English Composition I and Co-Req

Module 6: The Writing Process

Module Learning Outcomes

• Describe topic selection activities

• Analyze ways to effectively approach a writing assignment
• Analyze prewriting activities
• Explain how brainstorming and freewriting can help you start writing
Recursive Writing
Topic Selection
Learning Outcomes

• Describe and use prewriting strategies (such as journaling, mapping,

questioning, sketching)
• Evaluate the role of a working thesis statement
• Describe strategies for preliminary research on a topic
• Describe strategies for synthesizing research with personal ideas
Topic
Starting a Paper

Fortunately, most writing assignments include some directions and

parameters, and these constraints can help you feel less daunted when
you set out to find a topic or begin writing. Understanding what your
instructor expects in the final paper is often the best place to start.

1. Read the assignment carefully.

2. What question(s) are being asked? Do you understand them?
3. What kind of paper are you being asked to write?
4. Who is the audience for this paper?
5. What sources will you need in order to fulfill the assignment? Are
your own opinions permissible, or are you expected to support your
claims with evidence from other sources?
Choosing A Topic

How Do I Pick a Topic?

• The Problem of Topic vs. Approach
• Solution: Choosing an Approach to Your Topic
• Avoiding the Pit of Despair

Narrowing a Broad Topic

• To narrow a topic, ask yourself the following questions.
• Can you focus your project on a specific aspect of the topic?
• Can you narrow your topic to a specific time period?
• Can you narrow your topic to a specific geographic area?
• Can you narrow your topic to a specific event?
Prewriting
Learning Outcomes: Prewriting

• Describe and use prewriting strategies (such as journaling, mapping,

questioning, sketching)
• Evaluate the role of a working thesis statement
• Describe strategies for preliminary research on a topic
• Describe strategies for synthesizing research with personal ideas
Prewrite
Brainstorming and Freewriting

Brainstorming
• Brainstorming allows you to quickly generate a large number of ideas. You
can brainstorm with others or you can brainstorm by yourself, which
sometimes turns into freewriting. To effectively brainstorm, write down
whatever ideas come to mind.

Freewriting
• Freewriting is just what it says—writing freely, whatever comes into your
mind, without caring about spelling, punctuation, etc. It’s a way to free up
your thoughts, help you know where your interests lie, and get your
fingers moving on the keyboard (and this physical act can be a way to get
your thoughts flowing).
Activity: Freewriting

Try a freewrite for five minutes. The object is to keep your fingers moving
constantly and write down whatever thoughts come into your head during
that time. If you can’t think of anything to say, keep writing I don’t
know or this is silly until your thoughts move on.

Stop when the timer rings.

Shake out your hands, wait awhile, and then if you have a chance, do more
timed freewriting. After you have a set of five or so freewritings, review
them to see if you’ve come back to certain topics, or whether you recorded
some ideas that might be the basis for a piece of writing.
Prewriting Strategies

Prewriting has no set structure or organization; it is usually just a collection of

ideas that may find themselves in your paper over time.

Journaling
• Many people write in personal journals (or online blogs). Writers not only
record events in journals, but also reflect and record thoughts, observations,
questions, and feelings. They are safe spaces to record your experience of
the world.

• Mapping or diagramming is similar to freewriting, but the outcome often

looks more like a list of related ideas. This strategy is quite similar to
brainstorming where the listed ideas may or may not be connected with
arrows or lines. You should set a time limit of 5 to 10 minutes and jot down
all the ideas you have about the topic.
Questioning Strategy

This is a basic strategy, useful at many levels, that helps you jot down the
basic important information about a topic.

Starting by asking the questions:

• Who?
• What?
• Where?
• When?
• Why?
• How?
Sketching Strategy

A picture is worth a thousand words. Your first thinking is done in pictures.

So, if you are a visual learner and like to sketch out your thoughts, grab a
pen and paper and draw what you are thinking. This strategy is especially
effective if you are trying to conceptualize an idea or clarify relationships
between parts of an idea.

Sketching involves drawing out your ideas using a pen and paper. One
strategy that can be useful for planning comparison and contrast type
papers is a Venn diagram. A Venn diagram is a strategy that uses two (or
more) overlapping circles to show relationships between sets of ideas. The
information written where two circles overlap is common to both ideas. The
information written outside the overlapping area is information distinct to
only one of the ideas.
Practice Question:

• What is the definition of a Venn Diagram and why do they help writers
organize their thoughts about two ideas?
Developing a Working Thesis Statement

Thesis Creation
• At what point do you write a thesis sentence? Of course, this varies from
writer to writer and from writing assignment to writing assignment. You’ll
usually do some preliminary idea development first, before a thesis idea
emerges. And you’ll usually have a working thesis before you do the bulk
of your research, or before you fully create the supporting details for your
writing.
• Think of the thesis as the mid-point of an hourglass.
• You develop ideas for writing and prewriting, using various strategies,
until a main idea or assertion emerges. This main idea or assertion
becomes your point to prove—your working thesis sentence.
• Once you have a working thesis sentence with your main idea, you can
then develop more support for that idea, but in a more focused way that
deepens your thinking about the thesis angle.
Finding Evidence
Learning Outcomes: Finding Evidence

• Describe and use prewriting strategies (such as journaling, mapping,

questioning, sketching)
• Evaluate the role of a working thesis statement
• Describe strategies for preliminary research on a topic
• Describe strategies for synthesizing research with personal ideas
Evidence
Finding Evidence

Support and Elaboration

• Support and elaboration consist of the specific details and information writers use
to develop their topic. The key to developing support and elaboration is
getting specific. Good writers use concrete, specific details, and relevant
information to establish mental images for their readers.

