REVISE! REVISE! REVISE! Reworking your ideas in the best way possible.

Nine Priorities  Thesis Statement  Audience  Following directions  Support structure  Syntax  Diction  Usage  Spelling  Presentation This is the where your voice can really shine – your humor, your style, your reverence – this also helps to establish your tone and how your audience receives your argument (s). This is also where an otherwise solid argument can fall flat – poor wording, over wordiness, poor punctuation that interferes with either the message or the perception the reader has of you, the speaker.

Problems with thesis statement:  Thesis is bad  Vague, mere fact, mere summary, ????  failed to prove thesis  Not enough support/your evidence does not support your thesis statement mere summary off topic Commentary does not link evidence to argument

Audience  need to use formal /academic language  Your reader is educated, but not a mind-reader  Don’t “talk” down to your reader  Don’t make your reader assume  Don’t assume your reader has the same context as you - explain

Argument  Clearly stated and argued  Counterarguments  Addressed  Not left refuted  Qualify your statements  Add boundaries (strengthens individual claims)

Structure I  Paragraph structure:  Topic sentence (general claim of paragraph) Adding more clarity Specific detail (good place to cite an author) Commentary – developing the detail – how does it relate to your claim (do NOT restate the author) Adding more clarity Specific detail (good place to cite an author) Commentary – developing the detail – how does it relate to your claim (do NOT restate the author)

Structure II  How does your overall paper develop?  Does it build to an ultimate conclusion?  Is each paragraph important?  Think of the shape of your argument: Weakest pointFairly solidStrongest point Strong Mid weak Strong, weak, strong Weak Strong Weak

Style  Think about all the authors we’ve read  Whose style did you enjoy?  Think about what made his or her style pop out to you. You do not need to be Thoreau or Rodriguez or Prose or Orwell, but do not neglect to learn from them  Mix up your sentence structures – add variety to keep your reader’s interest  EX: A few longer sentences followed by a short, simple sentence allows your reader to focus on the latter  Verbiage- scholarly, but not pedantic, formal but not overly so (be careful not to be too heavily influenced by the archaic authors.)

Get out your rough draft  Take 10 minutes to annotate your own text  Key words/phrases  Important insights

Then…  Write a précis of your own paper (sometimes called an abstract)  Side Note: This is a relatively small paper for an abstract, but professors will often have students write one as an intro or pre-writing for a longer essay