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CM 220
College Composition II
Unit 8: Framing and Revising your Big Idea:
Introductions, Conclusions, and the Post-
Draft Outline

• How do I write effective introductions and conclusions?
• How can I use the post-draft outline to revise my draft?
• How can I provide helpful feedback to classmates in the Invention Lab?

• Readings: Introduction to unit, The Kaplan Guide to Successful
Writing ch. 13 (outlining) and ch. 14 (pp. 181-194)
• Invention Lab:
• Post your revised introduction and conclusion paragraphs AND explain why you made the changes you did.
• Create a post-draft outline and discuss your planned revisions for the final.
• Attach your draft so classmates can make comparisons.
• Respond to 2 classmates.

Part I

• Set the stage
• Engage attention
• Set the appropriate tone
• Provide background and definition of topic, and
• State thesis (usually in a single sentence at the very end of the paragraph)

What to avoid
Truisms, platitudes, and obvious statements.
“Truisms” are claims that are so commonplace and obvious that they are not worth mentioning.
Complaining and personal apologies to instructor
Example
“A little knowledge can go a long way”
“Children are the hope of the future”
“Go with the flow.”
“I had a really hard time deciding what to write about”
Dictionary definitions According to Merriam-Webster’s
Dictionary, alternative medicine is “any various system of healing or treating disease that is not included in traditional medical curricula.”

What to avoid
Widely known facts
“I believe” and “I think” statements as well as other uses of first person
Second person (you)
Announcing
Overly outrageous statements
Examples
No Child Left Behind became a law in 2001.
“I think No Child Left Behind has failed to achieve its goals.” “We need to improve our country’s educational system.”
You should recognize the signs of bullying so that your child will not be a victim or a perpetrator.
This paper will be about. . .
“Children should never be allowed to use the internet because this will protect them from predators.”

In the last decade or so, American culture has become increasingly tolerant of teenage sexuality. Many parents, too busy in their lives, are not proactive in educating their teens on issues related to sexuality. Educators are often left with the role of providing basic information about the subject even as more and more sexual education classes are cut from the curriculum. Where does this leave curious teens? Statistics show that 75 percent of teens have had sex by the time they are nineteen years old. The teenage birth rate continues to climb as do reported cases of sexually transmitted diseases (Healy, 2008). Cleary, it is imperative to develop intervention programs that teach adolescents the effective skills in delaying early sexual behaviors. Early education on delaying sexual activity for teens can drastically decrease teenage pregnancies, prevent the spread of STDs, and help teens to make the right choices that can impact the rest of their lives.

Can a person’s life change dramatically in a matter of twenty-four hours? One day a person has a certain kind of life – a home, nearby schools for your kids, a wonderful neighborhood, good job, friends – and the next day it may all be gone, irreversibly changed. As a resident of New Orleans, Louisiana, Jean had always known that a major hurricane could strike, but even knowing this fact could not prepare her for what happened in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
Hurricane Katrina demonstrated the need for residents to evacuate when mandated, for local and state authorities to work more efficiently together, and for the federal government to respond in a timely and responsible manner.

Some children cannot sit still. They fidget and do not listen. They appear distracted by every little thing and do not seem to learn from their mistakes. These children disregard rules, even when they are punished repeatedly. Many people see such kids and conclude that their parents must not know how to control them. However, the truth is that attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is misunderstood. In fact, ADHD is a growing problem that requires more research to understand, better intervention programs to help afflicted children, and improved training and support programs to help parents and educators.

Use a shocking statement or statistic, use a quote
McDonald’s has sold over 100 billion burgers. One hundred billion burgers with bun, stacked on top of one another would extend over 2.9 million miles into space--twelve times as far as the moon (Grimes, 2007). What is the secret of McDonald’s incredible success? To use the words of Ray Kroc, McDonald’s founder, the secret to McDonald’s success is that the fast-food giant produces
“consistently mediocre food” (Thomas, 2001). The McDonald’s corporation has become a model of success due to its understanding of its market niche, its ability to redefine its image over time, and its ability to remain stable and produce a profit even in difficult economic times.

