The building blocks of writing

Each of the sentences in an essay will be one of the following types: your own ideas. evidence to support your ideas.

Types of sentences in an essay that contain your own ideas: thesis supporting areas (your ideas that explain why you believe your thesis to be true) topic sentences sentences that elaborate concluding ideas (for paragraphs or for essays) transitions

Types of sentences in an essay that contain evidence to support your ideas: support or sentences that present evidence in the form of text quotes facts statistics examples from your life

In sum: Your Ideas thesis supporting areas topic sentences elaboration transitions concluding sentences (clinchers) Evidence to support your ideas support

Your job is to use these building blocks to get your ideas across most clearly. 3 guidelines: your ideas should form the majority of your essay for each sentence that contains evidence (support) there should be two sentences explaining the significance of that evidence (elaboration) all sentences need to be connected!

Let’s start with a paragraph: The Paragraph All paragraphs in essays need to be built around one of your ideas, which should be contained in the topic sentence. Topic Sentence Idea Support (evidence to support topic) Then, present evidence that supports/illustrates that idea. (support) Elaboration (HOW the evidence supports the topic sentence idea) Explain HOW that evidence supports your topic sentence idea. (elaboration) Sum up your paragraph in a concluding sentence. Concluding Sentence

Now for the essay: All essays are built around a thesis statement that you believe to be true. The purpose of your essay is to explain how and why. The Essay Intro: Thesis Idea Supporting Areas Your reasons as to how and why you believe the thesis to be true are your supporting areas. Supporting Area#1 Those supporting areas become the topic ideas for the other paragraphs in the essay. Supporting Area#2 Conclusion Sum up your argument in your conclusion.

Compare Paragraph structure topic sentence support/elaboration concluding sentence Essay structure introduction: thesis/supporting areas one body paragraph to illustrate each supporting area conclusion

For your reader to best understand your essay, all of the pieces must be connected to each other.

Connecting the pieces in a paragraph: Topic Sentence Idea The Paragraph Support (evidence to support topic) Elaboration (HOW the evidence supports the topic sentence idea) Concluding Sentence Make sure your words reveal how the different pieces of your paragraph relate to each other.

Connecting the pieces in an essay: Supporting Area#1 Intro: Thesis Idea Supporting Areas The Essay Supporting Area#2 Conclusion Make sure your words reveal how the different pieces of your essay relate to each other.

To practice this, you will complete an OUTLINE only. This will enable you to examine closely how all of the pieces fit together. You will turn this outline into PowerPoint slides to present to your peers informally.

Outline Topic: Considering what you’ve learned about communication and personality types what are your strengths and weaknesses as an employee of any workplace?

Outline components: I. Introduction II. Strengths III. Weaknesses thesis/supporting areas II. Strengths support/elaboration III. Weaknesses IV. Conclusion

I. Introduction A. hook or grabber B. thesis (mention your specific personality type and learning style and how you think those will help you in the work place) C. supporting areas (brief statement on strengths, brief statement on weaknesses).

II. Strengths are . . . (write them briefly) A. Supporting detail: an example from your life that illustrates a strength. Elaboration: your explanation of that supporting detail. How does it show a strength? B. Supporting detail: another example from your life that illustrates a strength. C. Repeat B as needed. D. Transition thought to weaknesses.

III. Weaknesses are . . . (write them briefly) A. Supporting detail: an example from your life that illustrates a weakness. Elaboration: your explanation of that supporting detail. How does it show a weakness? B. Supporting detail: another example from your life that illustrates a weakness. C. Repeat B as needed. D. Transition thought to conclusion.

IV. Conclusion A. Restate thesis and supporting areas. B. Emphasize the most important ideas from your outline.

What next? You’ll find this outline on the class website. Course Documents Professional Portfolios Personality outline Build your actual outline in the PowerPoint outline view to turn it into a slide presentation.

So . . . Tuesday: PowerPoint training and work on slides Wednesday: work on slides Thursday and Friday: present slides to classmates informally in A10