6 STEPS TO WRITING

FROM PREWRITING
THROUGH REVISION
 6 STEPS TO WRITING

• Step #1: Pre-write

• Brainstorm (i.e. list)

• Cluster (i.e. web)

• Report Questions (i.e. 5 Ws & 1 H)

Brainstorm is simply listing ideas—in no particular order—to generate and/or develop an idea to write about.

Cluster is just visually representing the same information to better generate/develop a topic to write on. You can also call this webbing with the larger bubble in the
middle, smaller bubbles surrounding it, and smaller bubbles surround them.

Report Questions are: who, what, when, where, why, and how.
 6 STEPS TO WRITING
• Step #2: Research

• Gather

• Read

• Summarize

• Paraphrase

• Quote

• Analyze

When using material from an outside source, you should summarize the entire work, paraphrase specific/significant parts, and directly quote others. You should balance
your own words with the words from the sources used in your writing.

Summary—In your own words synthesizing an entire text given (Hint: Simply taking the Abstract of a text/article and placing it into your own words [i.e. paraphrase]
would in short be summarizing it).

Paraphrase—Also in your own words, synthesizes a specific point within the text given.

Direct Quotation—Verbatim wording of the passage within quotation marks. I would choose a certain color to highlight material in sources you intend to use in your essay
to distinguish between paraphrases (in your own words) and quotations (in someone else’s words).

Analysis—This is the most important step in writing: offering your own unique view/claim(s) of the evidence provided. You can’t just simply quote a whole slew of articles
and be done with an essay or research paper. You have to add to the discussion or conversation surrounding the topic, offer a different/unique aspect to this topic, and/
or critique certain ideologies/methods/practices associated with it.
 6 STEPS TO WRITING

• Primary vs. Secondary vs. Tertiary

• You did the research vs. someone else did the

research vs. someone else reports/cites from
someone’s article citing an original research study

Observation or
Artifact

•
Interview or Experiment or
Survey Data Analysis

Primary vs. Secondary vs. Tertiary

Primary sources are where you do the experiment, you conduct the interview, you create and disseminate the survey, you include your field notes from direct
observations relating to your topic.

Secondary is if you cite a primary source in your own paper, which is—usually—the bulk of your sources in your References or Works Cited page.

Tertiary relates to sources twice removed from the primary source cited in them. It is an article citing another article that cites a primary source. You should avoid tertiary
sources as much as you can and try to find the original primary source, study, data to include in your research paper.

6 Primary Source Options:

Observation/Artifact—Observation is taking detailed written field notes, audio and/or visual recordings of said observations. For example, you are writing a research
paper about animal cruelty in your community; you go to a local shelter/clinic to observe the types of cruelty cases present and document this information. You must get
written authorization from the organization and coordinate a schedule of times you can observe. Depending on your topic, you might not need written authorization—like
if you had to go into a public park to observe bird populations or something along those lines.

Artifacts are tricky. It can be something like a photo you’ve taken or a primary document you intend to analyze in depth. Let’s say you find a law on animal cruelty in a
particular state, province, or community you want to serve as an artifact for your research paper. If you simply cite the law and some quotations within it, it would serve
as a source, not an artifact. You must go into great detail about the exact wording of the law, its meaning, and the significance of it within the community context—only
then can you consider the law an artifact for your article. There are numerous other possibilities for artifacts.

Interview/Survey—Interviews usually are a means to ask an expert in a particular field related to your research questions concerning your topic. This could be a
veterinarian at the local shelter or clinic about animal cruelty cases and any relevant information pertaining to the vets professional experience from this lens.

Surveys are similar in that they ask questions but the participants are typically different. You aim to ask a certain demographic questions related to your topic to
determine any trends (i.e. data) from those questions of whatever group you determine. If we keep with this animal cruelty topic, you’d probably create a questionnaire
disseminated throughout a particular community—probably to animal owners within said community. There are a slew of ways in which to craft your questions; I
recommend the options provided in Google Forms: short answer, multiple-choice, all-that-apply, etc. You want to make your questions simple, clear, and without bias.
You must be objective. For instance, you wouldn’t want to say: Yes/No People should be able to hurt, maim, murder their animal if they so choose because they are
simply property of their owner. This question is slanted toward one side of the debate; you must avoid loaded language that exposes your bias. Objectivity is the best
policy.

Experiment/Data Analysis—I would avoid experiments. If you really want to conduct one properly, you would need numerous resources and funding which this class isn’t
about and the college doesn’t have.

Data Analysis is probably the easiest of the 6 primary research types discusses. You only need two data points (possibly from different studies) about relatively the same
topic. Compare and contrast these data points and the statistics that come from this would be a primary source since you crunched the numbers. Let’s say you found an
article that stated there were 100 animal cruelty cases in a particular neighborhood 5 years ago. You find another more recent study just published that states the same
community had 200 animal cruelty cases. Some simple numbers you could generate from these two data points are: (1) Animal cruelty cases doubled in a 5 year period,
(2) Animal cruelty cases increased by an average of 20 cases a year (through 5 years), (3) Animal cruelty cases increased by 20% on average every year for a 5 year
period. You could create your own charts, graphs, tables to reflect your data analysis.

