Last Revised: 4/24/08 11:47 AM

Comprehension is the first area of revision a writer must address. A strong thesis statement will help the writer to create focus and is a launching point for which direction the essay will go. In order to create a comprehensive piece the writer must address purpose and audience.

• Thesis Statement (Duckart)

A thesis statement is: a revealing statement to the reader delivering the message of what is to come. Here is something important to live by regarding thesis statements.

• A THESIS STATEMENT IS NOT A FACT! (Duckart)

Whether you are attempting to argue or analyze, a thesis should be disagreeable. It means that any logical person can read your statement and agree or disagree because it is your informed opinion. Here is an example:

• Excessive utility of the iPod is becoming a way in which to distract people. However, if used in moderation, iPods can be a helpful tool for people to come together and share music.

• Purpose—So what!?

Papers need, live and die for purpose! Just like any other creature on the planet who asks “why am I here?”—so too does a piece of writing! When trying to decipher the purpose of your piece, keep these questions in mind:

• What’s the issue?
• What’s significant about this topic...to you…to others?
• What can people learn?
• Is this applicable to people other than you? How? Why? Who?
• How can you get underneath the surface of the issue?
• What’s surprising?

• Audience—Who cares!?

To whom are you addressing this paper—this issue? Who is listening to what you have to say? Audience awareness is important to the purpose of the paper, because the writer must know who they are addressing. Some important questions are:

• Who are your readers? What do they share?
• What does your audience need to understand your claim…and then…to believe your claim?
• What is identifiable?
• Why should people care?
• How would you convince someone who doesn’t care?
• Who would disagree with you?

• Teacher as Audience (Kiefer and Reid)

Many students, when asked “who is your audience,” may reply with the answer “my teacher.” Although the teacher may be reading the paper eventually, ultimately, who else would care about this topic?

• Who is my reader?

According to Colorado State University professor Michael Muraski, there are three types of audiences to address.

•  Lay Audience (Muraski)

A lay audience may consist of your average Joe and Jane. Joe and Jane may not have any special expertise but connect with the “human interest aspect” of the topic. They will need background information, and often special language or jargon is not necessary, but definition and description is. This, however, does not infer that the audience is stupid or somehow less intelligent than the writer.

• Managerial Audience (Muraski)

This group may have more information about the topic but still might need some background in order to make a decision about the issue.

• Expert Audience (Muraski)

This is the audience that is down with the language and lingo. They know what’s up and probably don’t need much background information and description to get up to speed on the issue.

• How will I reach them?

• Tone
  With what voice do you want to address your reader? When speaking with someone in person, we can pick up on cues as to how to address someone based on the message we are trying to get across. The same goes for writing. Know what voice you will use to get the most effective results, this helps when you know your audience. These are some thing a writer should avoid when addressing audience given by Jennifer Jordan- Henley of Roane State Community College:

• Talking down to the reader (don't be condescending)
• Talking over the head of the reader (don't be highfalutin).
• Angering or frustrating your reader or writing while angry.
• Insulting the reader's intelligence
• Preaching to the reader
• Using sarcasm, irony, exaggeration or unsuitable humor.
• Shifting tone (using cute or informal words when serious ones are more appropriate).
• Being too aggressive or opinionated
• Buttering up the reader by being insincere
• Using the reader as a sounding board or complaint department.

Development asks the reader to reflect on how well their argument blossomed. When reflecting on the development of a piece it is important that all of the why’s are answered. A well developed piece does not leave unanswered claims. Tracy Duckart's website, The Cache, offers three important elements to creating a legitimate argument :

• Claim: A statement that is working to make a point. A claim is not a fact and must be proven with evidence. It is based on an inference by the writer. For example: (Duckart)
  • The iPod has become a huge disconnect between people and their surroundings.

• Support: The information the writer will provide to help the reader believe their claim. To continue from our previous claim, the support may sound like this: (Duckart)

• If one is constantly tuned into their own manipulated surrounding they miss the opportunity to interact with the world around them. Interaction can be as little as hearing the sounds of the street.  According to Dr. Bruce Weinstein of Business Week Online “If upon leaving home we immerse ourselves…in listening? to music nonstop at volume levels that preclude hearing the world around us…we miss the chance on the way to work to make new friendships, renew old ones, or simply say hello to a stranger.” 

