No class/office hours Thursday, 28 Feb.

Guys, I am sorry. I the medical condition about which we spoke has flared up again, so we won't meet as a class today. I will set up some extra time for office hours next week to help make up.

Here's your assignment. It is due Tuesday, 4 March.

At this point, you've drafted four paragraphs dealing with where you want to be in five years. Each of these paragraphs describes one aspect of your life: academic, personal, professional, and civic. You've read about adding sufficient details, so your readers will get a full, clear mental picture of what you want to say, and as you've revised each paragraph, you've added these details into your paragraphs. You've also revised your paragraphs to weed out vague wording and replace these with specific, vivid language.

Here's the next step. Go back and review your notes on how to write a good introduction and thesis statement. Taking the four paragraphs you've drafted as the body of a paper, draft an introduction for an essay which describes what you want your life to look like in five years. Make sure your introduction has a good, solid hook and a good, solid thesis statement.

Then, draft a conclusion for your paper. We'll be talking about how to write conclusions later, but for right now, apply whatever you might already know.

Finally, read the post below on proofreading. In this post I outline various tactics you can use to notice and correct grammar and misspelled words. Pick out two of these techniques to try out, and use these techniques to proofread and polish the essay you've drafted above.

Below, I've listed a checklist you can use to check the things in your writing we've been over this semester in class. Use this checklist to check the draft of your final essay:

Does my introduction have a good hook?
Does my introduction have an effective thesis statement?
Does each of my body paragraphs begin with a strong topic sentence?
Do I use enough detail in the supporting sentences of each paragraph to fully and clearly support and develop my topic sentences?
Could I introduce more detail?
Would the paragraph benefit from an additional fact, description, illustration, example, or story?
Is my language as clear, specific, and vivid as possible?
Are most of my sentences right branching?
Did I compose my sentences in independent and dependent clause groups?
Do my sentences follow the standard patterns I understand? That is, "IC." "DC, IC." "IC, DC." "IC, conjunction IC." "IC, conjunction IC; conjunction, IC." Or "IC; conjunction, IC, conjunction IC."
When I wrote a sentence with more than one independent clause, did I use commas and conjunctions properly to combine my clauses? (See the patterns above.)
Did I spell check?
Did I use a grammar checker?
Have I proofread my essay at least twice using two different techniques?

I look forward to seeing your final, polished essays on Tuesday. In between now and then, please write me at prof.brandon@gmail.com, if you have any questions.

PS One last note, remember, one of the things you're learning to do is to take enough time to write well. Don't--I repeat--don't try to do every step I outlined above all at once. Draft your introduction and conclusion one day. Read the post on proofreading on another. Try out one proofreading technique on one day the other you're trying out on another. Take the time needed to do each step as fully and as well as possible. There aren't any short cuts to learning to write well. At least there aren't if you want to write well enough to get through those timed, in-class essays at the end of the term, so give yourself the gift of taking what time to need to take to learn and practice now.