Revising for Style: September 15, 2017

Focus: How can I strengthen the style of my essay?

Housekeeping Items:

• If your draft was not complete at the time I assessed it, you can complete it by 11:59 pm on Sunday for credit; be sure to e-mail me. (After that, it's a final draft, for which you will receive a separate grade).

• If you revise your annotated bibliography, hand your rubric back to me when you're ready for me to re-grade it.

• Tuesday is the deadline for the final draft. It must be in www.turnitin.com by 3:00 pm. If you are absent Tuesday, your final draft should still be submitted by 3:00 pm on Friday.

1. Warming up with a "quiz" on subject-verb agreement

2. Applying your first vocabulary and grammar lessons to your essay:

• Replace at least one word in your essay with a word from Puritan Words, List 1.

• Skim your essay for subject-verb agreement (especially your long, complex sentences). SAS Writing Reviser, which we're trying out in the second half of class, can also help you with this.

3. Trading essays and peer editing for grammar and style

Round 1: Grammar Police

• Check for comma/punctuation issues with a read aloud.
• Check for capitalization errors.
• Check for misspelled words that autocorrect won't fix (such as "affect" vs. "effect").
• Check for run-on sentences and sentence fragments.
• Anything else?

Round 2: Word Choice Cowboys (click HERE for slides and scroll to Slide 27)

4. Playing around with sentence variety using SAS Writer Reviser (also linked to my website)

• Log in (with Google account)
• Launch Resource
• Create Essay (copy and paste)

HW:
1. Continue finalizing your draft. It is due September 19 by 3:00 in www.turnitin.com. Click HERE for the Monday night checklist.

2. If you have a copy of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, start bringing it on Tuesday.