The Department of English organized a guest talk on Skype on the topic ‘Mechanics of Writing’ for first and second year students of B.A. English Literature and first year students of B.Sc. Psychology on 21.08.2019 at Lecture Hall 5 in KCLAS Campus. The resource person was Prof. Gretchen Rockwell a Poet and Supplemental Instructor at Naval Academy Preparatory School in Newport, Rhode Islands, USA. She co-leads a poetry club and is a prominent writer in journals like The Minnesota Review, Poets Resist, Into the Void and Barn House Journal. Ms. Shruthi Varshini. S of I B.A. English Literature welcomed the gathering and introduced the guest speaker to her fellow students.
The session gave an insight on three areas such as – Rhetorical communication, understanding thesis and constructing a paper. Prof. Gretchen defined rhetorical communication and its application in various forms of writing such as essays and poems. She explained the way of constructing an essay as how it should be coherent. She spoke on how each paragraph should start with a topic sentence that gives clarity of expression. While talking about thesis statement, she mentioned that the thesis statement serves as a road map for an entire article. She clearly put forth how arguments should be like a pearl of string, and how citation is important to authenticate one’s writing.
Prof. Gretchen emphasized that the audience should be of prime focus for an effective communication through articles, journals, poetry and advertisements. She added that an extensive reading will help in strengthening one’s ideas on a particular topic. In order to give prior knowledge about the session, she shared some handouts through PPT a day before the actual lecture. This helped students to put forth their questions on writing strategies and some of them worth mentioning are steps involved in research, writing standards, selection of topic, meaning of ethos, pathos and logos, some common errors in writing and how to avoid them.
Being a poet herself, Prof. Gretchen was indeed happy to share her experience in writing. Shruthi Varshini. S of I B.A. English asked about the qualities that differentiate great writings. Kavya. G of I B.A. English clarified about the proof reading and scrutiny that is required for an error-free writing. Poornima. K.R. of I B.Sc. Psychology questioned if choice of words determines the standard of any writing. The resource person appreciated the students for putting forth very good questions that made the Skype- session very much interactive. In her concluding remarks, she mentioned that self-confidence, attention to craft and skilfulness in plot are the pre-requisites for creative writing. The session came to a close with the Vote of Thanks proposed by Akilan.C of I B.A.English Literature.