Reduce an article: Prewriting techniques

Pre-Writing Strategies: Four Pre-Writing Objectives to Consider
By Rita Gergi

Pre-writing does not consist of a single method. In fact, pre-writing involves several techniques that can help you plan and write a far better paper than if you simply dive right in. Most people find that some prewriting strategies work better for them than others. Bubbling, like free-writing, is a great technique when you have not yet developed a clear idea of where you are going with your topic.

Determining one's audience is the most critical part of prewriting. All the other techniques depend on who the audience is. The audience is the one thing that is pre-determined and not in your control. To do this I would use the prewriting technique "Answering the Reporter's Questions; who, what, when, where, why, and how." Once these are answered, the writer can start to build on the other four prewriting objectives:

1. Examine your purposes
2. Determine your goals
3. Gather your data
4. Determine how the content will be provided

By identifying the audience first you can make sure you gather the correct information more quickly and easily. You can focus on gathering data and performing research that is pertinent to the audience. In this manner, you do not waste time gathering data that you will not use. If your audience is high-tech, you will not need to define everything, but you will have to do it for a lay audience.

Selecting the audience helps to determine whether the data collected has any value. The determined goals are another consideration while evaluating the data. Determining how the content will be provided would follow the other steps. The writing process and each of the steps builds on one another. In order to retain the integrity and foundation of the goal and purpose of the document all steps should be completed and are equally important. (302 words)

Source:

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Summary:
The prewriting stage can help you write a better paper that if you write it instantly. Determining your audience is the most important part of the prewriting stage since it is not in your control. To do this you can use the “asking questions” technique (who, what, when, where why and how). Once these are answered, the writer can focus on the other prewriting objectives, which are: examine your purposes, establish your goals, gather your data, and decide how the content will be provided. After determining the audience, you can make sure of gathering the pertinent data for your audience, taking into account the set goals. Besides, selecting the audience helps to define the value of the collected data and the organization of the content. Concisely, all steps should be completed to maintain the integrity and the purpose of the text. (141 words)

Wordy sentences: Guided practice

Adam Smith, founder of modern economics, proposed a controversial idea in the eighteen century. This British economist, born in Scotland and educated in England wrote the first complete political economy study. The wealth of Nations was published in 1776, the year of American independende from England. Smith's book directed attention to the interpendence of freedom, economic processes, and free trade laws. Although his thinking did not affect economic policies during his lifetime, its influence in the next century was considerable. "The invisible hand" and "laissez faire" are synonymous with Smith's name. History has made Smith's ideas more controversial. Say "Adam Smith" to conservative businesspeople, and they will smile and respond like "He was a good man - understood how business works!" Say it to liberal reformers, and they will grimace like "He was evil- sold the average citizen down the river". These reactions are extreme, but such responses indicate that the controversy aroused by Smith's ideas is still alive.

Exercises of sentence reducing strategies

Smart Houses

Schenker’s article “Smart House”, in Speak up 169, states that in the future, due technology, networked houses will make people’s life easy and comfortable. The electronic devices will be connected to internet and will have special chips to control activities like housework, communications, shopping, bills or people’s social life. The disadvantages of having a networked home are not significant. People will have to pay some extra dollars for extra chips, the internet connection and the security measures to protect the system against cyber pirating. People will not pay for maintenance since the services will repair themselves. She concludes that money people can spend will not mean much considering all the benefits of smart houses. (114 words)

The Influence of Teacher Commentary on Student Revision

This study inspect over 1,600 marginal and end comments written on 110 first drafts of essays by 47 university ESL advanced students, considering pragmatic goals and the linguistic features of each comment. Then, drafts of each essay were examined to observe the influence of the first draft commentary on the students’ revisions and assess whether the made changes regarding the teacher’s feedback actually improved the essays. Many of the comments led to substantive student revision, and there were types of commentary that were more helpful than others. The final results suggest several important implications for L2 writing instruction and for future studies on a vital but neglected topic. (108 words)

Conciseness

Writing: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Each one of us has a different perception of things and a picture can make us feel happy or sad, depending on our mood or personal situation. In my opinion, this picture makes me feel relaxed because the clouds and the sea under them represent a calm atmosphere that transports me to a peaceful place in my mind. Also, the abstract shape of the clouds and their grey tones give the impression of sadness or solitude because most of the time these colors represent that kind of emotions. If the picture had a variety of bright colors, maybe it would make you feel happy or cheerful. However, for me, this photograph may represent the reality that is happening now in our country since there have been many disasters related to the rainy season. This shows us that we have to take into account that these colors or shapes, for many people, can represent many things and not just emotions.

