Writing 100 (Fall 2006)

Today, we’ll:

1) Go over the weekly agenda.

2) Exchange drafts in peer review groups that couldn’t meet on Friday.

3) Review assignment goals and identify how your thesis statements achieve those goals.

Please identify the thesis statements from your drafts that expresses the positions that people hold and your position on the issue and why you hold it. You’ll be asked to read it to the class.

4) Discuss how appeals are used to develop and support ideas in academic papers.

• Logos (“logical appeals”): Appeals based on facts and evidence

• Ethos (“ethical appeals”): Appeals based on your character or position, or the character or position of your sources

• Pathos (“emotional appeals”): Appeals based on making people feel a strong emotion (anger, sadness, joy, happiness, outrage)

Where in your draft are you using each of these appeals? Highlight where they are using different types of appeals. Do you think that your paper could be strengthened by using other types of appeals? Where might you use them?

5) Review principles for using and attributing sources in order to create appeals.
Key Ideas

• You need to cite sources for anything that isn’t common knowledge.

• You need to provide citations as close to the source as possible so that readers know what information comes from a source and what information comes from you.
• You need to provide context for sources so that readers can assess the source’s credibility and understand how it develops your argument.
• You need to attribute sources by using in MLA style.

6) Review your draft for places where you need to revise for use of sources or attribution of sources.

Use the MLA checklist to review your draft for revisions that you need to make in your use of sources.

Assignments For Next Class

Continue revising; bring a clean copy of your draft to class.

Monday, December 4

Today we’ll discuss thesis statements, development, and revising for use and attribution of sources.

Assignments For Next Class

Continue revising; bring a clean copy of your draft to class.

Wednesday, December 6

Today we’ll discuss how to revise your drafts in order to make them more concise and to correct patterns of error.

Assignments For Next Class

Final draft of position paper due: please attach the instructor’s comments and your peer review comments to your final draft.

Friday, December 8

Today you’ll turn in your final drafts. We’ll wrap up the course and conduct course evaluations.

Today, we’ll:

1) Meet in peer review groups to exchange drafts and discuss feedback.

In your groups, please answer the following questions:

• What’s missing from the paper?

• What does the writer need to do to meet all of the criteria for the assignment?
• What should be the writer’s priorities for revision?

2) Discuss how storyboarding can be used to critically consider content.

Sometimes it can be useful to assess where you are and where you’re going, and to think about how your plans have changed. A useful way to think about these things is to build a storyboard. People often use storyboards to plan out multimedia projects such as animations, movies, Web pages, and games, but they can also be useful for text-based projects.

In a storyboard, you sketch out the major events that have to happen in your paper using text and/or pictures. You put each major concept or idea down and discuss how they need to be organized and what transitions need to be made. Then you use the storyboard as an illustration while you explain the story to people.

Sample Storyboards:

• Example One
• Example Two
• Example Three

3) Create a a storyboard for your drafts.

• Start by making a card for each of the concepts in your draft.

• Arrange the “story” of your paper as represented by your draft in front of you. What’s missing? What needs to be re-arranged?
• Add cards where things are missing.
• Re-arrange the cards so that they represent a logical progression of ideas.

4) Have someone else review your materials and create their own storyboard.

• Shuffle the cards and give them to someone else.

• Ask them to arrange them in an order that makes sense to them and to add anything that might be missing.
• Is the order they put the cards in the same as the one you had? Do they see anything missing that you didn’t?
• Create an arrangment of cards that represents how you will organize your draft and what your next draft will contain.

5) Receive written comments on your drafts from the instructor.

Assignment for Next Class

Work on revising your drafts.

Today, we’ll:

1) Review principles for peer review.

• Describe, then suggest.
• Help the writer understand what you see as their claim, reasons, thesis, and organization.
• Identify places where the use of sources is unclear.
• Help the writer identify key problems or patterns of error that they can fix.

2) Practice peer review with a sample paper.

3) Exchange drafts for peer review and work on completing some of it.

Assignments For Next Class

Complete peer review sheets; bring them to class on Friday.
Continue to work on your drafts.

Monday, November 27

Today we’ll briefly review what needs to be in your draft, and then class will end early to give you time to work on your drafts.
Assignments For Next Class

FIRST DRAFT DUE: BRING THREE COPIES TO CLASS ON WEDNESDAY.

Wednesday, November 29

Today we’ll review principles for peer review. Then we’ll practice them with a sample paper Finally, you’ll exchange drafts in groups, and work on some peer review.

