Process writing

What are we going to do?

This is a course that focuses on the writing of expository prose, ie the kind of text required in academic and other
official kinds of writing.
The main aim of the course is to help students
generate ideas and
work out a coherent argument from an initial presentation to a logical conclusion.
What is writing?
Writing is not just a question of finding words for a set of ready-made ideas.
Rather, it is a method for finding and working out what it is we want to say.
Differences between speaking and writing
In a face-to-face situation, there is constant interaction between speaker and listener, and the speaker can see
immediately whether or not (s)he has been understood.
A writer, however, does not get this immediate feedback, so he must organize his language so that the reader can
follow his thoughts without difficulty. A reader should not have to be a mind-reader. All the time as a writer you
must put yourself in your readers shoes. (p 15)
The special nature of writing thus means that you will not necessarily be a good writer just because you speak
English fluently. (p 16)
Formal and informal writing
Informal writing: diaries, post-cards, journals / logs, preliminary stages of formal writing. Intended for personal
use.
Formal writing: Needs more correctness and coherence
How does one become a better writer?
Youll discover how well you write, how excited you feel when you have something you really want to
communicate to someone else.
It is important when you write a composition to begin by drawing on the rich store of ideas, information, feelings
and curiosity which you have gained from your experience of living and studying.
Learn some techniques to generate ideas and to help you get started.
Write, write and rewrite. Writing is hard work.

Stages in the writing process

Brainstormin
g
Preparation
for writing

First
rough
draft

Response
from fellow
students /
teacher

Rewriting
Second
rough
draft

New response
New Rewriting
New drafts

Final
product

Generating ideas
-

Brainstorming
Mind Mapping
Charting
Story Boarding
Free Writing
Interviewing
Sketching
Outlining
Reading relevant texts (and underlining passages, words)
Making lists of words / phrases that might be useful
Making lists of questions that can be addressed

Freewriting
Many writing instructors use a freewriting exercise at the beginning of each class. It's a way of getting the brain
in gear, and it's an exercise you can do on your own, safe to try in your own home. (We provide an interactive
page for this exercise, see below.) Write down a topic at the top of that empty page. It can be either a one-word
topic like "Dentists," for example or a brief statement of the topic you've chosen or been given to write
about. Set the clock for five to ten minutes and put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard and go at it. Write as fast
as you can; the faster the better. You are not allowed to stop writing! If you can't think of anything to say, write
down that you can't think of anything to say, something like: "I'm stuck but I'll think of something soon." Don't
stop. Don't worry about transitions or connecting the ideas or paragraphing or subject-verb agreement or even
commas. And form absolutely no judgment about what you write. Your Censor is on vacation. Your writing may
take you in some really weird directions, but don't stop and never think to yourself, "Oh, this is dumb!" If you
get off the subject, that's all right. Your divagation may end up somewhere wonderful. Just keep writing. Do not
criticize yourself and do not cut or scratch out or revise in any way. Many instructors suggest that at the end of
the timed period, you should write one sentence IN ALL CAPS that takes you back to where you started
something to do with dentists.

It's probably a good idea to read your freewriting out loud when you're done with it. Often the ear will pick up
some pattern or neat idea that you hadn't noticed even as you wrote it. Read your freewriting to a friend or have
your friend read it out to you. Your friend might think you're insane, but that's all right. Then it's time to spend
just a couple of minutes going through the freewriting with an aim toward casual rewriting. The word-processor
is a big advantage here. Delete the "I can't think of anything to say" lines and the pure nonsense. Are any ideas or
patterns emerging?
Don't give up on freewriting after one exercise. Many students think that it's boring or stupid at first and come to
love it after a week or so of exercises. Freewriting is like any other kind of mental activity: you will get better at
it. The first couple of times you try it, perhaps nothing will come of it. After a few efforts, though, the exercise
will become liberating. Just as you would never start to play tennis or jog without stretching a bit first, you will
never try to write again without doing a bit of freewriting first. Sometimes, even in the middle of an essay, when
stuck for the next idea, you can do a bit of freewriting to get you going again.
Clustering
Clustering is similar to another process called Brainstorming. Clustering is something that you can do on your
own or with friends or classmates to try to find inspiration in the connection between ideas. The process is
similar to freewriting in that as you jot down ideas on a piece of paper or on the blackboard, you mustn't allow
that ugly self-censor to intrude and say that your idea (or anyone else's) is dumb or useless. Write it down
anyway. In Clustering, you jot down only words or very short phrases. Use different colored pens as ideas seem
to suggest themselves in groups. Use printing or longhand script to suggest that ideas are main thoughts or
supportive ideas. Don't bother to organize too neatly, though, because that can impede the flow of ideas. Don't
cross anything out because you can't tell where an idea will lead you. When you get a few ideas written down,
you can start to group them, using colored circles or whatever. Draw linking lines as connections suggest
themselves.
Below is a finished example of Clustering. It is printed here with permission of the aforementioned Thruston
Parry. The assignment was to write a Cause and Effect Paper on the weather phenomenon known as El Nio. If
you have a very fast modem connection or you're working in a computer lab, you can click HERE or on the
image below for an animated sequence showing how the clustering might have happened. (A large image file
--532 kb -- is involved, and we don't encourage you to download it without a fast connection; if the download
stalls, you can return to this page by clicking on the RETURN link below the image, or you can click on STOP
and then BACK.)