• Warrant: The analysis given by the writer to connect the support to the claim. These are the assumptions we bring to our claims. (Duckart)
  • A person wearing an iPod, whether they are aware of it or not, sends out a message of isolation.

If you are reading through each sentence in a paragraph and can ask yourself why, there is a good chance the claim needs support and could use more thorough development. After a reader has identified a claim it is important to recognize if the claim is perhaps a fallacy. (Derek McCoy on Fallacies,  The OWL at Purdue)

• Fallacy: A fallacy is a claim based on false idea. It usually is not based on logic and can be misleading to an audience. Often times a fallacy will not be well supported because there is not proper evidence to support such a notion. For example:
  
  
  • All blondes have too much fun. Jenny, a blonde, gets bad grades. It’s because she has way too much fun.

Organization

Organization is crucial to the fluency and clarity of a piece of writing. The goal of a paper or piece of writing is ultimately to prove a point. In order to get one's reader from one point to the next, the writer must set up the piece in such a way as to move the reader to each idea. A piece that is well organized will convey the thought process of the writer with ease. 

Paragraphs should have purpose and focus. Every sentence should work towards proving the main point of the paragraph.  All paragraphs are flowing together to prove the thesis.

There are several effective techniques for organizing a paper.

• Sentence Organization Techniques
  • Color-coding (English 450: Tutoring Developing Writers, 16-17)
    A technique, which focuses on organizing main ideas within each paragraph, will come in handy when more than one idea is present. A writer may choose a representative color for each presented idea. For example:
    
    
    • Say you are writing a paper to persuade your audience to become vegetarian. Your discussion may include: health benefits, environmental issues, and animal rights.
    • Every time you discuss health benefits, highlight those lines yellow.
    • Next use a pink highlighter every time you discuss environment.
    • Use a blue highlighter to illuminate animal rights.
    • When you are done highlighting, you may have a good idea about where to reorganize your thoughts. If you find more than one idea per paragraph it could be a good indication that your ideas need more organization!
      
      
  • Paragraphing (Duckart)
    Paragraphing allows the writer to relate each sentence in the paragraph to the topic sentence. This is to assure that each topic sentence relates to proving the thesis statement. There are three ways in which to paragraph: coordinate, subordinate, and combination.
    
    
    • Coordinate starts with the topic sentence, and each following sentence relates directly. For example:
    
    
    1. Using an iPod allows people to share musical tastes with friends and acquaintances giving people access to music they may not have had before.
    2. A DJ for the Humboldt State radio station KRFH, with the use of an iPod, can broadcast music over the radio for all who tune into KRFH.
    2. One is able to connect their iPod into the car using radio frequency for everyone to enjoy.
    2. Special stereos are available for users to pop their iPod in and play their music aloud. 

• Subordinate sentences build off the sentence before it but still go back to the topic sentence. For example:

1. I often ponder why people are so critical of their body parts.

2. Think of how often you criticize your butt.

3. Without your butt where would you sit?

• Combination sentences have topic sentence and individual points that may entail their own descriptions.

1. It is very common to walk around a college campus and see many students tuned out of the world and into their own musical libraries (Weinstein, 2).

2. The iPod allows its users to carry a mass amount of music at all times.

3. A person can have more than 10,000 songs available at their fingertips.

2. There were once more simple forms of music transportation such as the walkman or portable CD players.

3. Before, one may have been able to transport a few tapes or CDs. (Duckart)

• Paragraph Organizing Techniques
• Glossing (English 450: Tutoring Developing Writers, 16-17)
  • Go through each paragraph and give one or two words to sum up the main idea.
  • Each main idea should relate back to the thesis.
  • If a paragraph seems to have more than one idea, break it up.
• • Paper Puzzle (English 450: Tutoring Developing Writers, 16-17)
    • Take an extra copy of your paper and cut out each paragraph individually.
    • Move the paragraphs around to experiment with the sequence of paragraphs.
    • This exercise can also improve paragraph fluency by cutting up individual sentences.
      
