This document is a chapter from Literature for
Composition, 5th Edition (Sylvan Barnet, Morton Berman, William Burto,
William E. Cain, and Marcia Stubbs, editors; New York: Addison, Wesley,
Longman, 1999). This reading introduces you to the basic steps in the writing
process: prewriting writing a rough draft, performing peer and self reviews,
revising your work, creating a final draft.
Although the book teaches writing about literature
(rather than the factual essays we've read and will read in this class), the
description of the writing process is both excellent and equally applicable to
writing on any subject. Pay particular attention to the discussions of
formulating a thesis, drafting, and revising.
The
Reader as Writer: Developing a Thesis, Drafting and Writing an Argument
All there is to writing is having
ideas.
To learn to write is to learn to have ideas. –Robert Frost
PRE-WRITING: GETTING IDEAS
How does one "learn to have ideas"? Among the methods are
these: reading with a pen or pencil in hand, so that (as we have already seen)
you can annotate the text; keeping a journal, in which you jot down reflections
about your reading; talking with others (including your instructor) about the
reading. Let’s take another look at the first of these, annotating.
Annotating
a Text
In reading, if you own the book don’t hesitate to mark it up, indicating
(by highlighting or underlining or by making marginal notes) what puzzles you,
what pleases or interests you, and what displeases or bores you. Later, you’ll
want to think further about these responses, asking yourself, on rereading, if
you still feel that way, and if not, why not, but these first responses will
get you started.
Annotations
of the sort given on page 7, which chiefly call attention to contrasts, indicate
that the student is thinking about writing an analysis of the story. That is,
she is thinking of writing an essay in which she will examine the parts of a
literary work either in an effort to see how they relate to each other or in an
effort to see how one part relates to the whole.
More
About Getting Ideas: A Second Story by Kate Chopin
Let’s look at a story that is a little longer than "Ripe
Figs," and then we’ll discuss how in addition to annotating one might get
ideas for writing about it.
The Story of an Hour
Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart
trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of
her husband’s death.
It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken
sentences, veiled hints that revealed in half concealing. Her husband’s friend
Richards was there, too, near her. It was he who had been in the newspaper
office when intelligence of the railroad disaster was received, with Brently
Mallard’s name leading the list of "killed." He had only taken the
time to assure himself of its truth by a second telegram, and had hastened to
forestall any less careful, less tender friend in bearing the sad message.
She did not hear the story as many women have heard
the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance. She wept at
once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister’s arms. When the storm of
grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would have no one
follow her.
There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable,
roomy armchair. Into this she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that
haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul.
She could see in the open square before her house the
tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious
breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his
wares. The notes of a distant song which some one was singing reached her
faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves.
There were patches of blue sky showing here and there
through the clouds that had met and piled above the other in the west facing
her window. She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair
quite motionless, except when a sob came up into her throat and shook her, as a
child who has cried itself to sleep continues to sob in its dreams.
She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines
bespoke repression and even a certain strength. But now there was a dull stare
in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed away off yonder on one of those patches of
blue sky. It was not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a suspension
of intelligent thought.
There was something coming to her and she was waiting
for it, fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive
to name. But she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through
the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air.
Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. She was
beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her, and she
was striving to beat it back with her will—as powerless as her two white
slender hands would have been.
When she abandoned herself a little whispered word
escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under her breath:
"Free, free, free!" The vacant stare and the look of terror that had
followed it went from her eyes. They stayed keen and bright. Her pulses beat
fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body.
She did not stop to ask if it were not a monstrous joy
that held her. A clear and exalted perception enabled her to dismiss the
suggestion as trivial.
She knew that she would weep again when she saw the
kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with
love upon her, fixed and gray and dead. But she saw beyond that bitter moment a
long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely. And she
opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome.
There would be no one to live for her during those
coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will
bending her in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they
have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow creature. A kind intention
or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in
that brief moment of illumination.
And yet she had loved him—sometimes. Often she had
not. What did it matter! What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in
face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the
strongest impulse of her being.
"Free! Body and soul free!" she kept
whispering.
Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her
lips to the keyhole, imploring for admission. "Louise, open the door! I
beg; open the door—you will make yourself ill. What are you doing, Louise? For
heaven’s sake open the door."
"Go away. I am not making myself ill." No;
she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that open window.
Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her.
Spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own. She
breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had
thought with a shudder that life might be long.
