Strategies for Writing
- Read critically.
- Consider your purpose: presenting a response suitable to the expectations of an academic audience: clarity, objectivity, accuracy, and support through personal and textual evidence that meets the expectations of the writing context. For example, you might choose an author, summarize their main ideas, and then:
- Analyze the effectiveness of the text in regard to tone, organization, and/or the validity of the evidence
OR
- Reflect on the author's assumptions that inform his/her argument and how those assumptions may benefit or hinder class discussion
OR
- Show how the essay lends itself to agree/disagree type responses from students
- Focus on the main ideas of the author's argument.
- Develop your response with a thesis appropriate to the context of your writing, explaining the criteria your evaluation will involve, and using quotes, paraphrases, and personal evidence as support. Note that while you can employ agree/disagree responses as evidence, you cannot solely use this approach because the context requires some evaluation and thus you must also make an analytical claim as well.
- Organize a cohesive essay using transitions to guide the reader.