ENGLISH Essays

SEE ATTACHED

 

Class:  This activity will help as you work on finalizing your drafts of WA1 and WA2 that are due on July 21.

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Revising Paragraphs: Part I

 

Many people often ask why expert writers revise so extensively.  According to the Allyn and Bacon Guide to Writing, there are five main reasons why expert writers revise their work:

 

(1) They revise to overcome the limits of memory. “Because of the limits of short term memory, you can actively engage only a few chunks of material at any given moment…”(482).

(2) They revise to accommodate shifts and changes in ideas, which often evolve throughout writing.

(3) They revise to clarify the audience and the purpose of a piece of writing, especially since writers typically want to say something significant.

(4) They revise to clarify structure and create coherence.

(5) They revise to improve gracefulness and correctness (482-484). Often in undergraduate writing courses, a writer doesn’t have the opportunity to revise essays. However, developing a strategy for revision adds a tremendous tool to a writer’s arsenal.

 

Understanding the process of revision also requires you to understand “higher order concerns” and “lower order concerns.”  The following link to Pudue University provides good commentary on how to prioritize your revision process:

 

owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/690/01/

 

 
 

Assignment
:

 

(1) Refer back to your working draft of WA1 (the Response essay).  

 

(2) Then, consider the reasons listed above for revising and 
develop a list of at least 2-3 higher order concerns and at least 1-2 lower order concerns 
that you can address in revising your draft.  Please provide
specific examples
 from your draft.  Overall, you should aim to identify 3-5 areas for making improvements in your draft. 

 

(3) Don’t forget to provide feedback to at least two classmates, offering any observations, comments, suggestions, etc.  

Class:  This activity will help as you begin to revise your draft of WA3 (the Synthesis essay).  Since you were required to submit the first draft of WA3 several days ago, you should have plenty of material from it to use for this revision activity.

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Revising Paragraphs: Part II

As you continue to consider the process of revising and what it entails, please read the information provided at the following site from the Writing Center at Harvard.

http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~wricntr/documents/Revising.html

 
Assignment
:

(1) After looking over the
 
information on the site, please choose 
one
 body paragraph from your first draft of WA3.  Please copy and paste the paragraph into your response note.

(2) Then, please point out the following 
4
 aspects: 
(a) what you want the paragraph to do; (b) what’s wrong with the paragraph as it is, what’s not working in it; (c) how you plan to revise the paragraph; and (d) how the revision will help the paragraph.  
Essentially, you’re being asked to 
dissect
 your paragraph.

(3) While responding to your classmates is not required for this assignment, you are free to express any observations made from other posts.  You can also respond here with any questions about revising. 

 
 
 

Copyright Laura Saltz, 1998, and the President and Fellows of Harvard College, for the Writing Center at Harvard University.

Modern theories about argumentation are based upon concepts developed in ancient Greece and Rome. These theories help us look at how we develop our evidence for essays and other arguments. The orators of Greece and Rome saw argument as a way to settle disputes and to uncover truth. According to Aristotle, any person who wants to make an argument appeals to his or her audience through logos (reason/logic),pathos (emotion), or ethos (ethics). These three appeals form the basis of any persuasive essay. Let’s look at each appeal closely:

• The appeal to pathos is an appeal to the reader’s (or listener’s) emotions. When one uses pathos in a speech, one is appealing to the emotions of the audience. If a reader or listener is moved to tears during an argument, generally the writer/speaker is using pathos. An argument that uses pathos will draw an audience into the argument using the audience members’ emotions.
• The appeal to logos is an appeal to logic. When the writer bases his or her argument on reason, then one is experiencing an appeal to logos. DNA evidence, statistics, and empirical research all belong to logical arguments. An argument that uses logos appeals to the reason of the audience.
• Finally, ethos is an appeal that is based on the credibility of the speaker or the author. This argument will be judged on whether the author/speaker is trustworthy. People who are experts in a field have good ethos. When an argument has ethos, the reader/speaker will be easily accepted as knowledgeable on a particular topic by the audience.

The following video tutorial may be helpful in communicating these appeals:

Feel free to respond to this note with any questions or comments about persuasive appeals.