She arose at length and opened the door to her
sister’s importunities. There was a feverish triumph in her eyes, and she
carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of Victory. She clasped her sister’s
waist, and together they descended the stairs. Richards stood waiting for them
at the bottom.
Some one was opening the front door with a latchkey.
It was Brently Mallard who entered, a little travel-stained, composedly
carrying his gripsack and umbrella. He had been far from the scene of accident,
and did not even know there had been one. He stood amazed at Josephine’s
piercing cry; at Richards’ quick motion to screen him from the view of his
wife.
But Richards was too late.
When the doctors came they said she had died of heart
disease—of joy that kills.
[1894]
Brainstorming
for Ideas for Writing
Unlike annotating, which consists of making brief notes and small marks
on the printed page, "brainstorming"—the free jotting down of
ideas—asks that you jot down whatever comes to mind, without inhibition. Don’t
worry about spelling, about writing complete sentences, or about unifying your
thoughts; just let one thought lead to another. Later you can review your
jottings, deleting some, connecting with arrows others that are related,
expanding still others, but for now you want to get going, and so there is no reason
to look back. Thus you might jot down something about the title:
Title speaks of an hour, and story covers an hour, but
maybe takes five minutes to read.
And
then, perhaps prompted "by an hour," you might happen to add
something to this effect:
Doubt that a woman who got news of the death of her
husband could move from grief to joy within an hour.
Your
next jotting might have little or nothing to do with this issue; it might
simply say
Enjoyed "Hour" more than "Ripe
Figs" partly because "Hour" is so shocking.
And
then you might ask yourself
By shocking, do I mean "improbable," or
what? Come to think of it, maybe it’s not so improbable. A lot depends on what
the marriage was like.
Focused Free Writing
Focused,
or directed, free writing is a method related to brainstorming that some
writers use to uncover ideas they may want to write about. Concentrating on one
issue—for instance, a question that strikes them as worth puzzling over (What
kind of person is Mrs. Mallard?)—they write at length, nonstop, for perhaps
five or ten minutes.
Writers
who find free writing helpful put down everything they can think of that bears
on the one issue or question they are examining. They do not stop at this stage
to evaluate the results, and they do not worry about niceties of sentence
structure or of spelling. They just pour out their ideas in a steady stream of
writing, drawing on whatever associations come to mind. If they pause in their
writing, it is only to refer to the text, to search for more detail—perhaps a
quotation—that will help them answer their question.
After
the free-writing session, these writers usually go back and reread what they
have written, highlighting or underlining what seems to be of value. Of course
they find much that is of little or no use, but they also usually find that
some strong ideas have surfaced and have received some development. At this
point the writers are often able to make a rough outline and then begin a
draft.
Here
is an example of one student’s focused free writing:
What do I know about Mrs. Mallard? Let me put
everything down here I know about her or can figure out from what Kate Chopin
tells me. When she finds herself alone after the death of her husband, she
says, "Free. Body and soul free" and before that she said,
"Free, free, free" Three times. So she has suddenly perceived that
she has not been free; she has been under the influence of a "powerful
will." In this case it has been her husband, but she says no one, man nor
woman, should impose their will on anyone else. So it’s not a feminist
issue--it’s a power issue. No one should push anyone else around is what I
guess Chopin means, force someone to do what the other person wants. I used to
have a friend that did that to me all the time; he had to run everything. They
say that fathers--before the women’s movement--used to run things, with the
father in charge of all the decisions, so maybe this is an honest reaction to
having been pushed around by a husband. I think Mrs. Mallard is a believable
character, even if the plot is not all that believable--all those things
happening in such quick succession.
Listing
In
your preliminary thinking you may find it useful to make lists. In the previous
chapter we saw that listing the traits of the two characters
was helpful in thinking about Chopin’s "Ripe Figs:"
Maman-Nainaine
older than Babette "stately way"
"patient as the statue of Ia Madone"
connects actions with seasons
expects to be obeyed Babette
young
active
obedient
For
"The Story of an Hour" you might list Mrs. Mallard’s traits; or you
might list the stages in her development. (Such a list is not the same as a
summary of the plot. The list helps the writer to see the sequence of
psychological changes.)
weeps (when she gets the news) goes to room, alone
"pressed down by a physical exhaustion"
"dull stare"
"something coming to her"
strives to beat back "this thing"
"Free, free, free!" The "vacant stare
went. . . from her eyes" "A clear and exalted perception"
rejects Josephine
"she was drinking in a very elixir of life"
gets up, opens door, "a feverish triumph in her
eyes" sees B, and dies
Unlike
brainstorming and annotating, which let you go in all directions, listing
requires that you first make a decision about what you will be listing—traits of
character, images, puns, or whatever. Once you make the decision, you can then
construct the list, and, with a list in front of you, you will probably see
patterns that you were not earlier fully conscious of.
