WR115
First Essay Unity Review Workshop
Directions
The purpose of this workshop is to discover how unified your essay is, first by carefully reviewing it
yourself, and second, by having another student, your reviewer, perform a comprehensive 2-level unity
review. After you finish reading your essay, underline your thesis statement and your topic sentences.
Then trade papers with another student. Work in pairs, of if need be, in a group of three.
As a reviewer, you will carefully read through the other student’s (the writer) essay. Then you will
re-read it with an eye beaded on the sentences the writer has identified as the thesis statement and the
topic sentences. Perform the unity check, below, and then share your findings with the writer. Note
that you will be performing two levels of unity review. Similarly, your review partner will perform a
unity check on your essay. If there are three of you, it may take more time, but you will learn more in
the long run.
Level 1 Review (Essay Level)
In Level 1 Review, the reviewer checks to see if each of the topic sentences explains or develops
the thesis statement in one way or another. Ask yourself if each topic sentence clearly relates to or has
something to do with the thesis statement. Then label each topic sentence as outlined below and share
your findings with the writer.
S, for supports the thesis statement; or
O, for off-topic or partially off-topic regarding the thesis statement, and
C, for contradicts or partially contradicts the thesis.
Level 2 Review (Paragraph Level)
In Level 2 Review, the reviewer checks to see if each sentence in each body paragraph supports
or explains the topic sentence, either directly or indirectly. As you did for your Level 1 Review, ask
yourself if each body sentence clearly relates to or has something to do with the topic sentence. Some
sentences may support or provide an example of an idea in the previous sentence that directly supports
or develops the topic sentence. These sentences indirectly support (S) the topic sentence. Then label
each body sentence as outlined below and share your findings with the writer.
 S, for supports the topic sentence
 O, for off-topic or partially off-topic regarding the topic sentence, and
 C, for contradicts or partially contradicts the topic sentence.
Review Outcomes: Level 1 (Essay Level)
Now it is time for the writer to make any changes necessary to unify his or her paper. Feel free to
work with your writer if she or he so desires. Some writers like to work out their ideas by themselves,
and others thrive on input from a reviewer. In either case, the writer is faced with two possible
problems, and each will require different solutions to resolve them.
1) Regarding off-topic topic sentences, the writer can
Kelly-Klein, WR115
1
WR115
a) Eliminate them altogether, which sometimes means that an entire paragraph can or should be
eliminated. (Make sure you save your ideas, writers! Never throw away or delete a good
idea!!!!)
b) Rewrite these sentences so that their direct or indirect connection to the thesis is clear. In
short, the topic sentence needs to be connected to the thesis. A good way to do this is to
include a snippet of the thesis in the topic sentence.
c) Or the writer can change the thesis statement to include the ideas expressed in the off-topic
paragraph. This is usually the easiest way to deal with the problem of off-topic topic sentences.
2) Regarding a topic sentence that contradicts the thesis statement, two alternatives are available:
a) Eliminate it altogether, which sometimes means that an entire paragraph can or should be
eliminated. The problem with this, however, is that in an effort to be consistent and present a
unified piece of writing, the writer will be omitting important information. This brings up the
idea of intellectual honesty, that is, college students are expected to deal with inconsistencies
and contradictory information by helping a reader make sense of it. Sweeping it under the rug
by eliminating it introduces the risk of intellectual dishonesty.
b) Change the thesis statement in order to deal with inconsistent or contradictory information by
using concession. The words though, although, even though, and while can be used to deal with
the contradictory information without disrupting the writer’s discussion of his or her main idea.
In this manner, the writer can present two points of view in one sentence, thereby giving the
reader a richer, more highly informative view of an issue, concept, person, event, and the like.
The thesis statement may then read something like this: “Although blah-blah-blah, yaddayadda-yadda.” In this case the “blah-blah-blah” is the contradictory information and the “yaddyadda-yadda” is the main part of the thesis statement.
Review Outcomes: Level 2 (Paragraph Level)
Level 2 review outcomes are very similar to Level 1, above. Again, feel free to work with your writer
if she or he so desires, but remember that some writers like to work out their ideas by themselves. In
either case, the writer is faced with same two possible problems as those outlined above, and each will
require different solutions to resolve them. Follow the same process above, but apply the unity test to
the body paragraph sentences: do they support the paragraph’s topic sentence, are they off-topic, or do
they contradict the topic sentences? In addition, if you find that a number of sentences in a paragraph
are off-topic or contradict the topic sentence, the writer may be able to
c) Group the off-topic and/or contradictory sentences into a new paragraph. If so, then they will
also need their own topic sentence, which can be tricky because the topic sentence has two
jobs: it helps explain the paper’s thesis statement (or central idea) and it unifies the paragraph
that it heads. If the writer chooses this path—and sometimes it is positively the best path, then
he or she may need to change the paper’s thesis statement by adding to the thesis statement,
or in the case of contradictory information, using concession (2b and 4b, above) to change the
thesis statement.
Group (or Individual) Practice Assignment
Read the following passage to find what you think is the main idea or topic sentence. Underline it.
Note, sometimes more than one sentence in a passage could serve as the topic sentence. And just
because a sentence comes first does not mean it is the topic sentence.
Kelly-Klein, WR115
2
WR115
Once you have located the topic sentence, systematically label each sentence in the passage as
directed in this handout, with an S, O, or C. Then take a stab at re-writing it so that it’s tightly unified.
Have fun, and if possible, work with one or two other students for even more fun. Just keep the re-write
moderately clean, at least PG-13. Please know that there is no magical perfect way to rewrite this
passage; the number of possibilities is truly endless. The point of the exercise is to give you practice in
whipping something into shape—and to have fun in doing so.
Kelly-Klein, WR115
3
WR115
Sergeant Pepper
Sergeant Pepper has lived all over the world. He had always been an impulsive kind of
guy. He hated to hold his tongue, and as a result, anything was likely to come rolling out of his
mouth. This did get him into trouble from time to time and eventually got him kicked out of the
Army. He had never really liked the Army anyway and only stayed in because he figured it was a
job he could not be fired from. Was he ever wrong! Sgt. Pepper rarely looked before he leaped.
Once he even ran across a neighbor’s yard and jumped into the neighbor’s pool fully clothed,
much to the surprise of her 42 guests outfitted in full dinner party garb. One of the guests, that
stuck-up old Mrs. McGillacuddy, who was wearing a real hot pink feather boa around her neck,
was standing next to the pool, and accordingly, was soaked to the skin, quite a humorous sight!
Sgt. Pepper was likely to purchase things without thinking through his financial obligations,
including buying a condo, which, unbeknownst to him, was located next to a landfill. Of course,
he couldn’t really afford the condo either. He called this his “stinky deal.” He just couldn’t keep
away from bar room fights and more than once found himself tossed out on the street by the
bouncer for popping people in the face when they said things that offended him. Once Sgt.
Pepper was even booted from the swank Lonely Hearts’ Club for socking a slightly drunk
patron. He was wearing a tuxedo that night and looked quite charming, in fact, as he played
the drums in the house band. After steadily dating an enormously patient woman, Lovely Rita,
for 10 years, Sgt. Pepper finally asked her to marry him. Rita worked as a Meter Maid for many
years, and it was in the process of writing a ticket to the handsome Sgt. Pepper that she first
met him. Silly woman that Lovely Rita is, she accepted his marriage proposal and they lived
happily ever after, together producing a crop of lovely children.
Kelly-Klein, WR115
4