My Student's Spot

Editing is the time when you check your writing for punctuation, capitalization, spelling, grammar, and sentence errors. You can edit it yourself or have somebody else edit it for you. 

One of the best things to do is to use Microsoft Word in editing because this program provides a number of aids to help you edit your work.  But do not just leave all the editing stuff to MS Word. You still need to give your work a human touch because a machine or a program won’t give a satisfying result. There are still some lapses that you can see in your work after you let MS Word to do the editing part. 

The very secret in making your article look good and perfectly polished is to rewrite it. Rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite …… This list of rewrites will only end if you are already satisfied with your article. 

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“Nobody’s perfect.” therefore, if you find any errors in this tutorial or if you just want to say something, please let us know by leaving us a message in the comments’ box or you can send an email to carloadriancanon@yahoo.com

You might also want to check my other blog about eBooks @ www.cravingforbooks.com.

Writing doesn’t end in your first draft. You still need to polish your content by revising it. Don’t worry about the grammar, spelling, and punctuations yet because this is the time when you focus on the message of your article. This is the time when you add or remove some information in your content.

When you revise, you do the following:

Quality is really the main thing here. Think about your purpose of writing your article. You don’t write for a mere purpose of writing, right? Therefore, you should make sure that you have the messages that you want to send your readers are properly penned down. 

Research it further if there’s a need to. Add something if it’s lacking it or remove the unneeded information. Polish its content.

You need somebody else’s comments regarding your work. Friends, families, teachers or classmates are the best people to approach. They can help you by giving their comments and suggestions.  

“Nobody’s perfect.” therefore, if you find any errors in this tutorial or if you just want to say something, please let us know by leaving us a message in the comments’ box or you can send an email to carloadriancanon@yahoo.com

You might also want to check my other blog about eBooks @ www.cravingforbooks.com.

In our previous lesson entitled “Lesson 2: A Beginner’s Guide to Writing (Pre-Writing)”, you have learned about the first step in the writing process. Lesson 2 introduced you to the strategies for choosing a topic and gathering information for your composition. We are now in the next step which is the “Writing Proper” where you will learn about the essentials of writing the beginning, the middle, and the ending of your article.

If you haven’t read our previous lesson, please feel free to read it first before going ahead to this lesson. A computer won’t turn if you don’t press the power button so as to this course in which you can’t write without learning how to choose a topic and gather the information for it.  You have to follow a certain process in writing. If you agree with me, then, kindly go to: Lesson 2: A Beginner’s Guide to Writing (Pre-Writing). If you are familiar with the strategies for choosing and gathering information for your article, then, go on and get some ideas from this tutorial.

I know that the hardest part in writing is the part when you start writing. A lot of people can’t start writing because they are afraid to commit mistakes. Relax. Your first draft doesn’t need to be perfect. No man is perfect is what we say. You will have time to revise and edit later. Here are some tips for overcoming first-draft jitters.

If you have read Lesson 1 of this course, then, you probably have the idea of what I am talking about.

The idea that I mean here is the main point that you want to convey. Do not think about any other ideas rather than your main point. Focus on that idea and expand it by giving details, examples, explanations and a lot more.

Do not think about grammar, spelling, punctuation, or sentence construction yet. Write whatever comes out of your mind. But be sure that you stick to your main point or your main idea.

Your first draft doesn’t need to be free from errors, misspellings, punctuation errors, etc. Just relax and let your idea flows out of your system.

                                                                                 

Before you write your first draft, it is important to understand the parts of your first draft and your goals for each part.

Here are the three parts of the first draft.

If you want your reader to keep on reading your article then you have to capture his/her attention. You can do this by starting with a question, a surprising fact, a quotation, or an anecdote.

There should be a transition between all the ideas in the article. Within a paragraph, transitions connect supporting ideas. Between paragraphs, transitions connect main ideas.

    When you write your ending paragraph, you have to restate your focus, summarize your main   

     points or reasons, and leave the reader with something to think about.

If you are trying to persuade your reader, include a call to action in the end of your article.

Lesson 3: A Beginner’s Guide to Writing (Revising)

“Nobody’s perfect.” therefore, if you find any errors in this tutorial or if you just want to say something, please let us know by leaving us a message in the comments’ box or you can send an email to carloadriancanon@yahoo.com

You might also want to check my other blog about eBooks @ www.cravingforbooks.com.

