For a first-year �ֲ���ý student, the leap from high school to college-level writing can be a daunting one.

You tackle new genres, you look at evidence more critically. And you learn that at �ֲ���ý, good writing and good thinking are inseparable.

“Colleges are places where knowledge gets created,” says Daniel Sanford, director of Writing At �ֲ���ý and the Academic Resource Commons (ARC), programs that provide resources for every stage of the writing process, in any discipline.

“When you learn to write and think in that setting, you are figuring out how to participate in the creation of knowledge.”

Claire Sickinger ’19 of Simsbury, Conn., a Peer Writing and Speaking Assistant for Assistant Professor of Asian Studies Nathan Faries’ “Defining Difference: How China and the United States Think about Racial Diversity,” discusses an essay for the class with Zhao Li ’21 of��Guangzhou, China, in ARC. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

It can be a steep learning curve, but �ֲ���ý’ newest writers are supported along the way. Most students take a First-Year Seminar, where professors teach writing alongside subject matter. They walk students through each step of the writing process and offer intensive feedback.

As the fall semester enters its second half, and students look to their final seminar papers, we’ve asked �ֲ���ý professors and student tutors how new college writers can make their writing clear and compelling, and what common mistakes to avoid. Here is what they told us.

1. Before you start writing, know the assignment

One of the most avoidable mistakes Associate Professor of Politics Leslie Hill sees is not following directions. “Some students will write to the task they think they know, that may be familiar from high school — but the college professor may be asking for something different, in terms of content as well as the level of thinking.”

2. Know thy audience — and thyself

Don’t feel like you have to play the expert, says Professor of Religious Studies Cynthia Baker. “First-year college writers often seem to feel as though they need to present themselves as ‘experts’ in their essays instead of presenting themselves as well-informed and capable conversation partners,” she says.

Professor of Religious Studies Cynthia Baker teaches the First-Year Seminar “The Nature of Spirituality.” Here, in the 2015 iteration of the course, she shows her students a Rosh Hashanah tradition on Mount David. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

When students adopt the “expert” voice, Baker says, they sometimes feel that quoting heavily from sources means they’re not knowledgeable.

“It is far more often the case that professors are looking for students to demonstrate a firm grasp of the course materials and concepts by showing that they can synthesize ideas from a range of course readings and apply them to a particular problem,” she says. “This calls for positioning oneself in an essay as a well-informed conversation partner who thoughtfully and capably draws on a wide variety of others’ insights through extensive quotes and citations, rather than as a solo expert.” ��

3. Pay attention to genre

Biochemistry major Kenyata Venson ’18 of Memphis meets with Bridget Fullerton, assistant director of writing at Writing at �ֲ���ý, to discuss her senior thesis on comparing synthesized drugs to herbal remedies for the treatment of glaucoma. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

“Technical writing is very different from expository writing in that there’s no fluff — readers just want what you did in the study,” says Technical Writing Assistant Ruth van Kampen ’19 of Brunswick. “That’s new to a lot of students.”

As a TWA, van Kampen helps biology students, often sophomores, with their writing.

4. Don’t lose the argument

Claudia Krasnow ’18 of Bedford, N.Y., works with Madelyn Heart ’18 of Winchester, Mass., on a paper for a Spanish class. Writing Tutors work among other student tutors in the Academic Resource Commons (ARC) in the Ladd Library. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Writing Tutor Mariam Hayrapetyan ’19 of Valley Village, Calif. recommends this exercise: “Write out the prompt in your own words and when you write, make sure that each paragraph somehow contributes to the prompt.”

Take it to the sentence level, too. “Something that can improve clarity is ensuring that everything in each paragraph relates back to the topic sentence, and each topic sentence relates back to the thesis,” says Writing Tutor Kiyona Mizuno ’18 of San Francisco. “This will help keep the writing focused and organized. I find that outlining can be a useful strategy.”

