Information Competencies For Effective Writing

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Information Competencies For Effective Writing

• John A. Cagle Professor of Communication
  California State University, Fresno

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Purpose and Decision to Start

• Problem exigency gives rise to need for solution
  and communication
• Build your personal motivation for the tasks
  ahead
• Purpose of writing determined informative,
  persuasive, entertaining
• Plan how to use your time well

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Research
Finding Information
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Need for Information

• Before you can speak, you've got to have
  something to say.
• Speaking and writing should be based on truth.
• Use scholarly tools to facilitate research -- the
  quest for information and knowledge.

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Problem Question

• Purpose, interests, what you know about your
  topic and are interested in
• Process begins with forming a problem question to
  guide your research.
• The problem question is what we expect to answer
  through our research.
• Often the question is initially general, but it
  gets refined as you begin and continue your
  research.

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Generate Information Needs and Questions

• What kinds of things will you need to know to
  answer the question? Who? What? When? Where?
  Why? How? What are the facts? What are the
  critical events? What is the timeline in the
  history of the problem? What are the causes and
  effects in a problem?
• identify topics or specific questions
• seek information to answer by using personal,
  documentary, library, and Internet resources

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Techniques to Explore, Discover, and Develop Ideas

• brainstorm lists
• focused freewriting
• clustering
• thinking

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Access Research Sources
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Reads, Notes, and Records
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Critically Analyze and Evaluate Information
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Organize and Synthesize Information

• Academic writing in all fields today still
  follows the basic organizational plan recommended
  by Cicero
• Exordium
• Narratio
• Partitio
• Confirmatio
• Conclusio

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Invention
Planning what to say
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Thesis

• State WHAT you want to say in the speech in a
  single sentence.
• The central idea of the speech or essay is called
  a thesis.
• Remember that the thesis should be appropriate to
  the scope and purpose of the assignment and the
  occasion.

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Development

• Development is the expansion of the thesis,
  identifying the main lines of development, the
  major arguments proving your point, and so forth.
• Types of developmental material include
  definitions, facts, quotations, statistics,
  comparisons, contrasts, examples, illustrations,
  and so forth.

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Criteria for Developmental Materials

• Audience attitude
• Timeliness
• Authoritativeness
• Relevance or appropriateness

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Organizing
Planning the introduction, body, conclusion
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Introduction

• Exordium Secure attention and interest.
• Narratio Give needed background on topic (what
  does audience need to understand to appreciate
  your points?
• Partitio State the purpose of speech and
  preview the major parts

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Exordium
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Partitio

• Orient audience to the thesis or purpose of
  essay state the thesis directly
• "The purpose of this paper is to. . . ."
• "Preview" the major developmental parts of the
  essay state this directly
• "First, the history of the problem will be
  explored second, the consequences. . . ."

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Partitio
Narratio (background)
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Summary at end of Narratio
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Body (Confirmatio)

• Body of paper contains the main ideas of the
  essay and appropriate developmental material.
• Arrangement of the main ideas/developmental
  material should be determined by the subject
  matter and purpose.

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Confirmatio (the body of the paper)
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Conclusion (Conclusio)

• Summarize thesis and main points
• Show relevance to the course (or reason you wrote
  paper)
• Stimulate audience to want to know more, do
  something, think of the implications of your
  paper, etc.)

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Conclusio
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Using research in writing
Summary of findings
Signal phrase before quotation
Writers own thought
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References at the end
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Transitional Material

• Throughout paper, the thesis should be abundantly
  clear.
• Relate each main idea to thesis and to other
  ideas.
• Use transitional sign post words (therefore,
  however, first, etc.)

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Outline

• Outline to see the structure of your ideas
• Typical forms of outlines
• Key word outline
• Sentence outline

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Revise Carefully

• Check for word appropriateness meaning
• Use stylistic devices to improve use of language

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• Check for content logically sound? points well
  developed? details sufficient? enough
  illustrations examples? support?

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• Check for overall structure--be sure introduction
  and conclusion are effective
• Check for transitions--are there enough?
• Assess the speech as you think your audience will