• Use extended example or series of examples
• Define an essential term (one the reader may not be familiar with or that you need to reframe for the reader)
• Dramatize a scene

• Bring the essay to a logical close
• Reinforce the main idea in an engaging manner (without just repeating the thesis and introduction)
• Leave readers with something to think about

Strategy
The echo
Audience appeal
State the “so what”
Back to the beginning
Where do we go from here?
How it works
Repeat key concepts or words to reiterate a point
Points out to audience how things will turn out if the situation doesn’t change
What is the deeper meaning to the argument?
A “mirror image” or completing a narrative begun in the introduction
Suggest directions for further research, note problems that still need to be addressed

The current political culture allows for staggering sums of money to be spent on campaigns. The basic idea is not so much about content as it is about getting the word out and creating a buzz. The more one hears about a candidate, the greater the buzz. And, of course, creating a buzz costs money, but, as advertisers have known for a long time, it is money well spent. Getting elected is a lot like selling laundry detergent, and until If American citizens do not let their government know that they’ve had enough, that spending millions of dollars – even if it’s a candidate’s own money – to hold an office is ludicrous, then they have no one but themselves to blame.

Part II

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Revising your writing to make it stronger
What is revision and how does it differ from editing?

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• Allows writer to “see” whether the draft works
• Pinpoints areas of weakness
• Builds writer’s ability to evaluate work objectively

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• Re-read your draft.
• Number each paragraph in your draft.
• On a separate sheet of paper, write a corresponding number (1, 2, 3, 4…).
• Read the first paragraph again and next to the corresponding number, summarize that entire paragraph in one sentence.
• Continue to do this for each paragraph in your draft.
• Use your outline to help you objectively analyze your draft and locate areas that need revision.

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• Can you follow the logic of your paper from beginning to end?
• Do you see places where the connection between paragraphs seems hard to follow or hard to state?
• Might you need to move a paragraph elsewhere in the paper?
• Can you find places where you need to create a bridge between paragraphs or major ideas in your paper?
• Are there places where you feel more needs to be said?
• Are there paragraphs or passages that seem to repeat what has already been established earlier in the paper?
• Was there a paragraph that was particularly difficult to summarize and might need to be divided in two?

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Workshop:
Creating a post-draft outline
• Read an essay entitled “Curbing Parental Sports
Rage” (on following slides)
• Create one sentence summarizing each of the 8 paragraphs.
• Offer recommendations to the writer for revising the draft and making it more effective.

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A child’s world is full of violence. It appears in video games, films, and TV programs, and many parents in the hope of removing their children from some of this violence are encouraging and sometimes pushing their children into participating in organized sports. Unfortunately, this same violence is creeping into Little League, Pee Wee football, soccer, basketball, and hockey, in the form of the parents’ and coaches’ poor conduct and rage. This violent behavior on the part of parents and coaches must be curbed and we must bring back into the game the learning of the rules and skills of the sport and a sense of good sportsmanship and values.

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• Parents and coaches are bringing the violence from society into children’s sports, and we must not let this continue.

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Some parents are losing sight of why these children are playing--and that to the children is what they are doing: “playing.” Many parents come to their child’s practice or game with their own agenda of win, win, win at all costs. The team winning, the points scored, who is the big scorer: these are the issues that have replaced fun and sportsmanship in the eyes of these parents. These unreasonable expectations of winning, not messing up, being the star player, and making mom and/or dad proud are everything. “These parents expect perfection from their children, the coaches and the referees” (Sachs, 2000, p.62). It no longer is for the kids. Maybe Mom or Dad were promising athletes in their youth and for one reason or another were robbed of their hopes and are pinning all of their own wants, needs, wishes, and “what ifs” on their child or children (Kehe, 2000). The major problem seems to be that these parents are not considering what the children want. According to a “Kidthink” survey conducted by Jerry Kirshenbaum (1993) for Sports Illustrated, the kids want things like “unlimited free throws until they miss in basketball, everyone having a turn to play, less violence in hockey, using their hands in soccer, and to have fun” (p.12).
Perhaps the parents should listen to the children on this issue.

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• Parents should listen to their children and realize that playing sports is just a game that involves having fun.

Part III

• Make sure your first response is to a classmate who has not yet gotten one
• Review ch. 16 of The Kaplan Guide to
Successful Writing and the tips we covered in unit 7
• Do not focus on grammar, punctuation, spelling, or formatting concerns

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• Review Invention Lab instructions for ideas about what to address in the responses
• Offer concrete suggestions for revising and improving the draft
• Review the attached draft so you can make judgments about the post-draft outline and the revised introduction and conclusion.