Points to Ponder:

Do you think you could write an essay based on the ideas clustered here?
Can you draw additional links between concepts?
Are there ideas listed above that you'd reject as irrelevant or too much to deal
with?
Can you think of some ideas (or a whole set of ideas) that should have been
included but weren't?
What about the causes of El Nio? Should they be included in this essay?
Can you come up with a Thesis Statement that would be appropriate for an
essay based on this clustering of ideas?

Outlining
It might prove useful to organize the ideas that suggest themselves during the freewriting and clustering
exercises into a preliminary outline form. It is possible to write a paper without an outline, but it might suggest
that your paper lacks organization if it proves impossible to write an outline that describes the thinking process
behind your paper. Outlining never hurt; how helpful it is depends on what kind of thinker you are. At the least, a
tentative outline can suggest areas in which your paper needs additional work or supporting details to bolster
main ideas or, on the other hand, areas which have too much emphasis and need to be pruned down to avoid an
imbalance. It might also help you to see how ideas are related and where connections or transitions are necessary
between sections of your paper. Furthermore, the outline will help you visualize how ideas fit within the thesis
statement that is taking shape in your mind. Remember that your outline is only a tentative skeleton to hang
ideas on; limbs can be lopped off or added as the writing proceeds. Your instructor might require you to submit a
formal outline for approval before you write your paper or to go along with your final draft. If that is so, this
tentative outlining process will serve you well later on.
The Guide to Writing Research Papers has a special section on writing outlines, and we recommend you
review that material. From that document, here is one image (below) that might prove especially helpful, a
sample outline (from the MLA Handbook) of another proposed paper. The important thing to notice about
it is how supporting details are arranged beneath more important ideas and the outline branches out
(toward the right) as ideas become more supportive in nature. Logic demands that an "A" be followed by
a "B." (If there is no "B," maybe there shouldn't be an "A," or "A" should be incorporated into the paper
in some other way.)

Based on the MLA's sample, here is Thruston Parry's tentative outline for his proposed paper on the
effects of El Nio:
I.

Disastrous Weather Effects

A.
December Ice Storm in Maine
1.
huge power outage
2.
schools out 2 wks
3.
jobs lost
4.
cost in trees
5.
replacing power poles, etc.
B.
Rains in CA
1.
mudslides
2.
highways ripped apart
3.
expensive homes in ocean
4.
insurance costs
C.
Weather in FL
1.
Killer tornadoes
2.
freeze in March
a.
dead oranges
b.
costs of other fruits
D.
Other Disasters

II.

III.

II.

A. Flash floods in AZ
B. ????
Not so bad effects
A.
Mild winter in New England
B.
Flowers in Death Valley Desert
C.
Skiing conditions in CO
D.
Mild winter in upper plains
Long-term effects
A.
Power lines go underground
B.
Landscape
1.
trees
2.
????
Really important effects
A.
Sense of powerlessness
B.
Fear of next winter

Points to Ponder:

Are we closer to being able to write a paper than we were before we created the outline?
Do any transitions between ideas suggest themselves?
Is anything left out of our outline? Would you have organized the thoughts in the clustering exercise
differently?
Does the outline seem balanced or is part of it overwhelming the rest?
There is no Thesis Statement yet. Does the outline help us resolve what that controlling idea might
be?
Before finally sitting down to write our paper on El Nio, we might check out what we can find out
about it on the internet at a site like this one from the Environmental News Network -- being careful,
of course, to give proper credit for any ideas we borrow and not to let the thoughts of others
overshadow our own good ideas.

The First Paragraph

Things NOT to do in an introductory paragraph:

Apologize. Never suggest that you don't know what you're talking about or that you're not enough of
an expert in this matter that your opinion would matter. Your reader will quickly turn to something
else. Avoid phrases like the following:
In my [humble] opinion . . .
I'm not sure about this, but . . .

Announce your intentions. Do not flatly announce what you are about to do in an essay.
In this paper I will . . .
The purpose of this essay is to . . .

Get into the topic and let your reader perceive your purpose in the topic sentence of your beginning
paragraph.

Use a dictionary or encyclopedia definition.

According to Merriam-Webster's WWWebster Dictionary,
a widget is . . .

Although definitions are extremely useful and it might serve your purpose to devise your own
definition(s) later in the essay, you want to avoid using this hackneyed beginning to an essay.

Dilly-dally. Get to it. Move confidently into your essay. Many writers find it useful to write a warm-up
paragraph (or two, even) to get them into the essay, to sharpen their own idea of what they're up to, and
then they go back and delete the running start.

The following material is adapted from a handout prepared by Harry Livermore for his high school English
classes at Cook High School in Adel, Georgia. It is used here with his permission.

Students are told from the first time they receive instruction in English composition that their introductory
paragraphs should accomplish two tasks:
1.
2.

They should get the reader's interest so that he or she will want to read more.
They should let the reader know what the writing is going to be about.

