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Dialogues@RU is published annually
by the
Writing Program at
Rutgers, The State
University of New Jersey
Volume One
Spring 2002
Editor's Introduction
Michael
J. Cripps
Journals of undergraduate writing often present student work that has been heavily edited by editorial committees. We could have followed these models and coached the students to revise and reorganize their contributions within strict guidelines. For a number of reasons, we rejected this approach in favor of one that presents actual student writing. First, we believe these essays are so strong that they stand on their own. Second, intervening in student work to polish the occasional rough edges creates an artificial sense of the kind of work students actually do. Finally, this approach would have put us at odds with our own teaching philosophy. We take very seriously our mission to prepare students for independent research and writing, and intervening in these essays would have compromised this aim. We celebrate these essays because they reveal the intellectual strengths of Rutgers students and the importance of ongoing development.
These essays are a call to action because they show the level of analytic sophistication freshmen and sophomores are capable of producing in their research and writing. When freshmen are capable of developing and supporting extended analytic essays of the sort that appear in Dialogues@RU, we do not challenge our students if we do not encourage them to write more (and more often). While the essays that appear in this journal are outstanding contributions by very competent students, these students will need to continue to be challenged as they move through their programs of study if they are to realize their potential.
Rutgers University already encourages students to conduct research and engage in academic writing. Honors students have the opportunity to engage in a significant research and writing project as they write their honors theses. And some students have the opportunity to conduct research and write up their results in papers that eventually appear in print. For example, Gregory Herzog (Senior Advisor for Undergraduate Education) edits The Rutgers Scholar (http://rutgersscholar.rutgers.edu), an electronic journal of undergraduate research that publishes important work by advanced undergraduates in the humanities, the sciences, the social sciences, and engineering. Writing opportunities like those that produce papers published in The Rutgers Scholar are a very important part of an undergraduate's education at a major research university. For the most part, however, they are rare opportunities that occur only at the conclusion of an undergraduate education. Too often, students find it possible to complete a course of study with little significant writing beyond the freshman year.
Dialogues@RU, in laying bare the kind of research and writing students do in the Writing Program, demonstrates to the university community the writing capabilities and strengths of our undergraduates. But Dialogues@RU also raises a question. Does the typical Rutgers education help students build on these writing achievements? This journal will only be completely successful if it promotes the inclusion of research and writing assignments in more courses across the Rutgers undergraduate curriculum. To this end, undergraduates writing extended research papers in any 100, 200, or 300 level course across the university will be eligible to submit their work for possible publication in subsequent volumes of Dialogues@RU. We hope administrators and teachers alike will encourage students in their colleges, academic departments, and courses to submit their significant writing projects for possible inclusion in the second volume of Dialogues@RU.