Saturday, September 19, 2015

Thoughts on Drafting

In the book A Students Guide for First- Year Writing, the author talks about good tactics for drafting a paper. Although these are typically really helpful, they are aimed for a college essay rather than a Quick- Reference Guide. In this post, I will address the points that will still be helpful and those that will not be helpful regarding the QRG genre of writing.

What part of the book's advice is helpful for the QRG genre?

The book talks a lot about a thesis statement. In this genre, there is typically one opening paragraph to get the document started. Because of this, a thesis statement is really combined with the introduction paragraph. The advise about making it interesting and specific is helpful because it still needs to tells the audience what they are about to read. The book also suggests using a point- illustrate- explain formatting for paragraphs. This is very helpful in this genre because this genre is supposed to be quick, precise, and organized just like the PIE formatting leads us to do. Also addressed in the book is advise for flow in  a paper. Flow is really important in a QRG because even though it is a lot of separate points, it should all flow together about one topic. 

What part of the book's advise is unhelpful for the QRG genre?

I don't think there is anything necessarily that is unhelpful about the book's advise, but some things need to be adjusted to fit the genre. For example, the PIE formatting is great for organization. The explanation section is typically the longest part, but shouldn't be too long for the sake of a QRG because it is supposed to be quick.

Reflection:

I read on Chelsea's blog, she talked about how, to her, what popped out was when the book addressed an insightful thesis. She wrote, "when it came to writing a thesis was asking yourself a question that was worth being answered." This didn't sick out to me but I think it is a really helpful point. I'm glad she wrote about that. Then over on Swati's blog, I noticed we had a lot of the same points. I really liked the way she laid her post out. It made me think about how I can better organize my posts. 

Things I need to work on in my QRG:

1. My intro paragraph needs to be reorganized and possible shortened
2. Add direct quotes
3. Reorganize my pragraphs

3 comments:

  1. I really enjoyed your post! I agree 100% on what you wrote, especially the part where you just have to edit the rules and format it to fit into the QRG style. Keep up the good work!

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  2. I really appreciate how you wrote about how PIE formatting can be adapted to work well for a QRG. I did not really think about this much and kind of wrote off PIE as unnecessary and too stilted for a QRG. I think I will have to work on applying that thinking to be clear and direct in regard to how I communicate information in my own QRG.

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  3. I really appreciate how you wrote about how PIE formatting can be adapted to work well for a QRG. I did not really think about this much and kind of wrote off PIE as unnecessary and too stilted for a QRG. I think I will have to work on applying that thinking to be clear and direct in regard to how I communicate information in my own QRG.

    ReplyDelete