Dear Students,
I’ve just finished reviewing your wonderful paragraphs about how to write thesis statements. They were all incredibly informative and useful. I hope everyone will take a look at them. I’ve made some comments on some sentence-level issues in each, and you can access those here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/17p3RvaH-rRNwXPmOCL8TSIaU41k_1dLluIXFJBrERKw/edit?usp=sharing
Either this week or next week, I’d like each of you to choose one sentence from your paragraph and re-write it. Please post the original sentence, your revision, and a brief explanation of what changed in the sentence when you re-wrote it and why that change was necessary.
I have posted one example in the comments section to help you get started with this exercise.
Here is one of Alexus’ original sentences: It explains where you agree or disagree about a topic , and then leads you into why you agree or disagree.
Here one possible revision: It explains whether you agree or disagree with a topic, and why you agree or disagree.
Based on this revision, here is another revision: It explains whether and why you agree or disagree with a topic.
Here is another, more “teacherly,” and in my opinion, less interestingly written version: It explains the writer’s position with regard to a topic, as well as the rationale for that position.
Discussion: While the original sentence presented an excellent point, it did so in manner that was somewhat vague and unclear. Was there an error in this sentence? Not really, though the two parts of the sentence may not be perfectly “parallel” or aligned. The revisions make the sentence clearer to the reader and repair whatever misalignment may have existed between the two parts of the sentence. [Please note: this is a very complex example. However, this issue of PARALLELISM in complex sentences and in writing in general is an incredibly important one: See this resource for more information: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/623/01/
and this one: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/972/02/ }