Assignments For Next Class

Complete position paper peer review sheets; bring them to class on Friday.
Work on revising position paper.

Friday, December 1

Today you’ll have a peer review discussion. Then we’ll discuss and practice strategies for revising for focus and development and revising for structure and organization.
Assignments For Next Class

Work on revising position paper.

Today, we’ll:

1) Discuss what do paragraphs do in essays.

• Separate thoughts and aspects of an idea

• Describe, explain, persuade, narrate, divide and classify, compare, contrast, etc.

A typical paragraph in academic writing is composed of five or more sentences, depending on sentence construction and length. Shorter paragraphs are used on occasion to add emphasis. Longer paragraphs are sometimes necesssary when the topic is complex or requires precise argument or numerous examples.

2) Discuss and practice the principles of unity and coherence.

All paragraphs need to obey principles for unity and coherence.

Unity

• In academic writing,readers expect a paragraph’s sentences to cluster around a central idea or theme. This tight focus on one main idea is known as paragraph unity.

• The topic sentence states the subject and the approach to the subject,just as the thesis statement does for some longer pieces of writing.
• The other sentences all stick to this idea and this approach.
• Check to be sure each sentence has a direct relationship with the topic sentence. If it doesn’t, you should take it out, perhaps saving it for another paragraph if the idea is important to your project. If several sentences seem to go off the topic, you may need to develop them into a separate paragraph.

Coherence

• Keep the Topic in the Forefront of the Reader’s Mind
  Coherence in a paragraph is derived from the network of relationships between the topic,unifying idea,or theme and the other sentences,as well as the flow of information from one sentence to the next. Coherent paragraphs have sentences that flow easily and effectively,and the connections between the sentences and their ideas remain clear at all times. Coherence can be hard to maintain, especially when the unifying idea is abstract. Narratives tend to be easier for readers to follow because they (usually) follow a chronological sequence,although even in narratives,coherence must be checked.But in other forms of writing,coherence has to be managed by attending carefully to sentence and paragraph topics,making sure that readers understand how each sentence connects with a unifying idea.

• Stay with the Topic from Sentence to Sentence
  A topic is the focus of a sentence;it is what your reader remembers about the sentence. When you keep the same topic in the forefront of a reader’s mind, shifting only slightly to variations as a paragraph develops,your writing will be more coherent.When writers shift the topic in sentence after sentence,the writing becomes incoherent.
• Include lexical ties and parallel structure to help readers move from topic to topic. (Transitions, pronouns, and punctuation.) Use synonyms to help create lexical ties.
  • Key words can be repeated in several sentences

  • Synonymous words can be repeated in several sentences
  • Pronouns can refer to nouns in previous sentences
  • Transition words can be used to link ideas from different sentences
• Repeat grammatical patterns within and across sentences to create a consistent and familiar framework for reading your ideas.

3) Apply these principles to the paragraph you brought to class.

Assignment for Next Class

First draft due: bring three copies to class.

Today, we’ll:

1) Discuss ways that people can use research.

• To provide evidence or examples: you’re presenting information from an article as an example (to inform the audience) or as evidence (to help persuade the argument). In both cases, the information from the source develops one of your reasons and supports your claim. 

You’ll need to provide evidence and examples in both the informative and persuasive portions of your paper. 


• To extend your thinking: “the article becomes a launching place for my own thinking rather than an argument for or against the author’s position” (Ballenger 144). You can use someone else’s ideas to help explain or develop your thoughts on a particular issue – you use their ideas as a springboard to talk about yours. 

You’ll need to present your own ideas in the persuasive portion of your paper, and jumping off someone else’s ideas or words is a good way to do that. 

• To analyze or interpret someone else’s work: You analyze or “unpack” someone else’s ideas and discuss their significance and meaning (or question their significance or meaning).


2) Discuss questions to ask when including sources.

Why do I need to include information from a source? What’s the purpose of including information? What is the source doing to help me support my claim and develop my reasons? (Providing evidence or example, extending thinking, offering example for analysis or critique)

How much information from the source do I need to provide to accomplish this purpose?

• A quotation of a specific passage that focuses on a specific idea to provide a specific example?

• A summary of everything in the article to give a general overview of a position or issue?
• A paraphrase of a few paragraphs, a few lines, or a page to convey a specific idea?

How do I provide context for the source so that the reader understands why I’m using it and how it develops my reasons and supports my claim?

• Providing attributive tags that give an explanation of why the source is being used.

