PLANNING, DRAFTING, AND REVISING English for Academic Purposes Week 8

Planing Time spent planning a first draft pays off during the writing process. A plan helps you reorganize the elements of your argument from a form that may seem coherent to you into one that will be both coherent and persuasive to your readers.

AVOID TWO COMMON BUT FLAWED PLANS 1)A narrative of thinking : (Re)organize your report around the core elements of your argument—your claim and the reasons supporting it. 2)A patchwork of sources : Readers want your analysis, not a summary of your sources.

Drafting – Several Tips 1)Draft in a way that feels comfortable 2) Use key words to keep on track 3)Quote, Paraphrase, and summarize appropriately. 4)Show readers how evidence is relevant 5) Overcoming writes’ block

Revising Argument 1) Identify the Substance of Your Argument: Does the structure of your argument match the structure of your report? 2) Evaluate the Quality of Your Argument: What might cause your readers to reject your argument?

Revising the organization 1) Do key terms run through your whole report? 2) Is the beginning of each section/subsection clear ? 3) Does each major section begin with words that signal how that section relates to the one before it? 4) Is it clear how each section relates to the whole? 5) Is the point of each section stated in a brief introduction or (less helpfully) at its end? 6) Do terms that unify each section run through it?

Communicating Evidence Visually Most readers grasp quantitative evidence more easily in tables, charts, and graphs than they do in words. But some visual forms suit particular data and messages better than others. When the data are few and simple, readers can grasp them as easily in a sentence as in a table/figure. When you graphically present complex data, the most common choices are tables, bar charts, and line graphs, each of which has a distinctive rhetorical effect.

Writing Process – Video

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Draft Presentation/Submission Presentation : November Submisson: November 29 Friday

Draft should: Print-out Be around words Structured with proper introduction, body (with headings) and conclusion Include citations and bibliography Late submissions and digital versions will not be accepted.