5. Keep it simple

Zeke Smith ’19 of Weybridge, U.K., a Peer Writing and Speaking Assistant for Associate Professor of Russian Dennis Browne’s course on contemporary European film, works with Henri Emmet ’21 of New York. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Don’t try to sound impressive, advises Mizuno. “A common trend I’ve noticed is sentences that are repetitive, are too long, or try to combine too many ideas. I would encourage students to try not to beat around the bush and to avoid forming long, complicated sentences to fulfill the word count — ideas can get jumbled and confusing fast if sentences get too wordy.”

Zeke Smith ’19 of Weybridge, U.K., who as a Peer Writing and Speaking Assistant helps First-Year Seminar students craft and correct their papers, often takes students through this revising exercise: “I have them reread their draft with a focus on which words can be cut out, and which sentences can be written more concisely. Sometimes finding the exact right adjective or verb can replace an entire description.”

6. Skip jargon

Chinese major Olivia Stockly ’18 of Cumberland Center, Maine, and biochemistry major Ken Hale ’19 of Cleveland, Ohio, prepare for a physics lab in the Academic Resource Commons. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

“It is very easy to use a lot of insider lingo, and writers should be conscious of this while they are trying to articulate their points,” says TWA Jackie Welch ’18 of Falmouth, Maine. “They should write as though the reader is familiar with their field but not necessarily with their particular discipline within that field.”

7. Cut the clichés

“Few people use ‘plethora’ right, and when they do, it’s a little precious,” if not downright pretentious, says Professor of French and Francophone Studies Kirk Read. “I would say we experience a plethora of plethoras in my world — that is to say, an excessive usage of this word!”

Adds Hill, “Nothing that comes after the phrase ‘throughout history’ is true.”

8. Revise, revise, revise

Associate Professor of Politics Leslie Hill speaks during a 2016 panel on the recent presidential election. This year, she is teaching a First-Year Seminar called “Race, Justice, and American Policy in the Twenty-First Century.” (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

“I have often advised students to use an after-the-fact outline or simply go through a draft and highlight their topic sentences,” Hill says. “That will tell you what exists on paper, and you can decide whether that is what you wanted to say or not.”

9. Don’t make the last least.

Bestselling author and syndicated columnist Amy Dickinson discusses her work and tells students how to tell their own stories during a session of “Family Stories,” Kirk Read’s First-Year Seminar, on Oct. 27. (Theophil Syslo/�ֲ���ý College)

“Leave something for the end of your paper,” Read says. “Conclude without summarizing. Save something for the end, so that we appreciate what your point is and that you have proven it in some way.”

10. Record your paper, then listen to it

Reading a draft of a paper out loud can help you catch mistakes — and get around a fixation on grammar. “I try to tell students not to overworry about the grammar and mechanics of everything, but I am conflicted about that,” Read says. “I do want clean writers — so read your writing aloud. Record it and play it back to yourself to see if it makes any sense.”

11. Read!

Wenjing “Wen” Zheng ’21 of Wuhan, China gets her copy of “Strangers Tend to Tell Me Things” signed by the book’s author, Amy Dickinson, during a First-Year Seminar class on Oct. 27. (Theophil Syslo/�ֲ���ý College).

“Read a lot of good writing — and read it as a writer,” says Cynthia Baker. “That is, think of yourself as a writer and study what the pros do. When you find course readings compelling, pay attention to how the writers make their content clear and compelling. What strategies do they use? How do they formulate their arguments and ideas? Give labels to those strategies, experiment with them yourself, and put them in your writer’s toolbox to pull out and use in your own writing.”

12. And write!

Paige Rabb ’20 of Stamford, Conn., takes notes during a meeting of her 2016 First-Year Seminar, “The Natural History of Maine’s Neighborhoods and Woods.” (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

“It might be helpful to think of writing in any form — journaling, noting, ruminating, fine-tuning —as a daily practice,” says Read. “Something that you turn to regularly and happily. Something that might even center you or help sort you out, like yoga, working out, meditation. For many successful writers, it’s a regular practice — and a joy.”

�ֲ���ý has announced faculty promotions, including tenure awards and full professorships, effective for the 2016-17 academic year.