You can consult your textbook and/or YouTube to better investigate these 6 primary research types and which would fit best for your final research project.
 6 STEPS TO WRITING

• Step #3: Thesis Formula

• Specific Topic + Narrowing Action + Forecast

• S.T. + N.A. + F.

• e.g. Diabetes is prevalent in Pacific Island

communities due to diet, genetics, and sedentary
lifestyle.

Your thesis formula should have these three parts:

Specific Topic is the subject of your essay.

Narrowing Action contains the verb and limits what you will cover in your essay related to your Specific Topic. It answers the question What about? in reference to your
Specific Topic.

Forecast is a preview of the main points that will appear as topic sentences in your body paragraphs.

Ex. Diabetes is prevalent in Pacific Island communities due to diet, genetics, and sedentary lifestyle.

Note: The essay with this specific thesis can only discuss diabetes in Pacific Island communities involving food selection, genetic predispositions, and the “inactive way
of life—that’s it: nothing more; nothing less.
 6 STEPS TO WRITING
• Step #4: Topic Sentence Blueprint

• All of your Topic Sentence Equations

• Forecasted Aspect + Narrowing Action + Support/Reason

• F.A. + N.A. + S./R.

• e.g. The Pacific Islander diet consists of high carb food —like white rice, a
refined grain, that breaks down in the body into sugar, a problematic
product for a diabetic population.

• e.g. Fat, another dietary food group commonly consumed by Pacific Island
communities (in products like SPAM or other processed meats), in
excessive amounts causes weight issues leading to obesity which plays a
significant part in diabetes.

• e.g. High sugary foods or drinks (like King Car products) significantly
changes insulin levels and directly affects the pancreas, the organ that
regulates sugar levels in the body.

You should craft all of your topic sentences before writing your introductory paragraph for several reasons:

1. It serves as an outline for your essay which will contribute to better coherence and unity.
2. It guides what information should appear in each paragraph when filling in the necessary parts to support the main ideas in the body
of the paper.

Similar to the Thesis Formula, a topic sentence equation has one of the forecasted aspects as the subject of the sentence, its own narrowing action (contains the verb) to
limit the breadth of the paragraph and a glimpse into how you will support such an idea.

e.g. The Pacific Islander diet consists of high carb food—like white rice, a refined grain, that breaks down in the body into sugar, a problematic product for a diabetic
population.

e.g. Fat, another dietary food group commonly consumed by Pacific Island communities (in products like SPAM or other processed meats), in excessive amounts causes
weight issues leading to obesity which plays a significant part in diabetes.

e.g. High sugary foods in drinks (like King Car products) significantly changes insulin levels and directly affects the pancreas, the organ that regulates sugar levels in the
body.

Note: These three topic sentence equations only relate to the first forecasted aspect of diet from the thesis formula on the previous slide. See how multiple topic
sentences can be generated from one aspect? You can see how more topic sentence equations could be made from the other aspects of genetics, and lifestyle. In all, a
research paper should produce several body paragraphs, not just three or four or however many forecasted aspects present in the thesis.
 6 STEPS TO WRITING

• Step #5: Introduction & Conclusion

• Most important paragraphs of your essay

• Similar Structures

• Hook vs. Hook

• Thesis vs. Restatement

• Preview vs. Review

• Transition to Body vs. Transition with a Final Thought

Since your introduction and conclusion have similar features and are the most important paragraphs of your essay, you should write them in succession: one right after
the other. It will add another layer of uniformity, consistency, and complexity to your writing.

Both have hooks in the beginning. The intro has the thesis while the conclusion has its restatement. Introductions give the audience a preview of what is to come in the
body of the paper while the conclusion reviews what was discussed in previous paragraphs. Transitions within the intro and conclusion link words, sentences, ideas, and
provide a means to move from the start of an essay to the body and from the conclusion to a final thought, wrapping up the entire paper.
 6 STEPS TO WRITING
• Step #6: Body Paragraphs

• 4 Parts

• Hook (10)

• Topic Sentence Equation (3)

• Support (i.e. summaries, paraphrases, direct

quotations, and analyses; hint: from Step 2
[Research])—10

• Transitions (9)

Make sure all paragraphs have these 4 parts—ALWAYS.

A decent paragraph will be 6~9+ sentences to properly develop a single idea.

The types of hooks and transitions will be covered in the following slides.
 6 STEPS TO WRITING
• Hooks: 10 Ways to Open a Paragraph or Support It

• Engaging Question • General Information/

Background
• Interesting Fact/Stat
• Anecdote
• Bold Statement
• Define a Key Term
• Quotation
• Contradiction
• Example
• Thesis or Topic Sentence

You may have seen or know some of these, already. The only purpose for a hook is to grab your readers’ attention—that’s it. If any of these things do not accomplish this,
it can’t be considered a hook.

