Philosophy 5: Critical Thinking and Composition

Pierce College

Department of History, Philosophy, & Sociology

Lecture Notes for Chapter Six of Sequence for Academic Writing

"Chapter 6: Writing as a Process" Behrens, Laurence and Leonard J. Rosen. A Sequence for Academic Writing. 5th Ed.

Writing & Thinking

Sometimes thoughts precede writing, and sometimes writing produces thoughts.

The same sometimes applies to asking questions in class: you can raise your hand with a question in mind, but discover that as you ask your question you actually end up asking a different question.

So what?

The point is that by writing, or asking a questions in class, without first having a fully developed thought can be good as the process of writing and asking questions can help develop thought.

Stages

"Stages of the Writing Process"

"Understanding the task"

"Read–or create–the assignment. Understand its purpose, scope, and audience."

"Gathering data"

"Locate and review information–from sources and from your own experience–and formulate an approach.

"Invention"

"Use various techniques (e.g., listing, outlining, freewriting) to generate promising ideas and a particular approach to the assignment. Gather more data if needed. Aim for a working thesis, a tentative (but well-reasoned and well-informed) statement of the direction you intend to pursue."

"Drafting"

"Sketch the paper you intend to compose and then write all sections necessary to support the working thesis. Stop if necessary to gather more data. Typically, you will both follow you plan and revise and invent a new (or slightly new) plan as you write. Expect to discover key parts of your paper as you write."

"Revision"

Rewrite in order to make the draft coherent and unified."

"Revise and the global level, reshaping your thesis and adding to, rearranging, or deleting paragraphs in order to support the thesis. Gather more data as needed to flesh out paragraphs in support of the thesis."

"Revise at the local level of paragraphs, ensuring that each is well reasoned and supports the thesis."

"Editing" "Revise at the sentence level for style and brevity. Revise for correctness: grammar, punctuation, usage, and spelling."

That was from the Sequence text. What follows are some of my thoughts on paraphrasing: http://christopherlay.com/GenericMarginComments.htm

Introductions: Other than supplying the reader with the barest amount of information needed to understand the thesis, and other than supplying the reader with the thesis, your first, introductory paragraph should also include what I call a roadmap.  A roadmap tells your reader, explicitly, how you will explain and defend your thesis.  It is something you say after positing your thesis, and before you begin to explain and defend it.  As such, it introduces your reader to how you will support your thesis.  And insofar as you support your thesis by considering and responding to an objection, it is sometimes (very often in fact) useful to introduce your reader to the objection you'll consider before concluding.