GE 117 Composition I

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GE 117 Composition I

• Week 2 Planning for the Writing Process

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Lets Review From Week 1

• Course Overview and Syllabus Review
• Importance of Writing in a Technical Career
• Introduction to the Writing Process
• - Prewriting
• - Planning
• - Drafting
• - Revision
• - Editing/Proofreading
• - Polishing a final Version.

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Week 1 Review Continued

• Phase 1 of the Writing Process Prewriting
• Exercises designed to generate initial thoughts,
  ideas, feelings about a topic BEFORE a writer
  begins drafting.
• Brainstorming Good for those who create or use
  lists in their lives.
• Freewriting Good for those who prefer to jump
  into an assignment by writing first.
• Questioning Good for those who are unfamiliar
  with a topic or who are naturally
  skeptical/curious.
• Mapping Good for those who prefer visuals over
  written words.

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Week 1 Review Continued

• In-Class Activity 2 Prewriting Samples for My
  Favorite
• Homework A short essay about you
• - Where are you from
• - What major are you? Why did you choose that
  major?
• - What experience do you have with
  reading/writing?
• - What worries/concerns/anxieties do you have
  for this class?

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Week 2 Objectives

• Describe the importance of Planning in the
  Writing Process
• Identify elements that a writer should plan for
  before drafting.
• Analyze an audience and adapt writing styles
  accordingly
• Link tone and diction to levels of formality in
  writing

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Planning in the Writing Process

• Q After you have the necessary materials to
  build a house (steel, lumber, concrete, etc.),
  what is the next thing that you would need to
  actually build one?

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Planning in the Writing Process

• A Blueprints!
• Just like no contractor should ever build a
  house without blueprints, it is not advisable to
  begin writing anything of relative importance
  before PLANNING!
• Today, we will learn about what every writer
  needs to plan for before drafting.

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Planning in the Writing Process

• Q What does Planning provide a writer?
• A Planning provides writers with
• 1) A sense of purpose and direction
• 2) The ability to pay attention to details
• 3) The ability to compare a Finished
  Product with its intended design

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Planning in the Writing Process

• Q What sort of things does a writer have to plan
  for before drafting?
• A At a minimum, writers must plan for their
  Objectives, their Audience, their Tone, their
  Diction, and their Point-of-View.

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Planning in the Writing Process

• Planning your Objective in Writing
• Whenever someone writes, their must be a clear
  sense of Purpose
• Why are they writing in the first place?

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Planning in the Writing Process

• Types of Objectives in Writing
• - To give information
• - To argue or persuade
• - To amuse or entertain
• - To Narrate an event or story
• - To Compare/Contrast different things.
• - To analyze Causes/Effects of events
• - To explain how to do something or how an
  event
• occurs (Process Analysis)
• - To describe a person, place, thing, or
  activity (Description and Illustration.)
• - To impress employers (Resumes and Cover
  Letters.)

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Planning in the Writing Process

• For every piece of writing, there is a specific
  objective or goal that the writer must meet.
• It is the entire reason for writing in the first
  place, so the writer must never lose sight of his
  or her original purpose!

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Planning in the Writing Process

• The importance of Audience
• Just as everything written has a specific
  objective, everything written will also have
  specific readers the writers Audience.
• Those who do not plan for their audience often
  make similar and consistent errors.

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Planning in the Writing Process

• Planning for an Audience
• - Who will be reading this? (Instructor, peer,
  family, boss, pastor, etc)
• - What do they know about the topic Im writing
  about (A lot, a little, nothing?)
• - What Tone should I use for this audience?
• - How Formal should my writing appear?

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Planning in the Writing Process

• Planning for an Audience
• Compare the two emails below. Which one is more
  appropriate to send to your boss?
• Hey Bossman,
• You really gotta give this new guy Kevin the
  can. He sucks! The guys always freaking late,
  hes too stupid to do anything, and he smells
  like yak poop! Do me a solid and throw out the
  trash, will ya?
• B) Dear Mr. Smith,
• I just wanted to express some concerns
  regarding our recent hire Kevin. He has poor time
  management skills and is frequently late or
  behind schedule. He demonstrates an inability to
  complete even the simplest of tasks, and recently
  his personal hygiene has become an issue within
  the office. This is ultimately your personnel
  decision, but one I feel you should reconsider.

