Phase H—Compelling communication

Goal

"My writing and other products Grab the attention of the readers or audience, Orient them, move them along in Steps, so they appreciate the Position I've led them to."

Background

When preparing a short work-in=progress presentation (Phase G), you should have tried to highlight the key steps in getting your intended audience to appreciate the position you want to lead them to. You should not worry if the first attempt is not a stellar success. By getting feedback and revising in response you can develop a narrative, complete a draft, and finish a report that allows your audience to appreciate your position and why it was important to you to do research on this subject.

Processes

From Phase G

• Exploring your writing preferences to identify strengths and issues to work on
• Narrative outlining

GOSP
Direct Writing & Quick Revising
Narrative draft
Complete Draft
Reverse Outlining
Eliciting comments on a complete draft
Revising in response to comments
Final report

GOSP: Grab the attention of the readers/audience, Orient them, move them along in Steps, so they appreciate the Position you have led them to.

In-session 12
Direct Writing & Quick Revising for 90 minutes with the goal of completing an extended narrative outline or short draft (say 4-5 pages).
After completing this narrative outline or short draft, read Elbow (1981), section III to get you into the mood for revising, take stock of comments received on your outlines, and then prepare the draft of your research report.

Narrative Draft

A narrative draft expands on the narrative outline, focusing first on the explanatory sentences that indicate the point of each section (and subsection) and interconnections among sections. Once that is clear, topic sentences for paragraphs become the next priority. Text can be added into the paragraphs as long as doing so does not distract your attention from checking whether the paragraphs each have a distinct point, flow one to the next, and speak to the topic of the section the paragraphs are in.

Complete draft

For a draft to be complete you have to get to the end even if you only sketch some sections along the way. An incomplete draft usually leaves readers (and yourself) unsure if you are clear about the Position you want to lead them to and the Steps needed to get them there (see GOSP).

Reverse outlining: after making a note on the topic(s) or thesis(theses) of each paragraph, see how these can be rearranged, streamlined, discarded, combined, split, so that each paragraph makes a distinct contribution to a definite GOSPing path

Eliciting comments: After the draft is completed, you should pair up with a peer and comment on each others' draft.

Revising in response to comments: You should not expect to work out your ideas in one attempt—every writer needs to revise! Revision should be proactive, that is, do not wait for your advisors to slog their way through a rough draft and do the work for you of identifying problems in your exposition.

Final report

• Whatever form your report on the project takes, it is helpful to give readers a sense of why you have pursued this project, your process of development during the project, and your personal or professional development plans for the future. (This might be informed by sense-making contextualization.)
• The report should not be directed to the advisor or instructor, but conceived as something accessible to peer readers—what would they need to know to get interested in and understand what you've done?
• Cite references consistently in text and in a bibliography. Only references that you have cited in the text should be in the bibliography, but you might include a supplementary bibliography of references used but not cited if that seems helpful to readers.
• For a guide on technical matters of writing scholarly papers, see a pocket manual such as the classic Turabian.

Follow up

Writing and revising can seem like all-consuming activities. However, you should factor in time away from the text when solutions to expository problems can percolate to the surface. During that time you can also invent new avenues of classroom, workplace, or public participation, the goal of the Phase I.

All Phases | Next: Phase I--Engagement with Other

Reference

Elbow, P. (1981). Writing with Power. New York: Oxford University Press.