In a course like this, writing is a key component not only because it is an English course but because it is an online course and that is the primary way in which information is communicated.
Writing, or formal academic writing is daunting to many people because formal planned writing is not a natural manner of communication in daily life. It’s rare that someone would make a list of prioritized items to discuss for a casual conversation. Perhaps in certain argumentation or persuasion situations this may be the case, but generally not. Most of the time communication occurs stream of consciousness as the ideas flow and the speaker is inspired to express them in the moment.
Hence the anxiety associated with essay writing.
Formal academic writing requires some recognizable organization which enables us as the reader to get a sense of not only what the topic of discussion is, but possibly be able to anticipate and predict what is coming in the discussion and what types of examples might be presented. It’s not like we’re fortunetelling and predicting the future, but we are using our active critical reading skills to think as we read–to participate with the writer as the information is unfolding.
Chapter 4 of The Everyday Writer presents ways that writers explore ideas and techniques they use to plan the first stages of an essay. Take a look at pages 32-38 to get a sense of idea exploration. Some of this discussion you have more than likely heard in previous English classes: brainstorming, freewriting, clustering. These ideas have been around for decades and are commonly presented in writing classes. Drawing pictures aka mind mapping has also been around since the ’90s, but is less commonly presented in writing classes because of the artistic element required to produce a mind map. The graphics above present very simple mind maps that are very much like flow charts. Visual schemes or mind maps can take many different forms depending on the time, interest, and artistic ability of the writer. Here are a couple more elaborate visual schemes aka mind maps:
Are the main topics easily identifiable in the maps?
Obviously, these are quite artistically advanced and not necessary for an essay assignment. However, people perceive and comprehend differently–some people comprehend visual images more readily than printed words, so for them such artistic planning many be more natural than for those people who relate to linear lists of words without pictures. Remember the old adage, “A picture is worth a thousand words”? Visually-oriented people relate to the information presented in the picture more than to a paragraph of prose describing the picture. The picture communicates more to them than the paragraph does.
However you approach idea exploration and prewriting for this week’s essay, it is still necessary to plan your discussion much like you would plan a driving trip. You know your starting point and destination, but you need to plan how you will get there.
There are different ways to organize your ideas as you plan your essay. Below is information on outlining to augment the above ideas on mind-mapping.
CREATING AN OUTLINE
Once a topic has been chosen, ideas have been generated through brainstorming and free writing, and a working thesis has been created, the last step a writer can perform in the prewriting stage is creating an outline. An outline allows a writer to categorize the main points, to organize the paragraphs into an order that makes sense, and to make sure that each paragraph/idea can be fully developed. Essentially, an outline helps prevent a writer from getting stuck when performing the actual writing of the essay.
An outline provides a map of where to go with the essay. A well-developed outline will show what the thesis of the essay is, what the main idea of each body paragraph is, and the evidence/support that will be offered in each paragraph to substantiate the main points.
The following is an example of an outline:
Thesis: In order to succeed in the classroom, college students need to utilize the resources available to them throughout their college careers.
- Advising
- Find the right program(s) and/or career field
- Implement a plan for fulfilling program requirements
- Sign up for the correct classes
- Verify prerequisites
- Find times that work
- Locate proper instructor
- Evaluate progress
- Help with content
- Study groups
- Tutoring
- Drop-in
- Individual
- SI sessions
- Technology
- Computer Labs
- Academic websites
- Forums and online discussions
In this example, the Roman numerals I, II, and III are each of the body paragraphs that will appear in the essay. Next to each Roman numeral is the central idea behind each paragraph and how it relates to the essay’s main point (or thesis). The letters that appear under each Roman numeral show the details that will be offered in each paragraph to support the main idea of the paragraph. If some of the details require multiple explanations, these are noted with numbers under the letters.
Notice all that the above outline accomplishes: The main ideas/paragraphs of the essay have been grouped into an order that makes sense; the main idea behind each paragraph is identified along with the support that will be offered. Essentially, the essay is completely organized. Now the writer can simply follow the outline and turn each idea into a paragraph by expanding on the details that are present.
While creating an outline such as this will take a small amount of time, the time put into creating this outline should result in saving even more time during the writing phase. If following the outline, the writer should not get stuck wondering what comes next or how to expand upon an idea.
More on Outlining
Trying to devise a structure for your essay can be one of the most difficult parts of the writing process. Making a detailed outline before you begin writing is a good way to make sure your ideas come across in a clear and logical order. A good outline will also save you time in the revision process, reducing the possibility that your ideas will need to be rearranged once you’ve written them.
