A College Writer's Process A Process of Writing

Generating Ideas Discovering what to write about- Find a topic and say something about it. Often challenging, you can find a topic or idea near home, in a conversation, or an everyday event.

Discovering Materials Think over past writing experiences at work or school. How do you get ideas? Where do the come from? Where do you turn for related material? How do you begin planning, drafting and developing these ideas? Watch Video on the Writing Process. https://youtu.be/V1pnpL8295E To shape and support your ideas, you’ll need facts and figures, reports and opinions, examples and illustrations, which we will go over in more detail over the next couple of weeks. For now, your own experiences work well as materials of support.

Identify your purpose and audience Decide on one main point Planning Identify your purpose and audience Decide on one main point State a thesis Organize ideas by grouping or outlining Stage 1

Drafting Start and restart Build paragraphs Open and conclude Create coherence Stage 2

Add definitions, examples, and details developing Explain and support Add definitions, examples, and details Supply evidence such as facts, statistics, expert testimony, and observations. Stage 3

Revision, editing, and proofreading Re-seeing and rewriting Making major changes to your ideas and development Changing or reconsidering your audience/purpose Having others read to see what you can’t. Refining details Improving wording Drop unnecessary words Replace incorrect wording Rearrange words in a clearer order Combine sentences Refine transitions Correcting flaws Proofreading- catching spelling and word-processing errors

Purpose and audience

Purpose

Three Reasons for Writing To Inform (Expository) To Persuade (Persuasive) Entertain (Narrative or Poetry)

Writing to Inform Often called expository writing. Expository writing shows or explains facts. Examples: Biography of Barack Obama News report about a shooting Note to a friend Essay about “killer bees” Remember: Expository = Expose

Writing to Persuade Attempts to influence the reader. Usually makes an argument. Examples: Political speeches Advertisements A cover letter for your resume An essay urging readers to recycle

Writing to Entertain Narratives: stories. Have a beginning, middle, and end A story may have a lesson, but the author’s main purpose is to entertain. Examples of Writing to Entertain Harry Potter books Poems about love Narrative essay about the big game Script for a TV show

Is it a story, poem, or drama (script)? Yes No Does the text make arguments? Yes No Does the text give facts? Yes No Start Over Entertain Persuade Inform

Review Informative or expository writing provides factual information about a topic. Persuasive writing expresses an opinion (may use facts to support). All narratives are written to entertain, but so is poetry. Review Practice Worksheet

Audience

Targeting an Audience After coming up with a specific topic, it is also important to identify the audience for an essay. As a writer, your audience is not whoever reads the essay (this is far too broad) or even simply your instructor (of course he/she will read the essay). Instead, the audience is the group of people you want to educate or persuade. Who are you really writing to?

Writing for your audience Knowing the audience for a particular essay is important because it determines the content that will appear in the writing.  The content of an essay that has a specific topic will vary depending on the intended audience. In other words, having a focused topic is important, but having a specific audience is equally important.

Writing for your audience For example, let’s say you are writing an expository (informative) essay on the most important practice techniques in becoming a better tennis player. Informative

Writing for your audience If your audience is beginning tennis players, or players who know little about the game, the techniques needed to get better are different than if you are writing to intermediate players who want to become good enough to enter and/or win tournaments. In the first example, the steps would be more basic, while in the second example they would obviously be more advanced. Either way, the topic of the essay, becoming a better tennis player, is the same, but because the audiences are different, the information in each essay will be different as well. 

Writing for your audience The same is true of an argument or persuasive essay. If you are arguing for a change to occur, identifying the level at which you want this change to occur and/or the people you want to persuade to help create this change (audience) is important.  Persuasive

Writing for your audience For example, an essay about the need for a change to SAC’s grading system can have different audiences. One potential audience may be the students who attend SAC, in which case explaining how this change would benefit students with more accurate grading becomes important. Another audience could be the SAC’s senior management, in which case the benefits to enrollment and student retention become important points to address.

Targeting a certain audience General Reason: Curious & Interested Knowledge: A minimal level of Awareness Expectations: Formal and a lot of Details College Instructor Reason: Professional responsibility Knowledge: Well informed Expectations: Formal, Serious, Thoughtful, Enough Research for Sound logic Work Reason: Reliance on job performance Knowledge: Informed about business Expectations: Reliability, Ethical, and Technical as needed Friend Reason: Personal interest Knowledge: minimal knowledge on topic Expectations: Informal and lots of Details Use the Checklist to determine what and if you are writing for your audience.