Ch. 2 Intro (start here)

Chapter 2: The First Essay

By the time you have thoughtfully and actively read a text—using the skills of underlining, noting, paraphrasing, and summarizing—you are ready to respond by bringing your own world of experiences, concepts, and values into the author’s world. Your written responses may take many forms, shaped by your purposes in writing.

In this chapter, you’ll be writing your first essay for this course, most likely a reflection paper or a reading and experience paper; the choice is up to your professor. A reflection paper entails your thoughts and emotions about a subject, often a subject suggested by your own life, such as leaving home and adjusting to the demands of college. You might reflect on the discipline required to set your own schedule, to get to bed at a reasonable time and to arise in time to make your first class. You are newly responsible for so many more areas of your life now, areas that were set for you in your home environment.

A reading and experience paper builds on something in the assignments you have read, or works that you have read independently that have influenced your life. Perhaps you are reading “My Wood” by E.M. Forster. You have never bought a “wood” perhaps, but probably you have bought something that you value, say, your first car. How did that new possession affect you? Did you change your attitude about lending the car to a friend? How did you feel when someone “keyed” or scratched your car while it was parked? Did you feel a need for a garage, or at least a car cover, when a thunderstorm threatened? Reading a story or essay can entice you to notice your own feelings that are reflected in the reading.

Strategies for Observing, Reflecting, and Telling

At the heart of all writing is observing (noting in detail a scrutinized item), reflecting (meditating on the meaning of the thing observed), and telling (recounting the person, object, or event experienced). In this kind of writing, what separates mediocre from excellent content is specificity and detail. If, for example, you wanted to relate to someone your experience of watching a bird in flight, you would be more effective if you described it in detail. Instead of writing an essay that simply mentions a bird flying in the sky, describe the creature in detail: a dappled falcon swooping and curving in the heavens. Without these details, your reader might imagine any bird doing what a typical bird does. With the detailed description, your reader can imagine the colors of the bird, what type of bird it is, what kind flying it is doing. Upon reflection, the writer can suggest numerous connotations of the bird somehow joining in something bigger than it is. For example, the reader might picture the bird participating in the dance of the universe in which the creature is a part of something much greater than originally perceived. Certainly, Gerard Manley Hopkins’ description of “daylight’s dapple dawn drawn falcon” in his poem “The Windhover” ennobles the bird and stirs the reader to a new appreciation of this humble creature. Here is the opening octave (eight rhyming lines) of the poem:

I caught this morning morning's minion, king-

dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding

Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding

High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing

In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,

As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding

Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding

Stirred for a bird,--the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!

With Hopkins’ skill with the rhythm, the alliteration, and the imagery, he makes the falcon’s flight seem clear, masterful, and beautiful in the reader’s imagination, but basically, it is Hopkins’ detailed observation and concrete specificity that makes the writing come alive, enabling the reader to experience the wonder of the bird in flight.

Detailed description is an art. The observer must note the most intricate aspects of objects (their texture, shape, color, taste, touch, smell, size), of people (their words, inflections, dress, mannerism, customs), and of events (who? what? when? where? how? why?). Beyond this, the writer begins to examine the moment from his or her perspective and discovers more fully its meaning. Then he or she tells the tale: Here is what I saw, here is my experience, and here is why it is important. At this stage, lively writing begins.

Getting Started

It is hard to get those first words of an essay down on your paper. The work does not spring from your pen as a fully developed product. Writing is a creative process and has stages that you must progress through to achieve the finished product: preparation, incubation, illumination, execution, and verification. These stages generally go in order, but in actual writing you will find yourself mixing them to some degree—you will be preparing one aspect of the subject while you are writing on another part.

Remember that the process is not without frustration; do not expect the outline of your work to be always clear from the start; do not wait to feel inspired.

Preparation

Preparation begins with careful open-minded reading described above. Read to understand the major ideas held by authorities on your topic. Write notes, summaries, paraphrases, and quotations on note cards. Do not just read to prove a position you have already taken, and do not read simply those sources which agree with you. In choosing a topic, you should have found in it questions which you want answered, areas on which you want to be better informed. When the topic is relevant to you and open to more inquiry, it will usually be interesting to your readers.