“These promotions recognize the achievements of faculty members who personify what it means to be an outstanding teacher and scholar at �ֲ���ý College,” said Matthew Auer, vice president for academic affairs and dean of the faculty.

“These faculty members teach with passion and purpose, they cross academic and scholarly boundaries with skill, and they are fully engaged members of our liberal arts community and leaders in the academy.”

Recommended by the faculty’s Committee on Personnel and approved by the �ֲ���ý College Board of Trustees, the promotions have been awarded to faculty members in the fields of dance, economics, English, environmental studies, politics, psychology, and religious studies.

Promotions to associate professor with tenure

+Eden Osucha

Eden Osucha has been promoted to associate professor of English at �ֲ���ý. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

+Rachel Boggia

Rachel Boggia has been promoted to associate professor of dance at �ֲ���ý. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

+Senem Aslan

Senem Aslan has been promoted to associate professor of politics at �ֲ���ý. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

+Clarisa Pérez-Armendáríz

Clarisa Pérez-Armendáríz has been promoted to associate professor of politics at �ֲ���ý. (Mike Bradley/�ֲ���ý College)

+Paul Shea

Paul Shea has been promoted to associate professor of economics at �ֲ���ý. (Mike Bradley/�ֲ���ý College)

+Nate Tefft

Nathan Tefft has been promoted to associate professor of economics at �ֲ���ý. (Josh Kuckens/�ֲ���ý College)

Promotions to full professor

+Cynthia Baker

Cynthia Baker has been promoted to professor of religious studies at �ֲ���ý. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

+Holly Ewing

Holly Ewing (center) has been promoted to professor of environmental studies at �ֲ���ý. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

+Sylvia Federico

Sylvia Federico has been promoted to professor of English at �ֲ���ý. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

+Nancy Koven

Nancy Koven (center) has been promoted to professor of psychology at �ֲ���ý. (Josh Kuckens/�ֲ���ý College)

So Baker got right to the point and suggested looking at the word “Jew” itself. Her proposal was readily accepted and, in fact, recently won a National Endowment for the Humanities grant for Baker, who spoke with �ֲ���ý Magazine editor Jay Burns.

What new do you bring to this topic?

Some studies have looked at the origins of “Jew,” others at the Jew in modern European theater or in contemporary American literature. But no one has conducted an analysis of the term with this kind of sustained attention and historical spread.

When someone asks why the term “Jew” is unique, what do you say?

Being a professor, I generally answer a question with a question. Can you think of any other word that is both a term of great pride and so obviously an epithet that it demonstrates that a hate crime has been committed? “Jew” is not an ethnic slur, but it certainly can function that way. The word “queer” is a taunt that has been reclaimed, but “Jew” didn’t originate as a taunt and often serves as a term of honor.

Was the term always complex?

It derives from a geographic location that the Bible calls “Judah” and, later, “Judea.” But from its earliest appearances, the term “Judean,” from which we get “Jew,” seems fraught and troubled, being applied on the one hand to only some of the people who lived in that region, and on the other hand to people who were unwelcome minorities someplace else.

Will you confront the question of “who is a Jew?”

Absolutely. First, it’s important to know that right up to the cusp of modernity, defining “Jew” preoccupied non-Jews far more than it did Jews. Both the Old Testament and the classical Jewish document, the Talmud, for example, speak of “Israelites,” not “Jews.”

Then what happened?

Christianity. In the New Testament, “the Jews” are used as a foil for what comes to be known as Christianity. Yet most of the New Testament’s primary authors — Matthew, Mark, John, and Paul — were Jews. Depending upon how you define “Jew,” of course. The formation of Christianity is the single most important phenomenon that gives “Jew” its various dimensions today.

Besides the first and the 20th centuries, what other historical eras most inform the term “Jew”?

The next era would be the Jewish emancipation of the 18th and 19th centuries. With the liberation and enfranchisement of Jews who had been largely confined to the Pale of Settlement in the Russian Empire or the ghettos of Europe came new debates on Jewish identity among both Jews and non-Jews alike. Are Jews a religious group? A separate race? A nation within a nation? The Jew doesn’t quite fit into any of the grand Enlightenment schemes, and we begin to see seemingly contradictory identities imputed to Jews. For example, “the Jew” becomes emblematic of socialism but also becomes the stereotype of the capitalist.

