Analytic Paper: How to “Win” with the Kean Composition Guidelines

ENG 2403 Writing Workshop: A Primer of Possibilities

aka How to “Win” with the Kean Composition Guidelines

(**see activity on page three)

How do you determine the audience and focus of a particular assignment?

As you read each, try to imagine a situation in which you may have used such a focus to some small or great degree.

·         tone--"Tone" means the "sound" or "feel" of the phrases: e.g., should your final document have an academic tone, a newspaper-reporting tone, a businesslike tone, etc.; should it sound serious, friendly, formal, or casual, etc.; should it feel argumentative, fairly balanced, or factual, etc.? In short, what mood or feeling do you want your audience to have as it reads your writing. Many creative writers work this way, diving ever deeper into a feeling or mood and letting the feeling or mood shape their words, their descriptions, and even the people about whom they are writing.

·         structure--Almost all writing for an audience has some kind of structure--an introduction, a conclusion, and, between them, certain types of body sections. Some writers find they write more easily if they view the different body sections separately and then fill in the sections one by one. A very common structural focus is, for example, a "key words" structure: you are asked to write an essay response about a subject with several questions or statements to which you must respond. You then pick out key words and phrases, and write a new paragraph or two for each key word or phrase, even starting that paragraph with the key word. Another example is that of a professional proposal, which may have several sections: a background or need section, another for the proposal or plan, one or more sections suggesting a budget, materials, a schedule, and personnel, and an outcomes or results section. In either example, you can write one section at a time, perhaps not even in order but rather according to what you most easily can first discuss.

·         purpose--"Purpose" is a special or important meaning you want to convey, an impression or belief of the audience that you may want to change, or a strong calling or need to explain or describe something. Experienced writers use purpose, when it is intense or meaningful enough, to be like a hook pulling them along or, perhaps, like a strong wind pushing them along. For example, you may be asked to argue something about which you feel very strongly, or to describe a very intense and meaningful experience in your life. If you focus on your purpose, then the tone and structure sometimes take care of themselves, at least sufficient for a first draft, sometimes more. Many experienced writers using this focus wait until later drafts to more fully focus on other elements such as structure or tone in order to complete the writing to professional standards.

·         image--Another way of using a focus is to place an image before your mind and to write from that image or for it. Many experienced writers consciously or unconsciously hold images of people in their heads, for example, when they write to them or for them, whether the writings are personal letters, memos, email, or professional reports. Such image-focused writing makes it possible to speak on paper more directly to the person whose image is in one's mind. Other writers see an image of some kind of thing they want to describe, whether that image is an event, a group of people, an outcome or result happy or not, or perhaps a process. Such writers write their way to the image until they have adequately presented it to their readers. Yet a third type of image writing occurs when writers visualize a final written product that emphasizes graphics (e.g., illustrations, tables, borders, listing, color, design, and spacing). Such imaging is common in technical writing, and is becoming increasingly common as more people write or edit computer web pages. If you wish to try writing this way, simply start with an image, then keep it at the front of your mind as you write.

·         sample--Many experienced writers--students and professionals alike--find that a sample or example of the type of writing expected of them is very helpful. This is why most writing teachers encourage students to look at samples, and why most professionals, when faced with a new writing task, search for an example to use as a guide. If you use decide to use a sample writing as primary focus, you can start in whatever way you like by focusing on a particular aspect of the sample (e.g., structure or tone) and then move on in later rewriting stages to other sub-focuses (e.g., tone or structure, image, purpose, etc.).

·         culture--Focusing on "culture" means a writer develops a better appreciation of his or her own and/or other cultures, or a sense of the differences among them. Experienced writers who use culture as a focus explore a variety of cultural groupings, which may include not only those of country, region, race, gender, and age, but also those of urban-suburban-rural settings, politics, major beliefs, and any other major trait that clearly defines and sets aside one group of people from another. Experienced writers focusing on culture learn to explore the meanings of their culture and of others, often, by exploring within themselves and within others: recalling or examining the feelings, experiences, and deepest parts of self and identity, both their own and others', to discover the deeper meanings of culture. If you are asked to explore cultural issues, you may be asked to open yourself to--and write about--new ideas, others' perceptions, and a deeper, often more intimate examination of your own self and identity in relation to one or more cultures around you, or in relation to the cultures from which you come.

·         literature--When experienced writers focus on literature, they analyze the elements of one or more literary works in order to discover and explain important meanings contained within those works. A focus of this kind requires careful, critical reading first, and then a thoughtful, logical discussion organized in one of several different ways, depending on the assignment. Some writing about literature, for example, asks you simply to state and analyze the literary elements of a work and their effectiveness. Other assignments may ask you to compare and contrast the elements of two or more works. Yet another and quite common assignment may ask you to use the elements that exist in a literary work to argue effectively about an interpretation of what the work might mean. In such writing, the first focus is on a work of literature, and only afterward is the focus on the writing assignment.

