ENGL000 Study Guide

Unit 2: Unity and Support

2a. Explain why staying on topic is important

  • Why is it important to stay on topic when you write?
  • Why is it difficult to stay on topic?

Staying on topic is vital if you want your readers to understand what you are trying to express. Because the audience for a piece of writing does not have the benefit of interaction, they cannot ask questions if you go off-topic or go into a tangent. Staying on topic will not come naturally to you because it is the opposite of how your brain works. Writing effective topic sentences is a perfect way to help you stay on topic because a good topic sentence raises a question. The paragraph that follows is simply an answer to the question raised, and you can use that topic sentence as a sort of test for all the sentences that follow. For each sentence in the paragraph, ask yourself if it answers the question raised by the topic sentence. If the answer is "no", that sentence is off-topic.

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2b. Compose effective topic sentences

  • What purpose does a topic sentence serve in a paragraph?
  • How can an effective topic sentence help you stay on topic in an essay?

Topic sentences are the first sentence of most paragraphs (with introduction paragraphs and conclusion paragraphs being an exception). Their job is to preview what the paragraph will be about, letting readers know what to expect. A topic sentence should contain the topic and what you plan to say about the topic (or the message). It should also be a relatively short sentence that raises a central question, which can act as a guide to your paragraph. Every single sentence in the paragraph that follows the topic sentence should be an answer to that central question. 

When writing a topic sentence, avoid making an announcement, being overly broad or narrow, or having more than one topic or message.

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2c. Define the Three Es of writing (evidence, elaboration, explanation)

  • What is the goal of good writing?
  • Why are evidence, elaboration, and explanation important?
  • What are the relationships between evidence, elaboration, and explanation?

No matter what type of writing we are talking about, probably the most important factor of good writing is that it accurately communicates what the author intended. If you are trying to get across information or explain an opinion, you want readers to finish reading and be informed or otherwise understand why you think the way that you do about a topic. If you are telling a story, you want them to feel like they are right there. You want your readers to finish reading whatever you have written and be able to picture what you are saying. To do this, it is vital that you support your statements with evidence, elaboration, and explanation to demonstrate how they are true.

  • Evidence will include examples, case studies, and statistics that show how something is true.
  • Elaboration means adding details to what you are saying. It is generally more specific and tells readers more about your evidence.
  • Explanation is similar to elaboration in that it will further clarify your evidence. However, the explanation will either go into further detail (answering any questions raised by your elaboration) or show how different pieces of evidence relate to one another to support the topic sentence or thesis statement.

For right now, think of a thesis statement as serving a similar purpose as a topic sentence only for a multi-paragraph essay – don't worry, we'll talk more about this term later. Explanation can involve defining terminology, explaining relationships between ideas, or explaining how evidence or elaboration shows the topic sentence or thesis statement to be true.

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2d. Identify potential reader questions

  • Why is it important to anticipate reader questions?
  • What is a technique you can use to determine if potential reader questions are answered within your writing?

You must anticipate potential reader questions to ensure that your writing expresses what you want to say clearly and effectively and to make the job of the reader easy. Doing this will involve putting yourself in their shoes and closely reading your sentences to consider what readers will likely want to know. It is important to remember that your readers will not be able to ask you questions or interact with you, so you have to consider these things in the writing process. A technique to determine if potential reader questions are answered within your writing is to put yourself into an objective point of view and read your sentences one at a time. If you weren't writing this, what questions might you ask?

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2e. Apply strategies to create specific details that bring writing to life

  • In addition to anticipating reader questions, what are some ways to effectively support your ideas?
  • How can being specific in your writing help you to more effectively answer potential reader questions?
  • What is the difference between showing and telling?

Part of anticipating reader questions is being specific in your writing. Being specific means using precise language to create a picture in your reader's mind. Instead of telling them that "he stopped the car", show them that "Victor slammed on the brakes of his rusty blue Honda". Some tips regarding how to be specific are to:

  1. use exact names and specific quantities;
  2. use lively verbs;
  3. use language that appeals to the five senses (sight, sound, taste, smell, and touch);
  4. use direct quotes; and
  5. give examples.

Using these techniques will also help to answer potential questions. If you say that you had to move "heavy" hay bales at your job, readers will ask, "how heavy?" By using a specific quantity and saying that you had to move 40-pound hay bales at your job, you are anticipating that question and giving readers a clearer picture of the work you do at your job.

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2f. Identify "red flags" that can make writing unclear

  • What are some examples of "red flags" that you need to be careful about using in your writing?
  • What is the problem with these kinds of words – why should you be careful about using them?

In writing, "red flags" are going to be words or phrases that you need to be careful about using. They are not necessarily "wrong" but should always be double-checked. Some red flag words include words like "thing", "stuff", "event", "place", "goal", "a lot", and "dream". These words are problematic because they automatically raise a question. Words like "thing" and stuff" don't really have any meaning on their own, and even words like "place" or "goal" are going to raise the questions, "what place?" or "what goal?" If you use words like this, you must define what the "thing" is or what the "event" is, to avoid reader questions.

A final red flag word is the word "you". "You" is problematic on a few different levels, and unlike some of these other red flag words, it should probably be avoided in most types of writing. "You" is what is called second person, which means that it is a point of view directed at the reader. While you want to consider reader needs in your writing process, you do not want to address them directly because it can make assumptions about them or come across as pushy. Using the second person "you" is also generally going to be off-topic because you are usually going to be writing about yourself (which has nothing to do with your readers) or about other people, places, or ideas (which also are not related to your readers). 

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2g. Distinguish main ideas from supporting ones

  • What is the easiest way to distinguish main ideas from supporting ones?
  • What is the relationship between a main idea and a supporting example/detail?

An essay should generally go back and forth between general statements that raise questions and specific statements that answer questions. The easiest way to distinguish between main ideas and supporting ideas is that the main ideas should clearly answer a question. Supporting details that follow a main idea should answer the question raised by the main idea. Writing that is well-supported should get to a level of specificity where readers no longer have questions.

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Unit 2 Vocabulary

This vocabulary list includes terms you will need to know to successfully complete the final exam.

  • elaboration
  • evidence
  • explanation
  • second person