Goal:
Students will compose essays and research papers that are logical, easy to read and conform to expected standards for expository and persuasive compositions.
Objectives:
- Students formulate a workable thesis statement from a research question.
- Students construct a framework of a thesis driven research article.
- Students write a concise and effective introductory paragraph.
- Students write concise topic sentences.
- Students construct a framework of an effective concluding section/paragraph.
Assignment:
In this portion of this assignment, you will read through some helpful tips on using an outline to organize your writing. You will also construct a topic sentences outline.
Part 3: Writing for clarity, writing for organization
Many students have good ideas for research. Many students have valid points to argue. Some have testable hypotheses. Frequently however, students can not effectively argue their points or present their logic because they can't discipline their compositions. This section is designed to reintroduce to some practices that will help you write more effectively. The points below are probably familiar to you. You were introduced to this stuff in elementary school, but for some reason about half our students refuse to use these simple and effective organizing tools.
Writing Introductions
The first component of all writing assignments is the introduction. Even though it is the first thing a reader sees, it makes a lot of sense to compose it last. The reason one may want to write the introduction last is that the introduction generally foreshadows the organization of the rest of your composition. These are the components of a good introduction:
1) an introduction should pique (not peak) the interest of readers,
2) an introduction often explains why the topic is important or interesting, and
3) an introduction often indicates or previews the structure of the argument to follow, at least the content to follow.
In shorter writing pieces, the introductory paragraph often contains the thesis statement. In longer compositions, the first paragraph may only contain the 'hook' or ideas that are intended to interest the reader. Subsequent paragraphs should include the thesis statement or hypothesis, and the presentation of the papers' organization. See the writing lab links page for more on introductions.
Creating A Topic Sentence Outline
After the reader is interested and knows where he or she is going to be taken in the text, it is the writer's responsibility to fulfill the promise laid out in the introduction. A good way to ensure that you do just that is to create an outline. The basic characteristics of this outline should be foreshadowed in the introductory section of a paper.
Most everyone knows how to create an outline, but most of those I see are not very helpful to the student as an compositional aid. I recommended that you create an topic sentence outline that includes only the topic sentences you plan on using to start each paragraph. Done correctly, the topic sentence outline should provide a very concise preview of the content of the entire paper.
An outline consisting of topic sentences SHOULD give the reader (and the writer) all the information one needs to understand the entire composition.
The table below shows the two common formats for outlines. On the left is the way students frequently create an outline. It has little value as a guide to your writing. The outline on the right is more effective. One could read it and understand where the argument or research is going. Both are based on a paper Dr. Graves wrote.
| Standard Outline | Topic Sentence Outline |
|---|---|
I. Introduction
II. Literature Review
III. Data and Methods
IV. Analysis of Findings V. Conclusions |
I. There are many markers of 'tough' neighborhoods and payday lenders have become the latest.
II. (LR) Little research has been done on payday lending, especially from geographic perspective.
III. Data for this study was gathered from several sources.
IV. The results of the statistical test strongly suggests that neighborhoods with a payday lender in them are significantly poorer and significantly less 'white' than neighborhoods containing a bank. V. Despite the payday lending industry's assertions to the contrary, payday lenders do appear to target the poor and non-white neighborhoods, while at the same time the banking industry concentrates its branch locations away from such neighborhoods. |
Although the topic sentence outline above is greatly condensed, it does represent the basic parameters of the argument Dr. Graves made in a 2003 paper on this subject. Anyone could read the topic sentence outline in the rightmost column and see the logical progression of this argument from research question through hypothesis, etc. to the conclusion. Hopefully you can see the value of setting up an outline in this fashion.
The last task is designed to reintroduce you to the simple notion of topic sentences and thesis statements. Yes it may be elementary, but students often fail to use these simple compositional devices, so a little refresher seems in order.
Below is an essay entitled The Hazards of Moviegoing * . The introduction, the thesis statement and each topic sentence has been removed. Your task is to fill in the blank spaces below so that the entire essay makes sense. The first response box is where you will write an introductory paragraph. In the second box, you are to write a thesis statement that encapsulates the argument made in the rest of the essay. YOU MAY WANT TO WRITE THE THESIS STATEMENT and INTRODUCTION LAST. In the remaining text boxes, you are to insert topic sentences that help the reader understand what is to follow in the sentences that complete the paragraph.