The second task can be accomplished by a carefully crafted thesis statement. Writing thesis statements can be
learned rather quickly. The first task securing the reader's interest is more difficult. It is this task that this
discussion addresses.
First, admit that it is impossible to say or do or write anything that will interest everybody. With that out of the
way, the question then becomes: "What can a writer do that will secure the interest of a fair sized audience?"
Professional writers who write for magazines and receive pay for their work use five basic patterns to grab a
reader's interest:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

historical review
anecdotal
surprising statement
famous person
declarative

What follows is an explanation of each of these patterns with examples from real magazine articles to illustrate
the explanations.
1 Historical review: Some topics are better understood if a brief historical review of the topic is presented to
lead into the discussion of the moment. Such topics might include "a biographical sketch of a war hero," "an
upcoming execution of a convicted criminal," or "drugs and the younger generation." Obviously there are many,
many more topics that could be introduced by reviewing the history of the topic before the writer gets down to
the nitty gritty of his paper. It is important that the historical review be brief so that it does not take over the
paper.
from "Integration Turns 40" by Juan Williams in Modern Maturity, April/May, 1994.
The victory brought pure elation and joy. It was May 1954, just days after the Supreme Court's landmark ruling
in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. At NAACP headquarters in New York the mood was
euphoric. Telegrams of congratulations poured in from around the world; reporters and well-wishers crowded the
halls.
[After reaching back forty years ago to bring up the landmark Supreme Court decision that started school
desegregation, this article discusses school segregation in the present time.]

2 Anecdotal: An anecdote is a little story. Everyone loves to listen to stories. Begin a paper by relating a small
story that leads into the topic of your paper. Your story should be a small episode, not a full blown story with
characters and plot and setting. Read some of the anecdotes in the Reader's Digest special sections such as "Life
in These United States" to learn how to tell small but potent stories. If you do it right, your story will capture the
reader's interest so that he or she will continue to read your paper. One caution: be sure that your story does not
take over the paper. Remember, it is an introduction, not the paper.
from "Going, Going, GONE to the Auction!" by Laurie Goering in Chicago Tribune Magazine, July 4, 1994.
Mike Cantlon remembers coming across his first auction ten years ago while cruising the back roads of
Wisconsin. He parked his car and wandered into the crowd, toward the auctioneer's singsong chant and wafting
smell of barbecued sandwiches. Hours later, Cantlon emerged lugging a $22 beam drill-for constructing postand-beam barnsand a passion for auctions that has clung like a cocklebur on an old saddle blanket. "It's an
addiction," says Cantlon, a financial planner and one of the growing number of auction fanatics for whom
Saturdays will never be the same.
[This is an anecdote, a little story about one man and his first auction, that is the lead to an article about auctions.
In this article the author explains what auctions are, how to spot bargains in auctions, what to protect yourself
from at auctions, and other facts about auctions and the people who go to them.]
3 Surprising statement: A surprising statement is a favorite introductory technique of professional writers.
There are many ways a statement can surprise a reader. Sometimes the statement is surprising because it is
disgusting. Sometimes it is joyful. Sometimes it is shocking. Sometimes it is surprising because of who said it.
Sometimes it is surprising because it includes profanity. Professional writers have honed this technique to a fine
edge. It is not used as much as the first two patterns, but it is used.
from "60 Seconds That Could Save Your Child" by Cathy Perlmutter with Maureen Sangiorgio in Prevention,
September, 1993.
Have a minute? Good. Because that may be all it takes to save the life of a childyour child. Accidents kill
nearly 8000 children under age 15 each year. And for every fatality, 42 more children are admitted to hospitals
for treatment. Yet such deaths and injuries can be avoided through these easy steps parents can take right now.
You don't have a minute to lose.
[This article begins with a surprising, even shocking, statistic, 8000 children die each year from accidents. The
article then lists seven easy actions a person can take to help guard a child against accidents. These range from
turning down the water heater to 120 degrees Fahrenheit to putting firearms under lock and key.]
4 Famous person: People like to know what celebrities say and do. Dropping the name of a famous person at
the beginning of a paper usually gets the reader's attention. It may be something that person said or something he
or she did that can be presented as an interest grabber. You may just mention the famous person's name to get the
reader's interest. The famous person may be dead or alive. The famous person may be a good person like the
Pope, or he or she may be a bad person like John Wilkes Booth. Of course, bringing up this person's name must
be relevant to the topic. Even though the statement or action may not be readily relevant, a clever writer can
convince the reader that it is relevant.
from "Dear Taxpayer" by Will Manley in Booklist, May 1, 1993.
The most widely read writer in America today is not Stephen King, Michael Chrichton or John Grisham. It's
Margaret Milner Richardson, the Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, whose name appears on the
"1040 Forms and Instructions" booklet. I doubt that Margaret wrote the entire 1040 pamphlet, but the annual
introductory letter, "A Note from the Commissioner," bears her signature.
[This is the first paragraph of an article about the lady named above. The author used the names of three famous,
modern American writers to get a reader's interest. Notice that the first name on his list is a name that is probably
more widely known than the other two. Stephen King has been around for some time now, and everyone, from
teenagers to grandparents, know his name whether they have read his books or not.]

5 Declarative: This technique is quite commonly used, but it must be carefully used or the writer defeats his
whole purpose of using one of these patterns, to get the reader's interest. In this pattern, the writer simply states
straight out what the topic of his paper is going to be about. It is the technique that most student writers use with
only modest success most of the time, but good professional writers use it too.
from "The Tuition Tap" by Tim Lindemuth in K-Stater, February, 1994.
In the College of Veterinary Medicine and Engineering, for example, nearly one-third of the teaching faculty
may retire by the year 2004. In the College of Education, more than a third of the professors are 55 years old and
older. The largest turnover for a single department is projected to be in geology. More than half of its faculty this
year are in the age group that will retire at the millennium, says Ron Downey of K-State's Office of Institutional
Research and Analysis. The graying of K-State's faculty is not unique. A Regents' report shows approximately 27
percent of the faculty at the six state universities will retire by the end of this decade, creating a shortage of
senior faculty.
[This is a straight forward introduction that gets right down to the topic of the aging of the faculty of Kansas
State University. There are no historical reviews, no surprising statements, no anecdotes, no quotations from or
about famous people. This is a discussion that leads to further discussion about the topic. The biggest difficulty
about this type of introduction is that it can get boring. It is not likely to get the interest of anyone except those
who are already interested in this subject. Use this pattern with caution.]
These patterns can give a "lift" to your writing. Practice them. Try using two or three different patterns for your
introductory paragraph and see which introductory paragraph is best; it's often a delicate matter of tone and of
knowing who your audience is. Do not forget, though, that your introductory paragraph should also include a
thesis statement to let your reader know what your topic is and what you are going to say about that topic.