Asking
Questions
If
you feel stuck, ask yourself questions. (You’ll recall that the assignment on
"Ripe Figs" in effect asked the students to ask themselves questions
about the work—for instance, questions about the relationship between the
characters— and about their responses to it: "You’ll probably try to
explain as honestly as you can what makes ‘Ripe Figs’ appealing or
interesting—or trifling, or boring."
If
you are thinking about a work of fiction, ask yourself questions about the plot
and the characters—are they believable, are they interesting, and what does it
all add up to? What does the story mean to you? One student
found it helpful to jot down the following questions:
Plot
Ending false? Unconvincing? Or prepared for?
Character?
Mrs. M. unfeeling? Immoral?
Mrs. M. unbelievable character?
What might her marriage have been like? Many gaps.
(Can we tell what her husband was like?)
"And yet she loved him--sometimes" Fickle?
Realistic?
What is "this thing that was approaching to
possess her"? Symbolism
Set on spring day = symbolic of new life?
You don’t have to be as tidy as this student. You may
begin by jotting down notes and queries about what you like or dislike and
about what puzzles or amuses you. What follows are the jottings of another
student, Janet Vong. They are, obviously, in no particular order—the student is
"brainstorming," putting down whatever occurs to her—though it is
equally obvious that one note sometimes led to the next:
Title nothing special. What might be a better title?
Could a woman who loved her husband be so heartless?
Is she heartless? Did she love him?
What are (were) Louise’s feelings about her husband?
Did she want too much? What did she want?
Could this story happen today? Feminist
interpretation?
Sister (Josephine)--a busybody?
Tricky ending--but maybe it could be true.
"And yet she had loved him--sometimes. Often she
had not." Why does one love someone "sometimes"?
Irony: plot has reversal. Are characters ironic too?
These
jottings will help the reader-writer think about the story, find a special
point of interest, and develop a thoughtful argument about it.
Critical
Thinking: Arguing with Yourself
In
our discussion of annotating, brainstorming, free writing, listing, asking
questions, and writing entries in a journal, the emphasis has been on
responding freely rather than in any highly systematic or disciplined way.
Something strikes us (perhaps an idea, perhaps an uncertainty), and we jot it
down. Maybe even before we finish jotting it down we go on to question it, but
probably not; at this early stage it is enough to put onto paper some thoughts,
rooted in our first responses, and to keep going.
The
almost random play of mind that is evident in brainstorming and in the other
activities already discussed is of course a kind of thinking, but the term
critical thinking (which we addressed briefly in our first chapter) is reserved
for something different. When we think critically, we skeptically scrutinize
our own ideas—for example, by searching out our underlying assumptions, or by
evaluating what we have quickly jotted down as evidence. We have already seen
some examples of this sort of analysis of one’s own thinking in the journal
entries, where, for instance, a student wrote that literature should probably
deal with "typical" people, then wondered if "typical" and
"plausible" were the same, and then added "probably not."
Speaking
broadly, critical thinking is rational, logical thinking. In thinking
critically,
•one scrutinizes one’s assumptions;
•one tests the evidence one has collected, even to the extent of looking for
counter evidence;
•one revises one’s thesis when necessary, in order to make the argument as
complete and convincing as possible.
Let’s
start with assumptions. If I say that a story is weak because it is improbable,
I ought to think about my assumption that improbability is a fault. I can begin
by asking myself if all good stories—or all the stories that I value highly—are
probable. I may recall that among my favorites is Alice in Wonderland (or
Gulliver’s Travels or Animal Farm)—so I probably have to withdraw
my assumption that improbability in itself makes a story less than good. I may
go on to refine the idea and decide that improbability is not a fault in
satiric stories but is a fault in other kinds, but that is not the same as
saying bluntly that improbability is a fault.
The
second aspect of critical thinking that we have isolated—searching for counter
evidence within the literary work—especially involves rereading the work to see
if we have overlooked material or have taken a particular detail out of
context. If, for instance, we say that in "The Story of an Hour"
Josephine is a busybody, we should reexamine the work in order to make sure
that she indeed is meddling needlessly and is not offering welcome or necessary
assistance. Perhaps the original observation will stand up, but perhaps on
rereading the story we may come to feel, as we examine each of Josephine’s
actions, that she cannot reasonably be characterized as a busybody.
