8 January 2004
Gov20H- Intro to American Politics w/ Prof. Pitney (Study Guide)
Posted by Andrew under: College; Study Guides .
The Key to Beating Professor Pitney (or Writing Well)… guaranteed to give you an A- on an essay
Before you read this study guide, please understand that Professor Pitney was one of the professors on this campus that taught me how to write. Before his class, I thought that writing with big words and complex sentences was the key to successful writing. If you’re a fan of communication and research, then you will learn something in his class. I am grateful for his help and because of this, I dedicate this study guide page to him.
Professor Pitney says:
1) Richard Nixon once made the mistake of saying “Sock it to Me!” He emphasized the wrong portion of his speech. You must never be like the aloof Richard Nixon. When you are writing, write with care. Each sentence must be impactful and must serve a purpose. Never go off on tangents. Each sentence must serve the essay. Write your first draft. Remember to use Turabian.
2) If you are using Microsoft Word, you need to turn on your Grammar and Style Spellchecker. Go to Tools-Options-Spelling & Grammar tab, once there under the Grammar section change Spellcheck to both Spelling & Grammar. It will search for the Passive voice and other Strunk and White deadly Sins. Wherever you see green, eliminate the Green.
3) Now that you have your first draft. Run a Ctrl+F or Find/Search tool. Look for the words “this”, “however”, all forms of the verb “to be” (e.g. was, were, is, etc.) that create the passive. If you don’t understand what the passive is, look it up. If you still don’t know, just eliminate all forms of the ver “to be”Eliminate all these words from your essay and rewrite your sentences.
4) After eliminating those words, go through each of your sentences and make sure you have only used appx. two commas per sentence. Only when absolutely necessary can you go more than that.
If you still feel unsure about how to write a Pitney paper, below is a crib sheet created by Alexandre Lamy ‘00. The sheet is very useful in identifying key concepts in what Pitney looks for. The aforementioned four steps were developed from edited papers and cited pages from Professor Pitney’s 2003 Gov20 Honors section.
From this information, a checklist (.xls) arose with all of the errors cited on the first papers, listing the page number in Strunk and White, the number of students (if more than one) in parentheses that committed the error, and the S&W explanation.
CONGRATULATIONS! You have just conquered a Pitney Essay! Remember to check your Cited sources and
remember to read his material on how to write well. Turn it in and you will receive your A-, if you really screwed up you’ll get a B+, but you should at the very least get an A-.
On the final…
Alright, so you’ve done well, but now you need to study for the final. Get a group of people together and have them each create outlines of the readings. Somebody has to compile them together, but make sure that you have this ready for your class. Memorize terms and dates for the test.
Here’s a sample from the 2003 Gov20 Honors Class-
The Rizzles Study Packet (Fall 2003)- The “Better than Funderwear” Study Packet
Master Notes (Fall 2003)- Lecture Notes from the Gov20H class
Common Pitney Test Identifications (Spring 2004- Gov20)- Pitney IDs from Spring 2004 for regular Gov20
Graded Pitney Fall 2003 Gov20H Final- Just to show you a graded final and the style of Pitney’s final. I was sick during this time, so I didn’t answer an ID completely.
You’re done. You’ve now just completed the Beat Prof. Pitney in five minutes class. Professor Pitney is still a very cool prof, all of the extra add-ons to his picture were done in jest. He’s a cool professor and you will have fun.
