This document provides guidance on writing introductions and conclusions for essays. It discusses several strategies for opening an essay, such as using a scenario, statistics, or historical analogy. It also recommends summarizing the solution at the end or reminding readers of something special about the problem or solution. The document then discusses techniques for improving sentence structure, such as avoiding ambiguous uses of "this" and "that" and including agents in sentences to make it clear who is taking action. Students are assigned homework to add an introduction and conclusion to their draft using the strategies discussed and to check for clarity and inclusion of agents in their writing.

1. Class 20
EWRT 1A

2. AGENDA
• Vocabulary Game
• Introductions
• Conclusions
• Sentence Strategies
• Blogging Assessment

5. Introductions are
Important

6. Writing the Opening
Sentences
• You should try out one or two
different ways of beginning your
essay. You might want to review
your invention writing to see if you
have already written something
that would work to launch your
essay.

7. To engage your readers’ interest from the start, consider
the following opening strategies:
a scenario like O’Malley uses
• It’s late at night. The final’s tomorrow. You
got a C on the midterm, so this one will
make or break you. Will it be like the
midterm? Did you study enough? Did you
study the right things? It’s too late to drop
the course. So what happens if you fail?
No time to worry about that now—you’ve
got a ton of notes to go over.

8. Or, you can consider using
statistics like Kornbluh does:
• Today fully 70 percent of families with children
are headed by two working parents or by an
unmarried working parent. The “traditional family”
of the breadwinner and homemaker has been
replaced by the “juggler family,” in which no one
is home full-time. Two parent families are
working 10 more hours a week than in 1979
(Bernstein and Kornbluh).

9. • a historical analogy
• a research study
• a comparison to other places where the solution has been
tried successfully
• a preview of the negative consequences if the problem
goes unsolved
• criticism of an alternative solution
Or you can consider one of the following
opening strategies:

10. Try one now!
• a scenario
• Using statistics
• a historical analogy
• a research study
• a comparison to other places where the solution has been
tried successfully
• a preview of the negative consequences if the problem
goes unsolved
• criticism of an alternative solution

11. Endings are
Important too!

12. End by summarizing your solution and its
advantages, as O’Malley does.
• From the evidence and from my talks with professors and
students, I see frequent, brief in-class exams as the only
way to improve students’ study habits and learning, reduce
their anxiety and procrastination, and increase their
satisfaction with college. These exams are not a panacea,
but only more parking spaces and a winning football team
would do as much to improve college life. Professors can’t
do much about parking or football, but they can give more
frequent exams. Campus administrators should get behind
this effort, and professors should get together to consider
giving exams more frequently. It would make a difference.

13. Remind readers of something special about the problem
or solution at the end, as Kornbluh does when she urges
that an award be given to the companies that lead the way.
• Public Education: Critical to the success of the proposal
will be public education along the lines of the education
that the government and business schools conducted in
the 1980s about the need for American business to adopt
higher quality standards to compete against Japanese
business. A Malcolm Baldridge–like award4 should be
created for companies that make flexibility win-win. A
public education campaign conducted by the Department
of Labor should encourage small businesses to adopt best
practices of win-win flexibility. Tax credits could be used in
the first year to reward early adopters.

14. Or, try one of these
endings
• End with a scenario suggesting
the consequences of a failure to
solve the problem.
• End with an inspiring call to
action.

15. Try writing an ending
now!
• End by summarizing your solution and its
advantages.
• Remind readers of something special
about the problem or solution at the end
• End with a scenario suggesting the
consequences of a failure to solve the
problem.
• End with an inspiring call to action.

16. Sentence
Strategy:
Writing
Better
Sentences

17. Avoiding Ambiguous Use of
This and That
• The Problem: Because you must
frequently refer to the problem and the
solution in a proposal, you will often use
pronouns to avoid the monotony or
wordiness of repeatedly referring to them
by name. Using this and that vaguely to
refer to other words or ideas, however, can
confuse readers.

18. How to Correct It.
• Add a specific noun after this or that. For example, in
his essay in this chapter, Patrick O’Malley writes:
• Another possible solution would be to help students
prepare for midterm and final exams by providing sets of
questions from which the exam questions will be selected.
. . . This solution would have the advantage of reducing
students’ anxiety about learning every fact in the textbook.
. . . (par. 12)
• O’Malley avoids an ambiguous this in the second
sentence by repeating the noun “solution.”
• (He might just as well have used preparation or action
or approach.)

19. Look for ambiguous uses of
“this” and “that” in your essay

20. Revising Sentences that
Lack an Agent
The Problem: A writer proposing a solution to a problem usually needs to
indicate who exactly should take action to solve it. Such actors—those
who are in a position to take action—are called “agents.” Look, for
example, at this sentence from O’Malley’s proposal:
• To get students to complete the questions in a timely way, professors
would have to collect and check the answers. (par. 11)
• In this sentence, professors are the agents. They have the authority to
assign and collect study questions, and they would need to take this
action in order for this solution to be successfully implemented.
• Had O’Malley instead written “the answers would have to be collected
and checked,” the sentence would lack an agent. Failing to name an
agent would have made his argument less convincing, because it
would have left unclear one of the key parts of any proposal: Who is
going to take action.

21. How to Correct It
• When you revise your work, ask yourself who or
what performed the action in any given sentence.
If there is no clear answer, rewrite the sentence to
give it an agent. Watch in particular for forms of
the verb to be (the balls were dropped, exams
should be given, etc.), which often signal
agentless sentences.

22. Look for sentences lacking
agents in your own essay
Examples

23. The blogging post points (150) require self-
assessment. Consider three aspects of your
responses: First, how many of the posts did
you make? Second, what was the quality of
your response? Third, how timely were your
submissions? Write a paragraph or two
justifying your grade. You may submit this to
me by email as soon as you finish post 23, but
you must send it before Friday, Week 11 at
noon.
Self-Assessment

24. Homework
Add the introduction and conclusion we wrote
today to your draft. Read it aloud to make
sure it is in a logical order. Change the order
of your paragraphs if that makes sense to you.
Check your essay for ambiguity. Add words to
clarify “this” and “that.” Check your
sentences for “agents.”
Post #23: Your introduction and conclusion
Bring one clean, hard copy to class. An
Electronic Copy will not do for this exercise!
• Your essay should be in MLA format
• It should include a works cited page
• Study Vocabulary: Test in next class
Self-Assessment: Due
Friday via email
Essay #2 Revision: Due
Friday via Kaizena