I enrolled in this writing paper because I want to expand on the academic writing skills I have gained over the last five years of my university education. I believe that this course will allow me the opportunity to improve my skills, specifically with regard to writing reports and critiques, which will be of benefit to me in my career as a health promoter. Additionally, as this course is offered at summer school I am able to complete my Bachelor of Arts degree in a shorter period of time and therefore commence my career sooner than I had imagined. I will be expected to produce reports about patients and critiques of health systems, and so I need to know how to write them in my work.

3. Use the Student Reader Report questions from Assignment 1 to review the paragraph you wrote earlier.
 
4. Get a partner to peer review your paragraph. Did you reach the same conclusions?

Editing and Proofreading

5. What changes to content & expression does this extract from a previous ENGWRIT assignment require?

Topic: The importance of the revision process
The second step is editing. While editing, you check for grammar, punctuation, and mechanical errors. This process of checking is important so that your written piece will be free of errors that could interfere with the reader’s understanding of the message. Writing clearly reduces the difficulty of communicating effectively with the audience.  

6. Make these extracts more concise:

Topic: The role of supporting sentences in a paragraph
a. Effective paragraphs consist of supporting sentences that expand and support the topic sentence’s main idea.  Therefore, achieving this role requires essential writing techniques be used to develop structural sentences of variation, cohesion and interest.

b. Without supporting sentences, it would be difficult for the reader to look into what the author’s point of view about the topic is.  

7. Consider word choice in the sentence below:
Topic: A comparison of topic sentences and thesis statements
…they both work and link together to advise the viewer how to interpret and understand the writing at hand.

8. Why don’t the following extracts flow well?
a. The comparison between topic sentences and thesis statements is that they similarly project one idea, that informs what the idea is about, also organizes the dialogue to lead the reader where it is headed, and gives a purpose. It is followed by…

Topic: A summary of an article on consumerism
b. There are negative impacts …nevertheless these do not affect everybody, only those prone to [the effects of] consumerism, which in turn lead to addictions.

c. The effect that a… consumer based world has on the younger generation… is the final focus in Dittmar’s article, and gives views on changes that could be made to limit this.

 
9. Identify the punctuation problems:

a. Women, who are compulsive buyers, tend to…

b. Although on the whole, this is more common amongst men. 

Topic: The role of supporting sentences in a paragraph
c. Developing more on the topic sentence and providing specific details.