Different
readers may come to different conclusions; the important thing is that all
readers should subject their initial responses to critical thinking, testing
their responses against all of the evidence. Remember, your instructor probably
expects you to hand in an essay that is essentially an argument, a paper that
advances a thesis of your own, and therefore you will revise your drafts if you
find counter evidence. The thesis might be that the story is improbable, or is
typical of Chopin or is anti-woman, or is a remarkable anticipation of
contemporary feminist thinking. Whatever your thesis, it should be able to
withstand scrutiny. You may not convince every reader that you are
unquestionably right, but you should make every reader feel that your argument
is thoughtful. If you read your notes and then your drafts critically, you
probably will write a paper that meets this standard.
One
last point, or maybe it’s two. Just as your first jottings probably won’t be
the products of critical thinking, your first reading of the literary work
probably won’t he a critical reading. It is entirely appropriate to
begin by reading simply for enjoyment. After :ill, the reason we read
literature (or listen to music, or go to an art museum, or watch dancers) is to
derive pleasure. It happens, however, that in this course you are trying (among
other things) to deepen your understanding of literature, and therefore you are
studying literature. On subsequent readings, therefore, you will read
the work critically, taking careful note of the writer’s view of human nature
and the writer’s ways of achieving certain effects.
This
business of critical thinking is important, and we will discuss it yet again,
on page 35, in talking about interpretations of literature.
Arriving
at a Thesis, and Arguing It
If
you think critically about your early jottings and about the literary work
itself, you probably will find that some of your jottings lead to dead ends,
but some will lead to further ideas that hold up under scrutiny. What the
thesis of the essay will be— the idea that will be asserted and argued (supported
with evidence)—is still in doubt, but there is no doubt about one thing: A
good essay will have a thesis, a point, an argument. You ought to be able to
state your point in a thesis sentence.
Consider
these candidates as possible thesis sentences:
1. Mrs. Mallard dies soon after hearing
that her husband has died.
True,
but scarcely a point that can be argued or even developed. About the most the
essayist can do with this sentence is amplify it by summarizing the plot of the
story, a task not worth doing unless the plot is unusually obscure. An essay
may include a sentence or two of summary to give readers their bearings, but a
summary is not an essay.
2. The story is a libel on women.
In
contrast to the first statement, this one can be developed into an argument.
Probably the writer will try to demonstrate that Mrs. Mallard’s behavior is
despicable. Whether this point can be convincingly argued is another matter;
the thesis may be untenable, but it is a thesis. A second problem, however, is
this: Even if the writer demonstrates that Mrs. Mallard’s behavior is
despicable, he or she will have to go on to demonstrate that the presentation
of one despicable woman constitutes a libel on women in general. That’s a
pretty big order.
3. The story is clever but superficial
because it is based on an unreal character.
Here,
too, is a thesis, a point of view that can be argued. Whether or not this
thesis is true is another matter. The writer’s job will be to support it by
presenting evidence. Probably the writer will have no difficulty in finding
evidence that the story is "clever"; the difficulty will be in
establishing a case that the characterization of Mrs. Mallard is "unreal."
The writer will have to set forth some ideas about what makes a character real
and then will have to show that Mrs. Mallard is an "unreal"
(unbelievable) figure.
4. The irony of the ending is believable
partly because it is consistent with earlier ironies in the story.
It
happens that the student who wrote the essay printed on page 24 began by
drafting an essay based on the third of these thesis topics, but as she worked
on a draft she found that she couldn’t support her assertion that the character
was unconvincing. In fact, she came to believe that although Mrs. Mallard’s joy
was the reverse of what a reader might expect, several early reversals in the
story helped to make Mrs. Mallard’s shift from grief to joy acceptable.
WRITING A DRAFT
After
jotting down notes and then adding more notes stimulated by rereading and
further thinking, you should be able to formulate a tentative thesis. At this
point most writers find it useful to clear the air by glancing over their
preliminary notes and by jotting down the thesis and a few especially promising
notes— brief statements of what they think their key points may be. These notes
may include some brief key quotations that the writer thinks will help to
support the thesis.
Here
are the selected notes (not the original brainstorming notes, but a later
selection from them, with additions) and a draft (p. 20)
that makes use of them.
title? Ironies in an Hour (?) An Hour of Irony (?)
