Practice texts

These texts go with AI as Editorial Assistant. If you can, bring your own writing. You’ll learn more from a paragraph whose problems you already half know. If you’d rather not use your own work, or you forgot to bring some, use one of these.

These texts are invented. Each one includes problems that turn up in real drafts: a claim that arrives three sentences late, a technical term doing unexplained work, a pronoun with nothing to refer to, a policy that can’t be enforced. Part of the exercise is seeing whether the tool notices the same problems you do.

1. A seminar paper paragraph

For: students, and anyone who teaches writing.

The question of how communities responded to environmental change in the late nineteenth century has been addressed by numerous scholars, and there is a substantial body of literature on this topic. Some have argued that responses were largely reactive, while others have suggested a more complicated picture. In the case of the Middle Rio Grande, irrigation practices shifted considerably during this period, and this had significant effects on local social organization. Acequia associations, which had governed water distribution for generations, found themselves negotiating with new territorial authorities whose assumptions about property were fundamentally different. This suggests that the transition was not simply a matter of technological change but involved a renegotiation of who counted as a legitimate claimant to water — a shift that would shape the region’s politics for the next century.

2. An abstract

For: faculty and graduate students writing for journals or grant panels.

This paper interrogates the discursive construction of expertise in early twentieth-century public health campaigns, arguing that the professionalization of sanitary science cannot be understood apart from the racialized logics that structured its field of intervention. Drawing on an extensive archive of municipal records, professional correspondence, and popular ephemera, it demonstrates that the category of the “unsanitary” operated as a technology of governance well beyond its ostensible epidemiological function. The paper contributes to ongoing conversations in the history of medicine, critical race studies, and science and technology studies, and suggests that existing accounts have underestimated the extent to which these dynamics persist in contemporary public health infrastructures.

3. A syllabus policy

For: faculty thinking about teaching. Run this one past the “confused student” reader.

Use of AI Tools. Students may use generative AI tools in this course where appropriate, but should not use them to complete assignments for them. Any use of AI should be disclosed. Work that is substantially produced by AI will not receive credit and may be referred as an academic integrity violation. Students are responsible for the accuracy of everything they submit. If you are unsure whether a particular use is permitted, ask before submitting. The goal of this policy is to support learning rather than to prohibit technology, and I expect students to use their judgment.

4. A community archive project report

For: applying a style guide across several paragraphs. This report, its project, and its numbers are invented for the exercise.

The audience is community partners and university colleagues. The writer wants to describe what a pilot accomplished, acknowledge its limits, and explain the next stage. Read the report once before looking at the guide.

A community archive takes shape

Over the past year, the Arroyo Memory Project has recorded 32 interviews and digitized photographs contributed by local families. We began with a practical aim: to make materials held in separate homes easier to find and use. The collection now includes accounts of work, migration, and neighborhood change that rarely appear in the town’s official records. Bringing these materials together also raises a less practical question about who gets to describe them and whose account becomes the one a visitor encounters first.

We use “shared stewardship” to mean that contributors have a continuing role in decisions about description and access. The implementation of a common description template has facilitated the comparison of records by contributors. They can suggest corrections, add context, or request that an interview remain unavailable online. Final decisions about descriptions are made by the project team after consultation. This arrangement allows us to maintain consistency while ensuring that community members retain control over how their histories are presented.

Eight of the 32 people interviewed reviewed their descriptions during the pilot. Their comments led us to revise several place names and distinguish a remembered event from a date established in another source. The limited response may reflect the time required to review a transcript, uncertainty about what could be changed, or a preference for discussing revisions in person. We cannot yet tell which explanation matters most. Making the collection searchable is therefore only one part of making it usable.

In the next phase, we plan to hold two review sessions at the public library and invite contributors to compare descriptions together. Additional contextual information will be incorporated where appropriate, and unresolved disagreements will be documented. We also hope to learn whether visitors can recognize when an account is a recollection rather than an agreed chronology. The pilot shows that digital access strengthens community ownership of local history, although the decisions about whose words appear on the screen remain unfinished.

A working style guide

This is a proposed guide for this report. Change a rule if it conflicts with the writer’s purpose. Apply the rules in this order when they pull in different directions.

1. Preserve the evidence and its limits. Keep numbers, plans, and qualifications such as “may” and “we cannot yet tell.” Flag a conclusion that exceeds the evidence rather than silently making it stronger or weaker.
2. Keep the important distinctions. Preserve the defined term “shared stewardship.” Do not treat access, participation, control, and ownership as interchangeable. If a claim depends on their relationship, ask the writer to explain it.
3. Make decision-making clear. Identify who makes a decision when the text supplies that information. If it does not, ask. Passive voice is acceptable when the actor is known or does not matter to the point.
4. Use direct language. Replace a wordy noun phrase with a shorter expression when the meaning stays the same. Keep quotations and necessary technical terms intact. Do not impose a sentence-length limit.
5. Keep the report’s voice. Retain the first-person “we,” concrete examples, and measured tone. Suggest a structural change in a comment before reorganizing paragraphs. Avoid adding promotional claims.

This is a short project report for community partners and university colleagues. Read it against the style guide below. Do not rewrite it yet.

Identify up to five places where a change or an author decision would help. For each, quote the passage, name the relevant rule, and explain the issue. Separate wording changes from decisions about meaning.

Also quote one passage the guide gives you a reason to leave alone. Do not invent missing information or assume every sentence needs editing.

[paste the working style guide]
[paste the four-paragraph report]

Read the comments before asking for new wording. Choose one passage where you agree a local edit would help, then use the follow-up.

Suggest the smallest edit to this passage that satisfies the style guide:

[paste the passage you chose]

Show the original and proposed wording, name the rule you applied, and explain any change in meaning. If the edit requires a fact or decision I haven't supplied, ask a question instead. Leave the rest of the report unchanged.

Suggested pairings

If you only have time for one, try the syllabus policy. It looks clear until you read it as a nervous nineteen-year-old at 11pm, and then about four questions go unanswered. Finding the gap between what you meant to write and what a reader can actually do with it is what these exercises are for.