Michael Buckhoff's

English 306: Expository Writing

Assignment Two -

Planning and Drafting

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Taking in-class essay examinations

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Once the initial period of invention is completed, you should review what you have learned about the topic and start to plan your essay. 

The assigned readings in the textbook should help you to set goals and to organize your ideas and information in order to achieve those goals. 

Planning requires you to put your ideas into a coherent, purposeful order appropriate to your readers; drafting challenges you to find the words that will be understandable and interesting for those readers. 

Invention continues as you draft, for you will continue to make further discoveries about your topic as you work. But drafting requires you to shift your focus from generating new ideas and gathering further information to forging new and meaningful relations among your ideas and information.

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     This analysis research paper has three parts: a review of the writers, a comparison of the three writers, and a modification of Kuhn's or Asimov's notions of scientific inquiry that would more readily accept Goodall's methods.   As such, you will have three major subdivisions. You will need a MASTER thesis which specifies these three subdivisions. Furthermore, you will need a more specific thesis statement forecasting the key points on each subdivision.  An outline of this paper could look something like this:

MASTER introduction/thesis:  Kuhn's, Asimov's, and Goodall's articles  will be evaluated, Goodall will be compared to Kuhn and Asimov, and a modification of Kuhn's or Asimov's notions of scientific inquiry  will be undertaken so that these scientists might more readily accept Goodall's methods of scientific inquiry.   

I.  A review of the writers.

A.  Thesis: Kuhn's article  is good or bad because of reason A, reason B, and reason C.

1.  Include a presentation of the subject in which you name the writer, name the article, include a summary of his ideas, and place his ideas within the context of the scientific community.

2.  Discuss reason one and provide supporting examples showing how you reached that particular judgment.   

3.  Discuss reason two and provide supporting examples showing how you reached that particular judgment.   

4.  Discuss reason three and provide supporting examples showing how you reached that particular judgment.  

5.  Write a conclusion asserting an overall judgment of Kuhn's article. 

B.    Thesis: Asimov's article  is good or bad because of reason A, reason B, and reason C.

1.  Include a presentation of the subject in which you name the writer, name the article, include a summary of his ideas, and place his ideas within the context of the scientific community.

2.  Discuss reason one and provide supporting examples showing how you reached that particular judgment.   

3.  Discuss reason two and provide supporting examples showing how you reached that particular judgment.   

4.  Discuss reason three and provide supporting examples showing how you reached that particular judgment.  

5.  Write a conclusion asserting an overall judgment of the Asimov's article. 

C.     Thesis: Goodall's article  is good or bad because of reason A, reason B, and reason C.

1.  Include a presentation of the subject in which you name the writer, name the article, include a summary of her ideas, and place her ideas within the context of the scientific community.

2.  Discuss reason one and provide supporting examples showing how you reached that particular judgment.   

3.  Discuss reason two and provide supporting examples showing how you reached that particular judgment.   

4.  Discuss reason three and provide supporting examples showing how you reached that particular judgment.  

5.  Write a conclusion asserting an overall judgment of Goodall's article. 

II.  Thesis: Goodall is similar to Kuhn or Asimov in three ways:  similarity one, similarity two,  and similarity three.

A. Discuss similarity one and provide textual evidence from  Goodall's and  Kuhn's or Asimov's articles.  

B. Discuss similarity two and provide textual evidence from  Goodall's and  Kuhn's or Asimov's articles.   

C. Discuss similarity two and provide textual evidence from  Goodall's and  Kuhn's or Asimov's articles.  

III.  Thesis:  Idea one, idea two, and idea three could be added to Asimov’s or Kuhn’s descriptions, which would allow Goodall’s kind of science to be more readily accepted?

A.  Idea one and provide textual evidence from  Goodall's and  Kuhn's or Asimov's articles.  

B.  Idea two and provide textual evidence from  Goodall's and  Kuhn's or Asimov's articles.  

C.  Idea three and provide textual evidence from  Goodall's and  Kuhn's or Asimov's articles.  

MASTER conclusion:   Make  some concluding statements about the topic and tie up any loose ends.

Copyright (C) By Michael Buckhoff (MBuckhoff@aol.com)