      
• Transitions
  Transitions are a word of phrase that connects the new and previous idea. This can be done in between paragraphs or within a paragraph to move the reader from one idea to the next.  These wonderful transitional phrases are brought to you by The Owl of Purdue University Writing Center.
  • To Add: and, again, and then, besides, equally important, finally, further, furthermore, nor, too, next, lastly, what's more, moreover, in addition, first (second, etc.)
  • To Compare: whereas, but, yet, on the other hand, however, nevertheless, on the contrary, by comparison, where, compared to, up against, balanced against, vis a vis, but, although, conversely, meanwhile, after all, in contrast, although this may be true
  • To Prove: because, for, since, for the same reason, obviously, evidently, furthermore, moreover, besides, indeed, in fact, in addition, in any case, that is
  • To Show Exception: yet, still, however, nevertheless, in spite of, despite, of course, once in a while, sometimes
  • To Show Time: immediately, thereafter, soon, after a few hours, finally, then, later, previously, formerly, first (second, etc.), next, and then
  • To Repeat: in brief, as I have said, as I have noted, as has been noted
  • To Emphasize: definitely, extremely, obviously, in fact, indeed, in any case, absolutely, positively, naturally, surprisingly, always, forever, perennially, eternally, never,          emphatically, unquestionably, without a doubt, certainly, undeniably, without reservation
  • To Show Sequence: first, second, third, and so forth. A, B, C, and so forth. next, then, following this, at this time, now, at this point, after, afterward, subsequently, finally,     consequently, previously, before this, simultaneously, concurrently, thus, therefore, hence, next, and then, soon
  • To Give an Example: for example, for instance, in this case, in another case, on this occasion, in this situation, take the case of, to demonstrate, to illustrate, as an illustration, to illustrate
  • To Summarize or Conclude: in brief, on the whole, summing up, as I have shown, as I have said, hence, therefore, accordingly, thus, as a result, consequently, on the whole

Local:

Revising a paper of local errors requires the reader to dot some “i’s” and cross some “t’s.” After a paper has been revised for comprehension, development, and organization, a reader must re-read for errors concerning grammar, punctuation, style, and citation.

• Grammar

An excellent way to re-connect with ones roots as well as brush up on grammar skills is to watch clips of School House Rock.

• Nouns- Every person you can know and any place that you can go, and any thing that you can show, you know they’re nouns…you know they’re nouns!
• Verbs- That's what's happenin'.
• Conjunctions- And, but, or will get you pretty far!
• Pronouns- A pronoun was made to take the place of a noun, ‘cuz saying those nouns over and over again really wear you down!
• Adjectives- Adjectives a word you use to really describe things, handy words to carry around.
• Adverbs- An adverb is a word that modifies a verb or sometimes it modifies an adjective or else another adverb and so you see that it’s positively very, very necessary.
• Interjections- Interjections show excitement or emotion!!!!!

• Punctuation

Comma’s, dashes, semi-colon, and colon’s are just a few of the many marks of punctuation one can use to clarify their expression. Although punctuation seems like a detail, it can really modify the message one is trying to get across.

• Style
  • Avoid oatmeal verbs (Duckart)
    
    
    • To be
    • To have
    • To give
    • To say
    • To use
      
      
  • Don’t be wordy. Like a fine wine, words need to flow.Beth Mende Conny has some great examples for avoiding repetitions, redundancies, reiterations, and restatements.
    
    
    • owns his own business = business owner
    • a great number of times = many times
    • red-colored train = red train
    • broke both his legs = broke his legs
    • during the winter months = during winter
    • in the not-too-distant future = in the future
    • at this point in time = presently/now
    • postponed until later = postponed
    • mutual cooperation = cooperation

• Citation

MLA’s, the Modern Language Association, citation formats is one that will be used in an English class. Citations include in-text citations and works cited.