The First Steps
Before you can begin outlining, you need to have a sense of what you will argue in the essay. From your analysis and close readings of primary and/or secondary sources you should have notes, ideas, and possible quotes to cite as evidence. Let’s say you are writing about the 1999 Republican Primary and you want to prove that each candidate’s financial resources were the most important element in the race. At this point, your notes probably lack much coherent order. Most likely, your ideas are still in the order in which they occurred to you; your notes and possible quotes probably still adhere to the chronology of the sources you’ve examined. Your goal is to rearrange your ideas, notes, and quotes—the raw material of your essay—into an order that best supports your argument, not the arguments you’ve read in other people’s works. To do this, you have to group your notes into categories and then arrange these categories in a logical order.
Generalizing
The first step is to look over each individual piece of information that you’ve written and assign it to a general category. Ask yourself, “If I were to file this in a database, what would I file it under?” If, using the example of the Republican Primary, you wrote down an observation about John McCain’s views on health care, you might list it under the general category of “Health care policy.” As you go through your notes, try to reuse categories whenever possible. Your goal is to reduce your notes to no more than a page of category listings.
Now examine your category headings. Do any seem repetitive? Do any go together? “McCain’s expenditure on ads” and “Bush’s expenditure on ads,” while not exactly repetitive, could easily combine into a more general category like “Candidates’ expenditures on ads.” Also, keep an eye out for categories that no longer seem to relate to your argument. Individual pieces of information that at first seemed important can begin to appear irrelevant when grouped into a general category.
Now it’s time to generalize again. Examine all your categories and look for common themes. Go through each category and ask yourself, “If I were to place this piece of information in a file cabinet, what would I label that cabinet?” Again, try to reuse labels as often as possible: “Health Care,” “Foreign Policy,” and “Immigration” can all be contained under “Policy Initiatives.” Make these larger categories as general as possible so that there are no more than three or four for a 7-10 page paper.
Ordering
With your notes grouped into generalized categories, the process of ordering them should be easier. To begin, look at your most general categories. With your thesis in mind, try to find a way that the labels might be arranged in a sentence or two that supports your argument. Let’s say your thesis is that financial resources played the most important role in the 1999 Republican Primary. Your four most general categories are “Policy Initiatives,” “Financial Resources,” “Voters’ Concerns,” and “Voters’ Loyalty.” You might come up with the following sentence: ÒAlthough McCain’s policy initiatives were closest to the voters’ concerns, Bush’s financial resources won the voters’ loyalty.Ó This sentence should reveal the order of your most general categories. You will begin with an examination of McCain’s and Bush’s views on important issues and compare them to the voters’ top concerns. Then you’ll look at both candidates’ financial resources and show how Bush could win voters’ loyalty through effective use of his resources, despite his less popular policy ideas.
With your most general categories in order, you now must order the smaller categories. To do so, arrange each smaller category into a sentence or two that will support the more general sentence you’ve just devised. Under the category of “Financial Resources,” for instance, you might have the smaller categories of “Ad Expenditure,” “Campaign Contributions” and “Fundraising.” A sentence that supports your general argument might read: “Bush’s early emphasis on fundraising led to greater campaign contributions, allowing him to have a greater ad expenditure than McCain.”
The final step of the outlining process is to repeat this procedure on the smallest level, with the original notes that you took for your essay. To order what probably was an unwieldy and disorganized set of information at the beginning of this process, you need now only think of a sentence or two to support your general argument. Under the category “Fundraising,” for example, you might have quotes about each candidate’s estimation of its importance, statistics about the amount of time each candidate spent fundraising, and an idea about how the importance of fundraising never can be overestimated. Sentences to support your general argument might read: “No candidate has ever raised too much money [your idea]. While both McCain and Bush acknowledged the importance of fundraising [your quotes], the numbers clearly point to Bush as the superior fundraiser [your statistics].” The arrangement of your ideas, quotes, and statistics now should come naturally.
Putting It All Together
With these sentences, you have essentially constructed an outline for your essay. The most general ideas, which you organized in your first sentence, constitute the essay’s sections. They follow the order in which you placed them in your sentence. The order of the smaller categories within each larger category (determined by your secondary sentences) indicates the order of the paragraphs within each section. Finally, your last set of sentences about your specific notes should show the order of the sentences within each paragraph. An outline for the essay about the 1999 Republican Primary (showing only the sections worked out here) would look something like this:
I. POLICY INITIATIVES
II. VOTERS’ CONCERNS
III. FINANCIAL RESOURCES
A. Fundraising
a. Original Idea
b. McCain Quote/Bush Quote
c. McCain Statistics/Bush Statistics
B. Campaign Contributions
C. Ad Expenditure
IV. VOTERS’ LOYALTY
Copyright 2000, David Kornhaber, for the Writing Center at Harvard University
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