The last thing to remember is that it is absolutely necessary to edit and rewrite essays and research papers. Students who stubbornly refuse to discard ideas, paragraphs, or entire sections of a paper usually wind up with a poorly organized, over-stuffed, messy paper.
Sample Essay: The Hazards of Moviegoing
Introduction
Thesis Statement
Supporting Paragraph 1
Leaving a home equipped with a TV and a video recorder isn't an attractive idea on a humid, cold, or rainy night. Even if the weather cooperates, there is still a thirty-minute drive to the theater down a congested highway, followed by the hassle of looking for a parking space. And then there are the lines. After hooking yourself to the end of a human chain, you worry about whether there will be enough tickets, whether you will get seats together, and whether many people will sneak into the line ahead of you.
Supporting Paragraph 2
If you are in one of the run-down older theaters, you must adjust to the musty smell of seldom-cleaned carpets. Escaped springs lurk in the faded plush or cracked leather seats, and half the seats you sit in seem loose or tilted so that you sit at a strange angle. The newer twin and quad theaters offer their own problems. Sitting in an area only one-quarter the size of a regular theater, moviegoers often have to put up with the sound of the movie next door. This is especially jarring when the other movie involves racing cars or a karate war and you are trying to enjoy a quiet love story. And whether the theater is old or new, it will have floors that seem to be coated with rubber cement. By the end of a movie, shoes almost have to be pried off the floor because they have become sealed to a deadly compound of spilled soda, hardening bubble gum, and crushed Ju-Ju-B's.
Supporting Paragraph 3
Teenagers try to impress their friends by talking back to the screen, whistling, and making what they consider to be hilarious noises. Adults act as if they were at home in their own living rooms and comment loudly on the ages of the stars or why movies aren't as good anymore. And people of all ages crinkle candy wrappers, stick gum on their seats, and drop popcorn tubs or cups of crushed ice and soda on the floor. They also cough and burp, squirm endlessly in their seats, file out for repeated trips to the rest rooms or concession stand, and elbow you out of the armrest on either side of your seat.
Concluding Paragraph
After arriving home from the movies one night, I decided that I was not going to be a moviegoer anymore. I was tired of the problems involved in getting to the movies and dealing with the theater itself and some of the patrons. The next day I arranged to have cable TV service installed in my home. I may now see movies a bit later than other people, but I'll be more relaxed watching box office hits in the comfort of my own living room.
(*grateful acknowledgement: John Langan http://depts.gallaudet.edu/EnglishWorks )
Using MS Word to help you Outline Ideas.
The topic sentences that you created in the boxes above could serve effectively as a topic sentence outline. One tool that may be of great use in creating and managing topic sentence outlines is the "outline" function contained in Microsoft (MS) Word. Other word processors generally have a similar function.
To provide a demonstration of the MS Word outline function, a Word document has been created and the "Cats and Dogs" essay from the first part of this assignment has been made into a topic sentence outline. To see what the Cats and Dogs outline looks like in Microsoft Word, click the link below to download or open an outline version of the essay.
Outline version of the Cats and Dogs essay in Microsoft Word .
Included in this web page is a brief tutorial for Word users. If you don't have MS Word, you can skip the download, but it may still be of value to familiarize yourself with the spirit of this tutorial by examining the screen shots (figures), so that you may perhaps figure out how to use a similar function in an alternative word processing software.
Finally: Using your word processor, create an outline for the "Hazards of Moviegoing" essay above. You should copy and paste both the provided text (above) and the thesis statement and topic sentences you created into the document you create. Highlight your thesis statement in blue (or bold). Highlight your topic sentences in red (or italics). Your "Moviegoing" outline should resemble the "Cats and Dogs" outline demonstrated in the MS Word outlining tutorial.
In order to get full credit for your response, the instructor should be able to read only the blue (bold) and red (italicized) sentences and still be able to understand the logic of the argument you are making.
Once you have completed this essay in your word processor, submit it via email to steve.graves@csun.edu
NOTE: It is important that you internalize how to do this. You will be asked to replicate the topic sentence outline idea in one or more assignments this semester.
Fill in your information and submit. You'll need to click on the back button after you submit this form if you would like to continue on to part C.
Then you may go on to the next section of this writing lab.
