Using Writing Mrs. Nereim ENC 1101 Essays Critical Reading Writing Research All textual information is taken from the class text: Write Now by Karin Russell

How is writing used?

Warm Up Activity List all the ways you use writing. Now, get with a partner share ideas and come up with new ones Share your ideas with your group Make a chart of the top ten ways to use writing. Share with the class.

Finding the Perfect Writing Place

Where do you Write? Bedroom Cafe Office Beach Library Outside Dining Room Table By a lake In the car Sitting on the floor In a quiet place In a place with music At the playground

Creating a Writing Environment Find a good place to write Plan your time to write Select your materials Establish a method for saving your work Create an inviting atmosphere Minimize distractions

Assignment In your assigned groups, create a PowerPoint presentation of the ideal writing place. Be creative Use graphics. A slide for each member showing the ideal writing space A combined place that shows everyone’s idea.

Facts about Sentences A complete sentence contains a subject, a verb, and a complete thought. A fragment is lacking either a subject, verb, or complete thought. A run on (fused) sentence is one sentence that goes into the other without punctuation. A comma splice is two sentences joined together with a comma.

Fixing Run on Sentences Fix a run on sentence using a comma and a conjunction. See the fanboys, page 397. A semicolon between the two sentences will fix a run on. Create two new sentences. See page 396.

Fixing Comma Splices Place one of the FANBOYS after the comma. Turn the comma into a semicolon. Create two new sentences. See page 398

Mixed Constructions A mixed construction happens when a sentence does not make sense. This means the first part does not fit with the second part of the sentence. Let’s practice with page 399 Here is a great website for extra information: /confusion.htm /confusion.htm

NOW BACK TO THE ASSIGNMENT

The rhetorical Star

Subject You need to determine what topic to cover. What is the specific message that you want to convey to your readers? Choose an appropriate subject that fits within the parameters of your assignment. Make sure your topic is narrow enough that you can adequately cover it in your document.

Audience Consider your readers. Are you writing for a particular discourse community (a group of people who share common interests, knowledge, and values related to a particular subject)? Each of us belongs to a number of discourse communities such as school clubs, social or religious groups, and professional organizations. Each group has its own vocabulary and conventions of communication, called jargon.

Purpose Determine your reason for writing. Why are you writing? What are you hoping to accomplish? What effect do you wish to have on your audience? Write to inform Write to interpret Write to persuade Write to Entertain Write to express feelings Combination

Strategy You’ll need to choose an approach that best serves your purpose and audience. In this textbook you will learn about eight major writing strategies: narrating, describing, explaining a process, comparing or contrasting, explaining causes or effects, persuading, solving a problem, and evaluating.

Design Think about how you are going to design your document. Consider the design expectations of your instructor or boss and the discourse community for which you are writing. Determine the genre, format, length, appearance, and visual aids that are appropriate for your document.

Design Genre: What type of document do you need to write? Format: How should you structure your writing? Some instructors may allow you to turn in handwritten informal assignments, but others will require that you use a computer to write all assignments.

Design Length: How long should your document be? Is there a word or page minimum(or limit)? If your instructor does not specify a length, then let the topic guide you. Be sure to fully develop each point that you want to make. Appearance: How should your document look? Find out if you need to single-space or double- space your papers. Typically, if you single-space a paper, you will begin each paragraph at the left margin. However, if you double-space a paper, you will need to indent each paragraph.

Design Visual aids: Would adding visual aids enhance your paper? Often pictures, diagrams, charts, or graphs will help get your ideas across to your audience.

See Page 10 in the textbook

The Writing Process Chapter 2

The Writing Process

Step 1: Discovering During this step you will explore your subject. You have several options for going about the discovery process. Your goal is to come up with a topic and generate ideas about it.

Brainstorming Write whatever comes to mind about your topic This can be written all over the page Do not worry about grammar or spelling Use arrows, boxes, question marks, boxes, circles, doodles, or whatever you can think of to explore ideas

Example of Brainstorming

Listing List all the ideas that you can think of that relate to your subject. Listing is different from brainstorming because it's focused on a specific topic. There are no wrong ideas at this point. Keep writing for about 10 minutes. Then review your list to see which ideas you like and which you want to eliminate. Put an “X” next to items you think won't be useful, but don't cross them out because you may change your mind.

