1 CM 220 UNIT 5 Seminar: Understanding Your Audience General Education, Composition Kaplan University By Thompson

Unit 5 Reading/Listening ReadingWhere to find Intro to Unit: The invention of the printing press, audience Click on unit 5 reading icon The Kaplan Guide to Successful Writing, chapters 7 and 22 Posted in Doc Sharing’s reading folder 2 editorial articles Podcasts argument and purpose And audience Hot links are found under Reading link Hot links are found under the Reading link 2

Unit 5 Tech Lab: Podcasts and Video 3

Unit 5 Invention Labs Invention Lab: Formal and informal communications of big idea (letter to editor and post on Facebook, for example). Please be certain to look at the examples, listen to the podcasts, and visit the Writing Center links before completing your posts 4

GETTING STARTED AND MAPPING IDEAS The Writing Process 5

Getting Started with Your Big Idea In unit 6, you will submit a 3-5 page draft of your Big Idea. Why is beginning early, in unit 5, helpful to you as a writer? What can you do to GET STARTED? 6

Common Prewriting Techniques Freewriting Brainstorming Bubbling Clustering See ch. 6 of The Kaplan Guide to Successful Writing for more on the writing process. Listing Informal outlining Annotating Questioning 7

Organizational Tools The site on graphic organizers at has links to various charts that might be helpful to start mapping ideas for the draft. 8

Bubbling Chart: Food Additives 9 Food additives—are they dangerous? Decreasing nutritional value of food? Compare ingredients and nutritional value Health risks?Cancer Rising obesity rates Impact on brain development? Neurological disorders (Parkinsons, Alzheimers, ADD ) Changing what we grow and how we grow it? Farmers growing more corn, soybeans (used in many of the additives like HFCS)

Listing chart: Banning cigarettes Main pointsSupport from sources? Audience concerns to address Examples I could use Cigarettes are bad for everyone’s health, smokers and non-smokers alike Surgeon General (warnings), medical reports on second- hand and third- hand smoke effects Should the government outlaw everything that is bad for us (fast food, etc.?) Childhood asthma and allergies, even ear infections, often tied into parents’ smoking Those horrible pictures they showed in elementary school of black lungs of smokers! 10

Organizing and Developing Your Ideas Establish a thesis Consider writing an outline (it can be changed later) Take the ideas in the outline and brainstorm each concept/argument Begin researching and incorporating evidence to support your argument/claims 11

AUDIENCE AND PURPOSE The next step 12

Audience and Purpose Why is paying attention to your audience and purpose KEY to successful persuasion? Who is the audience you would like to communicate to? What do you know about them and what do you need to know about them? What do you want to communicate to that audience? How can you best communicate your information to that audience? 13

Letters to the Editor 14

Letters to the Editor: Topics Pappas, G.A. (2012, January 2). Closing the suspension gap in D.C.- area schools. [Editorial]. The Washington Post. Retrieved from suspension-gap-in-dc-area- schools/2012/01/01/gIQAsCXqWP_story.html.December 30, suspension-gap-in-dc-area- schools/2012/01/01/gIQAsCXqWP_story.html.December 30, 2011 December 30, 2011 “No Simple Solution to Universities’ Budget Woes,” which are selected readers’ responses to a Washington Post article published on December 27, 2011, titled “Investment in Public’s Ivory Towers Is Eroding” at universities-budget-woes/2011/12/28/gIQAPEcBRP_story.html universities-budget-woes/2011/12/28/gIQAPEcBRP_story.html 15

Letters to the Editor: Discussion Are these letters effective? What is the argument each makes? Are the authors and publications credible? Are the facts that the authors use credible? You can go to FactCheck.org to read credible information on this topic. FactCheck.org Select at least one argument in each letter that you can verify, or not, and discuss how this adds to or detracts from the writer’s argument. 16

Tips for Writing Editorial Letters Keep it short and simple (maximum 250 words) Let readers know who you are Know that editors have right to alter your submission Only submit to one publication at a time (wait for acceptance or rejection) opinion-editorial-piece-or-letter-to-the-editor/ 17

What other forms might I use to present my big idea to a wider audience? Post on Facebook page Blog post to friend Flyer to distribute to community Twitter feed Letter to specific audience (say, the school board) 18

Helpful Writing Center Tutorials TopicURL link to Archive Audience and Purposehttp://khe2.acrobat.com/p / ?launcher=false&fcsContent=true&pb Mode=normal Developing Ideashttp://khe2.acrobat.com/p / ?launcher=false&fcsContent=true&pb Mode=normal Avoiding Writer’s Blockhttp://khe2.acrobat.com/p / ?launcher=false&fcsContent=true&pb Mode=normal 19

Reference The University of British Columbia. (n.d.) Writing an effective opinion-editorial piece or letter to the editor. Retrieved from faculty-staff/writing-an-effective-opinion-editorial- piece-or-letter-to-the-editor/ 20

APOSTROPHES Unit 5 grammar workshop 21

Rules 1.Use apostrophes with nouns to indicate possession: everyone’s dream, Jane’s jacket 2.Do NOT use with possessive pronouns (its, his, hers, yours, theirs, ours) 3.Do NOT use with plurals (Americans, citizens) unless they are showing possession: Americans’ values, citizens’ rights 4.With multiple nouns, use apostrophes depending upon meaning: Bill and Jane’s wedding (one wedding), Julie’s and Kathy’s weddings (two separate weddings) 22

Rules 5. Use apostrophes for contractions to show omitted letters: will not = won’t, I am = I’m 6. Use apostrophes to mark certain plural forms (letters, symbols, and words referred to as words): Sassafrass has 4 s’s. 7. APA recommends omitting the apostrophe for plurals of numbers and acronyms: PCs, 1990s 23