Remember why students are required to take composition classes

• To develop your professional voice: diction, spelling, grammar, and clarity in writing
• To demonstrate your ability to write a logical argument supported by evidence
• To demonstrate your ability to incorporate evidence from reliable sources in support of an argument

Easy things to do

(If you cannot do these things, how likely are you to be doing the harder things?)

• Get started on assignments as soon as possible—Procrastinators Fail.
• Read the assigned materials carefully, taking notes.
• Use all of the features of the word processor (In addition to being good, papers should look good).
  • Double space
  • Times New Roman 12 pt font
  • Hanging indents
  • Spell check
  • Grammar check
• Follow MLA format – in other words, follow directions – It's not rocket science.
  • Properly formatted internal citations
  • Quotations, if used, properly formatted
  • Works Cited entries in alphabetical order in the correct format

Beyond the obvious

• Introduction: Introduce the topic of the essay, briefly, providing the background necessary to understand the argument you will be making.
• Thesis: Make a significant, important, relevant, or valuable argument about the topic of the essay.
  • The subject of the thesis statement should be either the topic of the essay or the agent who must respond to the topic.
  • The verb should be “should” or “must.”
  • The complement should be a significant, important, relevant, or valuable argument about the topic or the action to be taken on the topic (stated clearly and concisely).
• Body: Use Claim, Context, Cite, Connect to integrate source material into your essays.
  • Start each paragraph with a CLAIM, that is, an argument in support of the thesis.
  • Provide a CONTEXT for the evidence to be presented.
    • Introduce the author by full name (Never refer to an author by just a first name).
    • Give the full title of the source.
    • Establish why the evidence from the source is relevant to your argument by providing some idea of the author's/source's authority.
  • CITE detailed examples to support the claim.
    • Cite summaries/paraphrases of examples rather than quotations of “sound bytes.”
    • Provide sufficient details so that a person who has not read the source has enough information to understand how this example supports the claim.
    • When quoting, quote exactly and surround the quotation with quotation marks.
    • Include a correctly formatted internal citation identifying the specific place in the source where the information cited can be found.
  • CONNECT the example/evidence to the claim.
• Conclusion: Based on the evidence presented, what should the reader now understand must be done?
  • You may summarize the main arguments (simplest conclusion).
  • You should identify who should act, what must be done, and why, based on the evidence presented.
  • The reason why should be significant, important, relevant, or valuable.
  • You may make an emotional appeal, possibly using a quotation or relevant example.