allow for a first person because you are being asked about your own experience.  So again, it has to do with the subject position, if you're being asked about yourself, then you can comment about yourself but if you're being asked about things that are not you, then obviously, you can't.
>>Student:  ‑‑
(Inaudible)
>>Instructor:  No, okay.  Yes.
>>Student:  Revise, revise, revise.
>>Instructor:  So.  Do I need to say it?  Revise.  Revise and revise.  Here's the reason why the revising is so important.  You probably all know this, your ideas only get better.  It only gets better, they cannot get worse.  They really can't if you're revising, if you're doing what you should be doing, they're only getting better, you're only refining and strengthening.  Because you're revising, you are not crumbling up and throwing it out, that shouldn't happen at this stage because you've already done the checks so you already know you have a good thesis, already arguing what the evidence tells you, you have already outlined it and talked yourself through arguments, you connected the dot this and made a analysis, and unconstructed your sentences well so there's nouns, verbs, action verbs, this shouldn't be that difficult but there's no final version of anything there really, there isn't.  Um, that's why a lot of professional writers when it's published T they don't go back to it.  Because if they do, they get ‑‑ so they just, they just ‑‑ I'm moving on.  It doesn't mean ignore your mistakes it doesn't say don't identify your mistakes but learn from them and move guard through revising process because writing is nothing more than a process.  It's um, and it's, it's harder than thinking because me up here talking I'm giving a lot more liberty to pause, say um, retract, but when it's writing, it's much more formal so you have to revise and you sometimes you know, if you can have another set of eyes look at a piece of writing, even better, I think the most important piece of advice I can give with the revise, when you think you're done revising, then this is important I tell this to everyone, read it aloud.
>>Student:  That's what ‑‑
>>Instructor:  Read it aloud.
(Talking at the same time)
>>Instructor:  How do I read aloud?
>>Student:  What's your take for revision, I'm done with my paper, corrected any type of errors what technique do you use, do it the next day.
>>Instructor:  Good question.  Yeah, so I print, so I wait awhile before I print, I print I read it, I revise on hard copy.  So I've already outlined and done all that and rewritten paragraphs as I have I've gone along, rewritten sentences as I've gone along and then I finally get to the point, I can print this, so I have already been revising, then it's printing and then go through it with a pencil or sometimes red ink and then I read it and I key in those changes and then print it one more time and then I read it aloud, and then I key in those changes.  And then I hand it to someone else.
(Laughter)
>>Student:  So it's like a five step process.
>>Instructor:  So I don't hand it to someone else until I've already revised it and the reason for that is shame. 
(Laughter)
>>Instructor:  No, the reason for that is I want to present others clean work, I don't want them to have to do the work of correcting typos.  So you know it doesn't mean they don't find things I have already read it aloud and the wherein I do that is because there are certain I guess verbal ticks that we have, that maybe there are certain words that we use on and on again, I used to until she passed, away, my mom read everything I wrote, you sure like the word ha jet me a lot, you need to find a different word there's certain words I will just use obsessively unless I read it aloud I don't really catch it, but reading it aloud, I used that same word three pages earlier, let me ‑‑ I think maybe if I have the time to change it I will go back and change it and it makes for better writing because it shows the reader that you've put a lot of care into your writing.
>>Student:  Synonyms.
>>Instructor:  I use a thesaurus every day.  Every single day.
>>Student:  If you see that you repeated a word, do you just go to that single world and say I'm going to use a different word.
>>Instructor:  Yes.  Usually what I do is if I'm in the process of writing, I will catch myself and say well, if I'm using the same word am I really just saying the same idea, if I'm saying the same idea, am I now being redundant and repeating myself and if any choose the perfect verb, maybe that really good verb will encapsulate the whole idea I'm trying to convey, I do tend to obsess on words and I write very slowly.  I would never be able to be a journalist, I don't write quickly, because I'm so deliberate and careful about the words that sometimes perfectionism can for some people can can be an issue I tell myself, right now I'm not allowed to be a perfectionist, right now I'm banging out words and I don't care if it's the same exact word and idea, I'm just banging it out right now, later in the afternoon after I have gone for a run or had coffee, then I can change it, right now I'm getting it down, so it really comes down to the different steps, there are some days if I'm wanting to, if I'm not wanting to write a particular part of something that I'm working on.  I don't feel like doing that, so I'm going to go to proof reading instead, then if I do the proofreading I will go back to that, if you are taking multiple classes, basically, it's just dividing that labor, right now I don't feel like writing so I'm going to read, and research this.  One of the things they tell you and there's research to back this up is and I tried it because I did not believe it.  I got this book on how to be a better writer and it said write before you're ready, what, write before you're ready, I'm not doing anything before I'm ready, nobody is going to tell me to write before I'm ready, so I said I'm going to write when I'm ready, I sat down, okay I have my coffee, laptop, notes there, got some music playing, I'm ready.   
