HANDOUTS ON COMPOSITION

COURSE TOOLKIT: WRITING ARCHIVE

The course toolkit contains numerous handouts on composition, a mix of .doc and .pdf files, mostly generated by ENWR instructors here at U.Va over the last several semesters. They are indexed by subject as below.

I. Guidelines for Compositions

  → Advice

• Barron, Duane. "Guide To Writing a Major Paper."
• Culbert, Gar. "Some General Guidelines for Writing a Political Theory Paper."
• Hena, Omaar. "Parsing Critical Essays."
• Livingood, Jeb. "An Argument Primer: Fifteen Weeks Toward Better Essays."

  → Citation

• Gibaldi, Joseph. "Documentation: Preparing the List of Works Cited." MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing. 2nd Ed. New York: MLA, 1998.
• Terni, Clare. "Citation Formats."

II. Starting Compositions

  → Topics

• Murphy, John. "Checklist for Evaluating Essay Topics."
• Murphy, John. "Conceptual Problems."

  → Arguments

• Bobotis, Andrea. "The Five Parts of Argument."
• Coats, Jason. "Elements of Argument."
• Coats, Jason. "Your Argument Outline as a House Plan."
• LeMaster, Michael. "The Five Parts of Argument."
• LeMaster, Michael. "The Five Questions of Argument."
• LeMaster, Michael. "Where Good Arguments (and Papers) Go Bad: A Far From Exhaustive List."
• Murphy, John. "Academic Argument."
• Murphy, John. "Checklist for Evaluating Arguments."
• Murphy, John. "Five Parts of Argument."
• Murphy, John. "Five Ways Arguments Can Fail to Persuade."
• Murphy, John. "Nine Degrees of Persuasion / Nine Degrees of Argumentative Success."
• Seidel, Kevin. "The Five Parts of Argument (Plus One)."
• White, Melissa. "Overview of the Five Parts of Argument."
• Unattributed. "Parts of Argument."

  → Basics

• Malenas, Ellen. "Arguments Worksheet."
• Simon, Maggie. "Paper-Prep."
• Skillen, Jeanene. "Argument Boxes."

III. Parts of Compositions

  → Claims and Reasons

• Grabill, Cinnamon. "Ranking Claims."
• LeMaster, Michael. "Evaluating Global Claims."
• Terni, Clare. "The Claim and The Reasons."

  → Evidence

• Burks, Todd. "Evaluating Web Pages."
• Terni, Clare. "The Evidence."
• Welling, Bart. "Literary Evidence and the P.A.R.S.A. Test."
• White, Melissa. "Five Maxims of Quality Evidence"

  → Warrants

• White, Melissa. "Where's The Warrant?"

  → Acknowledgement and Response

• Murphy, John. "Acknowledgements & Response."
• Wright, Lindsay. "Acknowledgements & Response."

IV. Framing Compositions

  → Introductions

• Bobotis, Andrea. "Destabilizing Moments."
• Bobotis, Andrea. "Problem Statements."
• Bobotis, Andrea. "Tangible and Conceptual Problems."
• Douglas, Andrew. "The Basics of Problem Statements."
• Grabill, Cinnamon. "The Parts of a Typical Problem Statement."
• LeMaster, Michael. "Elements of Academic Problem Statements"
• LeMaster, Michael. "Identifying Parts of the Problem Statement."
• Seidel, Kevin. "Developing Good Problem Statements."
• White, Melissa. "[Example Problem Statements]."

  → Transitions

• Terni, Clare. "Transitions."

  → Conclusions

• Bobotis, Andrea. "Conclusions."
• Grabill, Cinnamon. "Conclusions."

V. Polishing Compositions

  → Style

• Coats, Jason. "Style Advice For Goodly Writing And All That."
• Dickens, Andrea. "Principles of Clear Writing."
• LeMaster, Michael. "Proper Grammar and Syntax: How to Avoid Needlessly Awkward Sentences."
• LeMaster, Michael. "Nominalizations; Active and Passive Voice"
• Skillen, Jeanene. "Style Review: Six Principles of Clear and Direct Writing."
• Williams, Joseph M. "First Lesson in Clarity: 'Actions.'" Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace. New York: Longman, 2000.

  → Revision

• Grabill, Cinnamon. "More Practice Revising Unclear Sentences"

VI. Speaking of Compositions

  → Elocution

• Cocola, Jim. "Notes on Elocution and Presentation"
• Wright, Lindsay. "Suggestions on Preparing For Addresses and Debates."

ENWR 210 Home   |   Last Modified by Jim Cocola 2005.01.18 15.52