Learning from First Ink

Here are five things you can do with First Ink that will help you develop your writing skills.

1. Read for pleasure

First Ink is a magazine. It offers good reads – compelling writing that explores topics from across the the arts and humanities. So, cast your eye through a collection of student writing and pick out a piece that sparks your interest. Read through to find out what it has to say about a topic. Did the piece get you thinking about culture, theory, practice and, more broadly, ‘the world’ in fresh, perhaps surprising ways?

2. Read to critique the text

Imagine you are a strict but fair marker. Read through a piece and pull out key strengths and weaknesses (all assignment writing, even first-class work, will have aspects that can be improved). Jot down your thoughts thinking about these things:

• Is there a clear argument (an idea or something to say) that runs through the text culminating in the conclusion?

• Does the writer show a strong understanding of the topic through their discussion of ‘primary sources’ (for example, literary or historical texts, screenplays, archive material, musical scores) as well as scholarly sources in peer-reviewed books and journals? Are these sources integrated into the writing and used purposefully to develop argument?

• Does the writing hang together well in the way paragraphs are organised and points set out?

• Is the language suitably formal as well as concise and clear, free of grammatical and punctuation error?

Now open up the accompanying commentary for the piece (in the side pane on the right) and compare your responses with the marker’s assessment of what worked and what needs working on. Are you in agreement? Were you both struck by the same things?

3. Read to emulate

This is a variation - or a follow-up - on the second activity. This time the idea is to identify what works well in the piece and think about whether it is something you do in your own writing - or could start doing.

Go through your selected piece, first by reading it ‘for pleasure’ as a magazine article and then by reading the commentary with marker’s evaluation and the CeDAS inline notes. What aspects does the writer get right in terms of e.g., argument, use of sources, structure and flow, and clarity of expression? Then think about your own writing - perhaps the last couple of assignments. Does your writing need developing in these particular areas?

What can you emulate from the piece you have read by applying it to your own writing?

4. Annotate your own writing

Another active step you can take to improve your writing is to follow a First Ink commentary approach and annotate your own writing. This involves a noticing technique where you become a stranger to your own writing.

Imagine your draft belongs to someone else. Read it through and in the margin note down the key points. Once done, you will have a route-map of the essay in which you can see more clearly the thread of argument. Looking at the route map, ask yourself whether it navigates a clear, logical path through the topic and if there are unnecessary steps that could be cut out or steps that could be re-ordered?

Do another sweep through the essay but this time note other things in the margin - expressions that could be clearer or more concise and ideas that need better support from sources.

5. Dig down into process

What happens on the page – the words you see – is the product of a lot of work. There’s always a story behind a piece of writing and it’s about process: what inspired the writing and how it was put together over time. First Ink aims to open up these stories about process so you can learn about each writer’s secrets or, to put it another way, their craft.

So, after you have read a piece - by a student or one of the featured lecturers - listen to the interview with the author. They are asked to reflect on how they went about writing their essay or article. Also check out the First Ink podcast where the First Ink Developers talk about strategies for researching and writing.

As you listen, pick out approaches that you hadn’t thought of before and could try out. It could be a tip about time management, note-making, drafting, editing - or even attitude. These are all crucial aspects of process.

And now …try it out!

Your encounter with First Ink – reading first class work with a noticing eye and listening to writers talk about their approaches – should help you to think about ways to make improvements.  The next step is to put these ideas into practice. Pick one or two strategies that strike you as especially useful and make sure to try them out in your next assignment.

 If you are lecturer, please check the guidance below on how to use First Ink in your teaching.