Use this preparation stage as a time to play with ideas—brainstorm the topic, writing down anything that comes into your mind. Ask yourself all the journalists' questions: who? what? when? where? and why? Expand those to other probing questions:

How and why does this happen?
What does this feel like?
What senses does it evoke?
What does it compare to?
How is it different from other things in its class?
What are its parts?
What is its use or value?

Freely asking such questions and freely discussing the topic with friends will help you focus on your attitude toward the topic. In the latter part of this preparation stage you will find yourself forming some definite opinions which you should try to state as a hypothesis, a tentative thesis which asserts your view. The hypothesis should be specific enough to guide you to the further research or questioning you need to do but not so rigidly committed to as to limit your thinking. Consider the hypothesis flexible, subject to change as your information and understanding of the topic increases.

Incubation

College students have trouble with this stage, for they are rushing to complete all their assignments, often at the last minute. Plan ahead for your writing projects. Give yourself time to let your active preparation cease for a day or two so that the second stage, incubation, can occur. This stage allows ideas to settle into place, and it lets you relax about your project and return to it with a fresh eye and renewed, imaginative energy. Students who wait until the evening before a paper is due to begin writing it cannot experience this stage of the creative process, and their work suffers as a result.

Illumination and Execution

Illumination and execution are the next stages, when you begin putting down ideas on paper. You might start with organizing your note cards into categories, then composing an outline that structures your paper to support your hypothesis. The opening of an essay is often difficult, but you can combat “writer’s block” by starting to write at the point you most sure about. You can always move paragraphs and sentences around, so you should feel no problem about temporarily ignoring your introduction. In fact, writing your introduction and conclusion after you have completed the body of your paper will help you focus on stating your final thesis in these two crucial places.

Verification

The final stage of the creation process, verification, is essential to the success of your project. Here you edit, proofread, and polish your style. Do not become impatient with your work. In this stage you can discover the joy of a craftsman taking pride in the final efforts that give his work quality, lifting it above the mediocre, making it worthy of presenting to others. Here again you will do well to give yourself some extra time so that you can approach the project with an objective, critical eye. Let a friend read and comment on your essay, but choose one whose judgment and reading ability—and one you trust will be honest with you.

Modes of Development

Writers have several methods of developing or presenting their material. These methods for presenting material are often referred to as modes of development—narration, description, definition, cause/effect, classification/division, comparison/contrast, analogy, and example/illustration. An author wanting to write about her family’s trip to Rome might describe the city and historical sites (mode: description) or may tell about what they did each day (mode: narration). Or, she may talk about the similarities and differences between Rome and Athens (mode: comparison/contrast). Writers seldom use only one mode in an essay, but commonly purpose and audience considerations cause them to choose one mode as the dominant method for a particular writing task and one or two other modes to a lesser extent. For example, the writer sharing her trip of Rome may use three modes: narration, description, and example/illustration.

Defining Audience and Purpose

Skilled writers consider their audience and purpose in deciding which mode or modes to use in order to communicate their message or information most effectively. You write for a particular audience, so it is important to think about whom you are addressing. Jane E. Aaron and Michael Greer, in their The Little Brown Compact Handbook, 10th edition, list some helpful questions a writer needs to consider when trying to sharpen his or her sense of audience:

Who will read your writing?. . . .
What do your readers already know and think about your subject? . . . .
Where and when will your audience encounter your writing?. . . .
How should you project yourself in your writing?. . . .
What do you want them to do or think after they read your writing?. . . . (3)

Be cautious about defining your audience. Don’t assume everyone reading your work will share your assumptions, especially about religion and politics—areas likely to cause tension, discomfort, and disagreement. When authors misjudge their audience, they are likely to be met with resistance, arguing, or walls against clearly hearing your arguments or observations.

When you have determined the nature of your audience, then you will consider the tone you need to take in your writing to best communicate. Should your tone be formal, informal, objectively informational, colloquial, serious or humorous, ironic or satiric? Mixing your tones in a short essay can be very confusing to a reader, who can’t determine your attitude or how you want the reader to respond. It is best to keep a constant tone in your essay.

