1. Understanding Narration
Narrative writers retell events to readers and relive the experiences themselves.
Types
Description
Personal Essay
Is similar to a personal narrative in that it shares an event or experience but also reflects on the significant of the event or experience
Autobiography and Memoir
Provides a detailed account of a specific aspect of the writer’s life
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2. Reviewing Your Narrative Essay
Check your organization and content
Use a Timeline
Did you follow key actions in the order they occur?
Does your narrative answer the 5 W’s and H
Who? What? When? Where? Why? How?
Record Sensory Details
Did you include sensory details—sight, sound, smell, taste and touch
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3. Your Personal Narrative
Your narrative should focus on a special moment in your life. Take a fresh look at your topic:
Review your timeline to verify that you have organized your details chronologically.
Add showing details to make your story interesting. They include, sight, sound, smell, taste and touch but also:
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4. Revising the Writing
Improve your writing by making nouns, verbs, and modifiers more specific.
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Form-class Words
Nouns
Verbs
Adjectives
adverbs
brilliantly
beautiful
secret
happy
virtue
Infinitely
angered
hunger
perfectly
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6. Editing the Writing
Include dialogue in your narrative to reveal the personalities of the people involved in the story.
(someone’s exact words)
(reporting rather quoting exactly)
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7. Editing the Writing
Correctly punctuate dialogue:

8. Editing the Narrative Before submitting your narrative:
Use an editing checklist (Figure 10.8) to revise for style and correctness
Finish by adding an attention-getting title
Use a phrase from the piece
Use a main idea
Paint a picture in the readers’ minds
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More Editing Advice
Revision is not merely correcting your spelling and grammar and inserting a few commas.
Revision stage strategies:
reorganizing
cutting
adding details
polishing
There are two parts to the revision stage: small-scale revision and large-scale revision.
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Large Scale Revision
Large-scale revision alters the proportions of an essay.
Are all paragraphs fully developed?
Large-scale revision also rearranges the sequence of the body paragraphs.
Is spatial organization used correctly with paragraphs?
Is chronological organization used correctly to connect paragraphs?
Is Climactic order used effectively?
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Small Scale Revision
Small-scale revision involves looking at the words, phrases and sentences.
Check your verbs. The majority of your verbs should be action verbs; they should not be passive verbs.
Check your words; make sure they are concise and specific.
Check you phrases; place most of your phrases either just before or just after the word they modify.
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Small Scale Revision
Check your sentences.
Your essay should contain a mix of simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex sentences.
Pay attention to sentence length.
Remember to use short sentences only for emphasis.
Your essay should contain a good mix of long and short sentences.
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