Posts before midnight on Saturday (2/5) will count towards Week 3 blogging. Posts after midnight on Saturday will count towards Week 4. Deadline: Monday (2/7), 10am.
Friday, February 4, 2011
For Credit: Writing Process
Posts before midnight on Saturday (2/5) will count towards Week 3 blogging. Posts after midnight on Saturday will count towards Week 4. Deadline: Monday (2/7), 10am.
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9 comments:
The best tips I've picked up:
Writing is rewriting.
Show, don't tell.
Develop a premise, and let it lead the way.
I've always been told that a good outline leads to a good paper. And this has usually been my case, not just the pontifications of my teachers. But as I'm writing this essay, I'm realizing again that for some papers it's easier to just go with it if you have an idea about what you want to say. I've found that it's much better to get all your ideas onto a page, even if you go back and outline from there.
How do you make a header that only uses your last name on the first page and page numbers on all pages? So it is not a running header.
Ask yourself a question, and your thesis statement should answer it. Make sure it shows your opinion and that it can be argued.
If you are experiencing a writer’s block, then try brainstorming. Get words down on paper, and hopefully some ideas will start flowing. The more prewriting you do, the smoother the writing process will go.
Keep in mind that you do not have to write the paper from introduction to conclusion. You can experiment with the order in which you write the paragraphs if you are stuck. You may try writing the body first and finding examples. Then, you can develop a thesis that reflects your evidence. I normally write the introduction then the conclusion and finally go back and support them with body paragraphs. The bottom line is to find out what works for you.
How do you make a header that only uses your last name on the first page and page numbers on all pages? So it is not a running header.
Easy: Don't put your name in the header at all--just type it in the regular text on the first page of the paper. Then put your page numbers in the header (or footer).
Alternatively you can put your name in a header and (in Word at least) set it up so that the first page has a different header than the rest.
Hope this helps!
To make the first page's header different than the rest, go to view in the toolbar. Then, select header and footer. From the options that appear in the header and footer toolbar, select "different first page." This will allow you to change the first page's header without changing the other headers. To add page numbers on the other pages, go to the second page's header and insert page numbering.
I'm having a hard time deciding what to say in my paper, because I feel like anything worthwhile has already been said in class. I don't want to just repeat our old conversations, but I'm not sure where to go from here. Any ideas?
Katiebug5 I totally understand. I always feel that way when I first begin writing papers- like I am stealing everyone else's ideas from class or something. Sometimes I will try to list my favorite ideas or theories from class and then add my own thoughts and interpretations to it so that I make it my own, and usually it turns into a paper. It can definitely be difficult to figure out at first though. Good luck!
I took a class last semester that vastly improved my close reading skills. A trick my professor taught me was that if you are stuck and cannot think of anything, pick a word that stands out. Look it up in the Oxford English Dictionary and find the meaning of the word during the time period the novel/poem/whatever you are writing about was written. Then analyze the text using that word. For example, if the word marvelous was used as unbelievable in a gothic novel, how does that affect the analysis of the novel? How does the interpretation of the novel change now that you have a clearer view of the word marvelous?
I hope this helps!
This just pertains to the paper once we start part 2. But are we going to re-write the paper as something like a revision, then also include new information from the different texts we're about to read? Or are we basically writing a hole new paper? Adding in the new stuff we're reading sort of seems like we'd need a new thesis, or at least a different perspective on the text.
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