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Planning in the Writing Process

• Planning for Audience
• You never want to alienate, provoke, insult,
  bore, or annoy your readers.
• You must know who they are to avoid these common
  pitfalls.

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Planning in the Writing Process

• Planning for Tone
• Tone refers to the emotional content conveyed
  in writing.
• In speech, tone is very easy to establish
• I dont appreciate that tone from you

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Planning in the Writing Process

• Planning for Tone
• In writing, Tone is created by 2 choices a
  writer makes
• 1) Sentence Structure (how they form the
  words.)
• 2) Diction (the actual words they use.)

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Planning in the Writing Process

• Planning for Tone
• Any emotion a human can have is a Tone they can
  project in writing
• - Objective and Straightforward
• - Argumentative
• - Sarcastic or Facetious
• - Humorous
• - Sad or Melancholy
• - Angry or Upset
• - Etc.

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Planning in the Writing Process

• Planning for Tone
• When you have identified your Objective and
  Audience, it will be easier to determine what
  Tone will be appropriate.

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Planning in the Writing Process

• Planning for Diction
• One choice a writer makes that affects his or
  her Tone is Diction the specific kinds of words
  he or she uses.

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Planning in the Writing Process

• Planning for Diction
• Every word we use has a Denotation and a
  Connotation.
• Denotation refers to the literal, dictionary
  meaning of a word.
• Connotation refers to the way words are actually
  used or the associations people have towards
  them.

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Planning in the Writing Process

• Denotation vs Connotation
• Compare the literal definitions of these words
  with the ways they are actually commonly used
• - Bitch - Chick
• - Bastard - Clown
• - Queer - Horse
• - Gay - Circus
• - Pig - Retarded
• Theres quite a difference between the Denotation
  of these words with their common Connotations.

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Planning in the Writing Process

• Planning for Diction
• The kinds of words you use DO matter. Words
  similar in Denotation often vary drastically in
  their Connotations.
• Shelter or House Which would you prefer to
  live in?
• If a Police Officer was messy, would you call
  him/her a Pig?

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Planning in the Writing Process

• Planning for Diction
• Diction also reflects a writers level of
  Formality How proper is the writing for the
  intended audience?
• - Informal/Slangy (Like Email 1)
• - Casual/Everyday (How you normally speak)
• - Formal/Technical (Like Email 2)

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Planning in the Writing Process

• Planning for Diction
• For every Objective and Audience there is an
  appropriate (and inappropriate!) level of
  Formality.
• Your Audience will most likely expect the
  appropriate level of Formality.

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Planning in the Writing Process

• Planning for Point of View
• All writing comes from a certain Point-of-View.
• Through whose eyes are we reading from?

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Planning in the Writing Process

• Planning for Point-of-View
• 1st Person I, Me, My, Mine, We, Ours, Us.
• Highly subjective and used when the writers
  thoughts, feelings, opinions need to be expressed
  in their writing.
• (I wasnt sure about Composition I until I got
  an A on my first assignment.)

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Planning in the Writing Process

• Planning for Point-of-View
• 2nd Person You, One.
• Rarely used except in giving commands, advice,
  or instructions.
• (You should take two lefts and then a right.)
• (One should wait one hour after eating before
  swimming.)

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Planning in the Writing Process

• Planning for Point-of-View
• 3rd Person He, she, it, they, them, theirs.
• Objective and independent. The author does not
  share personal thoughts or opinions. Used widely
  in Journalism and Academics.
• (He made a crucial mistake by not planning for
  such a contingency.)

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Planning in the Writing Process

• Planning for Point-of-View
• Just like the other elements discussed so far, a
  writer will determine an appropriate
  Point-of-View based on his/her Objective and
  Audience.

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Review

• Like any complex process, writing effectively
  requires a certain amount of planning before
  execution.
• Fail to plan plan to fail -
  Anonymous

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Homework

• Read in Longman Writer pages 54-60.
• Complete 2 Letters, 2 Audiences assignment
• Submit any work still due from Week 1.