Rules for Writers: Chapter 1

The Writing Process in chapter 1 main focus was how to write a well written paper and the stages of writing a paper. The first thing to do when writing a paper is to "assess the writing situation." The key points when assessing the writing situation is to look at the subject, the sources of information available to you, the purpose, your audience in which you are trying to reach out to, length, document format, review sessions, formulating a tentative thesis, and the deadline. First the subject, usually the subject will be given to you but sometimes you can be free to choose your subject. When this happens you must be aware of the expectations of the assignment. When looking at the sources of information you must be aware of the facts, details, and examples and where they come from. you can use personal experience, readings or text, observations, and interviews and questionnaires.

The purpose of the assignment is important. You don't want to confuse the writer. Asking yourself why the reader will care about what your writing is something to think about when writing the paper. There are many purposes some of which are to inform, to persuade, to entertain, to analyze, to argue, to evaluate, to summarize, to express feeling, to provoke thought, and to change attitudes. Questioning what you are trying to persuade can lead to asking yourself what audience you are trying to aim at. This can lead to strategy for entertaining your readers or reaching them. The length and document format is another thing to consider when writing a paper. If there is a strict guideline on what the length or document design should be you should probably research what the audience expects.

Formulating a tentative thesis means to explore your topic and identify questions you are interested in. When writing a thesis consider the following: Can you support your thesis with evidence available? Can you explain to readers why they will want to read an essay with the given thesis? Will you be able to include all your support? Will your evidence and points run out too quickly? If writing a thesis seems to hard you can simply sketch a plan by using a formal outline. Writing a paper may seem complicated at first but with much practice it is quite simple.

I can use this information in so many ways! The next time i write an essay I will diffidently read this chapter and use it as a guideline. I feel like if you just use these points you will have the perfect essay. Sometimes when I write essays I have troubles writing and figuring out my thesis. This cleared up most of my questions. Usually I run out of support and evidence when writing a paper and now that I understand to take things so and make an outline I feel like I will do much better. It's really important to assess the writing situation and use all elements of writing a paper. I sometimes just start a paper the night before and don't asses the entire situation. I think if i were to make a outline, annotate, pay more attention to the purpose and audience I will have far better writing and not have a bunch of thoughts bunched together that don't make sense.