As basic as consideration of audience is, understanding your purpose in writing is also fundamental to your effectiveness. Again, Aaron and Greer in The Little Brown Compact Handbook list some general purposes of writing:

To entertain readers
To express your feelings or ideas
To explain something to readers (exposition)
To persuade readers to accept or act on your opinion (argument) (6)

Fowler and Aaron give advice about determining more specific audiences, purposes, and genres of your writing task on pages 3-9 and 73-77 of The Little Brown Compact Handbook.

Narration and Description

When writers want to involve their readers most directly, giving them what is known as vicarious experience, they often use methods of narration and description. Narration tells a story. It proceeds by following an action through time. These are narrative essays. If they were fictional, we would call them “stories,” but since they describe actual events in the author’s lives we refer to them as personal essays in the narrative mode. Examples of narrative essays are Langston Hughes’ “Salvation” and George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant.”

Description builds a scene in the reader’s mind, a particular object, space, or time. This mode may also be quite effective for a personal essay. Examples of descriptive essays are Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s “The Channelled Whelk” and Zora Neale Hurston’s “How It Feels to Be Colored Me.” Authors often blend narration and description, for description set a stage for narration to occur in, and narration demands description for realism and credibility. When you read a novel or story, pay attention to its opening. Does the author give a descriptive exposition of the setting, orienting you to the place and time of the action, or does the author simply thrust you into the action, presenting some dramatic situation to catch your attention?

Process

If writers want to explain how something works, they use the method called process. This mode traces, step by step, the way any process occurs: a cookbook recipe for baking a cake, a set of directions for operating a VCR, a detailed essay on making a garden—these topics would call for a process method. Writers of process usually have as their purpose the instructing of their readers; they must be very clear about the time sequence of each step and very specific about details. While this method is normally used for very pragmatic purposes and is not a typical “literary” mode, Jonathan Swift, the eighteenth century author of satiric prose and poetry, uses process brilliantly for his bitter satire, “A Modest Proposal,” on the English treatment of the Irish in his day.

Definition

Definition is commonly known as formal definitions of things, words, or ideas found in dictionaries. These definitions give the general class the object or phenomenon is in and then provides its distinctive characteristics. Writers extend this method to provide unusual or elaborate descriptions of the thing being described. They may use concrete attitudes. Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s “The Channeled Whelk” for example, becomes an extended definition of the concept “simplicity.” Even though she does not formally define it as a dictionary would, she does give us a sense of what simplicity and its opposite do to the individual as they take root in the soul.

Cause and Effect

Lindbergh also uses cause and effect as she writes about her activities. She lists how very specific things about her life, her housing, her clothing, and her relationships, and social involvement cause specific effects in her emotions. Similarly, Margaret Sanger combines cause and effect reasoning with impassioned narrative to persuade her readers of the evil effects of ignorance and poverty in her essay “The Turbid Ebb and Flow of Misery.” In using cause and effect reasoning, writers try to explain why something happens, what causes precede and constitute a later effect. They must be cautious about making assertions of causality, though, for it is easy to mistake simple relationship in time for a cause/effect relationship. “A happened; then B happened” becomes “A happened, therefore B happened can be a logical fallacy with the Latin name “post hoc, ergo propter hoc” (translated “after this, therefore because of this”) or, more briefly, the “post hoc” fallacy. A simple everyday example of this can be seen in the way we so easily blame our poor performance on a test on our having been out too late the evening before, or having skipped breakfast, or on some other thing that occurred prior to our taking the test; the real cause may have been a simple lack of study—so a relationship in time is not sufficient to establish a cause/effect relationship.

Classification and Division

Classification and division are similar methods. In classifying, an author breaks a class or group of things into categories. A student writing about an English faculty, for example, might classify them as composition teachers and literature teachers, or as instructors and professors, or as freshman composition teachers and upper division course teachers. The writer should be careful to make his classifications by consistent and reasonable principles. Anne Morrow Lindbergh in “The Channeled Whelk” classifies sea shells into their various types, using the suggestions of their shapes and colors to build extended comparisons with human attitudes. Such comparisons are called analogies and may be seen as yet another method of developing material.

