|
|
Use the following tips to select a process to write about.
- For a how-to essay, choose a process that you can visualize or perform as you write. Keep the equipment nearby for easy reference. For example, if you are writing an essay about how to scuba dive, it may be helpful to have your scuba equipment in front of you.
- For a how-it-works essay, choose a topic about which you have background knowledge or for which you can find reliable information readily.
- Choose a topic that is useful and interesting to your readers. Unless you can find a way to make an essay about how to do laundry interesting, do not write about it.
|
Consider your purpose, audience, and point of view. Ask yourself these questions.
- Will my purpose be to express myself, inform, or persuade? (Process analyses tend to be informative.)
- Who is my audience? Will readers need any background information to understand my essay? Will they need me to define terms or describe (or diagram) equipment? How much detail do I need to go into for them to follow the steps or understand the process? Where will they need special help or warnings? (Check whether your readers will need background or definitions by asking a classmate to tell you how he or she would explain key terms to a novice.)
- What point of view best suits my purpose and audience? How-to essays commonly use the second person, addressing the reader directly as you. (Hint: Second person is often considered inappropriate in college writing.) How-it-works essays commonly use the third person (he, she, it).
|
Explore your subject and generate details. Use idea-generating strategies to come up with the details your process analysis essay will use.
- List the steps or diagram the process, keeping these questions in mind.
- What separate actions are involved?
- What steps are obvious to me but may not be obvious to someone unfamiliar with the process?
- What steps, if omitted, will lead to problems or failure?
(Listing is especially useful for pragmatic and concrete learners.)
- Ask a friend or classmate to act out your process. What problems did this person encounter? What additional details did you need to tell him or her? (Acting out the process is especially useful for verbal, social, and emotional learners.)
- Do some research to see how others have described the process. What details do other writers include? Do they generally add steps you’ve omitted or omit steps you’ve included? Be sure to keep track of any information you borrow from sources. (Research is useful for all learners.)
- Alone or in pairs, list the words looks like, sounds like, smells like, and feels like across the top of a page and then list as many words or comparisons below as you can think of in 10 or 15 minutes. (Description is especially useful for verbal and concrete learners.)
Try taking an approach that challenges your learning style. For example, pragmatic and abstract learners — visualize steps in how-to essays; creative learners — slow down and set out detailed steps; concrete learners — convey the big picture of a social process in a how-it-works essay. |
|
Draft your thesis statement. Tell readers why the process is important, beneficial, or relevant to them. Be sure to consider what your audience will find compelling. |
Organize your ideas logically.
- For a process with fewer than ten steps, you can usually arrange the steps chronologically, devoting one paragraph per step.
- For a more complicated process, group the steps into three or four categories; use one paragraph per group, including a topic sentence to introduce the group and the rest of the paragraph to explain the individual steps involved. For an essay on how to run a garage sale, the steps might be grouped as follows:
Group 1: Locating and collecting merchandise Group 3: Pricing and setting up Group 4: Conducting the sale Hint: An outline or graphic organizer will allow you to experiment to find the best order for supporting paragraphs. To determine how usable your instructions are, ask a classmate to try them out. |
Write a first draft of your process analysis essay. Use the following guidelines to keep your process analysis on track.
- The introduction should present your thesis statement, include necessary background information, and convince readers the process is relevant to them.
For lengthy or complex processes, consider including an overview of the steps.
- The body paragraphs should identify each step and make clear why it is important to the process. If the process is complex, including a drawing or diagram to outline steps can be helpful. (If including a graphic, introduce it in your essay and refer to it by its title.)
- Use headings that name your main topics and signal changes in topic. Whether your essay is brief or lengthy.
- Use transitions, such as before, next, and finally, to signal steps in the process.
- Make sure your tone is appropriate to your audience and purpose. In some situations, a matter-of-fact tone is appropriate; in others, an emotional or humorous tone may be suitable.
- The conclusion might emphasize the value or importance of the process, describe particular situations in which it is useful, or offer a final amusing or emphatic comment or anecdote. An essay that ends with the final step in the process may sound incomplete.
|
|
Evaluate your draft, and revise as necessary. Use Figure 15.3, “Flowchart for Revising a Process Analysis Essay,” to evaluate and revise your draft. |
|
Edit and proofread your essay.
- editing sentences to avoid wordiness, making your verb choices strong and active, and making your sentences clear, varied, and parallel, and
- editing words for tone and diction, connotation, and concrete and specific language.
Look out especially for comma splices. A comma splice occurs when two independent clauses are joined only by a comma. To correct a comma splice, . . .
- add a coordinating conjunction (and, but, for, nor, or, so, or yet)
- change the comma to a semicolon
- divide the sentence into two sentences
- subordinate one clause to the other
|
