"DOES MY PAPER FLOW?"

 A student sits down for a writing conference, tosses his paper on the table, and asks, "Does it flow?" This typical scenario challenges writing center tutors because the nebulous nature of the word "flow" makes the student's particular concern unclear. To clarify the direction of such a tutorial, we investigated the meaning of flow to students and faculty.

In the spring of 2008, tutors asked 30 students who indicated flow as a main concern, "What do you mean by flow?" We categorized the responses based on repeated words and created a checklist of aspects of flow. Using this checklist, we surveyed 41 students who mentioned flow in the fall of 2008. We also received responses from 30 faculty members, who defined flow and chose items on the checklist to indicate what they considered crucial to making a paper flow.

 RESULTS

Student Definitions
Transitions were students' most frequent definition of flow in their spring responses (Table 1). They specified transitions sentence to sentence, paragraph to paragraph, idea to idea, and topic to topic. Organization ranked last after unity, not choppy, and ease of reading.

Table 1 Definition of flow in written comments by students ranked in descending order of frequency
 Word in definition Number of students who mentioned word  Percent who mentioned word
Transitions

16

60%
Unity

10

37%
Smooth/not choppy

10

33%
Ease of reading

9

36%
Organization

7

26%

 Flow is "how it sounds, how it works for the reader aesthetically, if you can read it out loud to keep it going for the reader at a regular pace." Student

 Faculty Definitions
In their written definitions, faculty in the Humanities and Social Sciences ranked organization first in frequency of mention with transitions second, and Natural Sciences faculty ranked transitions first in frequency of mention with organization second (Table 2). Overall, transitions and organization tied for first with 20 mentions each by faculty.

Table 2 Frequency of definition of flow in written comments by faculty
 Word in definition Humanities Natural Sciences Social Sciences Total faculty
Organization 11 3 6 20
Transitions 10 6 4 20
Unity 5 2 1 8
Reads easily 5 1 1 7
Smooth/not choppy  2 1 4 7
Cannot define 4 0 0 4

 Checklist of Definitions of Flow
On the checklist students chose transitions between paragraphs more often than any other definition (51%) (Table 3). Organization of ideas in a logical order ranked second in frequency: 44% of students chose the item. All faculty checked overall organization of ideas in a logical order as crucial to flow. Transitions between paragraphs ranked second (Table 3).

Table 3  Ranking of frequency of checklist items chosen
 Item on checklist Rank of students choosing item Rank of faculty choosing item
Ease of comprehension when read aloud 4th--27% 5th--67%
Style of writing is consistent throughout paper 5th--17% 4th--78%
Transitions between paragraphs 1st--51% 2nd--87%
Transitions between sentences 3rd--41% 3rd--83%
Overall organization of ideas in a logical order 2nd--44% 1st--100%

 DIFFERENCES IN HOW TO ORGANIZE
According to the checklist responses, faculty agreed on the primacy of organization in making a paper flow, yet their own written definitions of an organized paper that flowed differed by division. Faculty in the Humanities and Social Sciences mentioned argument, thesis, and topic sentences, whereas Natural Science faculty emphasized sections of the paper under specific headings. The examples below illustrate these differences.

 Humanities
"Each paragraph furthers the argument-has a direction in the argument and doesn't repeat. Flow in paragraphs comes with good topic sentences and with examples and quotes." History

"[Flow] also implies good organization, as in an argument that builds from least to most convincing evidence." English

 Social Sciences
"The opening of the paper lists points to be addressed, and they are addressed throughout the paper in that order. The material is logically organized into subtopics." Psychology

"A paper that has an argument that is easy to follow has good 'flow.'" Sociology

 Natural Sciences
"There is a logical structure that connects strings of thoughts. This could be achieved through headings, such as introduction, data, analysis, results, conclusions." Physics

"What I grade as flow in a scientific paper is a logical connection between thoughts from one passage to another, or from stated theory (hypothesis) to supporting data, to discussion and summary." Biology

 "Flow to me is the logical connectedness (if that is a word!) of the components that are supposed to be in a paper- introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion, conclusion. Even if these areas are not precisely stated, a scientific paper usually has these parts [that] to me create a natural flow of information." Biology

 CONCLUSION
Students may not see the overall organization of the paper as significant in making a paper flow as faculty do: for students flow may be a matter of using transitional words between paragraphs or sentences.

Tutors need to emphasize the importance of overall organization when students consider flow a concern. Ways to work on organization with writers would include discussing argument with students writing for Humanities and Social Sciences and the use of sections and headings in papers for the Natural Sciences.

Faculty need to recognize that students may not know how to organize a particular type of paper in their discipline and thus guide them in the process.

by Jill Frey

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