Kate Chopin’s Irony (?)
thesis: irony at end is prepared for by earlier
ironies
chief irony: Mrs. M. dies just as she is beginning to
enjoy life
smaller ironies:
1. "sad
message" brings her joy
2. Richards
is "too late" at end;
3. Richards
is too early at start
These
notes are in effect a very brief outline. Some writers at this point like to
develop a fuller outline, but most writers begin with only a brief outline,
knowing that in the process of developing a draft from these few notes
additional ideas will arise. For these writers, the time to jot down a detailed
outline is after they have written a first or second draft. The outline
of the written draft will, as we shall see, help them to make sure that their
draft has an adequate organization, and that main points are developed.
A
Sample Draft: "Ironies in an Hour"
Now
for the student’s draft—not the first version, but a revised draft with some of
the irrelevancies of the first draft omitted and some evidence added.
The
digits within the parentheses refer to the page numbers from which the
quotations are drawn, though with so short a work as "The Story of an
Hour," page references are hardly necessary. Check with your instructor to
find out if you must always give citations.
Ironies in an Hour
After we know how the story turns out, if we reread it we find irony at the
very start, as is true of many other stories. Mrs. Mallard’s friends assume,
mistakenly, that Mrs. Mallard was deeply in love with her husband, Brently
Mallard. They take great care to tell her gently of his death. The friends mean
well, and in fact they do well. They bring her an hour of life, an hour of
freedom. They think their news is sad. Mrs. Mallard at first expresses grief
when she hears the news, but soon she finds joy in it. So Richards’s "sad
message" (12), though sad in Richards’s eyes, is in fact a happy message.
Among the ironic details is the statement that when
Mallard entered the house, Richards tried to conceal him from Mrs. Mallard, but
"Richards was too late" (13). This is ironic because earlier Richards
"hastened" (12) to bring his sad message; if he had at the start been
"too late" (13), Brently Mallard would have arrived at home first,
and Mrs. Mallard’s life would not have ended an hour later but would simply
have gone on as it had before. Yet another irony at the end of the story is the
diagnosis of the doctors. The doctors say she died of "heart disease--of
joy that kills" (13). In one sense the doctors are right:
Mrs. Mallard has experienced a great joy. But of
course the doctors totally misunderstand the joy that kills her. The central irony resides not in the
well-intentioned but ironic actions of Richards, or in the unconsciously ironic
words of the doctors, but in her own life. In a way she has been dead. She
"sometimes" (13) loved her husband, but in a way she has been dead.
Now, his apparent death brings her new life. This new life comes to her at the
season of the year when "the tops of trees.. . were all aquiver with the
new spring life" (12). But, ironically, her new life will last only an
hour. She looks forward to "summer days" (13) but she will not see
even the end of this spring day.
Her years of marriage were ironic. They brought her a sort of living death
instead of joy. Her new life is ironic too. It grows out of her moment of grief
for her supposedly dead husband, and her vision of a new life is cut short.
Revising
a Draft
The
draft, although thoughtful and clear, is not yet a finished essay. The student
went on to improve it in many small but important ways.
First,
the draft needs a good introductory paragraph, a paragraph that will let the
audience—the readers—know where the writer will be taking them. (In Chapter 6
we discuss introductory paragraphs.) Doubtless you know from your own
experience as a reader that readers can follow an argument more easily— and
with more pleasure—if early in the discussion the writer alerts them to the
gist of the argument. (The title, too, can strongly suggest the thesis.)
Second, some of the paragraphs could be clearer.
In
revising paragraphs—or, for that matter, in revising an entire draft—writers
unify, organize, clarify, and polish.
1. Unity is achieved partly by eliminating
irrelevancies. Notice that in the final version, printed on page 24 the writer
has deleted "as is true of many other stories."
2. Organization is largely a matter of arranging
material into a sequence that will assist the reader to grasp the point.
3. Clarity is achieved largely by providing
concrete details and quotations to support generalizations and by providing
helpful transitions ("for instance," "furthermore," "on
the other hand," "however").
4. Polish is small-scale revision. For
instance, one deletes unnecessary repetitions. In the second paragraph of the
draft, the phrase "the doctors" appears four times, but it appears
only three times in the final version of the paragraph. Similarly, in
polishing, a writer combines choppy sentences into longer sentences and breaks
overly long sentences into shorter sentences.
Later,
after producing a draft that seems close to a finished essay, writers engage in
yet another activity. They edit.
5. Editing includes checking the
accuracy of quotations by comparing them with the original, checking a
dictionary for the spelling of doubtful words, and checking a handbook for
doubtful punctuation—for instance, whether a comma or a semicolon is needed in
a particular sentence.
