This document provides guidance on the key elements that must be included in any academic paper. It identifies five essential components: topic, audience, purpose, thesis statement, and support. For each component, it asks questions for writers to consider as they plan their paper. It emphasizes the importance of thoroughly analyzing these five elements during the planning process to facilitate a smooth writing experience. Finally, it introduces various pre-writing strategies that can help a writer effectively organize their ideas before beginning to draft the paper. These include clustering, mind mapping, freewriting, listing, and using journalistic questions.

1. English 99
Introduction to Paper
Structure and the
Writing Process

2. What Must all
Papers Have?

3. What Must all Papers Have?
•What is the subject of your paper?
•Make sure your topic matches what is being asked of you in your
assignment.
Topic
•Who are you writing for?
•Different audiences can change the way you need to convey your
information to your readers.
Audience
•Why are you writing? To inform your readers? Persuade them? Call
them to action? A combination of these things?Purpose
•What is the main idea of your paper, and how will you convey that
clearly and concisely to your specific audience?Thesis Statement
•What will you use to support or prove your thesis statement is logical
and correct?Support

4. What Must all Papers Have?
•What is the subject of
your paper?
•Make sure your topic
matches what is
being asked of you in
your assignment.
Topic

5. What Must all Papers Have?
• Who are you writing for?
• Different audiences can change the way
you need to convey your information to
your readers.
• You would explain the death of a dog
differently to a young child than you
would to a veterinarian.
• For academic papers, always assume, if
not told otherwise, that your audience is
a general audience of educated readers.
Audience

6. What Must all Papers Have?
• To inform to propose
• To persuade to express feelings
• To entertain to summarize
• To call readers to action
• To change attitudes
• To analyze
• To argue
• To evaluate
• To provoke
• To recommend
• To request
Purpose

7. What Must all Papers Have?
• The answer to the question
you have posed
• The resolution of a problem
you have identified
• A statement that takes a
position on a debatable
topic
Thesis
Statement

8. What Must all Papers Have?
• Reasons, Examples,
Names, Numbers or
Sensory Details that prove
your thesis is correct.
• Analysis that shows
connections between the
ideas you present
Support

9. Planning
Your
Paper

10. Planning
• In order to start planning, you must have a
firm grasp on the five elements of your
paper.
• Spend time analyzing your topic, audience,
purpose, thesis statement and support
ideas – this time spent will save you much
blood, sweat and tears when you write your
paper!

11. The Writing Process
Planning
Shaping
DraftingRevising
Editing

12. •Who, What, Where, Why & When?
Journalistic Questions
•Visual organization of your ideas. Looks like a web!
Cluster Maps, Mind Map, Web
•Dumping all of your scattered thoughts onto a page, just to get them out there.
Freewriting
•A numbered or bulleted list of all the points or ideas you have knocking around in your
head.
List
•Visual representation of the similarities and differences between two or more ideas or
concepts.
Venn Diagram

13. • Who did this topic impact, happen to? Who
are the authorities on this topic?
• What happened? What is the sequence of
events? What is the author trying to say?
• Where did this occur?
• Why does this matter? Why did the author
write this? Why do these events have a
broader impact?
• When did this occur?
Journalistic Questions

14. • Who objected to the film?
• What were the objections?
• When were the protests first voiced?
• Where were the protests most strongly expressed?
• Why did protesters object to the film?
• How did the protesters make their views known?
Journalistic Questions
Topic: Negative Reaction to the
book Birth of a Nation

15. Cluster Map, Mind Map
or Web

16. • Dogs are funny and awesome and
kind of gross. Need lots of care
depending on breed. What are
current fav. breeds? Figure out what
kind of specific nutritional care
specific breeds need or focus on one
breed maybe?
Freewriting
Topic: Dogs

17. • Volunteered in high school.
• Teaching adults to read motivated me to study education.
• “the best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service
of others” – Ghandi
• Volunteering helps students find interests and career paths.
• Volunteering as a requirement? Paradox?
• Many students need to work to pay college tuition.
• Enough time to study, work and volunteer?
List
Topic: How does serving the
community make college students better
people?

18. Dogs
•Nice
•Loyal
Squirrels
•Evil
•Taking
over the
world
•Have fur
•Mammals
•Have eyes
•Slightly
crazy

19. Yay!
Go Plan
your Paper!