Ccontents: 1.The Writing Process 2.The First and Second Steps
in Writing
3.The Third Step in Writing
4.The Fourth Step in Writing
5.Four Bases for Revising Writing
6.Paragraph Development
Writing a First Draft: When you write a first
draft, be prepared to put in additional thoughts and details
that did not emerge during prewriting. And don't worry about
grammar, punctuation, or spelling. You don't want to take
time correcting words or sentences that you may decide to
remove later. Instead, make it your goal to state your main
idea clearly and develop the content of you paper with
plenty of specific details.
A Student
Model: The apple plaint job was worst.
Working in an apple plant was the worst job I ever had. The
work was physical hard. For a long time ten
hours a night, I stacked cartons that rolled down a metal
track in a tracter trailer. Each carton had cans or bottles
of apple juice, and they were heavy. At the same time, I had
to keep a mental count of all the cartons I had loaded. The
pay for the job was a bad feature. I was getting the minamum
wage at that time plus a quarter extra for night shift. I
had to work a lot to get a decent take-home pay. Working
conditions were poor at the apple plant, we were limited to
short breaks two ten-minute breaks. The
truck-loading dock where I was most of the time was a cold
and lonely place. Then by myself cleaning up...
Revising: Revising is
as much a stage in the writing process as prewriting,
outlining, and doing the first draft. Revising means that
you rewrite a paper, building upon what has already been
done, in order to make it stronger. One writer has said
about revision, "It's like cleaning house-getting rid of all
the junk and putting things in the right order." It is not
just "straightening up"; instead, you must be read to roll
up your sleeves and do whatever is needed to create an
effective paper. Too many students think that a first draft
is the paper. They start to become writers when they realize
that revising a rough draft three or four times is often at
the heart of the writing process.
Revising Content:
1. Is my paper unified?
Do I have a main idea that is clearly stated at the beginning
of my paragraph?
Do all my supporting points truly support and back up my main idea?
2. Is my paper supported?
Are there separate supporting points for the main idea?
Do I have specific evidence for each supporting point?
Is there plenty of specific evidence for the supporting points?
3. Is my paper organized?
Do I have a clear method of organizing my paper?
Do I use transitions and other connecting words?
Revising: A Student Model
First of all
Working in an apple plant was the worst job I ever had.
^ The
work was physicaly hard. For ten hours a
25
pounds of bottled
night,
I
stacked
cartons that rolled down a metal track in a tracter trailer.
Each carton contained bottles of
apple
down the track
juice, and they came ^
nonstop.
At the same time, I had to keep a mental count of
all the cartons I had loaded.
The second bad
feature that made the job a worst one was the pay. I was
getting the minamum wage at that time,
just
over sixty hours a week
$3.65 an hour. Plus ^a
quarter extra for night shift. I had to work a lot
of hours to get a decent take-home pay. I
Finally
an unpaid half hour for lunch
^
hated the working conditions. We were limited to two
ten-minute breaks and the half hour for lunch was
not
loading
near-zero-degree
paidcold temperatures. And I was very
lonely on the job\.
because
I
^
I had nothing in common with the other workers. You
felt this isolation especially when the production line shut
, and
an ugly
down for the night ^
I had to clean the apple vats. The vats were a bad
place to be on a cold morning and the
bitter
job was a bad on to have.
Editing: Checking a
paper for mistakes in grammar, punctuation, usage, and
spelling.
Editing: A
Student Model
My job in an Apple Plant
physically
Working in an
apple plant was the worst job I ever had. First of all,
the work was physical hard. For ten
tractor
hours a night, I stacked cartons that rolled down a metal
track and stacked them onto wooden skids in a
tracter
twenty-five
trailer. Each carton contained
25 pounds of bottled apple juice, and they came
down the track
almost nonstop.
minimum
The second bad feature of the job worst was the pay. I was
getting the minamum wage at tha
,plus
hour\.
Plus
just a
quarter extra for night shift. I had to work
over sixty hours a week to get a decent take-home
pay.
Finally,
I hated the
working conditions. We were limited to two ten-minute breaks
and an
unpaid half hour
for lunch. Most of my time was spent outside on the loading dock in near-zero-degree
temperatures. And I
was very lonely on the job
because I had
no interests in common with the other workers. I
felt this isolation
spent
two hours by myself cleaning
especially when the production line shut down for the night,
and
I had to clean the apple vats. The vats were
an
ugly
place to be on a cold morning, and the job was a
bitter on to have.
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