• Your thesis statement clearly describes your position, but you have main points that are not clearly connected to the thesis statement. How about revising the thesis so that it lets the reader know what to expect?
• You might include a statistic in the introduction to let the reader know how big of a problem this is. I read this great article in the journal of American
Medicine this week that would give you some good numbers; here is the link. . .
• I have had a really hard time revising my introduction to give it a good
“hook,” too. I found this helpful website at the University of North
Carolina’s writing center that you might review: http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/introductions.html
. A couple of suggestions they had were opening with a thought-provoking question or a surprising anecdote related to your topic.

• Top ten things not to do in your introduction (Power Point presentation created by Kaplan faculty member)
• Clements, K. (2010). Essay development. In Martinez, D., Carlson,
S., & VanDam, K. (Eds), The Kaplan guide to successful writing (pp.
159-204). New York: Kaplan Publishing.

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• Posted a post-draft outline for the draft submitted in Unit 6 by providing a one sentence summary of each paragraph.
• Discussed what was missing in the draft based on the outline. This portion of your response should be at least 200 words.

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• Created and posted new opening and closing paragraphs for your project.
• Wrote a paragraph describing what approaches you selected and what changes you made/this portion is a minimum of
300 words
• Unit 6 Draft is attached for classmate’s evaluation

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• Respond to two classmates’ posts. Please begin by reviewing a post that has not yet gotten a response. You need to offer specific suggestions for improving and revising their essay. Minimum of 100 words per classmate.
• Offered constructive feedback

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• Highlight any word, phrase, sentence, or passage where you feel the language is particularly strong and the point especially compelling. What is the writer doing? Let the writer know your reaction to this content.

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• Highlight any word, phrase, sentence, or passage where you feel the writing needs more work. If a word seems off, mark it. If a sentence is clunky, mark it. If you are confused by some content or an example seems flat, let the writer know.

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• Do the paragraphs show an awareness of audience and purpose?
• What is one strength of each paragraph?
Why is what you identify a strength?
• What is one aspect of each paragraph that needs improvement? Why does what you identify need to be improved upon?

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• What lingering questions do you have about these paragraphs or your classmate’s “big idea” in general?

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• That is, does the writer take into consideration that the purpose of the paper is to persuade, which means the audience will largely not share the writer’s view on the issue? Where is the persuasion effective and where does it need more work?

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• Is this a credible paper? Does it have credible sources/no blogs.coms.opinions, not too many .gov or .org sources
• Does it have peer-reviewed journals
• Does it have authors and current dates and good APA formatting

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• Teen pregnancy in American is at an all time high. Young girls between the age of
11-17 are getting Pregnant and what can we do about this epidemic. It seem that most of these girls come from broken Homes of have a parent that are incarceration.
• How can we help this student repair this thesis?

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• To reduce the rates of teen pregnancy, all students in each year of high school should be given sex education training in abstinence, proper use and availability of contraceptives, and they must be educated about the negative effects of having an out of wedlock child.

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• In the United States, 750,000 adolescents become pregnant each year, and the majority of these pregnancies are unplanned. One in three teen age girls becomes pregnant during her adolescent years. The result is a hardship for the teen girl and her child (Weiss, 2007).

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• These teen mothers and their babies are likely to have complications in their pregnancy. Daughters of teen mothers are more likely to become pregnant, and sons of teen mothers are more like to go to prison (Weiss, 2007).

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• “Promoting adolescent health by helping teens avoid early pregnancy and make safe sexual choices is a priority of all health educators and others who work with adolescents and their parents” (Hall &
Hall, 2011, p.1).

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• To reduce the rates of teen pregnancy, all students in each year of high school should be given sex education training in abstinence, proper use and availability of contraceptives, and they must be educated about the negative effects of having an out of wedlock child.

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• Hall, S., & Hall, K. (2011).Abstinence-Only
Education and Teen Pregnancy Rates:
Why We Need Comprehensive Sex
Education in the U.S. PLoS ONE; Vol. 6
Issue 10. Retrieved from Academic
Premier search Data Base http:// library@kaplan.edu

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• Weiss, J. A. (2007). Let us talk about it:
Safe adolescent sexual decision making.
Journal of the American Academy of
Nurse Practitioners. Sep2007, Vol. 19
Issue 9, DOI: 10.1111/j.1745-
7599.2007.00252.x. Retrieved from
Academic Premier search Data Base http:// library@kaplan.edu