"You can be a little ungrammatical if you come from the right part of the country." -Robert Frost

Wini Wood, Director of the Writing Program, answers

Frequently Asked Questions

FAQs about the Writing Requirement
FAQs about Writing


Frequently Asked Questions About the Writing Requirement:

1. Can I substitute a course I took somewhere else for Writing 125?
No, Writing 125 is an introduction to writing at Wellesley. ALL students are required to take a Writing 125 course; we offer no exemptions. In addition, Writing 125 must be taken at Wellesley: AP credit courses or college-level writing courses taken at another college cannot be substituted (Exception: Davis Scholars and transfer students may substitute writing credit earned at another school for Writing 125, or may take Writing 225 in lieu of Writing 125).

2. What if I don't want to take Writing 125 during my first year?
For many sound reasons, we expect and require students to take Writing 125 during their first year. Students who have not taken Writing 125 by their second semester at Wellesley will not be allowed to register until after everyone else in their class has registered; this penalty remains in effect until the student has completed the Writing Requirement.

3. I am a Davis Scholar who has transferred in a unit of credit for writing, but I need to learn more about writing. Can I take a writing course without losing my transfer unit?
Yes, any student at Wellesley can take up to two units of Writing 125 for credit, as long as she demonstrates need. If you want to take a second semester of Writing 125 for credit, consult the Director of the Writing Program.

4. I received a 5 on the AP Writing Test. Why do I need to take Writing 125?
We believe that writing is not a skill that can be taught "once and for all." The writing that you studied in high school was appropriate for the writer you were then; Writing 125 offers advanced level instruction in academic writing. All professors at Wellesley College assume students have a vocabulary of writing that is taught in Writing 125; they build on this base as they teach and assign writing in upper division courses across the disciplines.

5. What else does the Writing Program do besides offer Writing 125?
The Writing Program serves your writing needs in a variety of ways that may be invisible to you. We work with faculty across the disciplines at Wellesley to help them use writing effectively in their courses. We train and supervise writing tutors who will help you write papers in your other courses. We offer several writing courses beyond Writing 125. We sponsor readings and events that focus on writing, and are happy to help student groups develop projects, events, and community service projects involving writing. Finally, we are working, together with the Learning and Teaching Center, toward developing public speaking instruction at Wellesley.

Back to Top

FAQs about Writing
These are the questions most frequently asked by students in Writing 125 at Wellesley. These questions arise because students have learned certain hard and fast rules in high school, and note that the rules seem not to be adhered to by many of their instructors in college, or by writers in the world at large. They are justifiably confused: their instructors at Wellesley will give them varying answers to their questions as well.

My policy is to state my preference and my reasons for that preference, but also to let students know where my preferences differ from the practices of my colleagues, and to help them develop the skills and the confidence to choose wisely. Each student, we hope, will develop her own style, and that style will be informed and bounded by three influences: by the tastes and expectations of her readers, by what she knows of the conventional practices of the discipline in which she is writing--and partly by who she is, what she brings to the act of writing, the effect that she decides to create and the relationship she decides to estabish with her audience.

Here are the questions. I've given my responses to each, but I hope other faculty add their own thoughts whenever and wherever they see fit. Students: add your own questions and responses, too!

1. My high school teachers told me never to begin a sentence with “but,” but I see people doing it all the time. What is right?
Wini: Personally, I love sentences that begin with but. I find it a crisp, efficient way to introduce a constrasting or contradictory idea, much more interesting than the stodgy "however." But sends a strong clear signal to the reader that the topic is about to move in an important direction: "Pay attention to this,” it says. “Here is what I really think, unlike what you might be expecting. Everything up to now has just been lead-in. Now I'm getting to the important point."

But is classified as a conjunction, a word that can only be used to connect two equivalent ideas. It is because it is a conjunction that your high school teachers cautioned you against using it to begin a single clause. But usage changes over time, and “but” is now being used more as an introductory adverb than to conjoin clauses.

2. Can I use the first person?
Wini: Some people will tell you—no doubt, many people already have told you--never to use the first person. I hate to say it, but I think those people are terribly unimaginative, unable to make decisions for themselves about when it is appropriate to insert themselves into a piece of writing; they can think about writing only by coming up with a unilateral, hidebound, oversimplified and over-reduced rule, and then they stick to it, come hell or high water….

Of course, it’s OK to use “I” when you write. And many times, it’s not so OK. Whether to name yourself and speak directly from your own positions is one of the most important decisions a writer can make. Some writers, once liberated into “I,” make far too liberal use of this term—I’ve read some pieces that are just “I,” “I,” “I” all the way through, and I get terribly annoyed—I can’t get past the “I” to the content of the piece. So yes, there are times where I advise students not to use “I”—when talking about a literary work, for example, why not let the characters be the subject of their own sentences? Why NOT keep the focus on the work itself? On the other hand, if you own response is important, and differs somewhat from the responses of others, why NOT name yourself as the person who had that response?

The “I” has come back into fashion in academic circles partly as a result of certain feminist critiques of so-called “objective” research techniques. In “objective” scientific research, one would never name oneself—that would make the research seem tainted, somehow, by a subjective response. But, argue people like Sandra Harding and Clifford Geertz, the researcher is never entirely out of the picture, and it is equally dishonest to hide ourselves and the positions we hold as researchers. It is important, they claim, for the researcher NOT to hide himself/herself, but rather to state upfront exactly what position her or she hold, what framework he or she is writing from, what relationship he or she had to the object of study, and what problems he or she encountered during the course of the study. Many of us find this argument terribly persuasive, and have come to insert ourselves more boldly into even formal scholarly writing. But the degree to which this is possible varies from field to field, and most people still find that the established scholars seem to have more right to do it than novice scholars. Unfortunately.

The question about whether to use “I” is so deeply intertwined with questions about the passive voice that I will turn next to this burning question.

3. What’s the big deal about the passive voice? And what is the passive voice, anyway?

4. Is it OK to end a sentence with a preposition?

5. How about splitting infinitives?

6. Are sentence fragments OK in formal writing?

Back to Top

All graphics (except for Writing Program logo and navigation bars) courtesy of Arttoday