Comp. & Circumstance

What is revision? If I could answer that question easily, this episode wouldn't be eleven minutes long. Just like the other steps of TWP, revision takes days and a significant amount of time. So be sure you've planned ahead and not left revision for the hours prior to the deadline. If you've procrastinated, you've put yourself in a bad position, but there are still a few things you can do in the eleventh hour to improve your essay.

The title is everything. Okay, maybe not everything. But it has an important job to do, so you need to give your essay title some thought. This episode was especially difficult for me to make because I can NEVER come up with a title for anything. Including these podcasts.

The introduction is the first paragraph your reader will encounter after the title. It's essential for that first paragraph to be pristine. I look at the introduction like it's a tomato: It's something I really don't want to eat but sometimes I have to, so it better be a flawless tomato. Perfect. This episode gives you some advice about constructing an effective, and hopefully pristine, tomato. I mean, introduction.

All academic essays require the use of "outside sources." We (your English teachers) don't mean "sources that come from nature" so don't venture into the wilderness to write your essay (unless that's part of the assignment). An "outside source" is something that comes from outside of your own brain. There are two kinds of outside sources. I'll explain those here, and how to use the one called "research."

That's right--there's a half step. Really, you should do this half step between each of the full steps, but since you only have a finite number of days to write the essay (at least 10), doing this half-step every time might be unrealistic. So, I'm dropping it here. Right in the middle of the process.

Hooray! It's time to actually write paragraph drafts. Gather your thesis and all of the Active Thinking you've done, and hit that play button.

Please don't be alarmed by the title of this episode! You formulate several thesis statements every day, so this is nothing new. Every essay has a thesis statement. And there are many different ways to compose one, depending on the topic and the purpose of the essay. I'll give you some reassurance about the dreaded "thesis statement" and a formula for drafting one for an academic essay. (Assuming you've completed all of the Active Thinking steps of The Writing Process, coming up with a thesis statement won't be too difficult.) 

Since The Big Six has two parts and takes two or more days to generate the ideas, I figured you needed a little recap. This is as "rah-rah, sis-boom-bah" as I get, people.

I'm a mom. My children's favorite words are "why" and "how." Thus, these two words drive me nuts. But when it comes to essay writing, they are incredibly important. So, when you get to Part 2 of The Big Six, just pretend you're one of my kids and ask your subject over and over "why" and "how." When you exhaust yourself, this episode will push you a little further. 

The last step of Active Thinking is working through The Big Six. As its name suggests, there are six big ways to analyze the subject of your essay. In the first part of this two-part section of The Writing Process, I'll give you some advice for generating paragraphs that answer four of the six questions: Who, What, When, and Where.