CM107UNIT 8 SEMINAR

INSTRUCTOR: DAVID HEALEY

REVIEW OF UNITS 1-7

So far, you have learned the importance of the RHETORICAL SITUATION in writing, the value of focusing on audience and purpose, and the need to plan, outline and draft your ideas.

You have also by now received peer-review and instructor comments on your Unit 6 essay draft.

Does anyone have questions on any of these issues?

What’s next?

The Final Project, due by the end of unit 9, is quickly approaching, and you ARE prepared, since you have drafted your ideas and received feedback. You now have almost two weeks to revise, edit, and shape that essay into the strongest piece of writing it can become.

Create a PLAN for making that happen. Work on it a little each day, but do it with a specific goal in mind.

Revision isn’t simply reading over the draft and making a few spelling error changes. Remember that you may sometimes have to reorganize the ideas, take out information, add more information, change the information, do more research, even rewrite the whole thing in some cases. While that may sound like a lot of work, it really is manageable. The end result will be a stronger, more powerful and effective essay that accomplishes its goals. It will allow you to not only demonstrate your knowledge but also help people with a problem to make a change in their lives!

Remember that for now, you still want to stay focused on CONTENT, not grammar. Leave EDITING for unit 9.

REVISION STRATEGIES

1. Create a PLAN. Review the feedback you received from classmates and your instructor. Talk to other people. Get feedback from the Writing Center tutors. Make a LIST of the concerns that you should work on based on this feedback, rather than guessing what you should do. Prioritize that list. What is the most important issue? What will take the most work or time?

Then, work on that list, one point at a time. Tackle one issue at a time. Mark off the list as you work through the issues.

Seek help and clarification if you need it. If you are not sure what your instructor means in a comment, send the instructor an e-mail.

Revision Strategies, continued 2. Give yourself a break. In order to objectively

analyze our writing, we need distance and objectivity. We have to see what is truly there (instead of what we wished was there or what we thought we put there).

3. Change the way you look at it. Have someone else read your draft out loud to you. Read it out loud yourself. Imagine that you are the AUDIENCE, seeing the ideas through their point of view. PRINT a copy of the draft and get away from the computer. Take a pencil or pen to it and mark areas that don’t exactly work as well as you would like. Just don’t read it on the computer screen each time. Visually, your paper will “look good” and that may prevent you from seeing it objectively.

Revision Strategies, Continued

4. And FINALLY, try a strategy that may be new to you. It’s called the POST-DRAFT outline. When you use this revision strategy, you make an “outline” of a draft, but no Roman numerals—none of that. It is NOT the outline you wrote BEFORE you drafted. It is an outline of what is actually written.

This outlining method gives you a lot of power because it strips down the essay to the bare essentials and allows you to see the overall structure, if points are repeated, if paragraphs cover more than one point, if the introduction or conclusion needs work, and if there are important points left out, for example.

STEPS IN THE POST-DRAFT OUTLINE

Begin by counting the paragraphs in your draft. Write those numbers down on a sheet of paper.

1. 2. 3…… You get the picture, right? Then, read each paragraph and in one sentence and as briefly

as possible, state the main point of each paragraph or summarize what the paragraph is about.

You are not looking for the topic sentence of the paragraph—instead, you are trying to boil down what the paragraph is all about.

If your topic sentence actually reflects what the paragraph is about, great! It should—but just do not trust that it will. If your topic sentence doesn't reflect what the paragraph is about, you will want to revise it.

Steps in the Post-Draft Outline, continued Overall, your post-draft outline should reflect a clear,

logical progression of ideas in your paper.

If there are holes or problems, the outline should help you see those issues so you can fix them.

This method can be used to see if the draft really followed through on the outline as intended.

Or, if you write by “just writing” without doing an outline first, the POST-draft outline can help best organize what you have written.

PRACTICE the post-draft outline

Open the SAMPLE PROJECT 6 ASSIGNMENT found in Doc Sharing.

Count the number of paragraphs in the DRAFT only.

