Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais Faculdade de Letras 2012/1 Academic Writing Professor: Vivian Margutti Bruna Luiza, Clara Nogueira, Isabella Melano, Letícia Oliveira and Rosana Soares.

FROM TOPIC TO PRESENTATION: Making Choices to Develop Your Writing

INTRODUCTION

The Professor in the Student's position  How to make a Writing assignment.  New ways of understanding writing and revision.

The Professor in the Student's position  How to make decisions about Essay Developing and Revision. Using Feedback from peers and instructors. Making revision choices related to such feedback.  Do a lot of research.

MY STUDENT’S SUGGESTED WRITING TOPICS

Getting to Work  Choosing a Topic. "When you find about a topic that is interesting and challenging, you've probably got a good subject that will sustain your attention during the harder parts of the writing." (Hewett)  The motive behind research. Need or desire to answer a question for which you want to know more.

BRAINSTORMING

INITIAL, OR ZERO, DRAFT

 Great way to begin; less detailed.  Useless in a peer response session.  Preliminary Draft is based on it.  Brainstorming + zero draft = start writing with fewer difficulties.

PRELIMINARY DRAFT

 More detailed; it uses various source citations for authority.  Deep knowledge of the topic through more research; an attempt to express informed opinion through a coherent assertion.  Entire argumentative essay = support an opinion that convinces the reader it is reasonable.  Revision: content, organization, and sentence-level issues.

PRELIMINARY DRAFT AND TRACKED CHANGES

Contextualizing  Small details such as dates can contextualize an entire argument. Examples  Whenever setting an example to illustrate the essay’s topic, make clear it is the starting point to your thesis, not its statement. Use examples to support your thesis statement.

Choose strong sources to support your argument  Not having one, use the best one available. Consider different assertions, use counterarguments and return to your arguments. Try to be formal  Avoid colloquial sentences. Connect your ideas  Content = what holds things together.

 “We can’t convince everyone to take our position in na argument although we can present reasonable evidence.” (Hewett, page 74)

Methods for arguing  A counterargument: To consider the valid points of view;  Acknowledging (and sometimes refuting) counterarguments can increase ethos or believability, as a writer.

Arguing from anecdote (a story)  A continuation of argument from past (to present).  A very convincing technique as people tend to believe that what was possible in the past can be in the present or future.

Presents “authorities” on the subject  A person that has believable scholarly authority can make his/her points stronger.

CONCLUSION

 Even the best advice cannot always be put into effect in an essay revision.  Being able to explain your choices about your revision.  Accepting revision changes, spellchecking, and proofreading = editing steps to create a presentation draft (for “publication”).

 Revisions could make the argument stronger.  As you begin your next essay, apply whatever version of this brainstorming, zero draft, research, preliminary draft, feedback, revision, and presentation draft approach that fits your writing process.

Bibliography  BETH. Hewett L. From Topic to Presentation: Making Choices to Develop Your Writing. In: Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, Volume 1. Parlor Press, 2010.