I have been using some of the techniques from Peter Elbow's Writing Without Teachers to work on research projects, and I'm really enjoying them. Production is slow, though, and the techniques are better suited to long-term projects than to producing a 10-page paper that's due in 5 days by writing 2.5 pages a day and leaving a day for rewriting (my usual method, at least at the start. It usually produces tons of garbage and leaves me writing the concluding paragraph about 5 minutes before the paper is due).
Last night I used the comment function in Word to mark my questions and suggestions for clarification in the Western Front paper I had written for the humanities conference last fall. That paper is the clearest explication yet of the role I think the trenches can play as memorials. But there's lots of work yet to be done, and alas I have to rise and go now and go advise students. More later today, perhaps.
Posted by otto0114 at August 19, 2004 09:25 AM