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Drafting Your Essay
The First Draft: Organization and
Development
Read over your first draft carefully to make sure that you
have developed your ideas well enough so the reader clearly understands your
position on the subject. Use these questions as a checklist:
- Have you written a clear topic sentence with a
controlling idea?
- Have you used enough details and examples to support
the topic sentence?
- Add additional supporting details or examples to make
your paragraph stronger.
- Does each paragraph have unity?
- Draw a line through any sentence that does not
support the topic sentence.
- Does your paragraph have coherence?
- Can your reader follow your ideas and understand what
you have written?
- Have you used appropriate transition signals to
connect your ideas?
- Have you used the correct pronouns that refer back to
key nouns?
After you have checked these points, you are ready to
write your second draft.
The Second Draft: Grammar and Mechanics
As you read over your second draft, check each sentence
carefully for correctness.
- Have you written complete sentences?
- Does each sentence have a subject and a verb?
- Does the subject agree with the verb in each sentence?
- Have you used the correct verb tenses?
- Are there long sentences that should be divided?
Then check the mechanics of your paragraph.
- Have you used correct punctuation? Is your spelling
correct?
- Make these kinds of corrections as you write your third
draft.
The Third Draft: Sentence Structure and Style
Read your third draft with these questions in mind:
- Are your sentence openings varied, or do most of your
sentences follow the subject-verb-complement pattern?
- Do you use a mixture of sentence types: simple,
compound, and complex?
- Have you chosen words thoughtfully, maybe even tried to
stretch your vocabulary?
The Final Draft
Now you are ready to write the final copy of your
paragraph to hand in. Proofread your paper again very carefully. It might
surprise you to find that you may want to make a .few final changes or
develop a particular idea more before you are completely satisfied.
Introduction to Academic Writing by Alice Oshima
and Ann Hogue |
