Revising to Elaborate Ideas

When ideas feel thin, you can elaborate by imagining what questions a reader would ask. Then you can answer the reader’s main questions using a variety of details at a variety of levels. The writer of “Equity Matters” imagined the following interview, answering the reader’s questions in a number of different ways.

Combining Argument and Narrative

Follow these steps to blend your two separate essays into a narrative argument. As you work through the steps, remember that you can add, cut, rewrite, and rearrange parts of both original pieces as needed.

1. Make your original argument essay the base of your paper.
2. Read over both pieces one more time.
3. Decide what portions of your narrative support your argument.
4. Experiment with different combinations of narration and argumentation. Here are three common ways to organize a narrative argument:
   • One-After-Another: Start with your full narrative and transition to your full argument or vice versa.
   • Start-and-End: Start with a portion of your narrative, transition to your argument, and then return to your narrative.
   • Back-and-Forth: Start with your narrative or argument and transition back and forth multiple times between both pieces.

5. Evaluate the results. Which pattern most effectively strengthens the argument? Which pattern is easiest to follow? Which pattern will most likely get readers to empathize with your position?
6. Choose a pattern.
7. Add parts (or all) of your narrative to your argument essay. If you are working in a word-processing program, you can simply copy and paste the parts. Reword sections as needed to improve the flow.

Writing the Argument Beginning

The beginning first needs to grab the reader's attention. Then it should introduce your topic and provide background leading up to your position statement. To get started with your beginning paragraph, you can experiment with different lead-writing strategies.

1. Ask a provocative question.

   Why is gender such a taboo subject in high school?

2. Provide a fascinating quotation.

   "True equality means holding everyone accountable in the same way, regardless of race, gender, faith, ethnicity, or political ideology."
   ― Monica Crowley

3. Provide a surprising fact.

   Did you know more than half of female students in grades 7-12 report experiencing some form of sexual harassment?

4. Directly address the issue.

   Recently a wave of women's empowerment has swept across the country, but it hasn't seemed to reach high schools.

Writing the Middle Paragraphs

Develop a middle paragraph for each reason that supports your position statement. Organize these paragraphs using your outline (for a receptive audience) or follow a pattern for a resistant audience.

The prewriting activities in this lesson will help you plan your argument essay—identifying a controversial topic, researching the issue, developing a position about it, and gathering reasons, evidence, and responses to objections.

Prewriting to Consider Controversies

Effective argument essays focus on controversial issues. A controversy is a subject about which people disagree. Facts don't leave much room for disagreement because they can be directly proven. Controversial topics involve the following:

• Opinions are personal preferences such as the best U.S. president or the most important qualities of a video game. One person states an opinion and provides reasons to support it, but someone else can have an opposing opinion.
• Proposals are suggestions about what should be done in the future. Since no one knows for certain the future outcome of any action taken now, proposals cannot be directly proven until after they have consequences.
• Hypotheses are explanations for how something might be working. They are "educated guesses" about what is going on. Arguments and experiments can provide reasonable support for them, but hypotheses only become scientific theories or laws after extensive experimentation.

You can think about controversies locally, at your school and in your community, or more broadly, in your country and around the world. What do people feel about the controversies? What opinions, proposals, or hypotheses are most commonly linked to them? One student jotted down the following controversial positions that he encountered at school, read about in local and national newspapers, and discovered on Google News.

Reading a Narrative Argument

Before you write your own narrative argument, you should read and respond to an example from another student. The student begins the sample piece with a compelling narrative about a youth activist before arguing logically for a position about today's youngest generation.

Reading a Student Model

Read the following narrative argument and respond to the reading afterward. Click on the side notes to see key features in the text.

Sample Narrative Argument

Warm-Up for Narrative Arguments

In 2014, actress Emma Watson spoke to the United Nations in support of gender equality. Her speech touched on a number of contentious issues—patriarchy, feminism, gender roles—but to illustrate her points, she also got personal, weaving in stories about her own experiences. Here's a portion of her speech:

Editing to Check Facts

The quickest way to get rejected is to misspell the name of the reader, or botch the person's title, or mangle the company name. If you need to write to Ms. Leslie Wilcox, Editor in Chief of the Burlington Standard Bugle, but you instead write to Mr. Leslie Willcox, Editor of the Burlington Daily Bugle, you probably won't even get a reply, let alone a chance to interview.

You must fact-check every name, title, business, department, street address, email address, telephone number, job title, and job-specific term in your résumé and cover letter. Look up each one on the Internet, preferably using the employer's own Web site. Check off any detail you have fact-checked, and correct any that were incorrect.

Revising for Key Details

Remember that your cover letter and résumé are really meant for the employer, not for you. You already know who you are. The employer needs to know, so these documents should provide the key details without distraction. You can check for details by reviewing item 3 on the prewriting activity "Take the Employer's Perspective."

What employer needs did you fail to address in your cover letter and résumé? For example, Joyce realized that she forgot to mention that she is a skilled photographer, so she can provide images for her articles. She added a line to the "Skills and Qualifications" section of her résumé.

Writing with Parallel Structure and Telegraphic Style

All similar elements in your résumé should use parallel structure, which means the same grammatical form. For example, each work experience item should list job title, employer, dates of employment, and duties—in that order, with the same punctuation and treatment for each element. By contrast, lists of skills and qualifications might all be adjectives:

Prewriting to Gather Details About Yourself

Before you write your résumé, you should think about your experiences and skills. At this point you don't need to worry about résumé sections or parallel structure or "telegraphic style." You just need to think about what you've learned, and what you have to offer employers. Answering questions can help.