When you really start paying attention, you realize that understanding the term “Jew” is key to understanding the rise and development of Western culture as a whole.

What do you make of the trading of “Jewish” for “Jew”?

Saying “Jewish” softens the word, almost as if there were etiquette involved. But then the question becomes, what’s going on psychologically, sociologically, and anthropologically in that aversion or adaptation?

How will you explore the Holocaust?

I don’t have any radical new insights to offer there. In one sense the Holocaust is unfathomable. Yet at the same time it obviously represents a nexus of historical and cultural dynamics that are nameable and traceable, and to which the term and figure of “the Jew” are absolutely central.

In Annie Hall, Diane Keaton says to Woody Allen, “You’re what Grammy Hall would call a real Jew,” and he replies, “Oh. Thank you.” Why does that line get laughs?

Because it precisely encapsulates everything we’ve been talking about. “Jew” is always two things at the same time, and humor is about concisely encapsulating that kind of collision. In this case, the collision is around the content of the word “Jew” and who gets to define “real Jew.”

Is your own identity relevant to this project?

No doubt. But I wouldn’t say that I’m looking for answers in that respect. My life as a scholar, an occasional public intellectual, a teacher, or even at home in my garden tends to be much more about questions than answers. At dinner the other night, a colleague made the offhand comment: “Oh, Cynthia, she’s always been this kind of liminal character.” The word “liminal” suggests “in between” — the psychological, spiritual, and physical place between point A and point B. That’s where I feel most at home, most myself — and in that sense, this project, this “Jew,” has everything to do with who I am.

“Identity terms” are the words that people use to affiliate themselves and others with particular groups — ethnic, racial, religious, social and so on.

Cynthia Baker, associate professor of religious studies at �ֲ���ý, recently received $50,400 from the National Endowment for the Humanities to support her research into one of history’s most fraught identity terms: “Jew,” a word that can convey praise, pride, prejudice or pure description.

No studies exist that analyze the use and the historical development, from ancient times through the postmodern era, of that term, Baker says. The NEH grant will enable her to research and write a book slated for publication in the “Key Words in Jewish Studies” series published by Rutgers University Press.

The book will map the emergence, evolution and current permutations of the term “Jew.” Baker’s yearlong research will involve experts and archives in the U.S., Europe and Israel, among other resources. She will examine ancient inscriptions and conduct art-historical analyses of images of Jews including those from medieval European churches, manuscripts, modern cartoons, propaganda and current pop art.

“The project is important both in its specificity and as a case study for analyzing the dynamics of identity formation and attribution,” Baker notes in her proposal for the grant. “Who decides the content of identity terms, and how does that content come to be generated over time, within and across societies? How is it that a single identity term — ‘Jew,’ for example — can be made to convey such a broad range of (often diametrically opposed) meanings?”

She notes that worldwide political and social developments make this research more compelling than ever. “In an age of ethnic nationalisms, mass migrations and identity formations across national lines, understanding the dynamics of collective identification becomes an increasingly urgent concern,” Baker says.

Baker will carry out her research in several phases, including the examination of ancient evidence for the origins of the term “Jew,” and the exploration of the term’s many overlapping and competing definitions over time — Christian, anti-Semitic, nationalist, etc.

Baker earned her B.A. at Wesleyan, master’s degree at Harvard, and doctorate at Duke. She has taught at Duke, Cornell, Swarthmore and Santa Clara University. Her research explores ideas about gender, ethnicity and nationalism in the formative periods of Judaism and Christianity and in modern historiography on these periods. Her book Rebuilding the House of Israel: Architectures of Gender in Jewish Antiquity was published by Stanford University Press in 2002.

Baker’s NEH grant is called a Fellowship for College Teachers and Independent Scholars.

The National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965 established the NEH. An independent federal agency of the United States government, it is dedicated to supporting research, preservation, education and public programs in the humanities.