• Sufficiency refers the amount of detail — is there enough detail to support the
topic?

Finding Evidence
• Your research strategy for finding supporting evidence should be based on the
research requirements your professor provides. Some formal research essays
should include peer-reviewed journal articles only; however, there are some
research papers that may allow you to use a wider variety of sources, including
sources from the World Wide Web.
Applying Evidence

In practical terms, some ways to develop and back up your

assertions include:

• Blend sources with your assertions

• Write an original introduction and conclusion
• Open and close paragraphs with originality
• Use transparent rhetorical strategies
Incorporating Sources

Quoting:
Direct quotations are words and phrases that are taken directly from
another source, and then used word-for-word in your paper. If you
incorporate a direct quotation from another author’s text, you must put that
quotation or phrase in quotation marks to indicate that it is not your
language.

Summarizing
• condensing the main idea of a source into a much shorter overview.

Paraphrasing
• put any part of a source (such as a phrase, sentence, paragraph, or
chapter) into your own words.
Organizing
Learning Outcomes: Organizing

• Examine the basic structure of common essays

• Examine the structure and organization of common types of essays
• Use Toulmin's Schema to identify the six parts of an argument
Organize
Organizing

• Efficiency
• Tracking Progress
• Better Management Skills
• Instilling Trust
• Reduced Stress
Essay Organization

In writing terms, the assertion is the thesis sentence, and the different
reasons are the topic sentences.

Consider this following example:

• Thesis Sentence (assertion): The 21st century
workforce requires a unique set of skills.
• Topic Sentence (reason) #1:Workers need to learn how to
deal with change.
• Topic Sentence (reason) #2: Because of dealing with such a rapidly changing
work environment, 21st-century workers need to learn how to learn.
• Topic Sentence (reason) #3: Most of all, in order to negotiate rapid change and
learning, workers in the 21st century need good communication skills.
Common Essay Structures
Argumentative Essay
• To take a stance about an issue

The Comparative Essay

• Comparative essays are those that have you compare, compare and contrast, or
differentiate between things and concepts. In this structure, the similarities and/or
differences between two or more items (for example, theories or models) are
discussed paragraph by paragraph.

Cause and Effect Essay

• Examples of cause and effect essays include questions that ask you to state or
investigate the effects or outline the causes of the topic.

Mixed Structure Assignment

• Some essay assignments may ask you to combine approaches.
Drafting
Learning Outcomes

• Explain strategies to help begin your essay

• Explain how to draft an essay from an outline
• Examine the importance of writing multiple drafts of an essay
Draft
Drafting

• At this point in the writing process, you’ll have accomplished quite a lot of
work. It may feel pretty scattered across notes you’ve made, sources you’ve
pulled together, and different trains of thought in your head. That’s fine!

• You’ll likely have some sort of outline at this point: some plan for what
sections you’ll need, and an idea of their order. This may be a very formal
Roman numeral outline, a more informal list of ideas, a mind map, a
PowerPoint outline—whatever is comfortable for you.

• The next step is a big one: starting to flesh out those pieces of an outline
into a substantial essay draft. Drafting includes prewriting, editing, and
reviewing. Once your general ideas are down on paper, writing out specific
ideas and quotations can make the final writing process much easier. Each
step of drafting brings the process a little closer to the final product.
Moving From Outline to Draft

Using the Outline

An effective way to begin writing your first draft is to begin with your
outline. Hopefully during the prewriting stage, you’ve collected notes,
evidence, and ideas. First, you’ll want to organize these ideas into an outline
for your paper and pick a working thesis statement. Follow the steps below
to turn your outline into the first draft of your essay.
• Step 1: Figure out your main points and create the headings for
your outline
• Step 2: Add your supporting ideas
• Step 3: Turn your headings and subheadings into complete
sentences
• Step 4: Construct your paragraphs
Multiple Draft

Revising
• Although we often use the terms first draft, second draft, third draft, etc.,
know that there are no set boundaries on what constitute each draft. The
key idea is that you continue to revisit and revise your paper through
multiple passes.

If you hit a point where you’re not sure what the

next step should be, here are three key questions to ask.
1) Does the argument hold together?
2) Is your argument supported by evidence?
3) Does the essay have an effective introduction
and conclusion?
Quick Review

• Remember that the writing process is recursive

• Understand what your instructor expects in the final paper is often the
best place to start.
• Brainstorm by writing down whatever ideas come to mind.
• Developing support and elaboration means getting specific.
• Summarizing by condensing the main idea of a source into a much
shorter overview
• Paraphrase by putting any part of a source (such as a phrase, sentence,
paragraph, or chapter) into your own words.
• Remember the assertion is the thesis sentence, and the different reasons
are the topic sentences.
• Continue to revisit and revise your paper through multiple passes.