DISTINGUISHING THE GENERAL FROM THE SPECIFIC

7.1 INTRODUCTION

Plan a writing project. Generate ideas for a writing project. Write a clear thesis statement. Organize material in an outline. Write effective topic sentences. Write clear sentences. Write unified, well-organized, and thorough paragraphs. Improve an essay through revision. Use proofreading strategies to remove lapses in grammar, spelling, punctuation, and mechanics from a draft.

A. Great presentations and speeches are:

well-planned
well-researched well-thought out. Part of their greatness - specific purpose and a

central idea general purpose is to inform, persuade or to entertain

B. Each paragraph in a text:

contains a main idea
topic statement - controlling idea in a paragraph contributes to establishing a meaningful pattern to the various pieces of information conveyed within the paragraph.

C. There are numerous ways of supporting the main idea of a paragraph with supporting information.
Definition (formal, informal, and expanded; especially in the non-science disciplines, may involve competing definitions Classification (formal and informal) Description (physical, function, and process) Cause & Effect Comparison & check Expansion (may involve paraphrasing or summarizing the evidence of other researchers on the topic) Exemplification (may involve facts, statistics, evidence, or details that support the topic)

7.2 Paragraph Development

Examples: Using examples to develop your paragraph allows the

writer to include specific details. Process: A process paragraph is a step-by-step analysis of how to do something

Division and Classification

highlight similarities and/or differences. Most effective for comparing and contrasting

Comparison and Analogy When explaining difficult concepts, use something with which the reader is likely to be familiar and compare it to the concept in question. Cause and Effect (1) Identify the effect in the topic sentence and write about its causes (2) write about the cause in the topic sentence and write about its effects.

7.3 Power Tools: Organization

Contentprovides strategies for thinking of useful

content for writing projects, in other words, developing the content of a project. Organization provides strategies for reviewing the sequence and arrangement of the contents of a writing projects. Transitions- provides preview strategies for checking the coherence of a writing project, in other words, the flow of the projects as created by the transitions.

7.4 Paragraph formatting: Topic Sentences

When expressing ideas in English, the main thought or

important point generally comes first. For example, if I want to tell you what I did last night ( and what I did was to go to a movie)and, in the context of the conversation, the words last night indicate the time of the action and the time of the action is the most important point. I dont say: The movie I went to last night was very good. I saw a very good movie last night. I say: Last night, I went to a very good movie. ***The end of the sentence very good movie is the other important idea/participant in the sentence. ***page 4-5

 Some common problems in student writing: Too many ideas are introduced in one paragraph.

Sentences are not related closely enough to each other.

Methods of development are not clear.

***page 5

7.5 Organization of Comparison/contrast essays.

Point by Point Organization One way to organize a comparison/contrast essay is to

use point by point organization. For example, if you want to compare two jobs, make a list of the factors that are important to you: salary, benefits, opportunities for advancement, workplace atmosphere, commuting distance from your home and so on etc. Each factor, or point of comparison, is like a subtopic in a logical division essay. ***page 6-7

THANK YOU!!!