The thesis statement is that sentence or two in your text that contains the focus of your essay and tells your
reader what the essay is going to be about. Although it is certainly possible to write a good essay without a thesis
statement (many narrative essays, for example, contain only an implied thesis statement), the lack of a thesis
statement may well be a symptom of an essay beset by a lack of focus. Many writers think of a thesis statement
as an umbrella: everything that you carry along in your essay has to fit under this umbrella, and if you try to take
on packages that don't fit, you will either have to get a bigger umbrella or something's going to get wet.
The thesis statement is also a good test for the scope of your intent. The principle to remember is that when you
try to do too much, you end up doing less or nothing at all. Can we write a good paper about problems in higher
education in the United States? At best, such a paper would be vague and scattered in its approach. Can we write
a good paper about problems in higher education in Connecticut? Well, we're getting there, but that's still an
awfully big topic, something we might be able to handle in a book or a Ph.D. dissertation, but certainly not in a
paper meant for a Composition course. Can we write a paper about problems within the community college
system in Connecticut. Now we're narrowing down to something useful, but once we start writing such a paper,
we would find that we're leaving out so much information, so many ideas that even most casual brainstorming
would produce, that we're not accomplishing much. What if we wrote about the problem of community colleges
in Connecticut being so close together geographically that they tend to duplicate programs unnecessarily and
impinge on each other's turf? Now we have a focus that we can probably write about in a few pages (although
more, certainly, could be said) and it would have a good argumentative edge to it. To back up such a thesis
statement would require a good deal of work, however, and we might be better off if we limited the discussion to
an example of how two particular community colleges tend to work in conflict with each other. It's not a matter
of being lazy; it's a matter of limiting our discussion to the work that can be accomplished within a certain
number of pages.
The thesis statement should remain flexible until the paper is actually finished. It ought to be one of the last
things that we fuss with in the rewriting process. If we discover new information in the process of writing our
paper that ought to be included in the thesis statement, then we'll have to rewrite our thesis statement. On the
other hand, if we discover that our paper has done adequate work but the thesis statement appears to include
things that we haven't actually addressed, then we need to limit that thesis statement. If the thesis statement is
something that we needed prior approval for, changing it might require the permission of the instructor or thesis

committee, but it is better to seek such permission than to write a paper that tries to do too much or that claims to
do less than it actually accomplishes.
The thesis statement usually appears near the beginning of a paper. It can be the first sentence of an essay, but
that often feels like a simplistic, unexciting beginning. It more frequently appears at or near the end of the first
paragraph or two. Here is the first paragraph of Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.'s essay The Crisis of American
Masculinity. Notice how everything drives the reader toward the last sentence and how that last sentence clearly
signals what the rest of this essay is going to do.
What has happened to the American male? For a long time, he seemed utterly confident
in his manhood, sure of his masculine role in society, easy and definite in his sense of
sexual identity. The frontiersmen of James Fenimore Cooper, for example, never had any
concern about masculinity; they were men, and it did not occur to them to think twice
about it. Even well into the twentieth century, the heroes of Dreiser, of Fitzgerald, of
Hemingway remain men. But one begins to detect a new theme emerging in some of
these authors, especially in Hemingway: the theme of the male hero increasingly
preoccupied with proving his virility to himself. And by mid-century, the male role had
plainly lost its rugged clarity of outline. Today men are more and more conscious of
maleness not as a fact but as a problem. The ways by which American men affirm their
masculinity are uncertain and obscure. There are multiplying signs, indeed, that
something has gone badly wrong with the American male's conception of himself.
The first paragraph serves as kind of a funnel opening to the essay which draws and invites readers into the
discussion, which is then focused by the thesis statement before the work of the essay actually begins. You will
discover that some writers will delay the articulation of the paper's focus, its thesis, until the very end of the
paper. That is possible if it is clear to thoughtful readers throughout the paper what the business of the essay truly
is; frankly, it's probably not a good idea for beginning writers.
Avoid announcing the thesis statement as if it were a thesis statement. In other words, avoid using phrases such
as "The purpose of this paper is . . . . " or "In this paper, I will attempt to . . . ." Such phrases betray this paper to
be the work of an amateur. If necessary, write the thesis statement that way the first time; it might help you
determine, in fact, that this is your thesis statement. But when you rewrite your paper, eliminate the bald
assertion that this is your thesis statement and write the statement itself without that annoying, unnecessary
preface.
Here are the first two paragraphs of George Orwell's classic essay, "Politics and the English Language" (1946).
Which of these sentences would you say is or are the thesis statement of the essay which is to follow?
Everything that follows in this essay, then, would have to be something that fits under the "umbrella" of that
thesis statement.
Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English language is in
a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do anything
about it. Our civilization is decadent, and our languageso the argument runsmust
inevitably share in the general collapse. It follows that any struggle against the abuse of
language is a sentimental archaism, like preferring candles to electric light or hansom
cabs to aeroplanes. Underneath this lies the half-conscious belief that language is a
natural growth and not an instrument which we shape for our own purposes.
Now, it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic
causes: it is not due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual writer. But an
effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in
an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take to drink because he feels
himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather
the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate
because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for

us to have foolish thoughts. The point is that the process is reversible. Modern English,
especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can
be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gets rid of these habits
one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step towards political
regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive
concern of professional writers. I will come back to this presently, and I hope that by that
time the meaning of what I have said here will have become clearer. Meanwhile, here are
five specimens of the English language as it is now habitually written.
The First Draft

