A&B Chapter 17 skill 5 and 6

When writing a longer paper, it is important to be aware of the fact that you are taking your reader on a journey.  As with any journey it can be incredibly easy for one to get lost without a proper guides or signs to help them on their way.  One of the most basic signs that you can give your reader is the placement of the topic sentence.  When the reader begins their journey into a paragraph on your paper the first thing that they see is what they will be expecting to read about or discover as they continue on throughout your paper.  If you don’t clearly state you audience what each paragraph is trying to convey then the reader could receive an entirely different message from that paragraph.  Another way to make sure that your reader stays on topic is by carefully managing the old and new information that you present to the reader.  As you explain each part your argument or information start by bringing up the familiar information that they have already encountered.  Finally a way to make sure that the reader stays on the carefully laid out path that you have set up, you can use specific “signpost” words to show them what to expect.  These words such as “first” “for example” “therefore” “however” etc. make your reader expect a twist or turn in the path, they are expecting it and it will you as the author to make your point more clear.

A&B Chapter 17 section 3 and 4

When beginning an essay or a persuasive paper of any kind, making sure that you have a good solid knowledge of how you want to write your paper and where you want to go with it will make the entire writing process significantly smoother and will help you write a better paper.  When starting your paper a very important decision you want to make is what to title your paper.  Your title should give the reader, at a glance, what you are going to be writing about.  It may not show your argument but it should let the reader know what they should expect to be reading about.  After you have decided on an effective title you can move on to how you want to structure your introduction and conclusion.  An important decision you need to make here is when you want to tell your audience what your personal stance is.  If you state your stance early on you give your audience a clear understanding on what this paper is going to be about and what you will be arguing about.  You could also place your thesis at the end of the introduction, allowing the reader to think about the topic at hand and make a decision for themselves on what point they agree with before knowing your point of view.  Finally if you want your reader to have as much information as possible and to be able to see all sides of the argument before making your side clear, you can wait till the conclusion to state your position and argument.  Each of these methods have different effects and deciding on how you would like your audience to react to them will shape the rest of your paper.

A&B Ch. 15 Skill 1 writing a proposal.

One form of rhetoric that is commonly is known as a proposal.  A proposal, as it may sound, is presenting an idea to a group with the goal of getting people to change and take action on some topic or with some part of a group’s life.  When pondering about how to go about this proposal there are many factors that should be considered.  First is you need to show your audience that there is in fact a problem that needs to be brought up.  This can be one of the hardest parts of the proposal as most people are naturally evasive of change and when they hear that there is something with the way that they have always done something, they tend to want to fight back.  Your goal is to make sure that they understand the problem as clearly as possible.  Once you get your audience convinced that something needs to be changes you can move onto the second thing: presenting a solution.  Whenever a problem is pointed out it is always key to provide a solution.  If you have a person who is constantly saying that there is something wrong but have no idea how to fix the problems then all they will accomplish is annoying people.  You need to show to people that you know what you are talking about, how to fix it and that it’s the best solution out there.  In this portion you could also bring up other people’s proposals for solutions and show either why yours would be more effective or why theirs wouldn’t solve the problem like yours would.  And third, you need to show the people that this will not cost them too much, whether it be time, money, or effort, you need to show to the people that this is be better for them or people in general in the long run.