Writing process

2. Strategies for Writing
Introduction
• Describe a general problem.
• Provide historical information.
• Tell a relevant story/ cite a particular case.
• Address your readers directly
• State the sides of a debate.
• Use a relevant quotation.

3. • Avoid the flat announcement that “The purpose of this
essay is…” or “this paper will be about…”. Stating the
obvious will not engage your reader.
• Don’t start with “According to webster…” or another
form of dictionary definitions. This type pf lead-in has
been overused, and it barely adds much to the essay.
• Don’t apologize for your opinions or level of
knowledge with a phrase like “I’m not sure, but I
think…”. State your ideas with confidence.
Introductions to
Avoid

4. Choosing and Placing
a Topic Sentence
A topic sentence presents the paragraph’s
main idea and controls the rest of its
contents: every sentence of this paragraph
should support this main assertion.

5. strengthening each topic sentence to
ensure that it states one main idea,
eliminating the details that don’t support
that idea, and
including more details to back up that one
assertion per paragraph
Your revisions may
involve:

6. More frequently, the topic sentence begins the paragraph. Giving
the reader a clear idea of what will follow, as in this paragraph
about settling America. (The topic sentence is italiced for
emphasis.) Notice how each sentence fucoses on the specific
topic, the role of women in the new settlements.
Women were an integral part of the permanents settlements in the New
World. When men traveled alone to America, they came as fortune
hunters, adventures looking for a pot of golds; such single men had no
compelling reason t establish communities. Women acted as civilizers
for men living alone in the wilderness. Where there were women, there
were children who had to be taught. There was a future– a reason to
establish laws towns, churches, schools. The organizers of Virginia
understood as much when they sought to attack women to there colony
so that the men who came “might be faster tied to Virginia”. The labor
provided by a wife and children also help transform the forest into
farmlands. In the early days of the Georgia settlement the proprietors
advised for male recruits with “industrious wives”.
-Carol Hymowitz and Michaele Waissman
A History of Women in America

7. Sometimes, the topic sentence comes last, to sum up the
paragraphs content. The reasoning proceeds from facts or
examples to the main idea that they all support, as in thies
paragraph about campus parking. (The topic sentence is italized
for emphasis.
When the students returned to school this fall, they were greeted with
new pricing policies for parking. All students found that prices had
increased twenty percent even though the university had added no new
lots or lightning that might explain an increase. Night students and part-
time students, who are usually just on campus for three to four hours at
a time, now must pay as much as per day as full-time day students.
Those who live on campus are being charged with additional ten percent
for guaranteed parking near their residence halls. If they choose to skip
these fee, they have to pay a dollar to take a shuttle to a faraway to their
room, a necessity at night when the campus is not safe. All these
measures prove that the university’s only concern is the profit from
students, not offering them a fair price or a safe service.
-Crystal Jones, student

8. In other paragraphs, the writer implies but bot specifically provide
a topic sentence. Here, Naomi Wolf never directly states her
strong dislike for the intimidation of women at department store
cosmetics counters, but each sentence supports that claim.
On the other side of her are ranks of angels– seraphim and
cherubim– the perfect faces of the models on display. Behind
them, across the liminal counter. Stands the guardian angel. The
sales woman is human, she knows, but “perfected” like the
angels around her, from whose ranks the woman sees her own
flawed face, reflected back and shut out. Disoriented within the
man–made heaven of the store, she focus on the live and
pictured angels seem similarly “perfect”: that they both heavily
lacquered. The lacquer bears little relation to the outer world, as
the out of place look of a fashion shoot on a city street make
clear. But the mortal world disintegrates in her memory as the
shame of feeling so out of place among the ethereal objects. Put
in the wrong, the shopper longs to cross over.
-Naomi Wolf,
“Faith Healers and Holy Oil inside the cosmetics Industry”

9. Strategies for Writing
Conclusions
Discuss the result or future impact of your
subject.
Provide a call for action or an attitude
change.
Use a relevant quotation.
Return to the story or case with which the
essay began.

10. • Avoid the flat statement “In conclusion…”.
• Don’t simply restate your thesis or
introductory paragraph. Your conclusion
should refer to material presented in your
body paragraphs– and its larger meaning.
• Don’t start off in an entirely new direction: the
conclusion should further develop the content
of the essay.
Conclusions to
Avoid

11. As you revise each paragraphs, you may
want to rely on the following development
strategies.
• Describe a person, place, or scene.
• Provides facts and statistics.
• Give examples.
• Make comparisons.
• Discuss causes and effects.
Develop the Main Idea

12. Your first draft probably contains awkward or
wordy sentences that reflect your initial
attempt to get ideas on paper. After working
with your thesis, organizations, and
paragraphing, you can focus on sentence
structures and word choices that will make
your writing more vivid and exact more
effective for the readers.
Revising Sentences

13. When you write a sentence in the active voice, the
subjects does something and the verb tells what the
subject did. The action is straight forward through the
sentence, from beginning to end.
Prefer Active Voice
• Active Structures
Subject
The girl
The student
to verb
hit
reviewed
to objects
the ball.
her course notes.

14. The passive sentence is the reverse of the active. In the passive
sentence, the verb explains something that is done to the subject.
The doer may or may not be named in the sentence. The flow of
the passive sentence is backward.
Subject
The ball
The course notes
The application
having something
done to it (verb)
was hit
were reviewed
was filled out.
by agent (sometimes
omitted)
by the girl..
by the student.
• Passive Structures

15. Generally, however, you should avoid passive structures
because they make writing wordy and confusing. Active
voice produces vigorous and direct statements.
Changing Passive to Active
Passive
Houses were destroyed by
the storm.
Your proposal has been
turned down.
The cake was eaten by me.
Active
The storm destroyed
houses.
Our committee turned
down your proposal.
I ate the cake.

16. Some sentences wander aimlessly, taking too long
to make a point and thus destroying the flow of idea.
These sentences contains unnecessary it… that
constructions.
this dog has worms.
 It is true that the resident halls are no longer
popular with juniors and seniors.
Avoid it…that
Sentences
Τ
Τ
seems to have

17. In the first draft, writers often choose constructions containing weak
verbs, especially forms of be (am, is, are, was, were, been, being). But
in the final draft, a succession of sentences with be verbs can be
vague and monotonous.
You can easily eliminate one use of be that wastes words and
delay the action: the there is structure.
 There is one camper who hates milk.
 There was a man lurking in the shadows.
Eliminate Forms of Be
and Other Weak Verbs
O
A lurked

18. To make your sentences more concise, remove
nominalizations– nouns creates from verbs–
because they can lead to wordiness and a
plodding tone:
The leaders held a discussion concerning
several peace alternatives.
The director made a recommendation that
the student assistant be rehired.
Eliminate Nominalization
discussed
recommended

19. You may want to use this to refer to the ideas
that you have mentioned in precious sentences
or paragraphs. But this should not be used by
itself; instead, it should always be followed with
a noun so that the reference cannot be
misunderstood. When this is the first word of a
sentence, you may be able to incorporate the
entire idea of that sentence into the proceeding
one.
Use a Noun After This

20. You can also write more effectively by avoiding long
phrases that provide little information. In the list that
follows, the single words in the right can replace the
wordy expressions on the left.
Eliminate Empty and
Wordy Phrases
Wordy Phrases
Along the lines of
At this point in time
Because of the fact that
By means of
Due to the fact that
Replacement
Like
Always
Now
Because
by