Things NOT to do in an introductory paragraph:

Apologize. Never suggest that you don't know what you're talking about or that you're not enough of
an expert in this matter that your opinion would matter. Your reader will quickly turn to something
else. Avoid phrases like the following:
In my [humble] opinion . . .
I'm not sure about this, but . . .

Announce your intentions. Do not flatly announce what you are about to do in an essay.
In this paper I will . . .
The purpose of this essay is to . . .

Get into the topic and let your reader perceive your purpose in the topic sentence of your beginning
paragraph.

Use a dictionary or encyclopedia definition.

According to Merriam-Webster's WWWebster Dictionary,
a widget is . . .
Although definitions are extremely useful and it might serve your purpose to devise your own
definition(s) later in the essay, you want to avoid using this hackneyed beginning to an essay.

Dilly-dally. Get to it. Move confidently into your essay. Many writers find it useful to write a warm-up
paragraph (or two, even) to get them into the essay, to sharpen their own idea of what they're up to, and
then they go back and delete the running start.

The following material is adapted from a handout prepared by Harry Livermore for his high school English
classes at Cook High School in Adel, Georgia. It is used here with his permission.

Students are told from the first time they receive instruction in English composition that their introductory
paragraphs should accomplish two tasks:
1.
2.

They should get the reader's interest so that he or she will want to read more.
They should let the reader know what the writing is going to be about.

The second task can be accomplished by a carefully crafted thesis statement. Writing thesis statements can be
learned rather quickly. The first task securing the reader's interest is more difficult. It is this task that this
discussion addresses.
First, admit that it is impossible to say or do or write anything that will interest everybody. With that out of the
way, the question then becomes: "What can a writer do that will secure the interest of a fair sized audience?"
Professional writers who write for magazines and receive pay for their work use five basic patterns to grab a
reader's interest:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

historical review
anecdotal
surprising statement
famous person
declarative

What follows is an explanation of each of these patterns with examples from real magazine articles to illustrate
the explanations.
1 Historical review: Some topics are better understood if a brief historical review of the topic is presented to
lead into the discussion of the moment. Such topics might include "a biographical sketch of a war hero," "an
upcoming execution of a convicted criminal," or "drugs and the younger generation." Obviously there are many,
many more topics that could be introduced by reviewing the history of the topic before the writer gets down to
the nitty gritty of his paper. It is important that the historical review be brief so that it does not take over the
paper.
from "Integration Turns 40" by Juan Williams in Modern Maturity, April/May, 1994.
The victory brought pure elation and joy. It was May 1954, just days after the Supreme Court's landmark ruling
in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. At NAACP headquarters in New York the mood was
euphoric. Telegrams of congratulations poured in from around the world; reporters and well-wishers crowded the
halls.
[After reaching back forty years ago to bring up the landmark Supreme Court decision that started school
desegregation, this article discusses school segregation in the present time.]
2 Anecdotal: An anecdote is a little story. Everyone loves to listen to stories. Begin a paper by relating a small
story that leads into the topic of your paper. Your story should be a small episode, not a full blown story with
characters and plot and setting. Read some of the anecdotes in the Reader's Digest special sections such as "Life
in These United States" to learn how to tell small but potent stories. If you do it right, your story will capture the
reader's interest so that he or she will continue to read your paper. One caution: be sure that your story does not
take over the paper. Remember, it is an introduction, not the paper.
from "Going, Going, GONE to the Auction!" by Laurie Goering in Chicago Tribune Magazine, July 4, 1994.
Mike Cantlon remembers coming across his first auction ten years ago while cruising the back roads of
Wisconsin. He parked his car and wandered into the crowd, toward the auctioneer's singsong chant and wafting
smell of barbecued sandwiches. Hours later, Cantlon emerged lugging a $22 beam drill-for constructing postand-beam barnsand a passion for auctions that has clung like a cocklebur on an old saddle blanket. "It's an
addiction," says Cantlon, a financial planner and one of the growing number of auction fanatics for whom
Saturdays will never be the same.
[This is an anecdote, a little story about one man and his first auction, that is the lead to an article about auctions.
In this article the author explains what auctions are, how to spot bargains in auctions, what to protect yourself
from at auctions, and other facts about auctions and the people who go to them.]
3 Surprising statement: A surprising statement is a favorite introductory technique of professional writers.
There are many ways a statement can surprise a reader. Sometimes the statement is surprising because it is

