Writing Skills Set
Use these skills to edit your work on the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th rewrite - do not use them as the starting point for your writing.
I. What is the purpose of your paper? If they read on, what will the reader know and what can they do?
II. Who is the audience? Why should they read this paper?
Skill 1: Select the audience with intention; indicate the audience in your writing in the very beginning of the paper.
III. Thesis: the major contribution and the glue of the paper
Skill 2: Develop a strong thesis statement(s) at the very beginning of the paper. Pin your thesis statements by your computer and visit them frequently.
Skill 3: Bring your thunder up to the front. This will usually mean bringing ideas from the second half of the first draft of the paper to the first half of the second draft. It might mean moving and using ideas from the first half of the first draft as support or appendix material.
Skill 4: Use the thesis/theses regularly to tie together seemingly disparate elements (ideas and sections) of your work. I.e., Use Judicious Repetition. Thesis is the "glue" relating sections of your work to each other.
Skill 5: At the end of each section, summarize how what you have just written supports your thesis. In the conclusion, review your questions, thesis and conclusions.
IV. Strong paragraphs
Skill 6: Generally use the expert authority/citation to support what you propose by placing the citation after your claim.
V. Use The Compass to orient yourself and your reader continuously
Skill 7: At an early point write an outline as an explicit review of the content and organization of your work. Use this "compass" for many purposes:
1) as a check on the coherence of the exposition of complex ideas;
2) as the map included in the introduction for your reader to tell the reader what the journey is about;
3) in the conclusion to remind the reader where s/he has been; and 4) as the table of contents.
VI. The structure of the argument: academics vs. propaganda
Skill 8. State outright what you assume without argument for the purpose of your thesis and/or paper. Cite sources and support these assumptions (with references, data or rhetorical argument.
Skill 9. Make clear in your writing what you propose; each time you are making a claim/thesis/proposal, support the position with data, sources or reasoning.
VII. Strong words and sentences
Skill 10: Avoid empty words, they weaken the writing. Empty words include: Dummy subjects: "There" is/are..., It is...; "To Be" verbs: is, are, was, were (will be); Grammatical markers: have, had, that...
Skill 11: Use fewer words. Avoid non-judicious repetition (e.g. use of weak form in an introduction followed by strong form in body of paper).
Skill 12: Avoid overly strong words (they weaken the paper) and judgmental words, or argue for them (e.g. "universal", "all", "never", "invariant"... ) Use adverbs judiciously: so, very, many, most, every, never...
Skill 13: Use strong verbs that state accurately and are subject to common evaluation, e.g.: evaluate, analyze, calculate, identify, list, make... Replace "understand" with a specific, less ambiguous verb that can be commonly evaluated.