In the method of division, the writer divides one subject into its component parts. A typical job description is formed by this method. The work of an office manager might be divided into her various tasks: evaluating secretaries, interviewing personnel, researching, and interpreting data. Many of the essays you write fulfilling academic assignments will require you to divide topics into logical parts. For a biology paper on a living organism you may need to divide your topic into parts, such as the nervous system, the circulatory system, and the bone and muscle systems. In writing an analysis of a poem, you might divide your topic into metrics, tone, figurative language, and theme.

Comparison and Contrast

Comparison, showing similarities between several things, and contrast, showing differences, are common methods of developing material. These methods may form the structure of an entire essay or may be used as you make particular points. You may develop your comparison/contrast using one of two common formats: a point by point structure where you alternate between the topics which you are comparing or a block structure where you deal fully with one topic before you treat the other one.

Example and Illustration

Good writers also use abundant example and illustration as they write, backing their general statements—like their theses or topic sentences—with details which are specific, relevant, and interesting. Note, for example, the several ways Martin Luther King Jr., supports his assertions in “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” He cites authorities for ethical and legal support of his cause; he draws comparisons and makes analogies; he gives personal examples from his own family’s experiences. Moving from highly abstract statement to concrete examples helps the reader “flesh out” the meaning intended by the author, so one mark of good writing is its flexible movement from one level of abstraction to another, from general statements to specific examples, from abstract concept to concrete, sense-evoking imagery.

As you can see from the examples above, writers are not confined to a single method of development. They mix the methods freely, but always with reason. Alert writer's sense, or experiment and discover, the clearest way to think through and tell about their topics; they consider the audience they are trying to reach, including the level of knowledge, the assumptions or prejudices, the values, and the language habits of the audience; and finally they determine the methods by which they can best communicate the topics to their audience.

Revising

Revising is a necessary step in the writing process if you want to produce a well-written work; however, many students do not bother to revise. Professional writers know that a polished piece of work does not suddenly spring forth the first time they sit down to write. Henry David Thoreau revised Walden eight times, and Ernest Hemingway meticulously revised each work dozens of times. Well-written novels, poems, and essays develop over time as writers let their thoughts mature as they repeatedly return to their works to reread and revise. Good writing takes time and effort; consequently, writing the assignments the night before they are due doesn’t allow any opportunity for thoughts to mature or sentences to be reworked and refined.

Effective writing requires time and revision. Give yourself time to read and reflect on your work before handing it in. The secret to good writing is to read the first draft, revise, set it aside, read it again, and revise again. Sometimes when we write, we get so absorbed in the work and know what we mean to say that we don't recognize the fact that it is not clear to a reader who is not so involved in the subject. Therefore, we end up writing something that may make sense to us but not to the teacher or other readers. That is why it is important to set aside the work for a day, then read it "cold" after your mind has cleared, to see if it really does communicate your ideas and express them gracefully. Often it helps to let someone else read the work before you make your final revision. Professional writers, both fiction and nonfiction, depend on good readers (editors) to test their writing. Editors do much more than indicate errors in a text; they often suggest stylistic revisions—cuts, amplifications, reorganization, and changes in diction. Your peers may not be able to tell you how to fix something in your essay, but they can point out an awkward phrase, a confusing sentence, a grammatical error, the lack of a transition, and a gap in your reasoning.

One thing to remember when revising is that revision is not the same thing as proofreading. Proofreading is correcting for surface errors such as spelling and punctuation. Revision ("re-vision"), on the other hand, is "re-looking" at the work to see if it is fulfilling the assignment, if the organization is logical, and if thoughts are clearly stated. Remember, true revision demands time away from the work so that you can view the work with clear vision. When you look at your writing again, you may see problems in organization or wording that you missed earlier.

When you revise, keep a dictionary and handbook nearby for quick reference. Even if the computer has a spellcheck, you still need a dictionary because spell checking programs miss homonyms, such as "their," "they're," and "there," and they can't recognize an incorrect spelling as long as it is a word, such as not recognizing that you meant to type "cart" but put in "car" instead. Because dictionaries give definitions and thus help you figure out which word to use, you can avoid problems with commonly confused words like "affect" and "effect" and homonyms "stationary" and "stationery."

Ask yourself these questions and double check your essay.

