Muir College

eltagra
Tue, 17 Mar 2009 21:10:08 +0000

for muir writing, the papers you write are all about what the author’s argument is and how the argument is made. it sounds simple - and it is for the first two papers when you’re analyzing scientific papers that actually HAVE an argument - but when you get to the final paper you have to write 10-12 pages about a book that doesn’t really have an argument. you really have to stretch and make up a lot of BS - or at least i did with ‘green mansions’, my friends who had ‘blindness’ seemed to have it easier.

also the last paper sucks because you’re expected to give a 4 page draft after just two days (when the first paper was 3-4 pages and you had like 2 weeks to do that) and then eventually get it up to 10-12 pages with almost no assistance from your TA. at least in my class we pretty much only did peer editing for that paper, aside from the one conference with the TA, and that doesn’t help at all because none of the students know what they’re doing, haha.

and definitely don’t go into muir writing expecting an A. it’s pretty much impossible. if even 1 or 2 people from your 15-person class gets an A, it’s a miracle. aim for anything higher than a C.

but hey - only 2 quarters!