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  • A Writer's Concerns

    • I'm just getting started, and I'm feeling lost

      • I don't really understand the assignment

      • I'm having trouble finding a good topic

      • I don't know if my topic idea will make a good paper

      • I'm trying to come up with things to say

      • How much of my own opinion can I put in the paper

    • I'm having trouble organizing my thoughts

      • Is there a specific format I should use for my paper

      • What's the best way to organize my writing

      • My writing seems to jump from idea to idea with no transitions

      • How do I know if my topic is too broad or too narrow

      • I'm not sure how to organize paragraphs

      • I want my purpose and argument to be stronger

      • My introduction needs work

      • How do I come up with a better conclusion

    • I want my writing to flow better and be enjoyable to read

      • My writing sounds choppy

      • I feel like I keep writing the same idea in different ways

      • All of my sentences are the same length

      • My writing doesn't really sound like me

      • My writing is too casual for the assignment

      • How do I make my writing sound more academic

      • My writing style doesn't seem very interesting

    • I want my paper to be more polished

      • My paper doesn't look very professional

      • How do I include images and charts

      • What kind of fonts and headings should I use

    • I'm almost finished but I'm not happy with my paper

      • I don't like my topic anymore

      • I can't find a way to tie everything together

      • My paper seems like it's all over the map

      • I'm not sure I believe in my argument anymore

      • My writing doesn't really sound like what I want

      • I got some feedback on my draft and now it feels like I have to start over

  • One Writers Process

    • Understanding your project

      • Part 1

    • Getting started

      • Part 2

    • Asking questions

      • Part 3

    • Shaping your project for others

      • Part 4

      • Part 5

    • Drafting a paper

      • Part 5

    • Getting feedback

      • Part 5

    • Revising

      • Part 6

      • Part 7

      • Part 8

    • Polishing

      • Part 8

      • Part 9

  • Part 1
    A Process for Composing

    • What will you learn?

    • What is composing?

    • What is rhetoric?

      • Audience

      • Purpose

      • Context

      • Strategies

    • Rhetoric and a process for composing

      • Understanding your project or assignment

      • Understanding other projects

  • Part 2
    Finding Ideas

    • What will you learn?

    • Composing to learn and composing to communicate

    • A research process

    • Getting started with research

    • Finding a topic

    • Narrowing a topic

      • How do you know when you have a narrowed topic?

      • Other strategies for narrowing a topic

    • Questions to guide research

      • Using research questions to develop a topic

    • Kinds of sources, kinds of research

      • Kinds of research

      • Determining where to research

      • Choosing sources: Help your research, support your arguments

      • Choosing sources: Periodicals

      • Choosing sources: Books

      • Choosing sources: Webpages

    • Finding sources

      • Library research

      • Using library journal databases

      • Online research

      • Archival and special library collection sources

      • Field resarch sources

    • What if you can't find anything on your narrowed topic?

    • Keeping track of sources

    • Starting a paper

      • Sample Research Questions

  • Part 3
    Analyzing Arguments and Evaluating Sources

    • What will you learn?

    • What is analysis?

    • Understanding and analyzing texts

      • Developing a sense of the author

      • Understanding appeals to the emotions

      • Understanding arrangement

      • Sample Analysis essay

    • Analyzing arguments

      • Thesis statements

      • What counts as evidence

      • Further questions to guide critical reading

      • Critical reading

      • Sample annotated argument

      • Sample rhetorical analysis

      • Questions to guide critical looking

      • Sample analysis of a visual text

    • Evaluating sources

      • Evaluating sources for relevance

      • Sample sources

      • Evaluating sources for credibility: Print

      • Sample print sources

      • Evaluating sources for credibility: Online

      • Sample online sources

      • Practice evaluating sources

    • Using analysis to develop a thesis statement

      • Sample thesis statement

  • Part 4
    Organizing and Shaping Texts

    • What will you learn?

    • What is analysis?

    • Conceptual frameworks and genres

      • Academic genres

      • Writing in the humanities

      • Writing in the sciences

      • Writing in the social sciences

      • Using a thesis statement to organize an academic paper

      • Sample thesis statement organizng a paper

      • Workplace genres

      • Popular genres

    • Shaping paragraphs for audience and purpose

      • Unified and coherent paragraphs

      • Paragraphs that develop

      • Paragraphs that describe

      • Paragraphs that define

      • Paragraphs that narrate

      • Paragraphs that give examples

      • Paragraphs that use analogy

      • Paragraphs that divide

      • Paragraphs that blend organizations

    • Visual organization

    • Organization for oral presentations

  • Part 5
    Drafting a Paper, Connecting with Audiences

    • What will you learn?

