Helping others really helps yourself.

I just gave my email address to my brother’s friend. He was complaining about his English 300 course at Sac City College and that he believes he’s a bad writer, to which my brother and I replied that no one is a good writer. Good editors are called good writers, but no one gets that the first time through. He asked what I meant when I told him that the key to a good paper is editing, and I told him to get feedback from any and everyone he can to help him to identify where he is unclear or where his argument is weak.

He says that he has issues with over using certain words, so I told him to read through his paper looking only for those words and highlighting them as he finds them. When he’s identified them all I told him to go through and either rephrase things or use synonyms for anything in abundance.

I offered my email address if he wanted someone else to help with editing through out the semester and I look forward to seeing the types of issues he encounters throughout the semester. I hope that it will not only give me insight into the different types of issues encountered by different types of minds, but also some really great prompts for journal entries!

I look forward to a semester of helping Nick through his English 300 course and Nick helping me find some insight into young writers!