[...]... notes As a class, identify as many different possible audiences as you can think of until the number of audiences equals the number of students in class Write one per slip of paper and place in a hat and let each student draw an audience out of a hat Each now write a paragraph to the audience drawn making the information relevant to that particular audience (Results could be read and evaluated by playing... words to have the force of law, writing makes a permanent record to be reread and studied in your absence And if you want to maintain a certain tone or coolness of demeanor, this can be accomplished more easily in writing than in face-toface confrontations Perhaps the greatest problem for writers, at least on the conscious level, concerns the audience who will read their writing: What do they already... Make the assignment your own: Recast the paper topic in your own words; reduce the size/scope of the topic to something manageable; or relate it to an issue with which you are already familiar Modifying a writing task into something both interesting and manageable dramatically increases your chances of making the writing less superficial because you’re not biting off more than you can chew and because the... writing are acts of discovery for me Plan to Throw Your First Page Away Once you actually begin to compose a draft, don’t lock yourself into keeping the first words you produce In fact, it may be helpful to deliberately view each first paragraph or page as a throwaway The absolutely worst part of writing for me is starting, staring at a blank page or monitor If I can just get some words down, the task looks... feedback, an honest classmate will give it to you—before your teacher has to I think that students see pomp and padding as readily as teachers do and are equally put off by it What’s the point in writing pretentiously to a classmate? The following are some of the possible ways to make sharing drafts profitable: Audience 11 1 Choose people you trust and respect to read your draft Offer to read theirs... and energy to your writing Research Sites You can do observational and experimental research in chemistry and physics laboratories, and on geology and biology field trips Any place that you visit is a potential research site, capable of providing information and evidence to use in your writing: museums, galleries, concert halls, stadiums, college offices, professional buildings, corporate headquarters,... writer and thus includes few introductory remarks The writer (Marianne, an eleven-year-old student) doesn’t bother to explain context or elaborate on details to her audience, Mr K.: They were in class together the previous day and both knew exactly what “the discussion” was about and what “it” refers to We have just looked at some samples of exploratory writing in different forms a class journal, a personal. .. support and convince Remember, you essentially do research whenever you pose questions and then go looking for answers It’s virtually impossible to write a decent critical, analytical, or argumentative paper without doing some research and reporting it accurately Even personal and reflective essays can benefit by finding additional factual information (journal entries, photographs, interviews) to substantiate... Communicate Keep in mind at all times that the goal of editing is to improve the communication, to make it as sharp and pointed and persuasive as possible, to share your ideas so that both the ideas and you, the writer, are well received It would be a shame for good ideas to be dismissed by the reader because the whole of the writing does not seem careful or serious— which can happen for a variety of reasons,... classmates Joan wrote the paragraph that opens this chapter and, as you can see, valued writing in a different way than the other firstyear students She did not write only to please her teachers Writing helped her to reflect, to figure things out, and to gain some perspective on thoughts and feelings 25 26 Thinking with Writing USING LANGUAGE We use language all the time for many reasons We use it to meet, . Corporation. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Fulwiler, Toby, 1942– College writing : a personal approach to academic writing / Toby Fulwiler.—3rd. each student draw an audience out of a hat. Each now write a paragraph to the audience drawn making the information relevant to that par - ticular audience.