The Right Way to Write With or Without a Diet Rite.
Basic Reminders
Time Effort Tools Prewrite, Rewrite,
and Revise Deadlines
The Right Way to Write
Step 1: Understand the boundaries of assignment.
The Right Way to Write
Step 2: Determine your purpose.Determines the essay’s content,
organization, emphasis, and choice of words
• Inform or explain• Convince or Persuade• Entertainment
The Right Way to Write
Step 3: Determine
your audience Identify needs and
expectations, and take them into account
• EX: An essay about the cafeteria food for your chemistry professor vs. the school newspaper
The Right Way to Write
Step 4: Determine your tone & written voiceReflects attitude toward yourself, your
purpose, your subject, and your readers
• Structure and word choice
The Right Way to Write
Step 5: Think about your subjectQuestion the general subjectBrainstorm on general subject
• Narrow to limited topic
The Right Way to Write
Step 6: Prewrite to gather “raw material”FreewritingBrainstorming individually or with a
groupMap out limited subject
• Diagramming or clustering
Conduct research
The Right Way to Write
Step 7: Organize the “raw material”Create a formal or a scratch outline
The Right Way to Write
Step 8: Identify the main idea or thesis Often contains two “parts” or accomplishes
two roles • One part presents your paper’s limited subject• The other presents your point of view or attitude
about that subject
Don’t make a factual or a broad statement Avoid announcements Don’t be afraid to make changes as your
essay develops
MLA Format and Mechanics
All our essays will be in MLA format. More on this later…
Homework
1. On a piece of paper:
2. Write your audience
3. Write your purpose
4. Write the prompt you are thinking about writing about
5. Explicate the title1. What exactly is it asking
6. Prewrite
7. Outline
8. Write a working thesis