Have you run spell check?
Are you sure you have not fallen victim to commonly confused words such as "capital" and "capitol" or "imply" and "infer"? Look up any words that have homonyms or similar sounding words that may be incorrectly used.
Do new paragraphs begin a new thought or a shift in the content? Are any paragraphs more than a 1/2 page? If so, you may want to see if all of the information belongs in the same paragraph. If it doesn't, break the long paragraph into two paragraphs.
Are capital letters where they belong? Remember not to capitalize just any noun, such as the seasons (fall, winter, etc.) or classes (biology, math, etc.). Check the capitalization section of your handbook if you have any doubts.
Are commas where they belong? Comma usage in English is fairly complex, but the handbook can tell you what you need to know. Pay particular attention to putting a comma before the conjunction in a compound sentence and putting a comma after an introductory clause—as in “Before you hand in your essay, make sure you don’t have any spelling errors.”
Are periods and commas before closing quotation marks? They should be as this example shows: The children repeated, “One, two, buckle my shoe.”

Are hyphens used when a dash is really called for? Hyphens and dashes are not interchangeable. A hyphen connects two words together (“drive-in” or “forty-five”), but a dash sets off a part of the sentence you want to emphasize, as in the example “English teachers seeks to make students better writers—a task that takes time and practice.

Handbooks offer writing instruction such as composing good introductions and conclusions, documenting sources, blending quotations into the essay, and also revising. Working with a handbook can help you with your particular problem areas, but it can also help with these three common (and often overlooked) problems—ones that are especially important in developing a graceful, mature style: diction, sentence variety, and transitions.

Diction

In choosing the words for your writing, consider the audience and purpose of your work. These two aspects of composition are perhaps the most important for every writer to consider because recognizing one's audience and keeping one's purpose in mind affect all of the other aspects of composition: diction, sentence complexity, vocabulary, organization, and subject matter, just to mention a few. For example, if you are writing to your grandmother about your first days in college, you would use different words from those you would use in a letter to a close friend. Likewise, writing a business proposal requires a different diction from that of a short story. Your diction must be the appropriate level for your audience and per standard, colloquial, nonstandard, slang, or specialized (as in professional, scientific, or legal diction). In the example of the letter to your grandmother, you would most likely use Standard English because you recognize that your audience—Grandma—probably would not understand or appreciate the nonstandard diction or the slang you might include in a letter to a close friend.

The level of diction must also be consistent. If the purpose and audience call for formal diction, as could be the case for a research paper, it would be inappropriate, detrimental, and perhaps even unintentionally humorous to mix slang in with the formal language. A sentence such as, "The psychological effects of over-population, noise pollution, and physical danger drove the urban dwellers bonkers," mixes slang ("bonkers") with the formal diction in the rest of the sentence. The reader is startled by the inappropriate and unexpected insertion of slang. Unless you have a particular reason for using a slang term in otherwise formal writing, you should avoid it. The clash of diction levels calls attention to itself and builds an unnecessary barrier for your reader.

Another aspect of diction a writer needs to be aware of is slanted language, words having negative connotations that distort the message or manipulate the reader. Words like "teacher" and "schoolmarm" are similar, but the latter has a negative connotation, as do the latter terms in "Christian" and "Bible thumper," or "girl" and "chick." A writer should use objective words to treat the topic fairly, to summarize another author's work accurately, and to present a reasoned and logical argument. For example, "The Gothic movement worries school administrators, who fear these freaks bring an atmosphere of anarchy and depression into their schools." The word "freaks" here is inappropriate and poses two possible problems: (1) it has a negative connotation that quickly passes judgment, and (2) it confuses the reader whether the writer or school administrators call people in the Gothic movement "freaks." If the writer views them as weird, then he or she should be more objective and choose a more neutral word. However, if the school administrators used that word or if the writer wishes to indicate that the word is often used when describing the young people who dress in black and display a taste for the dark side of life, he or she can put the word in quotation marks, indicating that it is used in a particular way: "The Gothic movement worries school administrators, who fear these 'freaks' bring an atmosphere of anarchy and depression into their schools." With either revision, the sentence is able to maintain the sense of objectivity.

Before turning in your essay, use this checklist to make sure your essay is using effective diction.

