Your goal for this Writing Workshop is to give classmates advice that will help them revise both to write a more effective paper and to better fulfill project guidelines. Professional writers often work closely with editors or with coworkers who give them meaningful feedback and offer them another perspective on works in progress. In our class, each of you can provide feedback for one or more classmates and receive in turn the reaction of an audience to your work in progress. After all, it's hard to be objective about our own writing, and a reader who is willing to be both honest and diplomatic can be helpful to your revising process. An added advantage might be your own ability to self-edit and improve your own future writing.

You should welcome suggestions from your readers and should take all feedback into consideration but must not encourage or permit your readers to rewrite your paper for you. Your final paper must be your own work and reflect your own understanding of the writing project. Final responsibility for understanding the expectations of the assignment and for revising the paper belongs to you.

In addition to the acknowledgment you will give your feedback partners in an Acknowledgments section at the end of your paper (see Acknowledging Resources at Guidelines for Academic Papers), you also will acknowledge their contributions when you describe your revision process in a Reflection-Submission Letter that accompanies your final submission.

1. Identify the working title for your project, following academic conventions for naming, capitalization, and punctuation. Incorporate the preliminary central idea into your title, for example:
   • Preserve the Wetlands: A Plan for Virginia Beach
   • Education under Attack: High-stakes Testing in Local Schools
2. State your preliminary topic and central idea in 1-3 sentences. Be specific about the idea you propose to develop, clearly stated as an appropriately limited topic in one of the following ways:
   • a specific research question that you hope to answer as you investigate the topic further, for example, How can our university keep tuition costs under control so that people who most need higher education can afford to attend?
   • a preliminary thesis with an opinion, viewpoint, or perspective that you are thinking about—and that you are willing to change as you investigate and contemplate the topic further, for example, tuition at our university is too high for people who most need to attend; therefore, tuition should be reduced.
3. Briefly identify the primary viewpoints or perspectives about the topic. Understanding multiple perspectives is essential for understanding your topic. Identify the common ground among those who are concerned about the issue and identify the specific alternative perspectives that show the issue is complex and controversial. Here are some examples:
   • Issue: the high cost of tuition:
     • Common ground: Many students consider college tuition to be too high for middle-class and low-income families.
     • One perspective: Some students think tuition should be lower.
     • Another perspective: However, other students think college tuition should be free.
   • Issue: sand erosion problems at the coast:
     • Common ground: Residents of coastal areas recognize that beach erosion is a perpetual problem.
     • One perspective: Some residents think sand replenishment is the best approach.
     • Another perspective: However, other people think improved seawalls are preferable.
     • Another perspective: Some residents recommend construction of an artificial reef.
     • Another perspective: Other residents suggest letting nature take its course instead.
   • Issue: analysis of the character of Walton in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein:
     • Common ground: Most readers agree that Walton was determined and committed to his goal.
     • One perspective: Some people think that Walton's quest for the Pole was a noble effort to advance human knowledge.
     • Another perspective: However, other people think Walton was reckless, endangering his crew for his own glory.
4. Identify the specific personal reasons you chose that topic and that approach, for example, what aspects of your own experience or observation generated your interest in the topic you selected.
5. Identify the specific academic reasons you chose that topic and that approach, for example, what aspects of your own academic studies or educational goals for this project, this class, or your curriculum generated your interest in the topic you selected.
6. Identify an audience in addition to your teacher and your classmates that ought to be interested in or persuaded by development of this topic, for example, students at the university and their families, ecologists, or classmates in a literature class.
7. If the project requires or permits research, describe your preliminary research plan.
   1. What do you already know about the issues?
   2. What information do you want and need to know about the issues?
   3. What kinds of information and sources does this project require?
   4. How you will proceed to locate the information you need within the time available?
8. What challenges do you anticipate as you investigate the issues and write this paper? How do you propose to deal with those challenges?