To create your own strategy, you might first ask, "Who is the audience (the audience the teacher is imagining and wants you to imagine)?" You might also ask, "Does the teacher expect a certain structure or pattern that is particular to the teacher's discipline or profession, and if so, what is it?" You might also ask, "Do I work best by researching first and then choosing a subject, or the reverse?" and "Do I work best by writing before, during, or after the time I research?" Other questions might include those of tone and word choice, and of your weaknesses in grammatical usage, punctuation, or spelling on which you may need to focus in more than one step. If you consider some of these many variables of focus, then you can develop a personalized strategy. Here are just three examples (from many that are possible) of differing personal strategies:    

Sample Personal Strategies Chart

Person #1  1. Imagine the audience 2. Organize the structure 3. Research 4. Choose a subject 5. Research more 6. Write 7. Revise and edit 8. Place it on a web site

Person #2 1. Choose the structure 2. Choose a subject 3. Research 4. Write 5. Revise for audience 6. Edit for sentence flow 7. Edit for spelling 8. Edit for commas

Person #3 1. Write 2. Research 3. Write more 4. Choose a structure 5. Research and write more 6. Make intro. and concl. 7. Make topic sentences 8. Edit all punctuation

        What are some significant differences among these three personal strategies? Where does actual writing happen in each of them? How much time seems to be devoted in each to final editing? Where does writing with structure start and end in each? Which of these three personal strategies might work best for an overall focus on literature or culture, which one for a highly structured professional report such as a proposal, and which strategy involves a large amount of visual image focusing?

Thesis Statements

·         The thesis refers to the message, or to the experience that is filtered, narrowed and interpreted by the writer.

·         This is the point, the message, or what is being said in the writing.

·         Its structure reflects the order we impose on our experiences in shaping what we want to say.

Examples to consider:

If the following sentence occurs in the opening paragraph, what might the writer do to fulfill expectation?

“People have speculated about the nature of language for a long time.”

The writer should give examples of the “speculations” and arrange them chronologically because “for a long time” implies a historical context.

“Paid political advertising is expensive, deceptive and ineffective in helping to educate voters.”

Expectations are a of a three part argument treating the expense, the deceptive tactics and the ineffectiveness of paid political ads in that order.

Strategies for different methods of development:

Statistics on expense

Examples of deceptive tactics.

Reasons that the writers believe these are deceptive.

“There are many differences between high school and college.”

This is a throw away sentence. It is self-evident and that elicits the response, “so what?”

This would be better if the writer engaged the text more enthusiastically:

            if we knew how many points of contrast we would find.

what areas of high school and college life we would be reading about

Why the differences are important.

How can we use this in analysis of an article or argument?

Your analysis reveals how writers construct their claims, define their assumptions, examines what kinds of evidence  they use and where they place it to signal important subtopics.

*************************************************************************************

Activity           

Break into groups with your draft.

                        1) Discuss what your plans are for your essay. Then share your theses.

                        2) Based on the thesis:

                                    a) determine where there might be gaps in the material.

                                    b) question its order

                                    c) test the writer’s assumptions and evidence

                        3) Help each other to check for logic in subject, purpose and audience.

Blocking material- a way to organize

This differs from an outline.

·         Draw a picture of what you propose to write guided by questions of your material, audience and purpose.

·         Determine how many blocks it will take you to do what you want to do by developing a plan to logically organize your material.

Sentence Combining: Developing an eye and ear for prose rhythms.

Try combing these sentences into one sentence or more with a pleasing rhythm that allows the reader to remain focused on the main idea:

1.      The canary flew out the window. The canary is yellow.

2.      My friends and I enjoy something. We race our bicycles around the paths in the park. Our bicycles are lightweight. Our bicycles are ten-speed. The paths are narrow. The paths are winding.

3.      The national debt concerns Americans. The national debt grows five hundred dollars every second. The national debt totals nearly six trillion dollars.

Questions I ask while I assess a paper (in addition to whether the requirements were fulfilled.)

·         Was the student committed to the assignment?

·         What did the student intend to do? What was the purpose of the writing?

·         How did the writer define the audience for the piece?

·         How thoroughly did the student probe the subject?

·         How are the paragraphs arranged?

·         What are the most frequent types of sentences?

·         What patterns of errors in spelling, punctuation, grammar and usage does the paper contain? In what contexts do the errors appear? What makes them similar?

Questions to ask yourself before submitting a paper.

·         How much time did I spend on this paper?

·         After the first evaluation, what did I try to improve or experiments with on this paper?  How successful was I? If I had questions about what I was trying to do what are they?

·         What are the strengths of my paper? (Place a squiggly line beside the passages you feel are very good.)

·         What are the weaknesses, if any, of my paper? (Place an X beside passages you would like me to help you with or would like to revise. Place an X over punctuation, spelling usage where you need help or clarification.)

·         What one thing will I do to improve my next piece of writing?

·         What grade would I give myself on this composition?