Is the diction appropriate for your audience? If you're writing a college paper, does it have college-level vocabulary? Is the diction (formal, colloquial, specialized, etc.) appropriate for your paper? Is the diction consistent?
Have you successfully avoided slanted language? Make sure you have not used words that have inappropriate connotations.
Is the vocabulary varied and interesting? If you've used a word several times, can you replace it with a synonym or rephrase the sentence to avoid the repetition?
Are the adjectives and nouns specific, concrete, and effective?
Are "to be" verbs kept to a minimum?
Is the wording concise? Eliminate extra words, such as changing "at this point in time" to "now" and changing "a little, tiny bird" to "a little bird."
Is the wording appropriate for the purpose of your paper? Does the wording reflect appropriate relationships between various sections of the paper? For example, if this is a comparison/contrast paper, the wording should reflect similarities ("likewise," "in the same manner") and differences ("although," "however," "even though"). If it is a cause/effect paper, the wording should reflect that relationship ("because," "as a result," "consequently").

Sentence Variety

Good writers vary sentence length, sentence type, and word order for a mature, interesting style. Short, simple sentences are useful as emphasis, but a paragraph composed of a string of brief sentences with consistent noun-verb-object pattern often sounds immature. Practice sentence combining as you revise your first draft, using dependent clauses and noun, verbal, and absolute phrases. By subordinating elements of your sentences, you highlight the most important idea by having it as the main clause; the other elements, which flesh out your meaning, are clearly identified as subordinate details. A description telling how an athlete walks can be stated in short, simple sentences:

Todd walked down the school hall. He walked between classes. He walked like a cheetah. His steps seemed sure. His body was relaxed. His feet looked ready to spring into a sprint. His eyes were flashing. They were alert to the crowd of students around him.

Told this way, the picture of Todd’s walking seems awkward and disjointed—quite the opposite of the picture the writer wants to communicate. With some sentence combining, a clear picture of the athlete’s walking comes into focus, with the emphasis on the general act of walking supported by details that make the reader see the full image of Todd’s distinctive way of walking:

Between classes, Todd walked down the school hall, walking like a cheetah, his body relaxed, his steps sure, his feet ready to spring into a sprint, his eyes flashing, alert to the crowd of students around him.

Examine what the eight separate sentences have become—one smoothly flowing descriptive sentence, with elements subordinated in such a way as to focus on Todd’s walking, the details being given by free modifying phrases made from the original sentences. The fact that Todd is walking in the hall remains in the main clause and is thus emphasized. The other sentences are transformed and combined with the one main clause in the following ways:

“He walked between classes” becomes “between classes,” a prepositional phrase in the position of an initial modifier (that is, a modifying phrase placed before the main clause). This detail establishes the time of Todd’s walking. The details of his walking are then elaborated.
The sentence “He walked like a cheetah” is changed to “walking like a cheetah,” a participial phrase that retains the original simile.
“His body was relaxed” and “His eyes were flashing” are changed to “his body relaxed” and “his eyes flashing,” two absolute phrases with participles conveying a sense of the predicate.
“His steps were sure” and “His feet were ready to spring into a sprint” become “his steps sure,” and “his feet ready to spring into a sprint.” In this rendering, the grace and alertness of Todd’s simple act of walking are focused in a single sentence, with the subordinate elements fleshing out details in order to present a full picture.

Another revision of the eight sentences might combine them differently to achieve a slightly different emphasis:

Todd walked like a cheetah, going with sure steps down the school hall in between classes, his body relaxed, but his feet looking as if they were ready to spring into a sprint and his eyes flashing their alertness to the crowd of student around him.

Expository sentences also need to flow smoothly, with supporting elements clearly subordinate to the main idea. In the first draft of an essay, ideas might be stated without any subordination or coordination to indicate the relationships between them:

Ecology is a study of the earth’s environment. It studies the balance between part of that environment. Ecology builds upon an intrinsic value system. Many Christians are suspicious of ecology. They tend to associate it with "New Age tree huggers." These "tree huggers" appear to deny humans' God-given right to have dominion over nature. The Bible, though, teaches a "dominance" in terms of service, of stewardship. Adam was commanded to "tend" the Garden. The idea of stewardship is clear in the Bible. Stewardship requires responsibility for nature.