Outlining
a Draft
Whether
or not you draw up an outline as a preliminary guide to writing a draft, you
will be able to improve your draft if you prepare an outline of what you have
written. (If you write on a word processor it is probably especially important
that you make an outline of your written draft. Writing on a word processor is—
or seems—so easy, so effortless, that often we just tap away, filling screen
after screen with loosely structured material.) For each paragraph in your
draft, jot down the gist of the topic sentence or topic idea, and under each of
these sentences, indented, jot down key words for the idea(s) developed in the
paragraph. Thus, in an outline of the draft we have just looked at, for the
first two paragraphs the writer might make these jottings:
story ironic from start
friends think news is sad
Ms. M. finds joy
some ironic details
Richards hastened, but "too late"
doctors right and also wrong
An
outline of what you have written will help you to see if your draft is adequate
in three important ways. The outline will show you:
1. the sequence of major topics
2. the degree of development of these topics
3. the argument, the thesis
By
studying your outline you may see (for instance) that your first major point
(probably after an introductory paragraph) would be more effective as your
third point, and that your second point needs to be further developed.
An
outline of this sort is essentially a brief version of your draft, perhaps even
using some phrases from the draft. But consider making yet another sort of
outline, an outline indicating not what each paragraph says but what each
paragraph does. An attempt at such an outline of the three-paragraph
draft of the essay on "The Story of an Hour" might look like
something like this:
1. The action of the friends is ironic.
2. Gives some specific (minor) details about
ironies.
3. Explains "central irony."
One
ought to see a red flag here. The aim of this sort of outline is to indicate
what each paragraph does, but the jotting for the first paragraph does
not tell us what the paragraph does; rather, it more or less summarizes the
content of the paragraph. Why? Because the paragraph doesn’t do much of anything. It does not
clearly introduce the thesis, or define a crucial term, or set the story in the
context of Chopin’s other work. An outline indicating the function of each
paragraph will force you to see if your essay has an effective structure. We
will see that the student later wrote a new opening paragraph for the essay on
"The Story of an Hour."
Peer
Review
Your
instructor may encourage (or even require) you to discuss your draft with
another student or with a small group of students. That is, you may be asked to
get a review from your peers. Such a procedure is helpful in several ways.
First, it gives the writer a real audience, readers who can point to what
pleases or puzzles them, who make suggestions, who may often disagree (with the
writer or with each other), and who frequently, though not intentionally, misread.
Though
writers don’t necessarily like everything they hear (they seldom hear
"This is perfect. Don’t change a word!"), reading and discussing
their work with others almost always gives them a fresh perspective on their
work, and a fresh perspective may stimulate thoughtful revision. (Having your
intentions misread because your writing isn’t clear enough can be
particularly stimulating.)
The
writer whose work is being reviewed is not the sole beneficiary. When students
regularly serve as readers for each other, they become better readers of their
own work and consequently better revisers. As we say in Chapter 1, learning to
write is in large measure learning to read.
WRITING
WITH A WORD PROCESSOR
In
the preceding chapter we talked about "reading with pen in hand," and
we really meant a pen—or a pencil—with which, in your early stage of
interacting with the text, you will underline or circle or connect with arrows
words and phrases. But when it comes to jotting down ideas, or sketching an
outline, or drafting an essay, many students use a computer or a word
processor. Further, you can receive valuable help from reference books and
handbooks on style and usage, from computer programs (which check the spelling
and grammar of documents), and from resources on the Internet. [For help in CS1-Online, you can check out the Grammar Links in
External Links as well as the information in the Grammar Folder in Course
Documents.]
A
Checklist for Writing with a Word Processor
Prewriting
·
Take notes. Try listing, then linking and clustering your
ideas. Use an outline if you find it helpful.
·
Check that your transcriptions are accurate if you quote.
·
Keep your notes together in one file.
·
Organize your sources in a bibliography.
·
Always back up your material.
·
Print out your notes.
Preparing a First Draft
·
Use your notes—move them around in blocks. Expand on your
ideas.
·
Incorporate notes to yourself in your first draft.
·
Read your draft on the screen to check for errors.
·
Print out a copy of your first draft.
Working with Your Draft
·
Revise your printed draft with pen or pencil. Incorporate
these changes into your computer file.
·
Read your corrected draft on the screen; then print out a
fresh copy.
·
Repeat these steps as many times as necessary.
Responding to Peer Review
·
Give a copy to a peer for comments and suggestions.
·
Respond appropriately to your reviewer, making changes in
your computer file.
·
Print out your revised version and reread it.