• For your readers to be most helpful to you, offer them a Review Draft that you have composed, revised, and edited with care so they can focus on your content and expression without interference from grammatical and mechanical errors and format irregularities.
  • Begin writing your draft whenever you are ready but allow sufficient time to edit and revise your draft before submitting it to readers for feedback.
  • The edited Review Draft should demonstrate clearly your best effort to write an interesting and effective paper according to all project criteria and presented in the format required.
  • Do not submit a first or preliminary draft. Instead, readers should be able to recognize that you have composed and revised the draft seriously and thoughtfully.
• You can get a head start on writing an effective essay by incorporating some Revision Strategies as you prepare your Review Draft.
• Present your Review Draft so that it resembles a final version both to encourage your reader to perceive your draft as it will eventually look and to practice the format conventions for the project.
• See Writing Guides and Resources for additional information about writing and documenting academic papers.
• Save the Review Draft document as a file.
  • Use the required document file name designated in the guidelines for each individual project. Otherwise, my computer filing system will not recognize that the attachment is a class submission.
  • Save the file either as a Word document or as Rich Text Format so that all your classmates and I can open it with all or most of the format features preserved.
• You will submit your Review Draft as a file attachment to a Blackboard message as described in Step 3.

Compose with your word processor and save a substantial 250-350-word Letter of Invitation to Review Draft. In this letter, invite your readers to give you feedback as described here.

• Address this letter to your classmates ("Dear Classmates" or another general greeting since you don't know yet who will be reading your draft).
• Include in your letter all the following elements plus any others you consider appropriate. Always be specific and clear, for example, write "Does the example of the balloon in the third paragraph clearly support my point that inflatables are dangerous toys?" not "I'd like help with examples."
  1. Statement in one sentence or several sentences of the exact central idea or dominant impression you are hoping to convey and how it fulfills the project guidelines
  2. The reason you selected your specific topic
  3. Identification in a list or outline of all your primary points in support of your central idea (your thesis)
  4. Identification of the specific rhetorical factors (purpose, audience, voice, context, and genre or medium) you have in mind, using those terms correctly
  5. Your strengths in the Review Draft
  6. Any concerns, challenges, or problems you faced as you planned and drafted
  7. The working title of your paper (see Guidelines for Academic Papers for suggestions)
  8. Any areas you would like your reader to pay special attention to or questions for your draft exchange partners or the type of feedback that would be helpful to you
• Sign your letter.
• Submit both your Letter of Invitation and your Review Draft to the designated Blackboard Forum by the date and time in your Course Schedule:
  • Locate the Thread for the Writing Workshop. Read and Reply to the initial message from me (even though you are not really "replying" to me).
  • Change the Subject of the Blackboard message to the working title of your paper.
  • Attach the draft of your paper or project to your message using the designated document file name from the guidelines for this project, being sure the file itself includes all your student identification in MLA format as described at Guidelines for Academic Papers.
  • Copy-paste the text of your Letter of Invitation to Review Draft into the Blackboard message box.
  • In addition, include all the information required when submitting File Attachments.
  • If you need to resubmit, return to your original submission message and Reply to it. Repeat the steps above and make the adjustments to subject line and file name described at the Resubmission Guidelines to ensure I respond to the correct document.