Here the ideas are clear, and they are arranged in a logical order, but the choppy sentences reveal an immature style. A reader feels the author has not thought enough about the relationships among the writer’s ideas. Words are awkwardly repeated, and the simple noun-verb-object pattern quickly becomes monotonous. The sentences can be combined to good effect:

Many Christians are suspicious of the environmental study called "ecology," associating it with the "New Age tree huggers" who appear to deny God's giving humans "dominance" over nature. Ecology, which is a study of the balance and relationships of living creatures, does build on an intrinsic value system. But Biblical faith enjoins humans to practice "dominance" as a kind of service, in fact, as stewardship. The Bible clearly requires humans to be responsible for the created world, as Adam was responsible for "tending" Eden.

This second example, instead of ten sentences, has three—three well-developed sentences that show clearly the relationships of the ideas. Identifying the grammatical elements that have replaced the whole sentences of the original text and note which elements are subordinate and which are coordinate.

A mature and effective prose style demands revision. You should learn and practice the many options available for crafting well-developed and varied sentences. Use your handbook for more exercises in sentence combining, exercises that involve several grammatical elements, and check your sentences in your essay in order to avoid sentence problems.

Is the sentence structure appropriate for the audience and purpose of the paper? If the paper is for a teacher, do the sentences reflect that fact? Remember, you don't want lots of short, choppy sentences that sound as if they belong in a first grade reading book.
Does it have good sentence variety? Do the sentences vary in length and structure? Remember that varying sentences creates more interesting and mature writing.
Are the sentences grammatically correct? There should be no subject/verb agreement problems, etc.
Is the sentence structure parallel? If you have a list, are all the items in the same form, such as all nouns or all gerunds, or do they all begin with the same form, such as all beginning with verbs?
Are there any sentence fragments or run-on sentences? (The answer should be "no.")
Can any passive sentences be rewritten to be active? To create an active sentence, make sure the subject is doing the action of the verb, for example, "The city council voted to grant the building petition," not "The building petition was voted on by the city council."

Transitions

The flow of ideas is clarified through good use of transitions, the words and phrases that signal to your reader the structural relationships of your sentences and paragraphs. Words such as "however," "consequently," "therefore," "then," and "although" and phrases like "at the same time," "with these things in mind," and "more to the point" mark relationships between sentence elements, whole sentences, and paragraphs. Without these signals, the reader has a more difficult time understanding just how you are developing your thought. Again, check your handbook for suggestions for and practice in using effective transitions and remember to check your essay by asking yourself these questions:

Is the organization appropriate for the audience and purpose of the paper?
Does it have an introduction, body, and conclusion?
Does the introductory paragraph have a thesis?
Does the introduction grab the reader's attention?
Does the body of the paper flow in logical order? Is it general to specific or specific to general or in some other logical sequence?
Does the evidence in the body of the paper support the thesis?
Are there transitions, either words or phrases, at the beginnings of the paragraphs to connect the thoughts to the previous paragraph?
Is there an effective conclusion?

When revising, make sure you have incorporated appropriate diction, sentence structure, and transitions. Employing these will enable you to write with more assurance and clarity, letting your readers know that you understand your material and are expressing your ideas with your purpose and audience clearly in mind. Below is one final checklist on content to go over as you revise the content in your paper:

Is it fulfilling the assignment? If the teacher asked for a thesis that is supported by evidence, is that what you are writing? If your paper is supposed to be a cause and effect essay, does it really show the cause/effect relationships or does it just present information and hope that the reader makes the connections?
Is it accurate? Are the data correct? Has the information from sources been paraphrased fairly or quoted exactly?
Is it complete? Has the content been developed adequately? Are the points thoroughly discussed?
Is the information from outside sources cited? Remember, whether you are paraphrasing, summarizing, or quoting information from another source, it needs to be cited to indicate where it's from.
Is the content from good, reliable sources? Are the writers of the sources experts in their fields? If you are using an Internet source, are you sure the information is accurate? Remember, anyone with web software can put anything he or she wants on a website, regardless of whether the information is true.

Revising is not necessarily an easy step in the writing process, and although it takes time to set the rough draft aside and scrutinize it later, the time and effort are well worth it. Your message will be clearer, your reader will be influenced by your words, and you will have produced a well-written composition.