Psy 315 week 1 practice worksheet

Four of this book. For example, a narrative essay generally follows a chronological organization. If you are having trouble developing or mapping an effective organization, refer to the introduction and readings in Chapter 5, Organization. Once you have settled on an organizational pattern, you are ready to write a first draft.

74

Writing the First Draft Your goal in writing a first draft is to get your ideas down on paper. Write quickly and let the writing follow your thinking. Do not be overly concerned about spelling, word choice, or grammar because such concerns will break the flow of your ideas. After you have completed your first draft, you will go over your essay to revise and edit it.

As you write your draft, pay attention to your outline but do not be a slave to it. It is there to help you, not restrict you. Often, when writing, you discover something new about your subject; if so, follow that idea freely. Wherever you deviate from your plan, place an X in the margin, use a comment balloon, or highlight the shift to remind yourself of the change. When you revise, you can return to that part of your writing and reconsider the change you made, either developing it further or abandoning it.

It may happen that while writing your first draft, you run into a difficulty that prevents you from moving forward. Use your resources to work through the difficulty: talk about your writing with a friend or writing tutor, review your notes, or use the information in Models for Writers. For example, suppose you want to tell the story of something that happened to you, but you aren’t certain whether you should be using the pronoun I so often. Turn to the essays in Chapters 11 and 14 to see how the authors use diction and tone and how other narrative essays handle this problem. You will find that the frequent use of I isn’t necessarily a problem at all. For an account of a personal experience, it’s perfectly acceptable to use I as often as you need to. Or suppose that after writing several pages describing someone who you think is quite a character, you find that your draft seems flat and doesn’t express how lively and funny the person really is. If you read the introduction to Chapter 15, you will learn that descriptions need lots of factual, concrete detail; the selections in that chapter give further proof of this. You can use those guidelines to add details that are missing from your draft.

If you run into difficulties writing your first draft, don’t be discouraged. Even experienced writers run into problems at the beginning. Just try to keep going and take the pressure off yourself. Think about your topic and consider your details and what you want to say. You may even want to go back and look over the ideas and information you’ve gathered.

Create a Title

What makes a good title? There are no hard-and-fast rules, but most writers would agree that an effective title hooks the reader into reading the essay, either because the title is unusual

75

and intrigues the reader or because it asks a question and the reader is curious to know the answer. A good title announces your subject and prepares your reader for the approach you take. You can create a title while writing your first draft or after you have seen how your ideas develop. Either way, the important thing is to brainstorm for titles and not simply use the first one that comes to mind. With at least a half dozen to choose from, preferably more, you will have a much better sense of how to pick an effective title — one that does the important work of explaining your subject to the reader and that is lively and inviting. Spend several minutes reviewing the titles of the essays in Models for Writers in the Table of Contents, pp. xix–xxxii. You’ll like some better than others, but reflecting on the effectiveness of each one will help you strengthen your own titles.

Focus on Beginnings and Endings

Beginnings and endings are important to the effectiveness of essays, but they can be difficult to write. Inexperienced writers often think that they must write their essays sequentially when, in fact, it is better to write both the beginning and the ending after most of the rest of an essay is completed. Pay particular attention to both parts during revision.

The beginning of your essay is vitally important to its success. Indeed, if your opening doesn’t attract and hold your readers’ attention, readers may be less than enthusiastic about proceeding.