ENGC 1101 sections 26 and 54

ENGC 1101 sections 26 and 54

Revision Plan – Analysis Paper

Directions

Students who got a low C or lower on the Analysis or Multisource essay are allowed to choose one to revise to try for a better grade. Revising an A or B paper may only result in a gain of a few points; it may be better to focus your time on the new papers.

 

You must submit the plan and get instructor approval and feedback before revising, so that you can be confident that your revision ideas should be successful.

• Submit the completed Revision Plan for the selected paper to the instructor by week 10 for analysis paper (see class schedule for deadline).
• The instructor will give you written feedback and either approve your revision plan, or request a follow-up conference to improve your chances of passing the revised paper. Once your revision plan is approved, you may hand in a revised draft by the deadline.
• Revised papers are due no later than Week 12 (see schedule for deadline) uploaded to the Revision Assignment dropbox online.

 

Preparation

Please RE-READ the original assignment sheet (in one of the Content folders) and the grading rubric and feedback for the graded paper, paying attention to purpose, required elements, and any areas in which you got a low assessment in your original paper.

1) Revising for topic and purpose. 

The purpose for paper 1 and 2 is to analyze and explain, as stated in the assignment sheet.

Common problems leading to a no-pass:

• Incorrect purpose: summarizing source essay material too much, rather than analyzing and explaining the writing strategies used in the source essay
• Incorrect focus/not meeting assignment: not using the assigned ‘writing elements or strategies’ as the main focus
• Lacking analytical support: lacking sufficient analytical discussion (your ideas) of writing strategies in the book essay, or too much attention to examples or summarizing source
• Ineffective structure (such as one huge paragraph)
• Major problems with paragraph focus and coherence (not one idea per paragraph, or some paragraphs are not focused on a specific and assigned writing strategy)
• Poor relevance or coherence of support; evidence seems unrelated to paragraph topic or material is poorly unified
• inadequate length and development

Examples of poor versus effective analytical approaches in topic sentences:

Good analytical ideas:

“The writer uses many facts and statistics about ethnic groups to demonstrate the extent to which people of color are outnumbered”  (States an idea about use of facts, not just that they are used).

“In this essay, two detailed personal experiences are used to drive home the emotional impact of racism”

 

Weak analytical ideas:

“The writer uses a lot of facts about ethnicity.” (Is likely to set up a “summary” approach or a list of facts or source material, rather than the writer’s own analytical ideas about how or why facts contribute to the WHOLE article)

“The author tells about visiting a supermarket with her son and how the clerk reacts” (restates writer’s content, no clear focus on the essay writer’s ‘strategy’ of personal narrative)

PLANNING A REVISION – Check for:

1) Purpose. Analyze and explain how ASSIGNED writing strategies or writing elements contribute to the book essay.

 

2) Topic. Focus on the essay author’s writing choices and strategies (not lengthy discussions of content or summarizing of content)

3. Paper structure and paragraph focus: Papers should be organized by ideas related to writing strategies shown in the piece. This reflects the ‘analysis’ purpose by using ideas about components or ‘parts’ and the whole. A paragraph has good ‘focus’ if it states and develops a single point or idea.
4. Support and development

Explain, explain, explain:  Analysis requires you to identify the ‘part’ (writing strategy, in this case) and explain your insight about what it adds to the whole essay. Explain special terms used (what do you mean by  “personal narrative” or “credible facts”?); provide brief examples from sources; explain how each example relates to or illustrates the main idea in your paragraph.  (See the handout on synthesizing source material and your idea.)

In addition, each paragraph’s content should be organized in a coherent order, such as moving from a specific example to the general observation or contrasting two things, etc.

 

5. signal phrases and page numbers

Each quote, paraphrase or summary of material from the essay must be cited in the correct MLA documentation style along with a ‘signal’ or ‘launch’ phrase to help the reader see where source material begins.

 

 

Analysis Revision Plan                    NAME: 

 

You can copy, save, and retitle this form to fill out.  Submit this form to the instructor by week 10 date on schedule to get feedback before proceeding.

 

My initial draft was marked ‘inadequate’ for the following reasons: (choose all that were marked)

__ Thesis focus                                               __ missing launches or citations for sources

__ Lacked correct purpose                             __Structure not logical, not effective

__ Lacked assigned topic                               __Inadequate length/development

__ Too much source summary                      __ Poor paragraph focus (not one idea per

__ missing a required type of content                        paragraph)

__ Weak support overall                                 __ Did not use third-person voice throughout

 

Write the Thesis or Revised thesis:

 

Analytical approach:

Use complete sentences.These might be used as the topic sentence of a paragraph and in an outline.

1a. Name one writing strategy and explain how it is used throughout the essay:

 

1b. How does it relate to the thesis?

 

2. Name a second writing strategy and explain how it is used throughout the essay:

 

2b. How does it relate to the thesis?

 

Understanding support:

Pick one of the ‘strategy ideas’ above from 1 or 2 :               idea # ____

Explain your support:  What are two different examples–from different parts of the essay, different types of examples, etc.—that could be used to support the idea you chose?

 

(cont’d)

 

Support – Meaning/significance: For the piece of evidence or supporting idea listed above, state why is it significant, what does it mean (i.e, for facts), or how does it relate to the paragraph idea?  For instance:  evidence that shows how more than one personal anecdote is used, or how the essay is structured, to illustrate the main idea of the paragraph.  (evidence demonstrates the paragraph idea)

 

On your own:

 

• As needed, complete an outline that features the new focus, thesis, and/or supporting ideas.

 

• Try methods like revision outlines (outline reflecting the previous draft’s ideas and structure), or using colored highlighters for each main idea, etc., to capture relevant ideas and examples from your graded draft, to help identify ideas and regroup them.

 

• Practice developing coherence by writing your full thesis sentence next to the new topic sentence for EACH paragraph; as a practice, see if you can combine or connect both ideas into a new sentence to make sure they relate to each other.

 

• Practice analysis by checking that each body paragraph MOSTLY is explaining writing choices the essay writer made, rather than the essay’s writer’s topics or ideas.

 

___ Revision plans shows there is still some confusion about key paper issues: schedule a conference no later than middle of week 11.

 

___ Revision plan approved: (date)

 

Instructor signature: _____________________________________________________