disgusting. Sometimes it is joyful. Sometimes it is shocking. Sometimes it is surprising because of who said it.
Sometimes it is surprising because it includes profanity. Professional writers have honed this technique to a fine
edge. It is not used as much as the first two patterns, but it is used.
from "60 Seconds That Could Save Your Child" by Cathy Perlmutter with Maureen Sangiorgio in Prevention,
September, 1993.
Have a minute? Good. Because that may be all it takes to save the life of a childyour child. Accidents kill
nearly 8000 children under age 15 each year. And for every fatality, 42 more children are admitted to hospitals
for treatment. Yet such deaths and injuries can be avoided through these easy steps parents can take right now.
You don't have a minute to lose.
[This article begins with a surprising, even shocking, statistic, 8000 children die each year from accidents. The
article then lists seven easy actions a person can take to help guard a child against accidents. These range from
turning down the water heater to 120 degrees Fahrenheit to putting firearms under lock and key.]
4 Famous person: People like to know what celebrities say and do. Dropping the name of a famous person at
the beginning of a paper usually gets the reader's attention. It may be something that person said or something he
or she did that can be presented as an interest grabber. You may just mention the famous person's name to get the
reader's interest. The famous person may be dead or alive. The famous person may be a good person like the
Pope, or he or she may be a bad person like John Wilkes Booth. Of course, bringing up this person's name must
be relevant to the topic. Even though the statement or action may not be readily relevant, a clever writer can
convince the reader that it is relevant.
from "Dear Taxpayer" by Will Manley in Booklist, May 1, 1993.
The most widely read writer in America today is not Stephen King, Michael Chrichton or John Grisham. It's
Margaret Milner Richardson, the Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, whose name appears on the
"1040 Forms and Instructions" booklet. I doubt that Margaret wrote the entire 1040 pamphlet, but the annual
introductory letter, "A Note from the Commissioner," bears her signature.
[This is the first paragraph of an article about the lady named above. The author used the names of three famous,
modern American writers to get a reader's interest. Notice that the first name on his list is a name that is probably
more widely known than the other two. Stephen King has been around for some time now, and everyone, from
teenagers to grandparents, know his name whether they have read his books or not.]
5 Declarative: This technique is quite commonly used, but it must be carefully used or the writer defeats his
whole purpose of using one of these patterns, to get the reader's interest. In this pattern, the writer simply states
straight out what the topic of his paper is going to be about. It is the technique that most student writers use with
only modest success most of the time, but good professional writers use it too.
from "The Tuition Tap" by Tim Lindemuth in K-Stater, February, 1994.
In the College of Veterinary Medicine and Engineering, for example, nearly one-third of the teaching faculty
may retire by the year 2004. In the College of Education, more than a third of the professors are 55 years old and
older. The largest turnover for a single department is projected to be in geology. More than half of its faculty this
year are in the age group that will retire at the millennium, says Ron Downey of K-State's Office of Institutional
Research and Analysis. The graying of K-State's faculty is not unique. A Regents' report shows approximately 27
percent of the faculty at the six state universities will retire by the end of this decade, creating a shortage of
senior faculty.
[This is a straight forward introduction that gets right down to the topic of the aging of the faculty of Kansas
State University. There are no historical reviews, no surprising statements, no anecdotes, no quotations from or
about famous people. This is a discussion that leads to further discussion about the topic. The biggest difficulty
about this type of introduction is that it can get boring. It is not likely to get the interest of anyone except those
who are already interested in this subject. Use this pattern with caution.]

These patterns can give a "lift" to your writing. Practice them. Try using two or three different patterns for your
introductory paragraph and see which introductory paragraph is best; it's often a delicate matter of tone and of
knowing who your audience is. Do not forget, though, that your introductory paragraph should also include a
thesis statement to let your reader know what your topic is and what you are going to say about that topic.

The first draft of your composition is where you develop the ideas you have already generated, and join them
up with whatever new ideas you get as you continue to write.
The first step is to select and reject from the notes you have already made: yes, this idea is central, and it links
up nicely with that one but those dont really belong at all. This is a good example, but I need another one..
(p 29)
Response Groups (Read Around Groups)
Procedure:
1. Each person takes it in turn to present his or her first draft.
2. Tell your group what your title is.
3. Read your draft aloud to the other members of the group. Do not read too fast!
Let the other members have a copy to follow as you read. []
4. When you have finished reading your draft, each member of the response group comments on it:
a) He gives a brief summary of what he thinks you are saying, of the main points in the draft.
b) He comments briefly on something he thought was successful: a convincing argument, a good example,
a colorful phrase, a strong ending etc.
c) He asks one or two questions which will help the writer to see where he has not expressed his ideas
clearly, or where something is missing or where something seems unnecessary. []
5. The writer should not try to answer these questions.

Paragraphs
A paragraph is a piece of writing about one main idea: it is a unit of thought. Often a paragraph begins with a
sentence that presents the main idea - a topic sentence. []
The following sentences of the paragraph will then develop this main idea. (p 31)
Example (p 31)

Exercise:
Here are some opening (topic) sentences. What do you expect the paragraph which they introduce to deal with?
Which are the key words in each sentence?
Write the next sentence or two of each paragraph to show how it will develop. (p 32)
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Life in Vestfold is at its best during summer.

My favorite part of Tnsberg is the wharf.
In the teaching of English, communication is the key word.
Reading fiction can help you in the struggle of leading your own life.
Matilda is a very enjoyable childrens book.

The second draft

You may not need to change your first draft very much. An example added here, a sentence moved up or down
there. []
On the other hand, you may also find and very many writers do that you need to rework your entire piece,
perhaps start all over again.
Here are some questions to think about when you revise your first draft:
1.
2.
3.