From this list, some are easier to accomplish than others. For the purpose of this class, I recommend you build confidence in a few (3), so you don’t hinder the writing
process by spending a significant amount of time crafting such sentences.

The great thing about this list: if it doesn’t serve as a hook, it can certainly serve as a means of support in any paragraph, another part of the 4 paragraph parts discussed
in the previous slide.
 6 STEPS TO WRITING
• Transitions: 9 Means of Connecting Ideas

• Narration • Process • Cause/ Effect

• Persuasion/ • Exemplification/ • Definition

Argumentation Illustration
• Classification/
• Description • Compare/Contrast Division

These 9 categories represent a slew of transitional expressions we use—knowingly or not—to connect words, sentences, paragraphs, and/or ideas. You should become
familiar with the categories and what transitional expressions reside in each. Such as: “for example,” which is within the exemplification/illustration class of expressions.
The word “similarly” and the phrase “in contrast” are a part of the compare/contrast category. I hope you see relationship from these two examples. Your textbook and
the resources on Moodle will certainly have a more extensive list to each category for your review and study.
6 STEPS TO WRITING

PRE-WRITE
RESEARCH
THESIS FORMULA
TOPIC SENTENCE BLUEPRINT
INTRO & CONCLUSION
B O D Y PA R A G R A P H S
 1 0 E S S AY C O M P O N E N T S

• Format (MLA or APA) • Research

• Thesis Formula (4) • Unity

• Introduction (4) • Coherence

• Conclusion (4) • Sentence Variety (4)

• Body (4) • Sentence Skill

I grade all essays based on these 10 elements of an essay or paper—in this order—via a 40 point rubric, 4 points per component.

First, I check to see if the essay is formatted properly in MLA or APA style. I have resources in Moodle for you to review; your textbook should also have this information.

Then, I look for your thesis formula. As you can see I have a number 4 next to it. To score a 4 in this category, students must have the three necessary parts of specific
topic, narrowing action, and forecast. The last point deals with the thesis formula’s position. It can be in one of four places: the first (as a hook if it can grab the reader on
its own), second (appear after a hook), last sentence of your introduction (typically the most common of positions), or the first sentence of your first body paragraph
(which is atypical).

After that, I examine your introduction and conclusion right after. I do this because they have similar parts and are the most significant paragraphs of your paper. Both
should have 4 things: a hook, thesis formula (or restatement as in the case of the conclusion), preview of what is to come or a review of what was discussed, and
transitions throughout to tie all ideas together.

Next are body paragraphs. They also have 4 parts: hook, topic sentence equation (the main idea of the paragraph), supporting sentences of this idea, and transitions
throughout to link words, sentences, etc.

As for Research, I make sure you have a proper Works Cited/Reference page and in-text citations that match these end-text citations. Plagiarism, depending on the
severity, would significantly affect this category or the overall grade since plagiarism is a serious offense and can’t be tolerated at the tertiary level in education.

The 7th component, Unity, is pretty essay to score well in. Basically, do all of your supporting sentences directly relate to your topic sentences, and do all topic sentences
directly relate to your thesis. If they do, you are set. The best way to accomplish this lies in your forecast of your thesis formula: make sure you have one and that the
points made within it are the only points you cover in the body of your essay.

Coherence is next. The best way to score well in this category is have numerous, diverse transitions throughout your entire paper—that’s it. As you can tell, transitions are
extremely important in writing.

Onto Sentence Variety. You can vary your sentences by length: short coupled with longer sentences so you don’t bore you readers in having similar sentences in your
writing. You can do this by incorporating simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex sentence types which are in another keynote in Moodle and in your
textbook. You can also vary your sentence syntax by beginning with one of the following: adverb, preposition, conjunction, participle phrase, or appositive. Another great
way to vary your sentences is through the 4 underutilized punctuation marks: semicolon, colon, dash, and parentheses. If you can properly incorporate these
underutilized marks, you will certainly attain a 4/4 score in this category.

Last but not least, Sentence Skill simply involves grammar. Scores will depend on the types of errors present and how many of them throughout the submission.

These components are the basis for my rubric in scoring all essays in this course. By knowing what I’m looking for, you will have a better chance at scoring higher.
 W H AT Y O U N E E D T O K N O W

• 6 Steps to Writing

• 4 Paragraph Parts

• 10 Essay Components

If you can master these three things, you should be well on your way to better writing.

If for whatever reason you feel overwhelmed by this material, your safest bet is to make sure every single paragraph in your essay/paper has a hook to grab your readers
attention, topic sentence (equation) expressing your main idea, supporting sentences of that idea, and numerous, diverse transitions throughout (your paragraph). The 4
paragraph parts affects the most amount of the 40 points in the essay rubric; it affects the most change in grade fluctuation.