Exercise 9: 
Resolving Wordiness in Prose Texts
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Instructions
Below you will find attempts at drafting two short summaries, each written in a highly informal and colloquial (spoken) style. Clearly first draft, both passages reflect the kind of stumbling awkwardness and wordiness that often characterizes such efforts. Effective academic writing must be much more precise and articulate, each summary in its final form reflecting not only the main ideas and their supporting ideas but the original texts' essential relationships and values within sets of ideas. 

On scratch paper, revise these summaries repeatedly until only the essential concepts--the main idea and supporting primary details--remain.  You should be able to compose effective revisions in a single, tightly cohesive sentence for each summary.  E-mail  me the final copy..

Summary 1:

In Robert Berry's book, Reading for the Main Idea, he talks about how when most people read, they don't really read so that they can understand. They just read for pleasure. You have to read for the main idea in each paragraph.

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Summary 2:

Janice Amlin wrote about an article entitled, "The Wimp Factor: Surviving Under the Glass Ceiling." She writes about women who can't get to the top in their jobs. The men who are their bosses really discriminate against women. That's why they can't get better paying jobs. It's because of the men and the way they feel about women.

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Submission Assignments through Regular Mail
Mail papers to:

Submitting Essays as E-Mail Attachments
It is absolutely essential to the security of your work that you follow exactly these guidelines:

1) Heading on Assignments
Place a heading on the first page of your essay in the upper left-hand corner.  The heading must include the following information:

First Name-MIddle Initial-Last Name
DCCCD Student ID Number
Course-Course Number-Section Number
Month-Date-Year
Name of Assignment

Example:

John R. Pointer
ID 5555555
English 2326: 9543
February 20, 2001
Exercise 3

2) File Name
Save your file exactly according to this model:

JPointer-Ex3

3) Sending Me E-mail Messages
You must include your name and identify your message type in the subject line of each e-mail you send me.  For security reasons, if you fail to do so, I will delete your message without responding.

In the subject line, include your name and exercise number just as you saved your file above.
Example:

JPointer-Ex3

If you are sending me a message that needs immediate attention, then include one of the following formats in the subject line:

JPointer-Question
JPointer-Comment
JPointer-Urgent

Responding to Your E-mails
I always respond to your messages.  However, I always open "Question," "Comment," and "Urgent"  messages first and respond to them usually on the day I receive them. 

I will respond to your assignment messages within a day or two to let you know that I have received your work and files and whether or not I can open them.  To grade them, I open assignment messages in the order in which I received them.

Length of Time Required to Grade Your Work
It usually takes me from one to two weeks to grade essay-length papers and to return them.  Shorter papers I can grade much quicker.  I will return them as e-mail attachments to my response messages.
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This page was last modified on July 9, 2005,
and is maintained by Dr. Geoffrey A. Grimes.
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