• In-text citation

After a quote or paraphrase a proper citation will include the last name of the author(s) or article title, and page or paragraph number. Note there is no “p” or “pp” used before the page number.

• “…quote…” (Last name, #).

• Works Cited

People tend to freak out most about citation for works cited pages, but with today’s technology, it’s really the easiest part of the process. There are excellent websites available to writers on-line. All a writer needs to do is plug in all of the information and ka-pow!

• Knight Cite
• Citation Machine- found on HSU website
  
  
   

 Annotated Works

"Style." Handouts and Links. 1998. University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. 16 Apr. 2008 <http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/style.html>.

Colorado State University offers an excellent resource for audience awareness. I chose this site because its organization is user friendly. They address audience in many different ways. My favorite was “teacher as audience” and that is why I chose to include it on my page. I often ask students “to whom are you writing this?” and the same answer pops up “my teacher.” It’s important for students to recognize that although teachers are reading this, who else would read this? I also appreciated how the author broke down audience into three categories. Writers must know what type of audience they are addressing to effectively communicate the message. Answering “who care’s” is vital to the authors sense of purpose. It is empowering for writers to know they have something to say and someone to say it to. There are more resources available on this website to assist a writer in furthering their audience awareness exploration.

 

Duckart, Tracy. "Support." The Cache. Humboldt State University. 16 Apr. 2008 <http://www.humboldt.edu/~tdd2/Support.htm>.
"Oatmeal Verbs." <http://www.humboldt.edu/~tdd2/OatmealVerbs.htm>.
"Thesis Statements." <http://www.humboldt.edu/~tdd2/ThesisStatements.htm>.

Tracy’s website, The Cache, is a brilliant collaboration of sources. I use it as a consistent source of reference when working in the University Writing Center as well as English 100I labs. It has many concise resources for essay writing.  She breaks down the essay in such a way as to not frighten or overwhelm a writer in distress.  For example, her page on thesis statements offers straight to the point tips on how to formulate a thesis. She also backs up each of her tips with an example that is highly effective for getting the writer to think in a way that will produce results. It is very easy to navigate around Tracy’s website because there are many links. I find links useful to find out a lot of information. Often times I will see a link for something I knew nothing about. It is an excellent way to inquire more information than you bargained for!

 

School House Rock on YouTube

This is my favorite part of the wiki. I recently discovered how useful School House Rock is for brushing up on grammar skills. It is common for native English speakers to be unaware of how their language actually works. Although daily oral language exercises were shoved down my throat for many years as a young student, I dreaded them with resistance. I often feel ignorant to my language. YouTube is a phenomenon that is becoming accessible to web users everywhere. Having access to videos like SHR can help adults re-learn grammar rules. SHR songs are brilliantly written and load in a lot of information using catchy songs and cartoons. Because the songs are so interesting and educational I find it easy to focus. It is one of the most delightful grammar lessons you can receive and it’s a sure way to get a little tune stuck in your head. “Lolly, Lolly, Lolly, get your adverbs here!”

 

The OWL at Purdue

Purdue OWL is an accessible and concise source for writing information. Although I only ended up consulting two of their articles, I found many more fascinating topics on their website. I chose to use their article on fallacies because they give an example of every fallacy along with excellent, relevant examples. Good examples are important so one can relate and sympathize. It’s an opportunity for people to recognize a claim from a fallacy. I also found Purdue’s OWL articles on transitions to be useful. They give concise lists of transitions and found it necessary to add to my page so users can have real substance from which to work. There were also great resources for local revisions. Just like School House Rock, it’s important to have quick reference to grammar, punctuation, and spelling.  Purdue OWL is a high quality website with useful information. It’s a one stop shop with many topics covered and linked so one can keep clicking around for new information.

 

Mende Conny, Beth. "How to Firm Up Flabby Prose." Write Directions. 2002. 23 Apr. 2008 <http://www.writedirections.com/firmup.html>.

