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CM 220UNIT 5 Seminar:

Understanding Your Audience and Outlining

Your Big Idea

General Education, CompositionKaplan University

Unit 5 Reading

Reading Where to find

Intro to Unit: The invention of the printing press, audience

Click on unit 5 reading icon

The Kaplan Guide to Successful Writing, chapters 7, 13, 14 (pp. 167-168)

Posted in Doc Sharing’s reading folder

3 editorial articles Files posted in the Reading section (click on “journal” icons to access information and links to articles)

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Unit 5 Tech Lab: Podcasts and Video

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Unit 5 Invention Labs• Invention Lab 1: Map at least 4 ideas for draft

(prewriting exercise). Suggestion: include a revision of your thesis statement.

• Invention Lab 2: Formal and informal communications of big idea (letter to editor and post on Facebook, for example).

• Note: We have two separate discussion threads for this unit. Click on “invention lab 2” link to access the second thread. Be sure to respond to the required number of classmates in each thread.

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APOSTROPHESUnit 5 grammar workshop

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Rules

1. Use apostrophes with nouns to indicate possession: everyone’s dream, Jane’s jacket

2. Do NOT use with possessive pronouns (its, his, hers, yours, theirs, ours)

3. Do NOT use with plurals (Americans, citizens) unless they are showing possession: Americans’ values, citizens’ rights

4. With multiple nouns, use apostrophes depending upon meaning: Bill and Jane’s wedding (one wedding), Julie’s and Kathy’s weddings (two separate weddings)

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Rules

5. Use apostrophes for contractions to show omitted letters: will not = won’t, I am = I’m

6. Use apostrophes to mark certain plural forms (letters, symbols, and words referred to as words): Sassafrass has 4 s’s.

7. APA recommends omitting the apostrophe for plurals of numbers and acronyms: PCs, 1990s

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GETTING STARTED AND MAPPING IDEAS

The Writing Process

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Getting Started with Your Big Idea

• In unit 6, you will submit a 3-5 page draft of your Big Idea.

• Why is beginning early, in unit 5, helpful to you as a writer?

• What can you do to GET STARTED?

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Common Prewriting Techniques

• Freewriting• Brainstorming• Bubbling• Clustering

• See ch. 6 of The Kaplan Guide to Successful Writing for more on the writing process.

• Listing• Informal outlining• Annotating• Questioning

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Organizational Tools

• The site on graphic organizers at http://freeology.com/graphicorgs/ has links to various charts that might be helpful to start mapping ideas for the draft.

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Bubbling Chart: Food Additives

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Listing chart: Banning cigarettes

Main points Support from sources?

Audience concerns to address

Examples I could use

Cigarettes are bad for everyone’s health, smokers and non-smokers alike

Surgeon General (warnings), medical reports on second-hand and third-hand smoke effects

Should the government outlaw everything that is bad for us (fast food, etc.?)

Childhood asthma and allergies, even ear infections, often tied into parents’ smoking

Those horrible pictures they showed in elementary school of black lungs of smokers!

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Organizing and Developing Your Ideas

• Establish a thesis• Consider writing an outline (it can be changed

later)• Take the ideas in the outline and brainstorm

each concept/argument• Begin researching and incorporating evidence to

support your argument/claims

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AUDIENCE AND PURPOSE

The next step

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Audience and Purpose• Why is paying attention to your audience and

purpose KEY to successful persuasion?• Who is the audience you would like to

communicate to?• What do you know about them and what do you

need to know about them?• What do you want to communicate to that

audience?• How can you best communicate your information

to that audience?

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Letters to the Editor

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Letters to the Editor: Topics• How to wipe out health coverage for the poor.

[Editorial]. (2012, January 28). Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-high-courts-health-care-test/2012/01/24/gIQAFHNSYQ_story.html

• Meddling with fertilizer. [Editorial]. (2012, January 30). Retrieved from http://www2.tbo.com/news/opinion/2012/jan/30/naopino1-meddling-with-fertilizer-ar-352569/

• Check with climate scientists for views on climate. [Editorial]. (2012, February 1). Retrieved from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204740904577193270727472662.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_MIDDLEThirdBucket

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Letters to the Editor: Discussion

• Are these letters effective?• What is the argument each makes?• Are the authors and publications credible?• Are the facts that the authors use credible? You

can go to FactCheck.org to read credible information on this topic.

• Select at least one argument in each letter that you can verify, or not, and discuss how this adds to or detracts from the writer’s argument.

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Fiscal protection for states in Obama’s expanded Medicaid plan

• Obama’s Medicaid plan “extends eligibility to individuals with annual incomes up to $15,028 and to couples making up to $20,300” (How to, 2012). It also protects state budgets because “the federal government pays . . . 100 percent of the expansion’s costs . . . “ (How to, 2012). A court decision to invalidate this reform “would not only consign the poorest of the poor to a lack of health coverage, it would shatter decades of legal precedent and would rival the Bush v. Gore and Citizens United cases for judicial activism” (How to, 2012).20

The busybodies in the Legislature are at it again, seeking to dictate every community policy from Tallahassee.

• “Legislators now want commercial landscaping operations to be exempt from local fertilizer ordinances (House Bill 421, sponsored by Rep. Jimmie Smith of Citrus, and Senate Bill 604, sponsored by Sen. Charlie Dean of Citrus). The target is the rainy season ban of fertilizer use, a key provision of most ordinances and an economical way to reduce nitrogen pollution. . . Locally, Pinellas County and all of its 24 municipalities, the city of Tampa and Manatee County enforce a rainy season ban on fertilizer use” (Meddling, 2012).The Tampa Bay Estuary Program says this will save money, ensure healthier lawns and reduced runoff, and the proposed legislation exempting companies from local ordinances will “undermine local decisions on behalf of special interests” (Meddling, 2012).

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No need to panic about global warming

• The Wall Street Journal is confronted about publishing this op-ed on January 27, 2012. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204301404577171531838421366.html

• Kevin Trenberth, Sc.D.,Distinguished Senior Scientist, Climate Analysis Section National Center for Atmospheric Research, accuses the author of using “out of context, misrepresented quotes” from experts outside the climate change science field to criticize expensive programs that aim to minimize climate change.

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Tips for Writing Editorial Letters

• Keep it short and simple (maximum 250 words)

• Let readers know who you are• Know that editors have right to alter your

submission• Only submit to one publication at a time

(wait for acceptance or rejection) http://www.publicaffairs.ubc.ca/services-for-ubc-faculty-staff/writing-an-effective-

opinion-editorial-piece-or-letter-to-the-editor/

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What other forms might I use to present my big idea to a wider

audience?

• Post on Facebook page • Blog post• Email to friend• Flyer to distribute to community• Twitter feed• Letter to specific audience (say, the

school board)

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Helpful Writing Center Tutorials

Topic URL link to Archive

Audience and Purpose http://khe2.acrobat.com/p19397839/?launcher=false&fcsContent=true&pbMode=normal

Developing Ideas http://khe2.acrobat.com/p35695303/?launcher=false&fcsContent=true&pbMode=normal

Avoiding Writer’s Block http://khe2.acrobat.com/p13592508/?launcher=false&fcsContent=true&pbMode=normal

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Reference

The University of British Columbia. (n.d.) Writing an effective opinion-editorial piece or letter to the editor. Retrieved from http://www.publicaffairs.ubc.ca/services-for-ubc-faculty-staff/writing-an-effective-opinion-editorial-piece-or-letter-to-the-editor/

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