• Paraphrasing and summarizing so that the author’s ideas are in my own words
• Writing sentences before and after the use of a source that expand on the author’s ideas (analyze them, compare and contrast them with other ideas [including yours], provide your ideas, discuss them

How do I make it clear where someone else’s ideas start and stop?

• Attributive tags

• Parenthetical citations

3) Discuss things to avoid when using sources.

• Using sources to avoid doing your own writing: the “patchwork quilt” effect

• Failing to provide context for sources so that readers understand why you’re using them
• Failing to use sources to do something in your writing
• Failing to introduce quotations with an attributive tag
• Failing to provide in-text citations or doing in-text citations incorrectly

4) Do an activity where you examine someone else’s use of sources and rewrite them to be correct.

• Determine what the author meant to do with the source

• Determine what problems there are with using the source in the way that the author has done
• Rewrite the source to use information more effectively and to cite it correctly

5) Reflect on how this applies to your research projects.

Assignment For Next Class

Write sample paragraph of your paper; bring it to class.

Today, we’ll:

1) Review different tasks that you have to accomplish in your paper:

• Discussing various perspectives/providing background (informative claim and reasons)

• Taking your own position on an issue and justifying it to the reader (argumentative/persuasive claim and reasons)

Today we’re going to talk specifically about how you develop your argumentative claim and reasons.

When you take a position on an issue, you develop a claim and reasons, and then you use what are called appeals to develop your reasons and support your position.

2) Discuss the dfferent types of rhetorical appeals.

• Logos (“logical appeals”): Appeals based on facts and evidence
For example: Showing how much cheaper robot-based missions to Mars are by preparing a chart that compares the cost of manned missions to the cost of robot-based missions and citing sources for where I got the funding information. Most academic writing relies on logos-based appeals.

• Ethos (“ethical appeals”): Appeals based on your character or position, or the character or position of your sources
Using my position as a future rocket scientist and my knowledge as a member of the field to justify my claims. (Beware of slipping into appeal to authority.) Ethos-based appeals are probably the least-used type of appeal in most writing.
• Pathos (“emotional appeals”): Appeals based on making people feel a strong emotion (anger, sadness, joy, happiness, outrage)
Making people feel outraged that their tax dollars are being “wasted” on ineffecient manned missions when they could be spent more effectively on robot-based missions. Making people feel happy that we can learn more about the planets in our solar system by supporting these missions. Most commercials and political campaigns rely on pathos-based appeals.

It’s important to be able to identify these types of appeals in other people’s writing and to construct these types of appeals in your own writing. Today we’re going to look at how these appeals are used in a piece of writing and then you’ll consider how you can use them in your own writing.

3) Examine a piece of argumentative writing for its claim and reasons and its use of appeals.

Using the copies of “A Modest Proposal” which you read for today, please complete the analysis exercises in your groups. Then we’ll discuss them as a class.

4) Consider how you could use rhetorical appeals to develop your claim and reasons and persuade your reader.

Assignment for Next Class

Read pp. 358-369 in Norton Field Guide to Writing

Today, we’ll:

1) Go over the weekly agenda.

2) Discuss and define arguments.

• Claim and reasons: the heart of an argument

• Claim: Statement about the world/reality/existence/change: “X is…” X should be… The reasons for why X happened are…
• Reasons: Categories of evidence that support and develop the claim. “Because YZ”
• You can look for the claim and reasons to help you analyze and dissect an argument, or to help you generate your own argument.

3) Identify and discuss a sample argument.

• Please read the sample argument and complete a claim and reasons structure for it.

• Work in groups to compare claim and reasons structures for the sample argument and draw them on the board.

4) Create claim and reasons structures for your papers.
For your papers, you have two claims and reasons to set up:

• Informative claim: describing and classifying positions or perspectives and the evidence used to support them

• For example: Different groups and individuals argue that the majority of NASA’s funding should be allocated to manned missions to Mars or robot-based missions to Mars because of the possibilities for research, the potential for success, and the cost-effectiveness of each type of mission.
• Argumentative claim: taking a position of your own and providing reasons and evidence
• For example: NASA should allocate the majority of its funding to robot-based missions because they are more cost-effective, can relay information for longer periods of time, and are more efficient and cost-effective than human missions.

Please generate informative claims and argumentative claims. Do you feel like you are missing reasons or evidence that could support or develop either claim?

Assignments For Next Class

Read “A Modest Proposal”
Read pp. 250-254 in Norton Field Guide to Writing.