The “Right” Way to Rank Writing Seminars

Posted on by Kate Weseley-Jones

Course selection is coming up! Picking classes that you are really excited about can be one of the best academic moments of the semester. Doing as much research on a course as possible can help to ensure I will enjoy a professor’s teaching style, which in my opinion is just as important as being interested in the subject matter. As those of us who have dabbled in the social sciences know, survey data can be a great method for evaluation, which is why when it comes to picking courses, I tend to weigh student ratings pretty heavily. 

Writing Seminar enrollment infographic with steps for ranking top 8 writing seminar choices.
This helpful diagram from the Writing Program website outlines the steps of the writing seminar enrollment process.

This strategy for course selection, however, is far from perfect. Now that I am more than halfway through my time at Princeton, I am all too familiar with hoping to read the reviews for a course only to discover that there aren’t any. The first time I had this experience was in the fall of my first year when I was trying to pick a writing seminar. 

That’s right, first-years! For those of you who are taking your writing seminar this spring, you will soon discover (if you haven’t already) that there is no way to see the feedback provided on these courses by previous students. On top of the lack of access to course evaluations, there is no add/drop period for writing seminar; once you get your assignment, you will have to stick with it. So where should you start when trying to decide how to rank your top choices?

Continue reading The “Right” Way to Rank Writing Seminars

Publications, Conferences, and Professional Development: Motivations for Your R3

Posted on by Amaya Dressler

Research Correspondent, Amaya Dressler ’25, presenting her Writing Seminar R3 research at the Mary George Research Conference.
Research Correspondent, Amaya Dressler ’25, presenting her Writing Seminar R3 research at the Mary George Research Conference.

Writing sem. For many, it’s one of the most challenging courses they’ll ever take at Princeton. It forces you to think in new and challenging ways, often questioning some of the ‘basic rules’ we’d previously been taught about writing. With late nights spent drafting and redrafting, 8:30 am classes, and daunting essay prompts, it’s easy to understand how writing sem (short for writing seminar) gets its reputation. No student makes it out of writing sem with three perfect papers. Yet, in the midst of challenge, it’s easy to lose sight of the many professional opportunities that writing sem can offer. Whether you’re looking to get published, nail your next job interview, or just make a little extra cash, here are four ways that any student can make the most of their writing sem experience.

Continue reading Publications, Conferences, and Professional Development: Motivations for Your R3

Writing Seminar: Growing as a Researcher, Writer, and Person

Posted on by Alexis Wu

Reflecting on my first year, I think about how quickly time flies. I’ve thought about how much I’ve changed over the course of a year and how my discussions with my peers and professors already began to shape the way I viewed the world. As an engineering student, Writing Seminar was especially memorable because it opened the door for me to engage with research in the humanities.

All first-year students are required to take a Writing Seminar. My seminar, WRI146 – Constructing the Past, taught by Dr. Emma Ljung, centered on the theme of how the past is closely intertwined with the present. In retrospect, one of my most pivotal periods in the course was the process of writing my R2, which focused on artifacts from the Princeton University Art Museum. Interested in delving deeper into my Chinese cultural background, I chose to work with the Guang, a dragon-headed bronze pouring vessel from the late Shang dynasty.

Image of the Princeton University Art Museum Guang

Pouring vessel with dragon-head lid (guang), China, Western Zhou dynasty, 11th century to 771 BC, bronze from the Princeton University Art Museum. Photo from Daderot on Wikimedia Commons.

Continue reading Writing Seminar: Growing as a Researcher, Writer, and Person

Tips on Submitting Your Research for Publication: Part II

Posted on by Kamron Soldozy

So you’ve just finished your JP, a dean’s date assignment, or some other research project. Considering how fast things seem to move here, you might have already forgotten about it – that’s how I felt when I turned in my R3 my first year.

However, I ended up taking another look at my R3 to prepare my presentation last spring for the Mary W. George Research Conference – the biannual writing conference – (tips on doing that here). During that process, I recognized some significant changes and expansions I could make on my R3, but I didn’t think much of it at the time.

After presenting my R3, I was encouraged by my writing seminar professor and some of my peers to expand my work and submit the manuscript for a conference or for publication. After submitting to a conference and to multiple research journals, here are some of my takeaways from the publication process:

Presenting my R3 at the Mary W. George Research conference helped me polish my paper.
Continue reading Tips on Submitting Your Research for Publication: Part II

From D1 to R1: Lessons from the First Writing Seminar Deadline

Posted on by Ella Feiner

First-years, you’ve just survived everyone’s favorite time of year: your first Writing Seminar deadline. Over the course of the past few weeks, you’ve learned the difference between motive and thesis, discussed strategies for analyzing data, written a draft of your first essay, and finally, turned in your first piece of graded work: your R1!

The process of going from an ungraded draft to a graded revision may have seemed intimidating. In part, this is because most first-years have little to no experience with serious revision of essays. In high school, when standards were lower, I, like many others, got away with handing in first drafts most of the time. When I did make the time to revise, my “revision” consisted mainly of adding a few fancy words to my essay and tightening up my conclusion. So when I got to my Writing Seminar and was essentially told to rewrite my entire essay, I panicked.