Have I made my argument clear? Are my points clearly developed with the help of a clear structure?
Is there a clear logical development between the main idea of each paragraph (the topic sentence) and
the rest of the paragraph? Is there a step missing in the argument? Are there any irrelevant pieces of
information?
What examples have I given to support my argument? Are there enough examples to make it clear and
colorful? (p 37)

Note that there is a big difference between revising and editing.

When you revise, you rework and reorganize your ideas. You cut. You add. You rearrange.[] When you edit,
which is the last step in the writing process, you check your spelling, your grammar and your punctuation.[] (p
38)

The Editing
and Rewriting
Process
When you have written enough to satisfy the requirements of the assignment or you've said all you ought to say
about a given topic, it is time to put your paper through the rewriting process. If you are one of those students
who compose on a word processor, you're a step ahead of the game; if not, use the process of going from
handwritten text to typewritten (word-processed) text as one of the steps of rewriting. As you go along, some
spellcheckers will underline words or otherwise alert you with beeps and whistles that words are misspelled or

duplicated and you can fix those on the fly. Otherwise, don't bother with spelling here; you can catch
misspellings later. But do watch for clumsy phrases in your writing and gaps in your thinking.
Once your paper is in the word-processor, safely saved (on both hard drive and floppy disc), run the
spellchecker. Some spellcheckers are better than others, but virtually all spellcheckers will allow some misused
homophones to slip through. Depending on how much experience you've had as a writer, you probably know the
words you have trouble with affect/effect, their/there, its/it's, your/you're. There are dozens of such words,
and you can review them in the Notorious Confusables section. You can do a search for words that give you
special trouble and make sure you've used them correctly. Some spellcheckers will catch your typing of duplicate
words, but most won't, so you'll have to look out for that, too. It's usually the the little words that slip by as
duplicates, something that your fingers do when your brain slips into idle.
The beautiful part of writing is that you don't have to get it right the first time,
unlike, say, a brain surgeon. You can always do it better, find the exact word,
the apt phrase, the leaping simile.
__

Robert Cormier

Pay special attention to words that end in s. Some will be possessives, but you might have forgotten the
apostrophe, and some will be plurals, which can present their own kind of difficulty in spelling.
Grammar checkers are available on many word processors. They are far less reliable than spellcheckers, but they
are becoming quite sophisticated. Some grammar checkers are quite good at pointing out potential problems and
even suggesting possible solutions. Don't be bullied by your grammar checker, though. The computer can easily
catch extra long sentences and alert you to the fact that a particular sentence is really long. It's quite possible,
though, that you need a really long sentence at that point, and if the sentence is well built (i.e., not a run-on
sentence), let it stand. If there are several sentences that the computer judges to be extra long, however, that's
probably an indication of a serious problem and some of those sentences might be better off broken into smaller
units of thought.

Grammar checkers are also very good at picking up on passive verb constructions. Frequently, a sentence will be
improved and your meaning will be more clear, more forceful, if you replace passive constructions with active
verbs. But not always. Review the section on passive verbs to see those uses of the passive that are appropriate.

If you've used the passive construction in an appropriate way, leave it alone, no matter what your grammar
checker says.
Go through the essay with an eye for proper punctuation, especially for errant commas. Again, whether you tend
to leave out commas where they belong or use commas where you don't really need them is a personal matter
that requires your personal attention. It wouldn't be a bad idea to print out the section on Comma Usage to have
it on hand when you proofread your paper. Being careful about commas forces you to be thoughtful about the
way your sentences are put together.
Whether you have a grammar checker or not, it is a good idea to know the problems that bother you most as a
writer and do your best to eliminate those difficulties as you go from assignment to assignment. Try to grow as a
writer with each assignment, eliminating the little glitches that your instructor caught last time and trying
different methods of expression. Stretch your vocabulary a bit, try for an interesting effect in parallel style.
Mostly, look for patterns of errors so you can predict the kind of thing that gives you trouble fragments, runons, comma-splices, parallel form. Never throw out an old writing assignment. Whether its grade made you
happy or not, there is always something to be learned from it.
If your Grammar Checker does not check for expletive constructions (sentences beginning with "there is" or
"there are" or "here is"), you can do a simple search for the word there in the initial position and try to change
clauses with those weak beginnings. Usually it's a matter of eliminating the expletive construction and then
saying something useful about the real subject of the sentence.

There are 1200 students on financial aid at that college.

The 1200 students on financial aid at that college have applied for renewal of their scholarships.

