Revision Assignment - Middles

Princesleah Aguilera WRIT 3330 28 February 2018 Dr. Amy Clements Revision Assignment #2 – Middles Summary of Chapter Trimble’s chapter “Middles,” spoke about more than just the middle of the story and went ahead with incorporating the introduction and conclusion. He best introduces them as, “Tell ’em what you’re going to tell ’em, tell it to ’em, and then tell ’em what you’ve told ’em” (31). He best summed up what the middle does there because the writer already introduced the material in the introduction and can now take the time to defend what they have boldly stated to begin with.

He says the middle are these three components of the narrative, “2. A clear strategy; 3. Strong evidence; 4. A clean narrative line” (31). Through the chapter he also introduced to one hypothetical thinking and writing process and one real model which highlighted what the writers can do in the middle section.

Before his Final Tips, he highlights “The Importance of Continuity,” with the biggest tip that I’ve gained from this chapter, “Good writers are sticklers for continuity. They won’t let themselves write a sentence that isn’t clearly connected to the ones immediately preceding and following it. They want their prose to flow, and they know this is the only way to achieve that beautiful effect” (40). I think it was a positive way to end what he taught us before going on to the “Final Tips” section.

The Final Tips 1. Ask yourself the reader’s question then make sure you have answered it before moving on.

2. Think of yourself as an attorney with a difficult jury that you have to wow.

3. “Dividing up the proof,” figure out what you have establish then organize your evidence according to what you’ve established.

4. Signpost! Make sure that you are making EVERYTHING clear for your reader and telling them exactly what you want them to know from your work.

5. ASSERT, THEN SUPPORT. Remember that your facts and examples are important.

6. Every paragraph has its own single major point. Your points can get mixed up if you don’t have them organized.

7. I’m directly quoting this because I don’t think I could put it any better, “View each paragraph opener as a bridge sentence aimed at smoothing our way into the new paragraph” (43).

Artifact to edit I began with a color scheme that highlights the composting/environmentally friendly, obviously sticking with the shades of greens and the stronger brown color in the animations I used. I also used the clipart because I felt it gave a friendlier look that would help beginners feel more at ease. I chose this approach to make it feel less intimidating.

Next was the wording I chose. I wanted the document to remain friendly but educational to the audience. Even though I did use some terms that were bigger, I made sure that the readers could still understand. I feel that I placed the tips in reasonable places and in coherent design elements that did not clash with the more important parts of the design.

I chose to lay out the document the way that I did because I felt it was more reasonable to explain what it was, then give a layout to the components of making your compost begin. It does have to be separated because they are differently divided in their purposes. Although they are both information pertaining to composting, they have a different purpose, hence the dividing line.

Lastly, I chose to fill in white spaces with the icons of the leading organisms, these components added to the friendliness of the document and helped the reader look to certain places first.

Summary of Artifact: The artifact is the middle part Letter to the Author Dear Author These are 10 macro-level edits that I would suggest for your middle.

1. Being a letter of transmittal, there could have been more information considering what the document entailed.

2. I also think that it should have been at a more appropriate level, although you do mention the components by name, because your audience is your professor, you could have used a higher leveled language. Example: instead of wording you could have used “diction.”

3. Your continuity could have also been fixed, you seem to jump from one subject to another, not allowing your reader to grasp the first concept.

4. The whole document was very wordy, I highlighted in red what words you could extract.

5. Certain paragraphs have more than one topic, Trimble highlights that each paragraph should have its own single major point, but your paragraphs had several that didn’t defend a single thing.

6. You’re redundant in a couple of your paragraphs, try being more concise in what you’re trying to say.

7. Find a way to group all the information that matches such as colors of the document, the typefaces on the document, the art on the document, and the layout of the document. These could be topics of each paragraph, so you aren’t as scattered as well.

8. Your connecting paragraphs also didn’t flow as well. They were articulate, but lacked the words that told us this came next in your thinking process. Look back to Trimble’s “Conjunctive Adverbs,” list to properly transition from one paragraph to the next.

9. Going off of the transitioning, I felt that your paragraphs were too short in some cases. This isn’t always a bad thing, but you lacked explanation in many of your decision statements.

10. You stated the things that you did, but very rarely backed them up with examples and facts about why you made that decision. I think your reader would have liked to see more of that.

I hope you take this advice into consideration and maybe make a few of these changes happen.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Best,

Princesleah Aguilera