>>Student:  I just keep writing my name.
>>Instructor:  Okay nothing is happening, my life is passing by I need to accomplish something, I go to the bus and get the kids and then I get back and get them a snack, oh, I'm note ready to write but it's coming, okay, and I rush and I then I'm not ready to write but vs. something in me telling me I'm kind of ready what I took that advice to mean is work in short bursts like I mentioned but don't obsess about having everything right and going through all of these rituals just do it when you can but make sure that to it because maybe that wasn't the best time to do it.  It ended up being powerful advice now there's times in between class that I have to go teach but you know, now is not the time for me to be writing but that's why I'm going to do it.  Because there's almost an incentive to make sure you get something done.  So it's kind of, it's like a little trick you can play on yourself, because your mind is going to zero in on where it needs to be, it doesn't always happen and if it doesn't don't waist time fretting over it, don't beat yourself up over it, if you feel like now isn't really an ideal time, I'm going to take five minutes now to jot down some ideas, do it, those ideas will probably be very good ones.
>>Student:  ‑‑ I'll get ideas like that and in my head I'm like okay, now I know what I'm going to write about later, and here comes ‑‑
>>Student:  Yeah ‑‑
>>Instructor:  And don't save the writing as the last thing in the day to do because your brain is saying and that is hard we don't think of writing as physical work, its.  Absolutely is.  I'm exhausted after I write.  Exhausted.  And I might be able to go running afterwards but the running is easy compared to the mental work that I have just done.  That work is hard.  And that's why if you work at times when maybe you don't think you have the time, you might actually work more productively because it's not like you're feeling rushed, but there's something that cuts right to the chase instead of getting everything just right, because then, ideas probably aren't going to come because you are just sort of ‑‑ not really analytical.  There's a difference.  So I think that's the last slide, so yeah.  I'm happy to entertain questions if there are additional questions.
(Raising hand)
>>Student:  Well, no.  How do you know if you are going to how ‑‑
>>Woman:  What if we do group questions if you want to just do one on one I brought my read pen.
(Laughter) just kidding
>>Woman:  Are there any questions?
(Inaudible)
>>Instructor:  Good ‑‑
>>Student:  I really have I learned about the revision process, I did not use that before so I'm definitely going to implement that and the counter argument because I pick interesting topics and when I do find counter information about it.
>>Instructor:  Yeah.
>>Student:  I don't think to go and ‑‑ I'm just thinking maybe this isn't a good thesis, I should switch it up.
>>Instructor:  Right.
>>Student:  And I do switch the whole paper because I found something that was counter to my idea.
>>Instructor:  Yeah.
>>Student:  But you're saying stick with your idea, and.
>>Instructor:  If that's what the evidence tells you, yeah.
>>Student:  And just mention here is some ‑‑
>>Instructor:  Don't try to bury it or sweep it sweep it under the rug.
>>Student:  I bury it.
>>Instructor:  Yeah, put it out there because if think of it 24 way, if there is a conventional wisdom out there, and you have something that runs entirely contrary to it doesn't mean you're necessarily wrong, it means that your idea if correct, has just shown a lot of other people to be wrong.  So it means your argument is more powerful because if you can come up with something that convincingly proves the other side wrong, then you have just flown out the conventional wisdom.
>>Student:  By mentioning their wisdom.
>>Instructor:  By proving your art.
>>Student:  Against their wisdom.
>>Instructor:  Against their wisdom, right.
>>Student:  Okay.