Did I have to completely start over? Was all my D1 work wasted? As I had no experience with the revision process, I struggled to even begin the process of writing my R1. So if you felt the same way after handing in your R1, read on: I promise that your next two revisions will be made much easier (and dare I say, pleasant?) with the help of a few key strategies. 

Continue reading From D1 to R1: Lessons from the First Writing Seminar Deadline

The Art of Transforming Your Paper into a Presentation

Posted on by Soo Young Yun

Research does not end at simply conducting experiments or making a mind-blowing discovery in your academic field. It’s just as important—or perhaps even more so—to share your findings with others and to hear their thoughts on what you’ve discovered. Throughout your time at Princeton, you will come across multiple opportunities to present your research–whether it’s presenting at Princeton Research Day, drafting independent work proposals for advisors, showcasing your research from summer internships, or even just preparing presentations for class. Sharing your research is thus a common and necessary step in creating scholarly conversation, and can be a very rewarding and enlightening experience for you and for others. However, it can be challenging to find the most effective way to convey your knowledge and work to your audience. 

This past April, I participated in the Mary W. George Freshman Research Conference, where I presented my paper “Racism in K-pop: A Reflection of South Korea’s Racialized Discourse of Beauty.” My paper was 16 pages long, and in the beginning, I had no idea how I would synthesize this into a 10-minute presentation. How do you condense a paper that long into just 10 minutes without losing the key points of your argument? Everything in my essay felt critical to my thesis, and yet I knew I couldn’t include every single point in my presentation. 

Here are a few aspects that I focused on, which I think will be helpful in transforming your paper into a great presentation.  Continue reading The Art of Transforming Your Paper into a Presentation

Things to Check for Before Submitting your Writing Seminar Paper

Posted on by Nanako Shirai

As a Writing Center fellow, I definitely have conferenced my share of writing seminar essays, and I know that there are a lot of common themes that first years worry about. In this post, I wanted to make a checklist of exercises to try before you submit your final draft!

I tried the first exercise with my R3 to make sure that there was a good balance between the primary sources and my own voice.

Continue reading Things to Check for Before Submitting your Writing Seminar Paper

How to Get Work Done Without Even Trying: Passive Brainstorming for Essays and Final Assigments

Posted on by Elise Freeman

In addition to this lovely position as a blogger for PCUR, I am also a Learning Consultant at McGraw. (*shameless plug*: Learning Consultations at McGraw are individual hour sessions with a student (like me!) where you come up with strategies on how to best handle your studies at Princeton). Last year, a couple consultants volunteered for the inaugural episode of McGraw’s podcast, “Making Learning Audible,” where we talked about finding balance between work and relaxation over winter break. During winter break in my first year at Princeton, I put a lot of pressure on myself to study intensively for exams but ended up just overwhelming myself and doing nothing. Any attempt to actively work on my essays to reach my high standard of getting super ahead on my Dean’s Date papers was met with instant exhaustion.

Get this level of electric brainstorming activity done without even thinking about it!

However, I said in the podcast: “For my sophomore winter break, I learned from that, and all I wanted was just a good place to start when I got back. I did not put a lot of pressure on myself. I let all the work that I had to do be kind of passive and if something came to mind that I really liked I would jot it down and get back to it”.

In this post, I’ll unpack what I meant by “passive work.” Active brainstorming, in my experience, is choosing to set aside time to sit down and build an essay or open-ended question on an exam from scratch. So, what does it look like to stretch out this brainstorm period so when you sit down to write, the paragraphs basically form themselves? Here are some tips on how I’ve been able to cut down on brainstorming time and get down to business:

Continue reading How to Get Work Done Without Even Trying: Passive Brainstorming for Essays and Final Assigments

Tips to Succeed in Writing Seminar

Posted on by Saira Reyes

Students engaging in discussion in Writing Seminar

Writing seminar is a unifying challenge for all first-years at Princeton.

If you are currently overwhelmed by the terms “motive”, “scholarly conversation”, and “literary sources”, you are probably tired of hearing “just get through it” when asking others for advice on how to navigate writing sem.

Although writing sem will probably challenge you more than any type of writing you did in high school, managing the coursework does not have to be overwhelming. Here are a few tips that helped me reduce the stress of writing seminar and gain the most from my experience:

Continue reading Tips to Succeed in Writing Seminar

The Conference that Will Prepare You for Your Final Paper in Writing Seminar

Posted on by Nanako Shirai

Writing seminar is a demanding and rigorous rite of passage at Princeton. The packed schedule, along with the constant writing and peer editing, makes it seem like you’re taking two courses instead of one.

The Mary W. George Freshman Research Conference is a great resource for current and future writing seminar students.

But for all you first years, I promise (as a *hopefully wiser* sophomore) that there’s a lot that you can get out of this one course that Princeton requires all first years to take. Although writing seminar is a trying class, it really is the basis of writing for all your future classes at Princeton. (I know, I know, I sound like your writing seminar professor. I’m sorry!)

I still remember the dread I felt when I first heard about the R3, or revised essay #3. For the R1 and R2, the argument was, to a certain degree, provided by the professor. The R3 asked me to develop “an original argument,” and the possibilities for the research topic seemed endless. I had no idea where to start. How was I going to write this?

Continue reading The Conference that Will Prepare You for Your Final Paper in Writing Seminar