In my own writing, I’m desperately trying to become less wordy. Too many words get between the reader and the message, and water down your purpose. Strong prose gets the message across in the writers tone. It is important for audience awareness, that you can keep a consistent voice throughout a piece. From this website by Beth Mende Conny, I only used examples. Her style of writing is straight to the point. Here is an example: “In writing, as in life, you can't sit there like a blob. You've got to use the active voice.” Her tone is assertive and inspiration. It gets the point across that putting ideas into writing are an active way to state your opinions. Writing is a powerful too for reaching out to people. This set also offers how-to articles involving different areas of writing. This isn’t a site one might use to reference like Purdue OWL, but there is inspiration to strengthen skills.

 

Jordan-Henley, Jennifer. "Tone and Audience Awareness." The RSCC Writing Lab. 1995. Roane State Community College. 16 Apr. 2008 <http://www.rscc.cc.tn.us/owl&writingcenter/OWL/Tone.html>.

I am very interested in the colleges and universities that offer online help and tutoring. It’s an excellent resource for students on late nights when needing inspiration.  This website belongs to a much smaller school than Purdue but offers navigation to other universities resources. I used this resource because the author offered good tips for how not to address ones audience. As a writing tutor I see how easy students tend to blow off the idea of an audience. I sometimes read papers and think “who the hell do you expect to read this.” Although I find kinder words to rephrase this thought, I want students to understand that other than for self purposes, one is expected to write for an audience. This website is small but I found this article to be a good anecdote. In order to address audience and tone, the website author practiced what she preached.

 

 

Works Cited

• Duckart, Tracy. "Support." The Cache. Humboldt State University. 16 Apr. 2008 <http://www.humboldt.edu/~tdd2/Support.htm>.
  "Oatmeal Verbs." <http://www.humboldt.edu/~tdd2/OatmealVerbs.htm>.  "Thesis Statements." <http://www.humboldt.edu/~tdd2/ThesisStatements.htm>.

• English 450: Tutoring Developing Writers. Arcata, CA: Humboldt State University, n.d.

• Hawkins, Robert. "Writing Organization Issues." Integrating Writing Into Your Courses. 2008. University of Wisconsin-Madison. 17 Apr. 2008 <http://mendota.english.wisc.edu/~WAC/page.jsp?id=48&c_type=category&c_id=32>.

• Jordan-Henley, Jennifer. "Tone and Audience Awareness." The RSCC Writing Lab.
  1995. Roane State Community Colllege. 16 Apr. 2008 <http://www.rscc.cc.tn.us/owl&writingcenter/OWL/Tone.html>.

• Kiefer, Kate, and Steve Reid. "Teacher as Audience." Writing Guides: Adapting to Your Audience. 1993. Colorado State University. 16 Apr. 2008 <http://writing.colostate.edu/guides/processes/audmod/pop10a.cfm>.

• "Logic in Argumentative Writing: Logical Fallacies." The OWL at Purdue. 1995. Purdue University. 17 Apr. 2008 <http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/659/03/>.

• Muraski, Michael. "Three Catergories of Audience." Writing Guides: Adapting to Your Audience. 1993. Colorado State University. 16 Apr. 2008 <http://writing.colostate.edu/guides/processes/audmod/pop10c.cfm>.

• McCoy, Derek. Fallacies. Seedwiki. 16 Apr. 2008 <http://www.seedwiki.com/wiki/fallacies>. 

• Mende Conny, Beth. "How to Firm Up Flabby Prose." Write Directions. 2002. 23 Apr. 2008 <http://www.writedirections.com/firmup.html>.

• Muraski, Michael. "Three Catergories of Audience." Writing Guides: Adapting to Your Audience. 1993. Colorado State University. 16 Apr. 2008 <http://writing.colostate.edu/guides/processes/audmod/pop10c.cfm>.

• "Style." Handouts and Links. 1998. University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. 16 Apr. 2008 <http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/style.html>

• "Transitions and Transitional Devices: Transitional Devices." The OWL at Purdue. 1995. Purdue University. 16 Apr. 2008 <http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/574/02/>.
  
  
• "Verbs."  Schoolhouse Rock.  date.  <URL>.
  

Additional Resources

• Grammar, Punctuation,and spelling
• Oxford English Dictionary
• Thesaurus