Quick Facts

Favorite punctuation mark?
Exclamation point!

Favorite word?
Avail (often used with no)

Music you listen to when you write?
Often none, but if so, then it’s country or Mozart.

Chris Dixon
Archival Research Librarian

SJU Writes: What’s the best thing you’ve ever written?

CD: One of the fun things I did was a paper on James Knox Polk and the Mexican-American war. I thought about it years later and actually read all 1,000-plus pages of the Polk 10-volume diary because I was asked to rework the paper. People who really know me know who my favorite president was—and it is Polk. The reason is because I had done that particular paper. It’s always been an interesting topic for me.

SJU Writes: Who was your most influential teacher?

CD: I have a good friend today who was one of my favorite college professors. He was laid back. One of the classes he taught was dealing with the Third World many years ago and the differences between the northern hemisphere and the southern hemisphere. He drew a line on the board, and he put “north” and “south.” He said, “Do you have any questions about that?” Everybody was blank. He said, “Are you sure no one has any questions that you want to talk about?” Nobody did, so that was the end of the lecture for the class that particular day. It was one of those things to tease him about, but he was an excellent teacher.

SJU Writes: What is your editing process like?

CD: I often struggle with how much punctuation to put in. When I sit down to write, I’m sometimes trying to come up with the right words because I’ll rewrite a sentence three or four times and I still may not have it right. Or, I’ll punctuate it, and I won’t have it right. I usually need someone else to look at it. I need a good editor. I’m a pretty good researcher. If I were to actually write, I would need a writing partner to look at things and edit.

—Brittany Swift ’19

Quick Facts

Favorite place to write?
In my kitchen with a cup of coffee.

Favorite word?
Exacerbate

What are you writing now?
A little essay about teaching peace in the age of Trump

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Lisa Baglione, Ph.D.
Professor of Political Science

SJU Writes: Is your writing primarily academic?

LB: I’m working on a revision of a textbook that I have. But what I do for fun is I– and it started because of my kids and them going away to camp–I would try to think of things to write to them over the summer, so I started to write haikus. And haikus are great because you can finish one–it’s only 17 syllables–and I have started to make them so that they moreso make a whole story. And the goal is either to be very funny or evocative. A lot of times it might be just inspired by a gorgeous day. We go away to New Hampshire in the summer, so I will write something inspired by that for my daughter.

SJU Writes: How do you view the revision process of writing? 

LB: I know that we forget this as teachers sometimes, but I write on people’s papers as if I’m writing to myself. It might seem harsh, and I never really mean to be harsh. I really see the writing and revising process as a conversation, but I forget that students are new writers. Being young is wonderful on many levels, but for some of us who struggle with confidence, it’s just such a hard time, because these blows, these criticisms, can set you back. I was completely set back at various times, and as you’re older, you take what’s helpful, and you leave the rest behind.

SJU Writes: What advice would you give to students writing in your discipline?

LB: You need to find your thesis and realize that your thesis is the guide through your essay or your paper. I would say just like in any other writing, the thesis is key. Terminology and clarity is key, and then again, for all writing, find your own voice. And I say that with a smile because one of my best friends in graduate school, when I was struggling with something, she said, “Lisa, find your own voice.” I didn’t know what that meant. It took me a while. Teaching really helped me find my own voice. I say to my students, “Imagine you’re having a conversation with a friend, or at the Thanksgiving dinner table, whatever. This is how are you going to explain whatever it is to somebody else in your voice.”

—Lindsay Norton ’20

Peter Graham, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Chemistry

Quick Facts

What are you reading now?
American War

Favorite word?
Penultimate

Favorite place to write?
Office on campus

Favorite punctuation mark?
Semi-colon

SJU Writes: What kind of writing do you currently do?

PG: I do academic writing. I also write some for fun, some poetry, not really for general consumption, just for myself and sometimes my wife.

SJU Writes: When you’re tasked with a writing assignment, how do you approach it?

PG: If I need to think something through, I will just start writing stream of consciousness. That’s probably how I write anything. I just get my ideas into text. It’s probably unusable, but it makes sure I get my ideas out and that I’m thinking straight.

SJU Writes: Do you ever find that you write with the advice of a particular person echoing in your head?

PG: One of my friends who I went to graduate school with is a professor at Muhlenberg. We always help each other out, reading each other’s papers. He’s a really good writer and a really good editor. So, I’m always thinking, “Joe’s going to be mad if I leave this in here,” because he’s always going to read anything I publish.

SJU Writes: Do you find it more useful to go about peer revision through a more collaborative or directive approach?

PG: My Ph.D. advisor didn’t give a lot of feedback. He would just change it. So, it would come back, and you would kind of figure out what you did wrong. My post-doc advisor was really good for that stage in my career. He basically left my work untouched unless it was wrong. Then he would be like, “that’s not the best way to say that” or “can we rephrase that,” and it was a little bit more collaborative. I think it’s better to say, “I think this could use fewer words” instead of just correcting it.

I see this when I revise lab reports for students in Inorganic Lab. The first lab report, a lot of times, I just rewrite sentences or cross out three sentences and write one sentence to show them, this one sentence can say everything you said in three sentences. I’ll stop doing that, certainly, later in the semester. 

SJU Writes: What advice do you have for students trying to write in your discipline?

PG: I think it’s always good to learn the correct terminology and use it. When editing, be as concise as possible. You have to go back and cut it down. What distinguishes scientific writing is being very clear. When you can summarize a big idea in very few words, it’s like saying “E=mc2.” You have all of that information packed into a tiny little package. It makes it seem very powerful.

—Leslie Briggs ’17, M.A. ‘18

Tom Coyne, M.F.A.
Associate Professor of English

Quick Facts

Favorite word?
Grace

Favorite music to write to?
None. Silence.

Favorite place to write?
Coffee shops in Europe, but I hate how pretentious that sounds.

SJU Writes: How do you start your writing process? How do you get into the mindset?
TC: The way I start any writing session is just going through yesterday’s work and cleaning that up a little bit which leads me into what I want to do today. But in terms of timing and when, I’ve had to get a lot better at just starting whenever I have a moment because now I have kids and a family. Staying up all night and waiting for inspiration doesn’t fly anymore. It was a great luxury when it did.

SJU Writes: How do you overcome things like writer’s block?
TC: Writer’s block is funny. I’ve never really had experience with this thing where I sit down and can’t write anything. Touch wood. That’s never been my experience. I’ve had good writer’s block, where I’m just writing crap or things that will never see the light of day or things I’m not happy with. In terms of just sitting down and not writing, that’s just never really felt like an option to me.

SJU Writes: What do you mean by good writer’s block?
TC: I’ve been blocked from writing anything that I feel is going be good. I’ve certainly experienced that where I feel like I’m in a rut just spinning my wheels. Or I’m just working on something that I know is going nowhere. I’ve experienced that, but at least I’m still writing. At least I’m still getting something on the page. Even if I just find a sentence or two that’ll be part of something else, or will lead me off into another direction. The idea of sitting there and saying ‘I have writer’s block, so I’m not writing’ is a cop out. Writing is work, and other people don’t show up to their job and say ‘I just can’t work today.’ You just slog on. If we all sat around and waited for the perfect story, the perfect sentence or the perfect paragraph or the perfect chapter, if we’re not going to write till we have that, we wouldn’t write at all.         

SJU Writes: You just have to keep at it?
TC: You just have to keep at it. The writers who’ve ever taught me anything, or that I really admire, are writers who always kept at it.

—Rob Roy, ’19