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Writing

Writing. “Some are born writers. Some achieve writing. Some have writing thrust upon them.” Shakespeare. The conscious to the unconscious mind. Plato’s chariot. intervals Ascend to the abstract. know your audience!. Readers like to be taught and entertained. know their location.

Sophia
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Writing

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  1. Writing

  2. “Some are born writers. Some achieve writing. Some have writing thrust upon them.” Shakespeare • The conscious to the unconscious mind. • Plato’s chariot. • intervals • Ascend to the abstract.

  3. know your audience! • Readers like to be taught and entertained. • know their location. • indication of beginning, middle, and end.

  4. The most important sentence in writing is the thesis statement.

  5. Before I tell you what a thesis is, let me tell you what it is not • It is not a topic or title. • It is not a statement or purpose. • It is not about the content or opinion. • It is not a simple statement of fact. • It is not a question.

  6. The following are not thesis statements • Repairing a broken friendship • How to repair a broken friendship • This essay will show how a broken friendship can be repaired. • This essay is about repairing a broken friendship. • It seems to me that no true friendship can be broken beyond repair. • Centuries ago friendship was taken much more seriously than it is today. • Is it possible to repair a broken friendship. • You get the point!

  7. A thesis statement is an ASSERTION! • Repairing a broken friendship is not as easy as it may seem. • Repairing a broken friendship requires humility, courage, and resourcefulness. • Repairing a broken friendship is a moral obligation

  8. “The art of writing has for a backbone some fierce attachment to an idea.” Virginia Woolf

  9. The thesis = three things

  10. It is declarative! • An assertion, not the expression of an opinion or a speculation.

  11. It is Controversial! • A statement that must be proved. • A statement worth the time of the reader.

  12. It is Verifiable! • It must be proved and it must be able to be proved.

  13. Evaluation: SCOPE & SEQUENCE

  14. Too Broad? • shelf full of books • = too broad. • A good topic addresses a specific question or problem. • summed up in a word or two, like smoking, school cheating, education, overweight teens, corporeal punishment, Korean War, or hip hop • = too broad.

  15. Tell me what you are going to tell me • Attention Getter • Thesis at end of intro paragraph • Transition • Actually tell me!! • Transition • Transition • Transition • Thesis restated at beginning of concluding paragraph • Retell me what you just told me!!!!

  16. Cont. Thesis?

  17. apply the old who, what, where, when, why, and how? • Paddling. • Paddling in grade school. (where) • Emotional effects of paddling in grade school. (what and where) • Emotional effects of paddling on female children (what, who)

  18. Hip hop. • Hip hop as therapy. (what) • Hip hop as therapy in Japan. (what and where) • Hip hop as therapy for delinquent youth in Japan. (what, where, who)

  19. re-visit and re-write your thesis, often • flexible, • not unusual to revise • Often research fits just outside the boundary of your thesis • See if your thesis fulfills the following roles: • Clear and specific DECLARATION • Inherently CONTROVERSIAL • provides structure. • supported by the body paragraphs. • Objectively VERIFIABLE

  20. You are a member of a jury, listening to a lawyer’s opening argument. • guilty or not guilty? • Why and how = the plan • Readers are like jury members: • After reading your thesis statement, the reader should think, • "This essay is going to try to convince me of something. I'm not convinced yet, but I'm interested to see how I might be." • It’s a bet, a contract between writer and reader.

  21. Thesis? YES OR NO? • "Reasons for the fall of communism". • "Communism collapsed in Eastern Europe" • "The fall of communism is the best thing that ever happened in Europe".

  22. GENERALIZATIONS • never be vague, combative or confrontational. • "Communism collapsed in Eastern Europe because communism is evil." evil from whose perspective? • what does evil mean?

  23. definable & arguable • "While cultural forces contributed to the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, the disintegration of economies played the key role in driving its decline"

  24. clear and specific • For example, "Communism collapsed in Eastern Europe because of the ruling elite's inability to address the economic concerns of the people" versus • "Communism collapsed due to societal discontent."

  25. A new height • Anticipate the counter-arguments.. (Every argument has a counter-argument. If yours doesn't, then it's not an argument— • it may be a fact, or an opinion, but it is not an argument.)

  26. Michael Dukakis lost the 1988 presidential election because he failed to campaign vigorously after the Democratic National Convention. • on its way. • too easy for strong counter- arguments. • For example, one might believe that Dukakis lost because he suffered from a "soft-on-crime" image. • anticipate the counter-argument,

  27. While Dukakis' "soft-on-crime" image hurt his chances in the 1988 election, his failure to campaign vigorously after the Democratic National Convention bore a greater responsibility for his defeat.

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