Writing Workshop

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Writing Workshop

• Bernie Cabral
• Mike Wasserman
• 3/22/00

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Todays Agenda

• Quick Diagnostic
• Bernie and Mikes Eight Easy Ways to Improve Your
  Business Writing
• Prewrite and outline
• Write short simple sentences in the active voice
• Use commas correctly
• Cite sources correctly and consistently
• Make your subject and verbs agree!
• Use articles (the, an, a) appropriately
• Use transitions, format, paragraphs, headings
  help emphasize your logic
• Proofreading, editing, peer review, and rewrite
• Time for Your Questions

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Original paragraph - find the errors! Faith
Mountain Company focuses on the needs of woman
between ages of 20-50 who owns there own homes
and have family incomes of 40,000-60,000. The
women, want to keep their familys values and
use mail-order catalogs to order products and
gift items and enhance the quality of their homes
and family lives and save there time.
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Faith Mountain Company focuses on the needs of
woman between the ages of 20-50 who owns there
own homes and have family incomes of
40,000-60,000. The women, want to keep their
familys values and use mail-order catalogs to
order products and gift items and enhance the
quality of their homes and family lives and save
there time.
Indent new paragraph and begin with an article
(The!)
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Corrected paragraph The Faith Mountain Company
focuses on the needs of women between the ages of
20-50 who own their own homes and have family
incomes of 40,000-60,000. Customers like to
order products and gifts from catalogs. They feel
this enhances the quality of their homes and
family lives and saves their time.
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Original paragraph part 2 find the errors So the
Faith Mountain Company intend to establish itself
as the leader of its industry in high-quality,
high values gifts, apparel, and home accessories
The Faith Mountain Company offered a broad range
of high-quality products to its customers, it
includes Herbs , floral arrangements,
sportswhere, gifts, and home and garden
decorations.
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So the Faith Mountain Company intend to establish
itself as the leader of its industry in
high-quality, high values gifts, apparel, and
home accessories The Faith Mountain Company
offered a broad range of high-quality products to
its customers, it includes Herbs , floral
arrangements, sportswhere, gifts, and home and
garden decorations.
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Corrected paragraph, part 2 The Faith Mountain
Company intends to establish itself a leader in
its industry (industry leader) in high-quality,
high value gifts, apparel, and home accessories.
The Faith Mountain Company offers a broad range
of high-quality products to its customers. The
product line includes herbs, floral arrangements,
sportswear, gifts, and home and garden
decorations.
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Step 1 in the 8-Step Bernie and Mike
ProgramPrewrite and Outline

• Prewriting is the process of developing and
  organizing your thoughts on your subject
• Every thought you have about the subject counts
  this could occur while you are driving, in the
  shower, or while doing research
• Capture these thoughts early
• Use an outline, if you choose, to organize these
  thoughts.
• Now you are ready to write.

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Step 2 in the 8-Step Bernie and Mike
ProgramWrite short, simple sentences in the
active voice

• Make life easier for you and your reader. Write
  simply! Shorter sentences mean less chance for
  you to make grammar errors, and less chance of
  confusing your reader, OK?
• Write in the active voice. Subject-verb-object.
  Not object-verb-subject or subject-object-verb,
  or any other of the wacky combinations we have
  seen..SUBJECT-VERB-OBJECT- got it? Here are
  some examples

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Short sentence Active Voice

• Correct CEO Jack Welch developed effective
  e-business strategies.
• Incorrect Effective e-business strategies were
  developed by Jack Welch
• Incorrect Developing effective e-business
  strategies was Jack Welchs strength.

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Short sentence Active Voice
2. Verb
1. Subject

• Correct Jack Welch developed effective
  e-business strategies.
• Incorrect Effective e-business strategies were
  developed by Jack Welch
• Incorrect Developing effective e-business
  strategies were Jack Welchs strength.

3. Object
1. Object
3. Subject
2. Verb (passive!)
1. Verb (passive and disconnected)
3. Subject
2. Object
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Ok, so whats the lesson learned here?
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Step 3 in the 8-Step Bernie and Mike
ProgramUse commas correctly!

