Prewriting to Select Two Topics

If your topics truly interest you, analyzing them will be easy. You might also want to select two interesting topics from a current area of study so that your comparison-contrast essay can help you in more than one class. If you don't know what you want to write about, you can start by selecting an interesting general category from the Basics of Life list and thinking of two topics within that category.

For example, if you choose "Personality," you can compare two types of personality (introvert vs. extrovert) or two tests that measure intelligence (Stanford-Binet vs. Wechsler Intelligence Scale) or two psychological conditions (Asperger's syndrome vs. savant syndrome). If you choose "Food," you can compare and contrast two types of cuisine (French vs. German), or two processes for preserving meat (smoking vs. salt curing), or the history of two different drinks (coffee vs. tea).

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.

Writing for Assessment

A writing assessment gives you a short time to write in response to a prompt.

To do so, you should use a shortened form of the writing process:

Prewriting (5 Minutes)

Answer the PAST questions.

Purpose? Define imagination and knowledge, tell how they relate, explain Einstein's position and state and support your own.

Audience? The reader of the test

Subject? Imagination and knowledge

Type? Position/argument essay

Write a focus statement.

Imagination and knowledge are like energy and matter: the knowledge is the solid stuff, and the imagination sets it into motion.

Revising to Elaborate Details

In the warm-up to this unit, you discovered that basic research answers questions like who, what, where, and when, but rigorous research moves on to deeper questions like why, how, could, would, and should. You can answer basic questions with facts. To answer deeper questions, you'll need many other types of details: explanations, statistics, anecdotes, quotations, reflections, and even visuals. You need to elaborate your ideas.

In the following paragraphs from "The Man Writ Large," note how the topic sentence introduces the key event. Afterward, the writer uses a variety of details to fully elaborate the event, helping readers understand the why, how, could, and should of the situation. Click on the callouts to view each part.

Topic Sentence That indomitable spirit would have its greatest test a week later on July 1. Explanation While most of the regular army troops focused on a siege at Santiago, the Rough Riders, the Buffalo Soldiers, and a few regular army regiments sought to dislodge Spanish control at El Canarey. Doing so would prevent attacks on the American flanks during the siege ("Spanish"). Roosevelt would once again lead his troops uphill into the face of an entrenched foe with superior weaponry. Statistic Roosevelt, however, had a 10 to 1 advantage of soldiers against the 500 Spanish defenders. Just as he had done at the docks at Tampa Bay, Roosevelt jostled his Rough Riders forward to bypass the regular-army regiments and begin the assault on Kettle Hill. Anecdote A Buffalo Soldier asked, "Who do you think you are?" and was told, "Rough Riders going to take that hill. Get out of the way or fall in with us." The Buffalo Soldier replied, "I'll be damned if those Rough Riders will get ahead of me!" Roosevelt thus ended up effectively commanding his own men and that of the separate regiment. Quotation A Rough Rider said of that sudden battlefield brotherhood, "I most positively assert that every face I looked into, both white and black, had a broad grin upon it"(Gardner 161).

The regiments ground forward, eventually taking Kettle Hill, but gunfire still rained down on them from San Juan Hill. Amid the withering fire, Roosevelt raised his pistol and shouted, "Now by God, men! Let's charge 'em!" He jumped a fence and ran down Kettle Hill toward San Juan Hill, but in the noise and confusion, only five of his own men followed. He had to retreat to gather the others, as Roosevelt remembered it: "Even while I taunted them bitterly for not having followed me, it was all I could do not to smile at the look of injury and surprise that came over their faces" (Gardner 167-169). Mounting his horse Little Texas, Roosevelt led his soldiers in the charge up San Juan Hill, and to victory. Diary Entry In his July 1 diary entry, Roosevelt scribbled in pencil, "Rose at 4. Big battle. Commanded regiment. Helped extreme front of firing line. Under shell and rifle fire."Reflection Later, he would dub the charge up San Juan Hill "the great day of my life" ("T.R."). A battle that had been expected to take two hours stretched to twelve, with 300 Spanish casualties to the 500 U.S. casualties ("Spanish").

Photo and Caption Roosevelt and the Rough Riders atop San Juan Hill. Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site.

Writing the Beginning Paragraph

Your first job in writing a research paper is to catch your reader's interest. You can experiment with a number of strategies to form an interesting lead sentence.

1. Start with a fascinating quotation.

   "Do things. Be sane. Don't fritter away your time; create, act, take a place wherever you are, and be somebody; get action.”
   —Theodore Roosevelt, Sr.

2. Express what is most interesting about the subject.

   Teddy Roosevelt transformed himself from an asthmatic weakling to a brawler who won in Cuba and Panama, in Washington and on Mount Rushmore.

3. Provide an anecdote.

   As they charged up San Juan Hill into the teeth of machine-gun fire, Teddy Roosevelt turned to a fellow soldier and shouted, "Holy Godfrey, what fun!"

4. Ask an engaging question.

   Are heroes born, or are they made?

Warm-Up for Research Writing

You live at a fortunate time. Before the Internet, people had no easy way to find out what they wanted to know. Friends had heated arguments about which actor played a part or when Czechoslovakia broke up or why there are 360 degrees in a circle. To find answers, people had to go to a library, search through thousands of cards in a big set of drawers, search through hundreds of shelves to find the right book, and search through hundreds of pages to find the right information. That's a lot of work. Not surprisingly, many people just chose to remain ignorant.

These days, you say, "Hey, Alexa, when did Czechoslovakia break up?" In seconds, she tells you that the former nation dissolved into the Czech Republic and Slovakia on January 1, 1993.

Still, many people choose to remain ignorant. One fifth of millennials know little of the Holocaust. (If you are one of them, ask Alexa about it.)

So, research in the Information Age is more important than ever. And rigorous research reaches beyond the free Internet to scholarly publications that only your library makes available. In this unit, you will conduct research about a topic that you care about, uncovering reliable and surprising information that you'll want to share with others. That's the key to an effective research paper.

What Is Rigorous Research?

© Thoughtful Learning 2018

Rigorous research digs deeply into a topic, discovering many surprising answers but also new, challenging questions. Rigorous research can start with Alexa and Wikipedia, but it certainly doesn't end with them. It can start with the top Google search result, but it must go much further than that.

Basic research finds reliable answers to who, what, where, and when:

• What was the Holocaust? The Holocaust was the state-sponsored persecution and murder of people deemed inferior by the Nazi regime in Germany.
• Who was targeted in the Holocaust? Six million Jews (two thirds of the European population) were murdered along with millions more Roma, Slavs, and Russians as well as homosexuals and those with disabilities.
• When did the Holocaust occur? The Holocaust occurred from the rise of Nazis in Germany in 1933 through the conclusion of World War II in 1945.
• Where did the Holocaust occur? The Holocaust occurred throughout Nazi-controlled territories in Europe, with numerous concentration camps in Germany and Poland.

Editing to Combine and Punctuate Sentences

When you combine sentences to create better flow, you need to make sure the sentences still have correct punctuation. You can join two sentences (independent clauses) together, but you need to use both a comma and a coordinating conjunction (and, but, or, nor, for, so, yet). You can also use just a semicolon.

Leaving out the coordinating conjunction creates an error called a comma splice. Leaving out both the comma and the conjunction creates an error called a run-on sentence.

You can also combine two sentences using a subordinating conjunction (although, because, when, since, after, etc.). When the conjunction starts the sentence, place a comma after the clause. When the conjunction comes in the middle of the sentence, you usually don't need to set off the clause with a comma.