THE WRITING PROCESS: AN OVERVIEW

 Step 1: Think  Step 2: Prewrite  Step 3: Plan  Step 4: Write a draft  Step 5: Revise  Step 6: Proofread  Step 7: Turn it in! THE WRITING PROCESS

 Step 1: Think  The Bedford Handbook calls this “assessing the writing situation” (11).  What to think about:  What is the subject?  Where will you get information?  What is your purpose  Who is your audience? THINKING

 Step 2: Prewrite  Have a conversation.  Annotate the text.  List ideas.  Clustering: Draw a diagram of related ideas.  Freewriting: Write whatever comes into your head, and then go back to pull out your best ideas.  Answer the six W’s: Who, What, Where, When, Why, and hoW? PREWRITING

 Step 3: Plan  The most important step in planning an argumentative essay is writing the thesis statement.  According to The Bedford Handbook, an effective thesis statement “should be a central idea that requires supporting evidence” (30).  In other words, an effective thesis statement includes a claim and a few reasons to support that claim.  After you have your thesis, you should outline your essay.  Some of you love outlines. Great! You can break up your essay into many, many sublevels.  Some of you hate outlines. That’s fine, too! You can just sketch out the main point you plan to make in each paragraph before diving into the actual writing.  Remember, anything done at the planning stage can (and often will) be changed later! PLANNING

Bad Thesis  Factual  Asks a question  Too broad or too narrow for the scope of your essay  Vague, using non- specific words like “interesting” or “bad.” Good Thesis  Arguable  Gives an answer  Match the breadth of your thesis to the scope of your essay  Focused, using concrete language and a clear plan THE THESIS STATEMENT

Digital media, contrary to what many believe and what Andrew Lam states in, “I Tweet Therefore I Am,” is not “leading to the decline in human empathy,” but rather pulling us closer together and helping us to better understand the feelings of one another through its ability to keep us connected, informed, and updated. I agree with Andrew Lam that the digital world is killing empathy, and it does this by keeping us so engaged in our devices that we lose the ability to comprehend human emotion. STRONG THESIS EXAMPLES

Directions: In a group of 3-4, identify the problem with each of the following thesis statements. Then, rewrite one of the sentences to make a more effective thesis statement. Prompt: In a thesis-driven essay, make a clear and convincing argument either agreeing or disagreeing with Lam’s claim that digital media is leading to a decline in human empathy. 1.I agree with Lam; digital media is killing empathy. 2.Human connection is both helped and hindered by social media. 3.This generation uses more technology than past generations. THESIS PRACTICE

 Step 4: Write a draft  Find a time when you are awake, focused, and as relaxed as possible. Find a place where you can concentrate.  Sometimes, you may not know what you want to say until after you write your first draft. If so, be prepared to spend a good amount of time revising your essay later.  If writing the entire essay is overwhelming, try focusing separately on each paragraph:  the introduction  the body paragraphs  the conclusion DRAFTING

 The introduction should spark your reader’s interest, lay out your main argument (“I say”), and explain what “they say.”  To grab attention, try beginning with one of the following (BH pg. 41):  A startling statistic or unusual fact  A vivid example  A description  A paradoxical statement  A quotation or a bit of dialogue  A question  An analogy  An anecdote THE INTRODUCTION

 Each body paragraph should focus on a main point that directly supports your thesis.  Express that point in a clear topic sentence.  Stick to the point!  Support the main point of each body paragraph with evidence.  Supporting evidence can be structured to include personal examples, analogies, cause and effect, comparison/contrast, definitions, etc.  Some call this part of the paragraph the illustration.  Explain clearly how your evidence supports your main point (and therefore supports your thesis).  Readers need to be told how you interpret your evidence—they may not have the same immediate interpretation as you!  Your explanation should also inherently remind readers of your central thesis argument. THE BODY PARAGRAPHS

 Point  One negative consequence of this kind of stereotyping is...  Illustration  For example, when I was in elementary school...  Explanation  This experience shows that.... While some think that..., the truth is.... Ultimately, even though in this instance,..., I believe that.... THE P.I.E. PARAGRAPH

