Thoughts on Drafting

My thoughts on writing in general are pretty messed up. So here goes nothing explaining my thoughts on drafting. In the previous posts I've been talking about the heated debate on whether Chinese scientists broke ethical codes by genetically modifying human embryos.

All this occurred earlier this year and since then debate has still continued but without the original flame it produced. Nevertheless we must discuss and breakdown this debate for those who are still confused or are just now hearing about this. 

In this post I will analyze the conventions of a quick reference guide as explained by the book, "A Student's Guide to First Year Writing: 36th Edition." The topics we will explore are:

• Drafting a Thesis statment

• Writing paragraphs in PIE format

• Writing introductions

• Organizing information

• Writing conclusions

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To begin we will highlight the book's helpfulness to readers on these topics. On drafting a thesis statement, the book helps break down this topic into sentences for those still confused. Questions include asking writers, "Is it interesting?" and "Is it manageable?." These questions help writers decide whether their thesis' are adequately formatted to be a good thesis statement. 

Using the PIE (Point, Illustration, Explanation) format, we find a great way to develop paragraphs for use in quick reference guides. PIE is a helpful way to use in paragraph development in persuasive arguments and analysis essays.  

Going on to the topic of writing good introductions, the book very clearly explains to readers in numbered form how to write them. In each one of your introductions, a thesis must be included as well as a way to grab a reader's attention. 

From writing a good introduction, we must construct a well organized contextual body that conveys a fairly large amount of information.  Again, the book provides multiple questions it asks the reader to answer while he or she forms each explanatory paragraph. 

To conclude, one must end each explanation with a way to provide readers with closure on the topic. A point on conclusions that I saw that was most important was to "paint a picture" for the audience over the topic and to help draw all sections to the center.

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Now for the dark side of the textbook. We will now explore what the book doesn't explain well or just not at all.

According to the book, organization is key to formatting a "good" quick reference guide. In all reality, a QRG can be formatted in any way from what the writer pleases. As long as the guide helps readers learn a specified topic, then organization does not need to be a strictly monitored as the book says it should be.

As for the PIE format, the idea of including a point and illustration for every point throughout a QRG is not that necessary. If the point is introduced, then an illustration should only be drawn for readers who may seem confused by a subspecific heading.

The book does not explain the ideas of organization and the PIE format thoroughly enough. Either topic can be bended to the writers likeness and no direct goal is presented by the book. Overall, the textbook guides the writer in the right direction but does not give any options.

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Reflection: After viewing Kelly's blog post and Dylan's blog post, I found that my views are similar to my peers. There are however some difference in opinions for this post on what is helpful and what is not from our class textbook. For the most part, Kelly and I have very similar views while Dylan and I have dissimilar opinions on the idea of PIE formatting. Overall, I can learn a lot from the textbook as well as my classmates so I am taking what my peers say as good advice.