Fluent Essays

What is the best advice you have ever been given and why? Follow all the Rules listed in the supported filesReview of Collegiate, Formal Writing Rules 1. Organize all body paragraphs, essays, and papers as we learned from the presentations on Paragraph and Essay Structure. 2. It is not acceptable to use “you” in an MLA style, collegiate essay. The only time to use “you” in collegiate writing is when you are speaking direction to the reader. 3. Writing any form of “thing” is not acceptable and neither is “stuff” in formal writing. Rewrite the sentence to identify what the thing(s)/stuff is and make the sentence clearer. 4. Contractions like I’m, he’s, we’ll they’ve are/are not acceptable in formal essays. Please write out the contraction: I am, he is, we will, they have, etc. 5. First, second, third, are not the best transitions to use in essay writing, unless writing an essay in chronological order or in a process 6. When using the pronoun “I,” please capitalize it. 7. Abbreviations such as “thru” for through should not be used. 8. Small numbers like “25” and “3” should be spelled out. 9. Text speak like “u,” “idk,” and “rofl” are not appropriate in formal writing. 10. Students should not put a comma whenever they pause when reading a sentence. Use the comma rules we studied instead. 11. In general, do not use more than one coordinating conjunction and/or one subordinating conjunction per sentence. eg. Even though she was tired, Tai’Yanai came to class this morning. She asked questions because she would like to learn to write better, get As in all of her classes, and get a great paying job.Essay Outline Form I. Introductory Paragraph a. Hook - ____________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ b. Background Information Sentences (2-4 Sentences) i. _________________________________________________________ ii. _________________________________________________________ c. Thesis Statement – showing the topics of the three body paragraphs __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ II. Body Paragraph 1 a. Topic Sentence - ____________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ b. 3-6 Supporting Details (Examples) i. ________________________________________________________ ii. ________________________________________________________ iii. ________________________________________________________ iv. ________________________________________________________ v. ________________________________________________________ c. Transition Sentence - _________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ III. Body Paragraph 2 a. Topic Sentence - ____________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ b. 3-6 Supporting Details (Examples) i. ________________________________________________________ ii. ________________________________________________________ iii. ________________________________________________________ iv. ________________________________________________________ v. ________________________________________________________ c. Transition Sentence - _________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ a. Body Paragraph 3 i. Topic Sentence - ____________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ ii. 3-6 Supporting Details (Examples) i. ________________________________________________________ ii. ________________________________________________________ iii. ________________________________________________________ iv. ________________________________________________________ v. ________________________________________________________ C. Transition Sentence - _________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ V. Concluding Paragraph A. Summarize/Restate Main Ideas i. ________________________________________________________ ii. ________________________________________________________ iii. ________________________________________________________ iv. ________________________________________________________ B. Restate the Thesis - __________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ C. Concluding Statement - _______________________________________ __________________________________________________________Topic Sentences and Paragraphs Read Write Connect Chapter 13 Thesis Review What is a thesis? The Thesis is the central, controlling idea in a piece of writing; it states the writer’s main point or purpose. What are the characteristics of a good thesis? A thesis should… be an arguable claim and not a fact. be a statement and not a question. address the question of the task or assignment. use key words from the prompt. not directly announce the thesis. be a strong claim. explain how the writing is organized. What is a topic sentence and what do good topic sentences do? A topic sentence is a sentence that states the main point of a paragraph. Good topic sentences … make one point that the paragraph will cover. are the most general sentence of the paragraph. are appropriately focused – not too broad or too narrow. have a direct relationship to the thesis. use key words (or synonyms of key words) from the thesis. progress logically (chronologically, spatially, etc.). are usually the first sentence in a paragraph but they can also be in the middle or the end of a paragraph. Ready to practice finding some topic sentences? Let’s do practice it 13.1 Identifying Topic Sentences on pp. 275-276. Hint: Not all of the topic sentences will be the first sentence, and some may not even be whole sentences. The Topic Sentence and the Thesis Once you identify the topic sentences, you can see how they work together to link the thesis with the paragraph information to support the thesis. Each topic sentence states the main point of the paragraph and clearly relates back to the thesis. Each body paragraph explains, develops, or supports the topic sentence and the thesis. Let’s look at the example from a student essay on murals on p. 277. How do the blue topic sentences related to the yellow thesis? Now, let’s look at the two examples in practice it 13.2. Do all of the topic sentences relate back to the thesis? Writing Topic Sentences To make good topic sentences, you need to know the points you want to make in the body of the essay. You can find these points in your prewriting and the rough thesis. Let’s look at an example from the textbook on page 279. The student starts by looking at his working thesis. Then, the student writes a list of topics and ideas that support his thesis and picks the topics that he thinks will give his thesis the strongest support. (p. 280, top) Next, he makes the strongest topics and changes them into topic sentences. (p. 280 bottom) Once he has some rough topic sentences, he checks to see if each topic sentence follows the criteria from the beginning of the chapter, and if they do not, he revises them. (p.281) Using the methods we have talked about, write a thesis on the a topic related to “Sports.” Then, do practice 13, writing a rough list of topics for your thesis and changing your strongest topics into good topic sentences which support your thesis. Paragraphs The purpose of each body paragraphs is to give info