Business English for Success

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7.5 The Writing Process: End-of-Chapter Exercises

Learning Objectives

1. Use the skills you have learned in the chapter.


2. Work collaboratively with other students.


3. Work with a variety of academic and on-the-job, real-world examples.

Exercises

1. In this chapter, you have thought and read about the topic of mass media. Starting with
   the title “The Future of Information: How It Will Be Created, Transmitted, and
   Consumed,” narrow the focus of the topic until it is suitable for a two- to three-page
   paper. Then narrow your topic with the help of brainstorming, idea mapping, and
   searching the Internet until you select a final topic to explore. Keep a journal or diary in
   which you record and comment on everything you did to choose a final topic. Then
   record what you will do next to explore the idea and create a thesis statement.


2. Write a thesis statement and a formal sentence outline for an essay about the
   writing process. Include separate paragraphs for prewriting, drafting, and
   revising and editing. Your audience will be a general audience of educated adults
   who are unfamiliar with how writing is taught at the college level. Your purpose is
   to explain the stages of the writing process so that readers will understand its
   benefits.

Collaboration

Please share with a classmate and compare your answers.

3. Pieces of writing in a variety of real-life and work-related situations would benefit from
   revising and editing. Consider the following list of real-life and work-related pieces of
   writing: e-mails, greeting card messages, junk mail, late-night television commercials,
   social networking pages, local newspapers, bulletin-board postings, and public notices.
   Find and submit at least two examples of writing that needs revision. Explain what
   changes you would make. Replace any recognizable names with pseudonyms.


4. Group activity. At work, an employer might someday ask you to contribute to the
   research base for an essay such as the one Mariah wrote or the one you wrote while
   working through this chapter. Choosing either her topic or your own, compile a list of at
   least five sources. Then, working in a group of four students, bring in printouts or PDF
   files of Internet sources or paper copies of non-Internet sources for the other group
   members to examine. In a group report, rate the reliability of each other’s sources.


5. Group activity. Working in a peer-review group of four, go to Section 7.3 "Drafting"
   and reread the draft of the first two body paragraphs of Mariah’s essay, “Digital
   Technology: The Newest and the Best at What Price?” Review those two paragraphs
   using the same level of inspection given to the essay’s third paragraph in Section 7.4
   "Revising and Editing". Suggest and agree on changes to improve unity and coherence,
   eliminate unneeded words, and refine word choice. Your purpose is to help Mariah
   produce two effective paragraphs for a formal college-level essay about her topic.