Example of Listing Here's a sample list on the subject of having a career rather than just a job: greater financial reward better attitude higher interest level greater self-esteem better potential for development learning experience more required skills and training more advancement opportunities long term instead of short term larger contribution to the community greater sense of satisfaction using talents to do something well professionalism necessary higher education required status symbol

Freewritng Take 10 or 15 minutes to write everything that comes to mind about your topic. This discovery method is like brainstorming and listing except that you use complete sentences when you freewrite. See the example on page 17 in your text.

Questioning Consider the journalist's questions as you try to discover ideas about your subject: Who? What? When? Where? Why? How? Write everything you can think of for each question. Afterward, you can decide which ideas seem relevant and you would like to investigate further. Use your answers as a starting point for your essay. This technique works especially well for informative pieces, narrative writing (storytelling), and problem solving

Other Ideas Journaling: Begin keeping a daily writer's journal (paper or electronic) where you jot down ideas that pop into your head. Sketching: Even if you don't have an artistic side, you may find that doodling or drawing will help you generate ideas about your topic, especially if you are a visual person Talking: You may find it useful to bounce your ideas off classmates, friends, co-workers, or family members.

More… Talking: You may find it useful to bounce your ideas off classmates, friends, co-workers, or family members. Reading: Sometimes you may find it helpful to read what others have written about your topic. Viewing: Often you'll find that looking at a photograph, painting, advertisement, television show, film, or Web site will stir your emotions and inspire you to write.

Step 2: Planning After you have your topic and some supporting ideas, you are ready to plan your essay. Having a plan will help you have a better finished product. The following slides will help plan your essay.

Planning Ideas Narrowing Your Focus: Often the ideas that writers generate during the discovery stage of the writing process are too broad to fully develop in a short paper. Determining Main Points: After your focus is clear, decide what main points you want to cover in your essay. You will need enough main points to fully support your thesis.

Clustering Write your topic in the center of the page and draw a circle around it. Draw several lines out from your topic. At the end of each line, write a main idea and circle it. Then draw lines radiating out from each main idea. At the end of each line, write supporting ideas that relate to the circled word it connects to and so on

Graphic Organizers Developing graphic organizers can help you plan and organize your essays. They can enable you to see the relationships among your ideas so that you can put them into a logical order before composing your first draft.

More Planning Ordering Ideas: After you've completed a cluster or rough graphic organizer, you'll need to decide how to arrange your main points logically in your paper. Some writers find that simply listing the main points works best for them. Outlining: One purpose for creating an outline is to help you organize your writing. To develop an informal outline, note each main point that you plan to cover in your essay, and then list the ideas that you want to include with each point. See page 22 in the text.

Step 3: Composing After the topic is planned and organized, you are ready to begin composing your essay. The first time you write, just get your ideas down on the paper. Do not aim for perfection. Write the easiest part first. In a short essay, write a paragraph about each main point. Take breaks

Step 4: Getting Feedback Conferences: One technique that you can use to get feedback on your assignment is to have a conference with your instructor, if possible. You could also get feedback from the writing studio. Peer Review: Participating in a peer review exercise is a great way to improve your writing. Your instructor may give you an opportunity to complete a peer review activity in class. Usually this means that you pair up with another student (or a group of students) and provide each other with constructive criticism (ideas for improvement) about each other's drafts. See page 26.

Step 5: Revising Many writers are tempted to take that first draft, correct the “mistakes,” and then turn it in. If you do that, you will be skipping one of the most important steps. Good writers typically spend more time revising than working on any other step of the writing process.

Revising Adding and deleting ideas ( see page 27) Developing Arranging As you are revising your paper, move sentences and paragraphs around to see what flows better and makes more sense. If you are revising on a computer, the cutting and pasting features in your word processing program will simplify this procedure

Step 6: Editing Edit the paper for –Subjects and verbs –End Marks –Commas –Quotation Marks –Colons and Semicolons –Commonly Confused Words –Abbreviations –Numbers

Also Edit for Word Choice Sentence Structure Grammar Punctuation Spelling Mechanics

Proofreading After you have finished revising and editing, be sure to proofread your final paper. As you read your paper this time, you are looking for the really nitpicky details, such as repeated words and typographical errors, that you may have overlooked previously. After you have proofread for the last time, be sure to submit your essay in the correct format. Is your paper supposed to be double-spaced? Are you expected to turn in a hard copy, an electronic version, or both? Have you followed all of the directions for the assignment? Following your instructor's guidelines is an important part of the assignment