4/5/08
Professional Patchwriting Pays
Like annaluna, I too am a patchwriter. In fact, I am a professional patchwriter. As a grant writer, I am expected to patchwrite using the language provided by the very funders who read my proposals. In my field, it is imperative that proposals reflect the language used in funders' Request for Proposals (RFPs). In fact, it is standard practice to lift the funders' language out of the RFP (without citation) in order to demonstrate that a project is meeting the funders' purpose and goals. Grant evaluators look for that language as a sign of understanding and common mission. Furthermore, the ability and willingness to patchwrite is a signal of a grant writer's experience and expertise--a badge of the elite (or Howard's "liberal culture ideology"), if you will. In effect, I get paid to patchwrite and my employer benefits through awarded grant funds. I know this is institutional authorship rather than individual authorship, but I'm curious if any of the comp instructors in our class are willing to tell your students they can do this for a living?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
My question for you is whether we see Howard using this term to refer to grant writing or to the college composition classroom?
As a composition TA at NIU, I guess I agree that "patchwriting," if we stretch the metaphor to some extent, is required in grant writing or applications (so far as my experience with it goes); however, for the average first-year college student, the types of sources they will be using and the type of work they will be doing for FY-Comp classes (and the rest of their college careers) require due citation. First-year college students are not writing grants or being taught to do so (at least in my classroom). We teach them to write college research papers.
Language itself and the words we use aren't original to any of us (except when we hubristically try to patchwork words together to create new portmanteaus such as the clumsy "patchwriting"). Still, I would bet that a grant written by you and one by me would be demonstrably different (not necessarily better or worse, but clearly distinguishable from each other). Don't you hear distinct separate voices even on our blog postings, to greater and lesser extents?
I don't understand why citation or plagiarism is made the basis of this issue. That's obfuscation on Howard's part.
To respond to ehrengard, I absolutely agree. Our class discussion provided a framework for me that (as embarrassed as I am to admit it) didn't occur to me as a self-involved professional writer. Certainly, Howard's context is the composition classroom, and certainly, patchwriting in that context shouldn't be as blase a topic as I make it out to be. Malvolio's reading response does a much better job at discussing the nuances of the issue.
Post a Comment