Thesis: The cultural practice of putting everything into a binary has the catastrophic effect of perpetuating discordant attitudes and imprudence in our daily lives. As a photographer, I am confounded by the beauty of light and shadow. My primary medium, black and white film, is utterly astonishing in how it can capture the intricacies of people and life, even in the absence of color. Because of the unique nature of each kind of film and each different chemical used to develop it, there’s practically an infinite number of shades of grey that can be extracted from any given photograph. What really stupefies me, though, is when people misguidedly use the inconceivably varied and complex silver cellulose I keep countless memories of my life on as a metaphor to describe the polarity of choices between one thing or another; in other words, a “black and white issue”. In photography, a photograph is considered to be a technical failure if it is comprised only of pure black and white tones, yet so many people fail to recognize that issues don’t have to be resolved in one extreme or the another either. The beauty of the human experience is being able to work in the grey areas of compromise, and it is the responsibility of individuals to bring themselves away from their preconceived notions of darkness and light if we are all to achieve greater understanding and compassion in our daily lives. PIE EXAMPLE

Permitting athletes to use biotechnology in athletic competitions will only further encourage injurious behavior in American sports. In many of our country’s major sports, injuries are already at an all time high. NFL players are suffering dangerous concussions on a daily basis. Brand bearing NBA players like Derrick Rose and Ricky Rubio represent the recent epidemic of ACL injuries, which were previously almost unheard of in the sport. In the first two months of the 2014 MLB season, more pitchers blew out their arms and had to have Tommy John surgery than in the entirety of the 2013 affair. In each of these situations, players are pushing their physical abilities to new heights, and perhaps into areas of danger. As players try to get an ever-greater edge on their competition in an increasingly rich and higher stakes sporting market, they are starting younger, training more forcefully, and competing more furiously than ever before. This results in more fragile skulls, weakened tendons, and tenuous arms, among many other ailments, before athletes even reach the professional level. Furthermore, those kids wanting to emulate their favorite athletes and their success will find it difficult to do so without the same early and overly-aggressive bodily strain as their idols, which ultimately leads to our current epidemic of injuries among youth. This spiral of athletes competing beyond their physical, human abilities, and the resulting negative health ramifications, will only quicken if biotechnology is permitted in our major athletic events. Football players will hit much harder with bionic legs or shoulders, while pitchers could damage their arms and nervous systems even more seriously—and cause more serious damage to hit batters—by throwing at an unnatural 110mph with the help of biotechnologically enhanced shoulders and elbows. As the cascade of recent injuries in sports demonstrates, athletes are already competing at super human and dangerous levels. By permitting the use of biotechnology in athletic events, society will only further encourage injurious and life threatening behaviors not only by our athletic heroes, but also by the many young fans who admire them.

 The conclusion should echo the central argument of the essay without restating the thesis word-for-word. You should remind your reader of the view you are responding to!  The conclusion should be memorable (BH pg. 47):  Try referring back to a detail, an example, or an image from your introduction.  Try proposing a course of action.  Try discussing the topic’s wider significance.  Try posing a question for future study. THE CONCLUSION

 Step 5: Revise  Before diving into the nitty-gritty of grammar and punctuation, look at your focus, organization and content. I also recommend that you have a second person take a look at your essay.  Ask the following questions:  Is the thesis clear? Is it easy to identify?  Are any ideas off point?  Are ideas presented in a logical order?  Are any paragraphs too long or too short for easy reading?  Is the supporting evidence relevant and persuasive?  Do any ideas need further development or explanation?  Can any material be deleted? REVISING

 Step 6: Proofread  Read through your final draft a few times before turning it in. Read it out loud at least once.  Edit sentences for clarity and mechanics.  Cut wordiness and choose specific vocabulary.  Don’t forget to check your document format and works cited page! PROOFREADING

 Step 7: Turn it in!  Save your final draft as a.doc,.docx, or PDF file. Make sure that you save a copy that you can retrieve at a later date!  Submit your final draft to TRACS Assignments and a copy to turn in in class.  Breathe a big sigh of relief and move on to your next project! Don’t dwell on what could have been—think about how to improve for the future! TURNING IT IN