• Email your draft partners right away to establish contact with them. Every student's Webmail address is included at Blackboard.
• You can request alternative and additional feedback:
  • If you would like additional feedback from other classmates or if your assigned partners are not responsive, submit a request for other readers at the Cyberlounge, offering to reciprocate.
  • If you have friends or relatives willing to give you additional feedback based on the project guidelines, that's fine. Credit them in your final Acknowledgments.
• Late submissions: If you submitted your draft too late for an assigned partner, submit a request at the Cyberlounge for an exchange partner, offering to reciprocate. You may be too late to receive credit for the draft, but you can receive feedback from a classmate who understands the project expectations and receive credit for responding to a classmate.
• You can help your classmates most by reading and responding to their papers with consideration and care, keeping in mind the specific guidelines for the writing project. Remember your goal of helping your classmates revise for more effective writing. Because everybody will revise, edit, and proofread further before submitting the final project, you should focus on language and expression; don't attend too much to grammar and spelling except when they interfere with your understanding and reading. Final editing and proofreading will come later in the composing process, after content and style are polished.
• Compose with your word processor and save a substantial 350-500-word Draft Feedback Letter addressed by name to the individual students (for example, "Dear Pat") whose drafts you are reviewing. Remember to sign your letter as well. Encourage your classmates by pointing out some of the specific strengths of expression, ideas, writing style, and presentation.
• Refer to specific words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs and/or ideas in the papers you are reviewing. Quote briefly from their drafts and explain fully your response to the way ideas and information are presented in writing. For multimedia works, you could identify positive design features.
• Review the assigned guidelines for this project so you understand the expectations and can let your review partners know when they are not following those guidelines. For example, have they written on the designated topic? provided the scope and emphasis expected?
• Advise your draft partners about the following, identifying strengths as well as suggesting areas and methods for improvement:
  1. State in your own words, in one or two sentences, what you understood as the central idea (thesis) when you read the draft so your partner will know to add or revise the central idea.
  2. Describe in your own words what you understood that importance of the topic to be when you read the draft.
  3. Identify places that would benefit from more examples and details or more appropriate or more detailed examples.
  4. Point out quotations and paraphrases from sources that are not properly incorporated, credited, and explained: Can you tell which language is your classmate's and which is the source's? Could you go find the source yourself if you wanted to learn more? Is it clear how the source material adds insight to your and your classmate's understanding? Do the internal documentation and the Works Cited follow MLA requirements?
  5. Identify places that connections and relationships among ideas should be more clear or more fully explained as well as places where meaning should be more clear or more fully explained.
  6. Are language and style appropriate to the rhetorical situation, in particular, audience and purpose? Consider diction (level of formality and word choices appropriate to the project) and effective expression and sentence structure (conciseness, appropriate emphasis, well-chosen words and phrases, accuracy of structure).

• Respond to any specific questions or concerns raised in your classmates' Letter of Invitation To Review Draft.

During the time between receiving feedback from readers and submitting your project, devote appropriate time and energy to revising your work. Here you should review and rethink on your own your audience, purpose, context, and the expectations of the assignment. You should take into consideration the feedback you receive but make your own judgments about which advice to follow. You should edit for the most effective expression of your ideas. You should edit for clarity and readability. Here are some Revision Strategies for writers. And here are some Writing Guides and Resources.

This 350-500-word Reflection-Submission Letter that follows submission of your the final version of a paper or project asks you to describe the primary rhetorical features of your composition and to reflect on the composing process.

Compose this letter in your word processor so you can save it before you copy-paste it into the body of a message (not an attachment) addressed to me and to your other classmates. You determine the number of words so long as you respond specifically to all the items listed (and you may want to print these guidelines for a checklist).

• Include the title of your final paper or project.
• State clearly in no more than one or two sentences the central idea (thesis) you are hoping to convey.
• Invite and encourage reading of your paper or project by stating in one or two sentences how and why the topic you chose is important and interesting to you and should be important and interesting to other readers.
• Identify by name and discuss briefly but specifically all five rhetorical factors in relation to your own paper or project.
• What changes did you make based on feedback from others such as classmates and/or the professor?
• Tell exactly what your feedback partners suggested and explain how you responded to those suggestions. You don't need to name the feedback partners.
• Provide specific examples to show what you changed, and explain why you made the changes. Do not make a blanket statement but refer to specific words, phrases, sentences, sections, ideas, or other features as they were in your draft and as they are in your final submission.
• What changes did you make based on your own rethinking and revising? Give specific examples of the original and changed versions and tell how and why you made the changes.
• Describe any special features of writing or editing such as challenges, surprises, or other factors of interest in the development of this paper. For example, what do you like best about the topic or your own paper? What aspects were problematic and why?
• What feedback to your classmates did you give that you think might have been helpful to them? Give one or two examples.
• What kind of feedback from me would be especially helpful to you?
• If you are submitting a document as a file attachment, include in your Submission Letter all the elements listed in the File Attachment Guidelines.
• End your Reflection-Submission Letter with an appropriate message signature.