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  • Invent
    • Choosing Your Subject
    • Freewriting
    • Observing
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    • Dramatism
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  • Arrange
    • In Search of Form
    • Planning, Freewheeling, Adjusting
    • Analysis and Synthesis
    • The Whole and Its Parts
    • Pyramid Power
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  • Revise
    • Global and Local Perspectives
    • Developing Your Style
    • The Writing Context
    • The Writer's Voice
    • Unity of Purpose
    • Creating Emphasis
    • Tightening
    • Designing Effective Sentences
    • The Best Word
  • Edit
    • The Editing Process
    • Grammar for Writing
    • Basic Sentence Concepts
    • Expanding the Basic Pattern
    • Six Problem Areas
    • Basic Punctuation
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    • A Note on Spelling
  • Reflect
    • Occasions for Informal Essays
    • Writing a Story
    • Constructing a Montage
    • Following a Metaphor
    • Creative Rambling
    • Opening and Closing
  • Explain
    • Occasions for Thesis/Support Essays
    • Subject to Thesis
    • Stating Your Thesis
    • Supporting Your Thesis
    • Developing Your Paragraphs
    • Revising Your Thesis
    • Introductions and Conclusions
    • Summary
  • Convince
    • Occasions for Argumentative Essays
    • Arguing in Context
    • Stating Your Proposition
    • Anticipating Opposition
    • Expanding Your Argument
    • Three Argumentative Appeals
    • Form: Tradition and Innovation
    • Arguing for Consensus
  • Explore
    • Occasions for Exploratory Essays
    • Immersion and Interaction
    • Focus and Commitment
    • Trying Out Ideas
    • A Learning Cycle
    • Outside Sources
    • Revising for Readers
  • Document
    • Documenting in Context
    • What to Document
    • How to Document
    • Using Parenthetical Citations
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Paradigm Online Writing Assistantby Chuck Guilford


It's a kind of writing that helps us learn who we are as people, helps us define our values and clarify our vision.

 

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Start Writing

There is no single best way to begin a writing project. What's best is what gets you going and builds momentum for the journey ahead. You may want to start right in on a draft or do some pre-planning.

Often, simply Choosing a Subject can be a challenge. You could start Freewriting to locate your subject and generate ideas. Or you might prefer to first gather information from Outside Sources, or to brainstorm using The Journalists' Questions.

Whether you're writing an informal essay, a technical report, or the next great American novel, the suggestions in Discovering What to Write will help you get going.

Write Strong Sentences

Effective sentences are vital to your writing. They are fundamental carriers and shapers of meaning—the pulse of style. If you want to work on your sentences, try the following Paradigm sections: Basic Sentence Concepts, Expanding the Basic Pattern, Six Problem Areas, Designing Effective Sentences.

For help with punctuation, try Basic Punctuation.

Planning, Freewheeling, Adjusting

Some writers are heavy planners. They like to begin with an outline or at least a detailed understanding of where the writing will go and how it will get there. Others prefer to improvise, to follow their impulses and inspirations.

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Expanding the Basic Pattern

Writing made up of only such little sentences would quickly grow monotonous and would also sound like it had been written by someone without much language experience. Fortunately, the basic S V/C pattern allows for easy expansion in almost unlimited ways.

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The Writing Context

Few people enjoy writing so much that they do it just for fun. Sometimes an impulse or insight may inspire us to sit down and write "just for the heck of it," without any sense of readers or purpose. Poems and journals often start like that. If you've kept a journal, you know such writing can be enjoyable and worthwhile. You can explore your experience and sift it for meaning. Yet even such expressive writing springs from a real life context that elicits language. All writing is situation bound. It's a response prompted by various needs, desires, and demands from both inside and outside.

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Writing a Story

Informal essays are often written as stories that trace a sequence of events from beginning to end, with occasional intervals of description or analysis.

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Occasions for Exploratory Essays

The exact nature of an exploratory essay can't be known in advance. It emerges gradually from decisions and discoveries made along the way. Individual writers go in different directions, depending on their interests and their specific writing contexts.

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Form: Tradition and Innovation

By now, you've probably amassed many notes and ideas for your argument, but you may be wondering how to sort and organize this material into an essay. The following pattern, which gives the traditional Latin names for each section, may help. Like the thesis/support pattern, it offers a basic structural framework that can be modified for various writing contexts. The essential parts include the Introduction, Statement of the Case, Proposition, Refutation, Confirmation, and Conclusion.

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Revising your Thesis

One major purpose of the thesis is to predict what will follow. It does this for both writer and reader. It provides the writer with purpose and direction throughout the composing process. For the reader it creates expectations about the form and content of what's to come, and the reader's satisfaction with the final essay will depend largely upon whether these expectations have been satisfied.

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  • Basic Punctuation
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