Second Review
EH 102
Review
1. Titles: Have one
Make it work. How does your title help your paper? How does your title get your paper started?
Consider subtitles or epigraphs. How can you blend facts and other qualities in your title?
What happens when your title contains other titles? What happens when italics get italicized? What about Capital letters?
2. Opening Paragraphs or Opening Sections.
Set context, but don’t overgeneralize.
Consider the opening by disagreement. How do you differ from what others have thought, or what new information do you want to add? Perhaps you are developing the idea or theory of someone beyond the point they made?
Set your direction and purpose in this first section: What are you doing? Where are you going? Why are you going there?
Remember that a topic and thesis are two different things. Get your topic clear in the first sentence or two. Build toward your thesis, which will usually come at the end of the first paragraph or section.
A fact is not a thesis.
Your introduction should make clear your methodology. It should identify the conversation you are joining. Thus, your introduction helps you define yourself and your audience.
Think of actually reading your paper aloud to a real audience. What audience would help you better explore and express ideas?
3. Be an expert.
Become the kind of expert you need to be for your paper.
Remember, you are a student, so be a student expert. Don’t try to sound like you are ready to retire.
As a student expert, you need not know everything.
As a student expert, you will need to explain and identify many things that professional experts will assume.
So, get used to appositives and other explanatory additions.
Experts are careful to cite sources and cite them accurately. Know how to find lots of material and know how to cite it in the proper fashion for the field in which you are the expert.
4. Agent/Action/Goal: Be sure to get logic and ideas clear in your sentences.
Let actions be verbs. Let those who are responsible be agents.
Make your sentences strong, clear and direct.
Try for metaphorical verbs that fit your context.
5. Texture and Levels of Generality. Think about the general design and structure of your paper. Let texture reinforce your ideas.
Put your strongest, most important ideas in strong, direct, simple sentences Value the good short sentence.
6. Shift context to the beginning of the sentence, paragraph, and essay.
Shift new and significant ideas to the end of the sentence, paragraph, and essay.
Use introductory phrases.
Get used to phrases like, “According to.”
7. Quotation/paraphrase; Do Both
Consider when to quote directly and when to paraphrase. Use paraphrase to control long or complex quotations.
Learn how to master the ellipsis.
When you quote or paraphrase, think about how much material to build into the main body of your text
Introduce all quotations and similar material. Comment on quoted material. Do not summarize or paraphrase the material you are about to quote. Set its context with your introduction to the material.
8. Long sentences: Have them when you need them. Know how to build them. Think about sentence bases and how to add modifiers. Remember to put your essential material in the sentence base.
Let long sentences reveal your complex logic and insight. Use the long sentence to suggest and imply.
But Have at least one good short sentence in every paragraph.
9. Go from general to specific!
Go from basic to complex!
Go from literal to figurative!
Put together ideas that are alike.
Express things that are alike in the same, or closely similar, way.
10. Language/Diction: Use the language of your “conversation.” Make sure the language is comfortable for you to read and for your audience to hear. Use language that you would naturally use in that expert situation.
11. TRANSITION: Have it and do it well. Transition is best established as you organize your ideas. Get your ideas in an order logical and sequential. Be aware of how and why you go from one topic to the next use logic words and phrases like because, therefore, based on, so, as a result, often, in this instance, prior to this, as a consequence.
12. Ideas, Topics, and Subject Matter. This includes Logic and your Understanding.
All of these are processes not products.
You should always rethink as you work: Revise for logic, adjust and reconsider your topic and the audience you imagine, learn more where you need to,
Your ideas and their development are central to your paper.
Think about where your good ideas come from: Classes, Reading, Discussion, previous work, or whatever.
What kind of ideas does your academic discipline expect and encourage? What kind of ideas will it allow?
13. Be an Expert to the extent you can be: Study, think, consider. Know enough and think enough to be an expert or to know how to use experts.
As an Expert be certain you know what to explain and how to explain it; and, also know what you don’t need to explain.
Shift from summary and reporting to real analysis. What are the central issues and conflicts in your topic?
Work toward a real, logical, valuable conclusion.
Work toward ideas that interact critically with other ideas.
Usually you will explore ideas in ways more specific and concrete. Every now and then you will become more abstract and philosophical as you will work.
Focus. It is better to know a lot about a little than a little about a lot. The very best writing is usually done by people who know a lot about a lot, by people who know their subject and other areas as well. Such writers are able to bring together seemingly different facts, perceptions, perspectives, and feelings. Such writing has a comfortable undertone of metaphor and allusion that makes the texture much richer than the plain content. This is a long-term goal Facts and Details. Use these to support your general points and feelings. Whenever you make a claim or express an opinion or feeling, go immediately to WHY and to EVIDENCE that best supports your claim. Get used to that the rhythm in thinking and writing. Unsupported comments, especially quite general ones, are neither true nor false, neither meaningful nor meaningless, until they are supported by data.
SIS: (SELECTION IMPLIES SIGNIFICANCE) Choose your evidence well and let it reveal your knowledge and thinking.
Quote accurately; note carefully.
Use a good dictionary and other expert sources. Pay attention to the meanings and nuances of words. Look up root meanings. Start to pay attention to similar words and ideas.
14. Be sure to consider Implications and Consequences as you work. What else is/might be true/happen if you’re other ideas or suggestions are true?
15. Reach a Real and Valid Conclusion. In general, your conclusion will be about as general as your paper has been. Some conclusions can be a bit more general by exploring the clear and important implications of what your paper has presented. Do NOT force a conclusion on your paper.
16. HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY.
FIND OUT ABOUT IT.
FIND OUT MORE ABOUT IT
ORGANIZE YOUR IDEAS AND MATERIAL
WRITE YOUR PAPER USING THOSE SOURCES.
LEARN FROM WHAT YOU DO.
LEARN FROM WHAT YOU READ.
LEARN FROM WHAT OTHERS DO.
LEARN FROM YOUR SUCCESSES AND ERRORS.
17. REMEMBER WRITING IS LIKE THINKING IS LIKE READING.
Remember the Secret
WRITE WITH CONFIDENCE
Some little things:
Identify experts when you cite them.
Avoid absolutes.
Restate subject nouns.
Preposition logic: All prepositions may be legally equal but they are not logically identical.
Italics vs. quotation marks.
Don’t underline your own title.
PARALLELISM. Try to get it straight at all levels.
Use a colon before example quotations (you know what I mean).
Don’t end with a summary; don’t let your conclusion repeat your opening paragraph.
Try using your conclusion as a first paragraph, then create a real conclusion.
Consistent pronouns.
TOPICS. Make sure your paragraph sticks to the right Topic, or Agent with the right Action.