The first step in writing is having something to write about. This lesson will help you find a topic, gather details, and organize them.

Here are the things that you need to do before writing your article:

If you do not have an assigned subject, you can find one by listing all the things that interest you. The list may look like this:

After writing the subjects that interest you, choose one subject area that you want to write about or interests you most. 

After deciding on a particular subject area, you need to narrow that general subject to find a specific topic for your article.

If you write about a very general subject like “weather” for instance, you will be having some hard time starting it or if you manage

A cluster can help you narrow your general subject to find a specific topic.

Let’s just say you have selected “weather” as your subject. Here’s what you can do:

The first step in writing is having something to write about. This lesson will help you find a topic, gather details, and organize them.

Here are the things that you need to do before writing your article:

If you do not have an assigned subject, you can find one by listing all the things that interest you. The list may look like this:

After writing the subjects that interest you, choose one subject area that you want to write about or interests you most. 

After deciding on a particular subject area, you need to narrow that general subject to find a specific topic for your article.

If you write about a very general subject like “weather” for instance, you will be having some hard time starting it. 

A cluster can help you narrow your general subject to find a specific topic.

Let’s just say you have selected “weather” as your subject. Here’s what you can do:

After selecting a specific topic for your composition, you need to gather details and information that you need to tell your readers.

There are many different ways on how to gather the details for your composition. You can use your own personal experience or memories, books, internet materials, newspapers, etc as sources for your composition.  I recommend that you search for the info on the net because it would save your time and at the same time you have a wide coverage that you can get. However, printed books and other sources are still good sources of information because not all of the information can be found on the net.

For beginners, it is advisable that you bring a pocket notebook and a pen for you to take notes of the information that you will gather. You can use them later on during the writing process. Make sure to acknowledge the author or source of the information to avoid some problems with plagiarism.

Focus statement is a sentence that tells what the composition is all about. 

An effective focus statement names your topic and tells what specific part you will focus on. Let’s just say that I have decided to take “TORNADOES” as my specific topic of the subject “weather” for my composition. What I’m going to do is to make a focus statement that says – “Tornadoes are nature’s most violent storms.”

As a writer, I will do all the best that I could to give the details and information why I considered tornadoes as nature’s most violent storms. I will use all the information that I have gathered during the brainstorming and research that I did.

I can also state my own experiences if I had an experience with tornadoes or I can interview a person who had experienced it. The online sources, books, magazines, etc can actually give me more things to say in my composition.

 5. Write topic sentences.

The topic sentence guides the content of a paragraph. The topic sentence supports the composition’s focus statement and it deals with one point.

In writing the topic sentence, do the following:

Here’s an example:

Focus Statement: “Tornadoes are nature’s most violent storms.”

Main Point 1: How tornadoes form

Topic Sentence: “Tornadoes form when masses of air meet and clash in the sky.”

Main Point 2: How tornadoes cause damage

Topic Sentence: “Tornadoes cause damage with high winds, low pressure, and hail storms.

Main Point 3: How to stay safe in a tornado

Topic Sentence: “There are some simple precautions that can help people avoid from the danger of tornadoes.”

The list can continue depends on the scope of your article. However, don’t forget to keep on track with your focus statement.

An outline can help you organize information that you want to portray in your article. This is a very important step in the pre-writing process especially for beginners. As time passes by and you become an expert, you can create an outline in your brain. There is no need for you to make topic boxes or any outline anymore. But for now, you might need to write your outline in a piece of paper first.

Here’s how an outline looks:

Focus Statement:

Each topic sentence creates a paragraph which means that we are making three paragraphs out from the sample outline above. Your outline depends on how you are going to arrange and write your composition.

If you are ready to proceed to the next step of the writing process, then, go to:

Or you check out the other parts of the tutorial here:

                                                         Lesson 4: A Beginner’s Guide to Writing (Editing)

“Nobody’s perfect.” therefore, if you find any errors in this tutorial or if you just want to say something, please let us know by leaving us a message in the comments’ box or you can send an email to carloadriancanon@yahoo.com

You might also want to check my other blog about eBooks @ www.cravingforbooks.com.