Jasmine Cheatham
11/10/14

In this lesson it talks about how your sentences should flow and balance out. The title of this lesson is Elegance. Authors should give their readers something that makes them want to keep reading, something that will draw their attention and gives them pleasure every time they recall something they read. Just like first impressions you want to stand out and give people something memorable about you. If you don’t give them something memorable then you just blend in with everyone else.  By having balance in your writing you can talk about your topics and ideas by lurching one part to the next.  By having these series of movements your paper is more appealing to your audience. But it is also acceptable to have uncoordinated balance in your writing. When your writing has uncoordinated balance you can balance structures that are not grammatically coordinated. This means that your subordinate clauses can balance out your main clause. This form of writing can help your readers think of ways that they wouldn’t.  I just learned this through this book because I was taught that this format of writing was grammatically incorrect and wouldn’t be acceptable. When ending a sentence you should end the sentence with words that deserve stress. This creates strength to your writing and readers. Also in this lesson it talks about sentence length, the length of your sentence can set a tone to your writing. To sum it up elegant writing should have simplicity of characters as subjects and actions as verbs, complexity of balances syntax, meaning, sound and rhythm as well as emphasis on artful stressed endings.  One thing that really stuck with me was that the authors stated you can’t have elegant writing by reading this book it is something that will or will not naturally occur.  

Jasmine Cheatham

11/4/14

Lesson 9

The concision sums up the other lessons we have previously talked about, making sure that characters match actions to your subjects and verbs. I have a problem sometimes with saying I believe or in my opinion. Is saying “I believe” the same as in my opinion? Or is it okay to use in a paper? When I first entered college, when writing papers I would never proof read. It wasn’t until recently that I started revising and diagnosing my papers. Proof reading is very helpful because there are some things that at the time sounded like it made sense but then proof reading I seen the mistakes I made or some confusion in my sentences.  Also this can make your sentences more direct and clear, what your audience wants. By turning negatives to affirmatives you will express the same idea just taking out words and/or changing them.  The way you organize your paper and the concepts you use will help your paper be strong and direct. Getting to the point and keeping your reading intrigued in what you have to say. This was a helpful book because it has helped me become more aware in the way I write and the structure of my sentences. 

Jasmine Cheatham

English 304

Lesson 8

Your introduction should draw your readers in. You should motivate your readers by stating something that they care about and are interested in. Also, state key points and concepts that you will further discuss in your paper. When writing you should make sure that all of your writing goes together. You shouldn’t bounce around from topic to topic because not only is the writing unorganized but it will confuse the reader. Doing it in a structural sense will help your readers get a clear picture of what you are trying to say as well as lead them up to what you are going to talk about next. In class you asked us if it would be more beneficial to us if we used subheadings. Subheadings will help organize the paper as well as give the reader a hint as to what you will be talking about in the section. Always make sure that there is a point being made in your body paragraphs. I used to ramble when I didn’t know what else to say. In some cases it worked well because I was repeating some of my main points but too much repetition can damage a paper.

            Papers need coherence. As a writer you should make sure that your paper is relevant to your thesis and main points. With being relevant as I mentioned before you have to be organized. You can organize your paper so that it is chronological which a sequence of events is from earlier to recent or vice versa. Coordinating your paper you have two or more sections are equally supporting a common topic. A logical paper is the most complex order, the example and generalization. I have more experience using chronological order because that is what I have been taught to do since grade school. For me it is the most helpful because it helps me build me ideas off of one another.

            Clarity should always be an author’s goal. You want to make your ideas and points as clear and to the point as possible. You don’t want to give your readers a confused idea because that makes your paper less desirable to read and understand. 

Jasmine Cheatham
10/28/14

When writing you have to make sure that you are motivating the reader into reading more. As mentioned in class, people are going to be more interested and engaged to a problem they have been in or a topic that most interest them. When writing make sure to incorporate a question that can answered in writing. I like the idea of conceptual problems. This is when the writer wants readers to understand or believe. This gives the reader more detail on your position as a writer and why you have chosen that position. When I write in most cases it is about things that we have learned in class or in the course material. In English 304 I enjoy that we are able to pick topics that we show interest in. This helps me as a writer and a student to use my prior knowledge and creativity and just flow out whatever comes to mind.  

Jasmine Cheatham

When writing you want to make sure that the end of your sentence is clear, strong, shows cohesion and coherence. Readers want organization, by organizing your sentences you as a writer can help manage long and complex phrases and clauses as well as new information, particularly unfamiliar technical terms. I learned that when you are writing sentences they should be simple and direct because you can’t assume your reader knows what you are referring to, you don’t want to keep them guessing. I think this is important to do when you are correcting your draft of a paper. I like in class how Anna said that all babies “papers” are born ugly. Personally I like that idea because I can let all of my ideas flow and get my points across without having to be super cautious of if I’m doing the paper right. Words and structure of a sentence can effect the voice the reader is going to have. During class when we were doing nominalizations I learned what a lot of teachers were referring to by how to structure a sentence. Prior to this class teacher’s would make comments on my paper about changing my sentence structure and never gave an example of what they were talking about. I would typically just change the sentence around and was done. I wasn’t aware of the structure she was refereeing to. In this lesson Williams talks about stress. Stress of a sentence can make your paper strong. How you end your sentences as mentioned earlier can determine how the reader reads your paper and their judgments about it. As well as having a strong ending as a writer you need to have a strong introduction of a sentence. Emphasizing will help create a clearer, organized, and direct sentence. I need to work on emphasizing the right words in my sentences. 

Jasmine Cheatham

Lesson 5

10/22/14

When writing you should always make sure that your sentences are connecting. This lesson taught me about the way your sentences should be. Your sentences should all flow together as well as having cohesion. I learned the differences between cohesion and coherence, I wasn’t clear on either concepts.  When writing you should present the reader with information that they are already familiar with and then introduce your new information.  As discussed in class, you never want to have your readers clueless. By giving them old information first they can connect your new information and apply it. Sentence structure is important when writing because it keeps your thoughts organized as well as making it easier for your reader to follow what you are saying. Referring back to cohesion, you have to make sure that your sentences fit together and that you’re not just jumping around from topic to topic. By incorporating characters into your writing that will give the reader some previous information, it is important to have them in the front of your sentences.  Overall this lesson taught me about a few concepts and how they work. I know that I will need to work on my writing to make sure that I continue to connect my writing and making sure that it flows. I sometimes bounce my ideas around in my paper because they just come to me as I write and it makes my paper structure unorganized. 

Jasmine Cheatham

10/16/17

Lesson 4

By adding characters to your sentences doesn't leave your readers clueless. In some cases there isn't a need for characters and in these cases as a writer you should have a verb; who is doing what? As a writer you should try to use active voice versus passive because passive adds words and usually draws away from the subject/action. You should only use passive when the agent of an action is self-evident or if it lets you replace a long subject with a short one or when it gives a coherent sequence of subjects. I wrote these out because this is something that is new to me. To sum up there are appropriate times to use different writing tactics. Always make sure that you a subject and a verb or a character and an action in your writing. Be as clear as possible and make sure that it is something your reader can understand.