You can also do a simple search for apostrophes, checking to make sure that your possessive forms are built
correctly and that any contractions in your text are appropriate. (Some instructors feel that contractions are signs
of lax writing or inappropriate informality and thus should be avoided in academic prose. See Tone.)
How much rewriting you do on the computer screen before you print out the paper for the next step in revision is
going to depend on how comfortable you are reading text on the computer screen. Most writers find it too easy to
skip over problems on the monitor and they need to have copy in hand, literally, to catch all their errors. Other
writers, however, have become so comfortable in their use of the computer that the keyboard and screen have
become an extension of their mind even more so than a pencil or ballpoint pen can be and on-the-screen
manipulation of text becomes second nature. It is probably a matter of practice, but some writers will always
want to move quickly to the next step of working with paper copy.
Once the written assignment on the computer screen looks the way you want it, it's time to print it out and put it
through some additional steps of the rewriting process. Make sure the paper is double-spaced (or even triplespaced at this point) and you've given yourself some marginal space for scribbling notes. Again, look for the
problems that have given you grief before and try looking at your paper as if you were your own instructor,
looking for the same old stuff. Review the section on Confusion: Sources and Remedies while you're in the
middle of rewriting your paper. Word-processing makes fixing things later on easy, even fun, so don't hesitate to
do some serious scribbling, re-ordering of paragraphs, etc. If, when you go back to the computer, you're
unfamiliar with the techniques of highlighting and moving blocks of text, consult the software manual or ask a
computer lab assistant to help you out.
Share your paper with a friendly editor, someone who has your interests at heart and who has the time to review
your paper carefully and who is willing to ask questions and to challenge what you said and how you said it.
This person should be a friend, but not too much of a friend. After all, you're hoping for useful criticism here.
Girlfriends, boyfriends, and parents make notoriously bad editors; they think whatever you write is wonderful,
not to be improved. This is no time for coddling on their part or defensiveness on yours. This person is not to
rewrite your paper for you, but you can hope he or she will catch an occasional glitch in punctuation or lapse in
reasoning. The main purpose of this "outside editor," though, is to challenge your argument. Does the paper
really make sense, is the argument sound? After all, you know what a sentence or paragraph meant and that
means you are less apt to catch a confusing phrase or momentary lapse in the argument than someone else would
be. If possible, watch your editor's face for confused looks or glazed eyes as he or she goes through your paper. It
might mean that clarification is called for, that you skipped over something in your development, or that you've

gone too far. Before he or she goes over your paper, it might be helpful to this outside editor to have a list of the
kinds of things that have given you trouble in the past or the things that your instructor is apt to look for.
Share a copy of the Deadly Sins with your outside editor or use the more extensive Checklist provided below.
If you don't have a friend who can go through this editing process with you, try reading your paper into a tape
recorder and then play it back to yourself, slowly. It's important to hear your paper as well as to see it on the
page. Your ears will catch clumsy phrasing and botched sentences before your eyes will. If your outside editor
and you can apply both ear and eye to your paper, that's four separate faculties being brought to bear on the
matter. Your chances of catching problems before they make their way into final text have just improved
remarkably.
There is a fine line between letting someone else rewrite your paper and asking someone to collaborate with you
in the editing process. Most tutors become expert at this after a while. The trick is to let you, the writer, keep the
pen in hand or your fingers on the keyboard. Probably every professional writer in the world whether he or
she is penning a novel or a letter to the editor will share a draft with a colleague before sending his or her text
to the publisher. And probably more than one colleague, more than one time, will be involved. Nothing is more
important in this process, however, than your personal involvement and improvement as a writer.
Some instructors will provide an opportunity for peer editing, a process by which students make suggestions
about their classmates' work. Sometimes, in fact, a student's effort in peer editing is an important part of the
grade. Melanie Dawson, of the University of Richmond, has written an excellent description of this process
along with a checklist of things to look for in someone else's paper and suggestions about how to mark a
classmate's work: "Peer Editing Guide."
Most writers try to prepare a draft of their paper in plenty of time to let the paper sit a day or so before they go
through the rewriting process. You will do a better job of rewriting your work if you come to it a bit "cold." You
can be a bit more objective about the paper's grammar and argument. Your mind will be less apt to provide
missing links and gloss over errors in style if you can pretend that this is something you just happened to pick
up, something written by someone else.
Before you return to the computer to fix up your text, it might be helpful to run through a checklist of things to
look out for in the rewriting process. Based on your own experience, you probably know best where your essay
is apt to be weak. Concentrate on those points, but don't leave anything out. The table below is conveniently
hyperlinked to explanations of the various issues. Click HERE for a one-page duplicate of this table that will be
easier to print.

Editing Checklist
Can you point to a Thesis Statement in the essay? Is it clearly stated? Does the text carry out the purpose
of the thesis statement? If not, does the body of the paper need some paring down or elaboration or does the
thesis statement need to be refined to reflect an improved text?
Are the ideas in the essay clearly ordered? If the reader had to, could he or she devise an Outline that would
reveal the order of development in your argument? Is there any part of the essay that could be left out to
good effect? (If so, could a revised organization "save" that part?)
Are there any serious fallacies in the Logic of your argument?
Are paragraphs adequately developed and is there a clear Transition from one idea to the next?
Is the Introduction clear and adequately developed? Does the Conclusion do what you want it to? Does
the conclusion remind us of what the Thesis Statement told us (but not too simplistically).
Is the Tone consistent and appropriate for the audience you want to reach and the subject you're treating?
Have you avoided slang and being overly casual; at the other extreme, have you avoided sounding
pretentious and stuffy?
Personal Grammatical Issues:
Circle those elements below that might be something you need to pay special attention to in your own
writing.
Fragments

Subject/Verb Agreement

Run-ons

Tense Sequence

Comma Usage

Capitalization

Other Punctuation Marks

Italics and Underlining

Articles

Using Numbers

Plurals and Possessives

Wordiness

Pronouns
Pronoun/Antecedent Agreement
Modifier Misplacement

Parallelism
Confusion
Spelling

If, in the course of editing and rewriting your paper, you have occasion to use proofreading symbols or need to
know what those symbols mean, a handy Guide to Proofreading Symbols is available as part of this guide.
When you've finished with the checklist, go through the essay a couple of more times on the computer screen
and run the spellchecker again just in case you changed something and created a new misspelling where one
didn't exist before. With word-processing, it is almost never too late to make changes. A word of caution,
however: don't be one of those students who show up late for class, tearfully protesting that the printers in the
computer lab broke down or ate the paper five minutes before class. Leave time for such emergencies. They don't
happen often, really, but they always happen at the worst time imaginable.