This document provides the agenda for an EWRT 1A class. It includes instructions for students to bring drafts and questions to a drafting session, to check essays for ambiguous uses of "this" and "that" and for sentences lacking agents, and to review the proper formatting of a Works Cited page. Students are advised to rewrite sentences to clarify ambiguous pronouns by adding specific nouns and to identify agents in sentences by specifying who or what is performing the action. The document models these concepts with examples from student writing and provides homework assignments for students to practice these techniques and submit drafts for peer review.

1. EWRT 1A Class 35

2. AGENDA
• Drafting class. Bring your computer, your
crayons, your draft, and your questions. 20
points participation.
• Check your essay for ambiguity. Add words
to clarify “this” and “that.” Check your
sentences for “agents.”
• Review: The Works Cited page

3. Sentence
Strategy:
Writing
Better
Sentences

4. 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.

5. 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.)

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

7. 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.

8. 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, classroom size
should be reduced), which often
signal agentless sentences.

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

10. In-class writing
• Check your essay for
ambiguity. Add words to
clarify “this” and “that.”
• Check your sentences for
“agents.”
• Write or revise the rest of
your essay.

11. Works Cited: How to make your page
All of the information on the next slides
can be found in your St. Martin’s Guide.
Alternatively, you can go to Purdue Owl,
which also offers great help.

12. 1” Margins all around
Alphabetical Order Title Centered
Five
spaces
Works Cited
Last Name 1
Bagchi, Alaknanda. "Conflicting Nationalisms: The Voice of the Subaltern in
Mahasweta Devi's Bashai Tudu." Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature, vol.
15, no. 1, 1996, pp. 41-50.
The Bible. Authorized King James Version, Oxford UP, 1998.
Collins, Suzanne. The Hunger Games. Scholastic, 2008.
Zinkievich, Craig. Interview by Gareth Von Kallenbach. Skewed & Reviewed, 27
Apr. 2009, www.arcgames.com/en/games/star-trek-
online/news/detail/1056940-skewed-%2526-reviewed-interviews-craig.
Accessed 15 Mar. 2009.
Website
Book
Periodical
Specific version

14. Works Cited

19. Homework
• HW Discussion #40: Your best paragraph from
essay 6.
• HW Discussion #41: Before and after sentences
demonstrating how you eliminated ambiguity
by adding words to clarify “this” and “that”
and by adding “agents.” If you don’t have
single instance of ambiguity in your essay
draft, post at least two examples of each kind
of sentence.
• Post your complete draft on the peer review
workshop assignment. It should include a works
cited page. It should be formatted in MLA style.
Do good work!

20. Submit it to a Peer Review Writing
Workshop
Peer reviews are assigned automatically by the Canvas system.
You may have to wait to receive your assignments.
Click here to access the Writing Workshop
Choose file and upload