Editing the essay

Strength of ideas/ organization

Agenda Do you have your Rough Draft?? Editing: The Structure of your Essay Skeleton Deconstruction Using Quotes Run-Ons and Structure Length Tomorrow: Language Editing

Deconstructing the Essay Partner: Only read the introduction- What is their thesis? Highlight the sentence that you think is their thesis statement. What will the three body paragraphs be about? Number the arguments if you can. Only read the first sentence of each of the body paragraphs. After reading the TS write down what you can predict the paragraph will be about.

#1 Offence: Run- Ons

Sentence Structure Short Sentence: 1-10 words Buddy System Coding the length of your sentences. What style do you use/ overuse? Short Sentence: 1-10 words Medium Sentence: 11- 20 words Long Sentence: 21 and up Find the longest sentence and count up the words. Can you rethink this sentence to make it shorter or alter punctuation.

Longest Sentence Revised Sentence Long Sentences distract the reader from the primary idea. They are often mysterious and, therefore confusing. Word Count: 21 Word Count: 9, 7

Creative Writing You are a camp counsellor. Make up a story that will scare the bejeezus out of your 8-10 year old campers. You wake up by the side of the road lying next to a bicycle, with no memory and no wallet. What happens in the next hour?

How are we using our quotes??

How long are your quotes? Find a buddy Underline all of the quotes that they have used. Now make a tally at the top of the page: “word” quotes: _________ 1-2 sentence quotes: _________ 3-4 Sentence quotes: _________ There should be more 1-2 sentence (or shorter) quotes than anything.

Use your quotes to your own advantage! Are you leading into your quotes? No- No: Men are the sole cause of the war. “May God forgive the men who brought about this war” (Rhodes 260). How are you leading into your quotes? Comma Colon Signal phrase (smoothly integrating the quote into your sentence)

Leading into your Quotes 1. Writing a complete sentence followed by a colon and then the quote Example: Demeter is not actively responsible for the plants’ growth, but passively so: “When Demeter felt especially fine, tiny shoots of barley or oats would spring up in the footprints She left” (110). 2. Writing an incomplete sentence, followed by a comma and then the quote Example: The author shows that Demeter is seen as passively responsible for the plants’ growth, saying, “When Demeter felt especially fine, tiny shoots of barley or oats would spring up in the footprints She left” (110). 3. Writing a statement that ends in that or a signal phrase and then the quote Example: Demeter’s passive responsibility in the plants’ growth is clear when the author states that “When Demeter felt especially fine, tiny shoots of barley or oats would spring up in the footprints She left” (110).

One more tally at the top of the page = ______________ = __________________________________ = _________________ Shows

Words, Words, words Strong Writing is Lean Writing

Words to Cut from Essays without a second thought… Stuff Things Shows Just Really Perhaps/ Maybe Quite Amazing Literally Got So Very And then… * Basically Said Understand “Help the reader understand”

The Quote While it is difficult to avoid saying “this quote”/ “the quote” when you are focusing on only one line of the book you do want to do your best to avoid using this term and pretend as though your teacher is not MAKING you write about this quote- rather that it is sincerely important and interesting to you. Ex. In this quote Orwell alludes to the pigs being similar to humans: “…..”

Loaded Terms Loaded terms are words that can have many different meaning and understandings and it is your job in your paper to define your terms and make sure that you are using them properly. Words like these are loaded terms: Culture- What kind? what do you mean? What are you saying about culture? Society- Where? When? Who? Gender Sexuality Values

Transitional Sentences

Transitional Sentences These sentences are at the end of your body paragraphs. They lead into your next idea so that you are prepped and primed for the coming idea and everything is nice and smooth.

Comedic Transitions Comedians are meant to be good story-tellers who effortlessly transition between segments ideas and everyone has a good time and is not horribly confused. Sometimes you don’t even realize the skill of the transitions until you are simply laughing in your seat and playing along. A transition sentence is any sentence that is designed to move your audience from one idea to another without causing confusion or losing fluidity. You may have been taught that the words “however,” “therefore,” and “furthermore,” among others, are transitional words that, in turn, compose transitional sentences. 

Transitions in Comedy Holidays – clear, focused idea What holidays does he cover? How does he transition from one holiday to the next? Is he hard to follow? Why/Why not? At 1:46 in the clip, Jim starts talking about Thanksgiving. He pokes fun at the fact that our tradition is to eat a ton of food.  At the 2:10 mark, Jim continues this theme of food and eating to bring his audience to the next holiday via the following the transition sentence: “Most people use holidays so we can eat more. I normally don’t have a burger, a brat, and a steak. But, it is 4th of July.”