Number a piece of paper with the number of paragraphs, one number on each line:

1.

2.

3…. Etc

Post-draft outline

1.What is your summary of paragraph 1?IS the main point clear or is it difficult to

summarize?2.What about Paragraph 2?3. Continue through each paragraph and

summarize each paragraph in one sentence.

Post-Draft OUTLINE

What is the post-draft outline of this essay draft telling you?

Is the writer’s main point clear? Is any information not relevant to that main

point? Is any information repetitive? Is the organization clear? What is your recommendation for this

writer? What can the writer now SEE from this post-draft outline that he or she may not have seen before?

APPLICATION

Now, do this to your own draft. Yes, you have received feedback from others, but you may not always be able to get extensive feedback each time you write, AND you may see something others did not.

Use your own feedback to help you in the revision process.

INTRODUCTIONS AND CONCLUSIONS One thing to remember as you write is that you

must motivate your readers to read what you have written.

As writers, we do not have to read what we write. If we bore our audience, if the information is disorganized or unclear, or if they simply do not see any value of the information to their lives, they will stop reading.

Introductions and conclusions are part of the process of motivating the readers to begin and continue to read what we have worked hard to write, as well as what give them a first and last impression of you and your topic.

Introductions

IMAGINE a really good article or newspaper column you have read. What drew you to it? What kept you reading? Normally, a writer will in some way HOOK the readers and capture their attention in the introduction.

Some strategies include Startling statistics An interesting fact or quote A narrative

What other strategies do you know and use, and why might they work?

More about introductions Don’t assume you have to write the

introduction before you write the rest of your essay. You can come back to the introduction at any point in the writing process.

Forcing an introduction may make it awkward and may create Writer’s Block.

Avoid apologies, obvious statements, trite phrases, and awkward statements like “In this paper, I will…” unless the writing situation calls for it.

Being interesting also means being unexpected. How can you avoid a cliché introduction?

DOES THIS HOOK YOU?

Obesity is a very big problem in America today. We watch too much television and eat too much and it is really hurting us as a people. This paper will discuss why obesity is such a problem and provide a solution to the problem.

How about this one? Sandra sat down on the coach and took a

deep breath. She slowly put on her shoes, stood up, and reached for her purse. As she walked to the front door, her pulse grew rapid and she felt short of breath. She started to tremble. As her hand rested on the doorknob, a wave of panic washed over her. “I just can’t do it,” she thought. She stepped back from the door, defeated once again. Sandra, like thousands of other Americans, suffers from agoraphobia, an overwhelming and unnatural fear of being in public….

YOUR TURN

Share your introduction with the class. What are your concerns about this introduction?

Class, offer advice for strengthening this introduction.

What strategy would be most likely to HOOK you and motivate you to read this paper?

CONCLUSIONS

Should not simply repeat the introduction or restate the facts. That may insult the audience, unless the paper is lengthy and particularly complex. In some writing situations, however, a conclusion can restate the facts.

They are the last thing your audience reads. Leave a lasting and good final impression.

Suggestions for ending with a strong conclusion

Mirror or complete the introduction: Recall the narrative introduction about

Sandra, the agoraphobic woman who was too afraid to leave her own home? When the introduction left off, she was backing away from the front door, unable to work up the courage to go out. The conclusion could revisit Sandra after she has received treatment. It could show how much happier she is with this phobia behind her.

Other suggestions

challenge the audience to take action from what they have learned

bring up remaining questions consider the future implications of

this idea

What other strategies can you name for writing a strong conclusion?

YOUR TURN

Now, share the draft of your conclusion. What are your concerns about your conclusion?

Class, offer advice for strengthening your classmates’ conclusions. How would you honestly respond to this conclusion and what other strategy might work better and why?

UNIT 8 GRAMMAR POST-TEST

Remember to complete the Grammar Post-Test this unit. 50 questions (not the same as the pre-test). You have 2 hours to complete it.

This Grammar Post-Test counts for 50 points; weak performance does not prevent you from passing the course.

Do you have any questions about the post-test?

Questions?