>>Woman:  We have a question online asking do you have any suggestions that people who work full time and don't get home until 8:30 or 9:00 and asleep already ‑‑ I think ‑‑
>>Instructor:  Yeah.  I can relate to this by advice is do two pieces and one of them isn't going to sound all that nice.  Because it's this, you might need to wake up early and do it before anyone else is up.  But it takes some getting used to so don't expect to do it immediately, my advice would be to start 15 minutes, let's say tomorrow, wake up 15 minutes earlier and don't even necessarily expect to get any work done, wake up earlier and don't go back to sleep, start your day as if it's starting and then the next day or two days later, do it another 15 minutes and then once you are accustomed to that, you have 30 minutes of uninterpreted time five days a week, it adds up.  So that's my first bit of advice, do it before anyone else is up, I have young kids and they wake up early, I found that when I woke up at 430 in the morning, I can get so much done and yeah ‑‑ kids are rarely up at 4:30 the other thing maybe equally difficult, that is um, take smoke breaks where you know, don't smoke.  Please don't smoke, but 15 minute this is a stall in a bathroom stall, yeah.  It's like those ten minutes in between classes that I'm always looking for.  Those can also add up.  A it might not be realistic, it depends on the job that you have, the context of your job whether there's someone monitoring your comings and going, if there's anyway that you can just have that as your sacred time, where you don't obsess about it or don't fret, like this is the only time I have to get this done, just first, carve out the time and if that first day in carving out the time you have that just to breathe, that will be such a reward having 15 minutes of breathing time, that I think you will be able to turn that into productive time it's the same like early in the morning, I think you will find if you're able to do it in increments where you're eventually curving out an hour before anybody else is awake, you will be able to take advantage of it and don't feel guilty if it means you're going to bed a little early, because no one ever well, I don't want to say no one ever, the body sleeps when the body needs to sleep so if you are falling to sleep, go to bed just wake up earlier, you will not be able to get good mental work done at the end of the night.
>>Student:  A lot of people that are working real long shifts work through their break and even though they get a 15 minute basic, they think they are being a really good worker because they work through break.
>>Instructor:  Right.
>>Student:  Take your breaks.
>>Instructor:  Yeah.
>>Student:  That's a work ‑‑ I know for Connecticut labor law you get a 15 minute break you have to that's law, so take your 15 minute break.
>>Instructor:  And don't feel guilty about it, because if you are working a full time job, going to school, and a full time parent, you have three full time jobs, only one pays the bills but people fought hard to win to secure rights so that every 15 minute four hours you have 15 minutes, few don't use them, you will never have them, same with parenting, obviously I don't know the family circumstances of everyone, but if you have a good partner who supports you going to school and being a full time parent, advocate for yourself and say this is something as a family we agreed to do so there has to be a family solution to this it's not just a you as an individual problem it's a family solution.  So don't be afraid to speak up for that if it's something that you want to do you have to really think of it as a job.  As ‑‑ because it is.  It is hard work.
(Inaudible)
>>Student:  They see it, it has to be ‑‑
(Laughter)
>>Instructor:  Yeah.
>>Instructor:  Really stick to it because, I read a lot about power relations because I study politics and one of the things that empower relations that always gets taught is once a precedent has been established, that precedent inertia kicks in and that precedent remains this place until there's an outside force removing it so if the precedent is not to take your break every four hours, then that's, change that up, but if you set this precedent of taking a break every four hours, then you've got that, that time is yours and it will forever be yours and it cannot be taken away from you, it's just that initial push that often unsettles people, but you will definitely feel more positive and rewarded and valued if you do advocate for it and know that the law is on your side.
>>Student:  I started taking breaks and never taken a break at the same place for 15 years I start the taking my breaks and I would insist on it no matter what and now mostly everyone in our office takes breaks one day.
>>Student:  I didn't say anything I was just like wow, because why does he need a basic, you know, but there he was but everyone started taking breaks but nobody was taking breaks everyone is like oh, we just work through our break we are busy, I was like I don't care.
(Laughter)
>>Student:  It's against my religion.
>>Student:  Yeah.
>>Student:  Especially if you are a parent.
>>Student:  Yeah.
>>Student:  So ‑‑ sometimes you know you want to be a good worker it needs to be ‑‑
(Inaudible) to do it every single day
>>Student:  You are not a bad worker because ‑‑
>>Woman:  I'm just going to let the people online know that we are going to sign off, you are welcomed to chat for a little bit, we are going to sign off and turn off the broadcasting, I don't know what day but soon we'll be posting the recording of the webinar and anyone who wants a copy of the hand outs with the slides, we'll put those out as well.
>>Student:  Thank you very much.  Thank you for coming.  That was great.  That was really great.
>>Instructor:  Thank you.
>>Student:  I had a question.
>>Instructor:  Yeah.  
(Class concluded) 
"This text is being provided in a rough draft format.  Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the class."