Presentation subhead

CM103Unit 9

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

UNIT 9 SEMINAR AGENDA

CONGRATULATIONS! You’ve made it to our final seminar.

The agenda for this evening will be more driven by your needs, so please

be ready with any final questions, concerns, comments, or any part of your paper you’d like to workshop.

ANNOUNCEMENTS & REMINDERS

Expectations for Unit 9

Expectations for Unit 10

The Final Project:

Requirements

Grading

Due Date

Other Remaining Items

UNIT 9—WHAT YOU HAVE TO COMPLETE

• Read Revising (p.27-39) in Rules For Writers

• Attend the weekly Seminar

• Respond to the Discussion Board

• Complete and Submit the Unit 9 Project

The Final Draft

• The paper should be 5 pages long (excluding a title page and reference page)

• Use Times New Roman in a 12 point font size, double spaced

• Create your essay in a Microsoft Word Document

• Cite your sources using the APA method to the best of your ability This is excellent practice as you will be using APA throughout your time at Kaplan

FINAL DRAFT

• FINAL PROJECT DUE: End of unit nine, Tuesday, 11:59 pm, ET

• NO LATE PROJECTS WILL BE ACCEPTED

• 130 POINTS

REQUIREMENTS

• Includes a strong thesis statement, introduction and conclusion.  Shows original thought.  Supports arguments well (no logical flaws; outside sources used to support arguments).  Develops main points clearly. Skillfully refutes counter-arguments and does not ignore data contradicting its claim.  Refers to at least five outside sources in the text and references page, two of which are academic sources. Meets page requirements. 

ORGANIZATION

• Should be very well-ordered.  Internally, each section must have a strong internal organization.  Transitions found between and within sections must be clear and effective.

WRITING STYLE

• Appropriate to the assignment, fresh (interesting to read), accurate (no far-fetched, unsupported comments), precise (say what you mean), and concise (not wordy).

MECHANICS

• Project is free of serious errors; grammar, punctuation, and spelling help to clarify the meaning by following accepted conventions. Sources are cited; an attempt at APA citation was made.

Unit 10: Course Review

• This unit concludes CM103: Effective Writing I For Criminal Justice Majors. During this week, while your instructor is grading your work, you should take some time to reflect on what you learned from the course and assess how well you have progressed toward the course outcomes.

Course Outcomes

• Compose original materials in Standard American English

• Use appropriate document formatting as required

• Illustrate the steps in the writing process

• Apply course knowledge of communication to criminal justice

• Apply methods for evaluating and using resources/evidence

Q&A

Because this is the last time we will meet as a group, I would like to open the floor to any questions you have. Let’s talk about any of the following:

Course Questions Project Concerns APA Thoughts About Writing Thoughts About the Course Other Questions

This is your time, so let’s make this count!

WORKSHOP

With our remaining time, let’s talk about your current thesis and other areas of your essay. As a group, we can workshop your ideas, provide feedback, and talk about any final concerns you have about your projects.

I would like this to be student driven, but I will be here to moderate. With that, I will

turn it over to all of you…

• Revision focuses on the “big picture” and helps us analyze:

the paper's general organization

the writer's analysis of sources

the effectiveness of the thesis statement, introduction and conclusion.

REVISION

revision versus editing

• Editing focuses on the details:

spelling

sentence structure

punctuation issues

grammar

formatting issues and APA details

revision versus editing

• Revision deals with addition (expanding ideas to clarify meaning) and subtraction (cutting out wordiness and text that does not relate to the thesis statement). It focuses on the big picture and the way in which you present your argument to the reader.

REVISION VERSUS EDITING

• Don’t make the mistake of editing before you revise!

Editing is very time consuming and, after you make a great number of small changes to grammar, punctuation, sentence structure and spelling, it would be a shame to delete all that work after realizing that particular paragraph no longer works in your paper.

CHECKLIST FOR GLOBAL REVISION

Purpose and audience

• Does the draft accomplish its purpose—to inform readers, persuade them, entertain them, call them to action?

• Is the draft appropriate for its audience? Does it account for the audience’s knowledge of the subject, level of interest in the subject, and possible attitudes toward the subject?

FOCUS

• Is the thesis clear? Is it prominently placed?

• If there is no thesis, is there a good reason for omitting one?

• Are any ideas obviously off the point?

ORGANIZATION AND PARAGRAPHING

• Are there enough organizational cues for readers (such as topic sentences and headings)?

• Are ideas presented in a logical order?

• Are any paragraphs too long or too short for easy reading?

CONTENT

• Is the supporting material relevant and persuasive?

Which ideas need further development?

Are the parts proportioned sensibly? Do major ideas receive enough attention?

Where might material be deleted?

POINT OF VIEW

• Is the draft free of distracting shifts in point of view (from I to you, for example, or from it to they)?

• Is the dominant point of view—I, we, you, he, she, it, one, or they— appropriate for your purpose and audience?

PROOFREADING

• Proofreading is a special kind of reading: a slow and methodical search for misspellings, typographical mistakes, and omitted words or word endings.

• Such errors can be difficult to spot in your own work because you may read what you intended to write, not what is actually on the page.

• To fight this tendency, try proofreading out loud, articulating each word as it is actually written.

• You might also try proofreading your sentences in reverse order, a strategy that takes your attention away from the meanings you intended and forces you to think about surface features instead.

TIGHTEN WORDY SENTENCES

• Long sentences are not necessarily wordy, nor are short sentences always concise.

• A sentence is wordy if it can be tightened without loss of meaning.

• Eliminate redundancies:

• Redundancies such as cooperate together, close proximity, basic essentials, and true fact are a common source of wordiness.

• There is no need to say the same thing twice.

THANKS FOR A GREAT TERM!

• Q&A

Thanks for attending our seminars, class!

I want to remind you that I am here to assist you with any questions you have about the class. Feel free to contact me via email nbains@kaplan.edu, or via aim nbains during office hours Mondays, 2-3, PM ET and 3-4 PM ET or by using my virtual office.  If necessary, we can arrange for a phone conference.