Paraphrasing

Exercises related to paraphrasig

Exercise 1
Paraphrase each sentence. There may be more than one way to rewrite each one. Remember to change vocabulary, phrases and sentence structure wherever you can.

a.) Despite their massive size, elephants are known for being agile.
Paquiderms are really clever although they are huge.

b.) Because elephants consume up to 500 pounds of food a day, they are able to strip a forest bare in no time.
Elephants can eat up a whole forest in less than a day due to they consume up to 226 Kgs of groceries per day.

c.) Over the centuries, lions have been used in art to represent power and magnificence.
Through decades, the king of the jungle has represented a symbol of splendor and supremacy.

d.) George Washington Carver was a dedicated teacher, in addition, he was known as a talented artist, musician and researcher who made valuable contributions to his people and his country.
George Washington Carver was a multi-talented man who contributes in an important way to his nation and community.

e.) Archibald Mc Leish, known for his poetry, was appointed head of the Library of Congress by President Rooselvelt in 1939.
President Rooselvelt chose Archibald Mc Leish, a very famous poet, to be the leader of the Library of Congress in the late 30’s.

Exercise 2

Read each paragraph and state the main idea in your own words. If you find the main idea stated directly in the paragraph, be sure to use the paraphrasing techniches that you practice in exersice one.

a.) There is plenty of water on the earth. In fact, ther is enouhg water in this planet for everyone to have a huge lake. The trouble is that the water is not always found in the place where is needed. In addition much of the water is polluted or salty. Because of these problems, there are many people without sufficient water.

Main idea: The clean water is not where it is needed.

b.) New oil supplies need to be found to replace those that have been used up. There is a constant search for new oil fields. Oil hunters sink their wells wherever there are signs of oil. Each of these drillings costs thousands and thousands of dollars, and often there is not enough oil to make it profitable. Nevertheless, the search for new oil never ends.

Main idea: There is a constant search for new oil fields because the old ones need to be replaced.

c.) Quakers, a religious group known as the Society of Friends, have always worked for human causes. Before the Civil War in the United States, they werw against slavery and led the movement to help salve escape from the southern part of the United States and seek freedom in the northern part, today, they fight hunger and disease around the globe and still aid people fleeing tyranny and war. Their beliefs are based on the principles of pacifism and simple living.

Main idea: The religious group known as Quakers is always doing philanthropy work.

Exercise 3

100 word summary

Students deserved to take part in professors’ election, curriculum planning and scheduling. They cannot vote in the selection of the faculty members. Besides, the students do not know anything about the origin of the professors and how or why they were chosen (revision of curriculum vitae). Considering curriculum planning, the text points out that if students have to pay for their books, they should give their opinion about materials to prepare them intellectually for the future. In regards to schedules, students must be included in their organization since they are the ones that will be affected by them.

Topics

In order to write properly an essay, paper or other written text, we have to be aware of the topis that we are going to write about. But what is the topic of a written or spoken text? There are many definitions according it, but among the most important we can mentioned the following ones:

(Colorado State University) "A topic is the main organizing principle of a discussion, either verbal or written. Topics offer us an ocassion for speaking or writing and a focus which governs what we say".

(Mikulecky) "Basically, the topic answers the question: what is the paragraph about?"

(WritingDEN) "The topic summarizes the main idea of your paragraph or text and it indicates to the reader what your paragraph or text will be about".

So, basically, the topic is just what we are going to talk about in the text; the theme or subject that we are going to focused on in any text that we write.

Important things about topic

What do I know about my topic?
•Can I answer the questions who, what, when, where, why, how?
•What do I know about the context of my topic?
•What historical or cultural influences do I know about that might be important to my topic?
•Does my topic belong to any particular genre or category of topics?
•What do I know about this genre?

What seems important to me about this topic?
•If I were to summarize what I know about this topic, what points would I focus on?
•What points seem less important?
•Why do I think so?

How does this topic relate to other things that I know?
•What do I know about the topic that might help my reader to understand it in new ways?

What DON'T I know about my topic?
•What do I need to know?
•How can I find out more?

If we can answer all these questions about our topic, our text, for sure, will be communicative and it will attract the reader as well.