• If you write simply, you dont need to use many
  commas! See Rule 2!
• If you do use commas separate prepositional
  phrases (to, in, of, for, etc), modifying
  phrases (such as in the sentence above),
  coordinating conjunction (and/but/or followed by
  a subject and verb), and lists
• Dont throw them in if you dont need them!!!
• USE (but dont rely on) the grammar checker in
  Word this is especially helpful with commas.
  Dont make the correction blindly, think about
  it
• Avoid colons and semi-colons they are not your
  friends!

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Step 4 in the 8-Step Bernie and Mike
ProgramCite sources correctly and consistently

• Summarizing
• Paraphrasing
• Quoting

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• Summarizing and paraphrasing are necessary
  skills in the research writing process. While
  summarizing simply reduces the information you
  gather, often into a list or a short review of
  the main ideas, paraphrasing retells the
  information in your own words an d sentence
  structure. You have probably noticed how
  difficult it can be to paraphrase If you keep too
  much of either the original author's words and/or
  sentence structure, you are guilty of plagiarism,
  a serious offense in all English writing. You are
  guilty of plagiarism even if you indicate where
  the material came from but have not paraphrased
  correctly. Unfortunately, you cannot let the
  original authors do all the talking either, since
  a paper filled with quotations indicates a lack
  of thought and argument.
• (Exercises in Paraphrasing, GMU Writing Center,
  http//www.gmu.edu/departments/writingcenter/hando
  uts/parap.html, 3/14/00)

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Step 5 in the 8-Step Bernie and Mike
ProgramYour subjects and verbs should agree!

• First identify the subject. The subject is
  what the sentence is about. It is usually a noun
  (person, place, or thing)!
• If you write in the active voice, the subject
  should be at the start of the sentence. If the
  subject is unclear, you probably need to rewrite
  the sentence
• Singular subjects (no s) must have a singular
  verb (no s) plural subjects must have a plural
  verb

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Step 6 in the 8-Step Bernie and Mike
ProgramUse articles appropriately!

• Articles are those little words that precede and
  modify nouns the teacher, a college, a bit of
  honey. Sometimes these words will tell the
  reader or listener whether we're referring to a
  specific or general thing (a barn, the garage).
• The choice of the proper article to precede a
  noun or noun phrase is usually not a problem for
  writers who have grown up speaking English, nor
  is it a serious problem for non-native writers
  whose first language is a romance language such
  as Spanish. For other writers, though, this can
  be a considerable obstacle on the way to their
  mastery of English. In fact, some students from
  eastern European countries, where their native
  language has either no articles or an altogether
  different system of choosing articles and
  determiners, find that these "little words" can
  create problems long after every other aspect of
  English has been mastered.

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Step 7 in the 8-Step Bernie and Mike
ProgramLogic is important. Use proper
transitions, paragraphing, and headings to
emphasize your logic!

• All your major concepts/points/elements should be
  addressed in your thesis paragraph. This will
  introduce your logic
• Each concept in your thesis should be expanded
  upon in a paragraph or two in the body of your
  paper
• Use transitions to move from one concept to the
  next
• Headings can make your logic clearer
• Your conclusion should mirror your thesis. This
  will reinforce your logic
• LOGIC! LOGIC! LOGIC! Dont be afraid to repeat
  key terms to hammer home your logic

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Step 8 in the 8-Step Bernie and Mike
ProgramProofreading, Editing, Peer Review, and
Rewriting

• READ YOUR PAPER ALOUD TO YOURSELFif you have
  trouble reading a sentence clearly and smoothly,
  chances are it needs to be rewritten
• PROOFREAD!
• Use the spelling and grammar checker in Word
  (cautiously)
• Write multiple drafts.good writing comes from
  revision (for even the greatest writers)
• REWRITE! REWRITE! REWRITE!

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Good questions for peer review

• Do you have a thesis statement, a sentence or two
  that states the main point or argument of your
  essay?
• Does the paper flow? Make sure one idea connects
  clearly and logically to the next idea.
• Do you have a conclusion?
• Do you use a consistent method of documentation?
• Do you use specific language? Avoid vague
  language(some words to watch out for aspects,
  thing, factors, society)and too many pronouns
  (it, she, they, there). Be clear.
• Is all the information correct?
• Does your paper answer the assignment?