    • Understanding your audience

      • Characteristics your audience might share

      • What do people know, think, and feel about the issue?

    • Starting to write for an audience

      • How to write a statement of purpose

      • Sample statement of purpose

      • A rough draft

      • Sample rough draft

    • Receiving feedback to a draft

    • Responding to the writing of your peers

      • Sample peer response

  • Part 6
    Revising With Style

    • What will you learn?

    • Revising your writing

      • Developing a revision plan

      • Sample revision plan

    • Revising, style and audience

    • Style in writing

      • Styles readers expect in different settings

    • Styling paragraphs

      • Concluding paragraphs

      • Introductory paragraphs

      • Transitions between paragraphs

      • Passive voice

    • Styling sentences

      • Academic sentences

      • Sentences that are easy to read

      • Using coordination and subordination

      • Parallelism

      • Figurative language

    • Styling words

      • Dictionary definitions

      • Names

      • Action verbs

      • Concrete nouns

      • Clichés

      • Jargon

      • Wordiness

    • Style in visual texts

      • Typography

      • Color

    • Style in oral presentations

  • Part 7
    Writing for Diverse Audiences

    • What will you learn?

    • Varieties of English

      • Academic English

    • English as a global language

    • Writing English when English is not your home language

    • Using inclusive language

      • Including all ethnicities

      • Including all genders

      • Including all abilities

      • Including all ages

      • Including all sexual orientations

      • Including all religions

    • Using an ESL dictionary

    • IF you grew up speaking a language other than English

      • Count and noncount nouns

      • Editing

      • Ordering multiple adjectives

      • Placing adjectives

      • Prepositions

      • Pronoun agreement

      • Proofreading

      • Verb tenses

      • Who and whom

  • Part 8
    Documenting

    • What will you learn?

    • Researching ethically

    • Why cite and document sources?

      • What is plagiarism?

      • Tips for avoiding plagiarism

    • Four facets of citing and documenting

    • Quoting, summarizing, and paraphrasing

      • Quoting the words of others

      • Summarizing the words of others

      • Paraphrasing the words of others

    • Five kinds of sources

    • Collecting citation information for books

    • Collecting citation information for part of a book

    • Collecting citation information for periodicals

    • Collecting citation information for webpages

  • Part 9
    Editing and Proofreading your Work

    • What will you learn?

    • Editing and Proofreading

      • How to edit

      • How to proofread

      • Subject-verb agreement

      • Academic verb tenses

      • Shifts in verb tenses

      • Shifts in grammatical forms

      • Sentence fragments

      • Run-on sentences

      • Pronoun reference and agreement

      • Misplaced and dangling modifiers

    • Grammar

      • Parts of speech

      • Nouns

      • Pronouns

      • Adjectives

      • Articles

      • Verbs

      • Adverbs

      • Prepositions

      • Conjunctions

      • Sentence functions

      • Sentence patterns

      • Simple sentences

      • Subjects and predicates

      • Independent clauses

      • Compound sentences

      • Complex sentences

      • Compound-complex sentences

    • Punctuation

      • ,  Commas

      • ;  Semicolons

      • :  Colons

      • ()  Parentheses

      • –  Dashes

      • []  Brackets

      • -  Hyphens

      • \  Slashes

      • …  Ellipsis

      • ’  Apostrophes

      • ”  Quotation Marks

      • .  Periods

      • ?  Question Marks

      • !  Exclamation Points

    • Mechanics

      • Using italics and underlining

      • Spelling

      • Capitalizing words

      • Abbreviations

      • Numbers

  • MLA

  • APA

  • CSE

  • CMS

  • English as a Second Language

    If You Grew Up Speaking a Language Other Than English… Particular conventions in written English are worth your close attention:

    • Count and noncount nouns

    • Editing

    • Ordering multiple adjectives

    • Placing adjectives

    • Prepositions

    • Pronoun agreement

    • Proofreading

    • Verb tenses

    • Who and whom

  • Search

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