International Writers’ Workshop

1. International Writers’ Workshop Week 5 – Organization & Logical Flow: the Sentence, the Paragraph, and the Essay Dr. Erica Cirillo-McCarthy Assistant Director of Graduate and ADEP Writing

2. Today’s Presentation: • Logical flow between sentences • Handout/exercises • Logical flow between paragraphs • Handout/exercises • Logical flow throughout the paper • Reverse outline technique – handout • Subsections • Disciplinary Conventions • But first, any questions on last week’s topic?

3. Logical flow between sentences • Explicit Linking (old-new): • Each sentence (with the exception of a few first sentences) should refer to the previous sentence. • Consider the references to previous sentences as “old” information. • Each new sentence then begins with the “old” information from the previous sentence and then moves toward “new” information.

4. What does that look like? • Handout Exercise • Discussion

5. Logical flow between paragraphs • Last week we talked about transitional devices • Use these devices as you transition between paragraphs • The give the reader visual cues as to how this next paragraph relates to the previous • However, there are other ways to clue your reader into the relationship between paragraphs – see handout pg. 2

6. Logical flow throughout the paper • At times our work becomes so complex and unwieldy that we must take a step back and holistically evaluate the logical flow • One way to do this is through a reverse outline • Go through each paragraph and summarize the main idea • Write them all in an outline format so that you can visually see the flow of your ideas

7. Reverse Outline Handout

8. Subsections • Consider grouping your ideas into subsections • Create a title for the subsection • Breaking up a longer paper or thesis chapters into subsections help the reader • The reader gets the visual cue that the following section will be unified • The reader will be able to focus more on the ideas within a section rather than getting lost within a long section

9. Disciplinary conventions of organization • Some disciplines have specific sections and subsection headers that you must use if you write in the discipline • For example, many psychology papers will have an introduction section, a methodology section, a literature review section, and an analysis section • Business papers similarly have delineated sections depending on the purpose of the paper • Look at journal articles in your field to identify the conventions in your discipline

10. Article example – looking for conventions • Discussions: what disciplinary conventions have you noticed thus far?

11. Questions? • Thank you!!