Saving Work in Compatible format

 97-2003 Compatible Format

Have you been having problems saving your work in Compatible format for WORD?  Don’t worry…the steps below will provide you with everything you need to complete this requirement.

Once you read my directions for how to complete this type of 'save,' you will laugh at how easy it is. 

In the WORD program:

1. Go to SAVE AS
2. Locate the folder where you want the work to be saved.
3. Create a name to identify your work: Your Name, Assignment, and formatting Style 
• Sample: Vida Bendecida Essay 1 MLA
4. Underneath the NAME of the document, you will see a drop-down box that lets you choose 8-12 different types of formatting settings for your program's document.  You want to choose the 97-2003 COMPATIBLE option.
• You do not have to have any of the 97-2003 WORD programs to complete this save.  However, by saving your WORD document in this format, it makes it possible for ANYONE with a WORD program to open the document.
5. Click on the 97-2003 Compatible Version option.
6. Double check that the name is what you want, that the folder you will be saving it to is correct (after all, you want to be able to find it), and that you have successfully changed the program formatting to the 97-2003 COMPATIBLE style.
7. Click SAVE.

You have now finished properly saving the document for an online classroom submission, and you are now able to upload your work into the classroom as a COMPATIBLE WORD document.

By following these steps, you can save your MO WORD documents in a way that they will end in .doc, which, in turn, will make the document accessible to all parties who need to view it, no matter what version of MO WORD they are using.

I suggest doing this for ALL work that you must send through the Internet.  It makes it so that your work stays accessible to anyone you send it to for review

The Process of Writing

Notes on the Process of Writing

Created by Karen Coda

Content available at her website

None of the information below is of my own mind.  I am simply supplying the content and weblinks for you from her site.  PDF version available here.  All credit belongs to Karen Coda.

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While writing is not strictly linear, we can visualize it in a structured progression towards a final product for ease of study and discussion. 

Planning Drafting Revising         

We can consider the writing process as a series of activities grouped into stages of development leading to the completion of a written product.

I. Planning Stage: Discover and Develop Ideas

1. Select and Limit Your Topic
   1. Prewriting Strategies
      1. Brainstorming/Listing
      2. Clustering/Mapping
      3. Reporter’s Formula/Journalist's Questions
      4. Free-writing
      5. Journal keeping
2. Determine Your Purpose
   1. Assess the writing situation
      1. Product Specifications
      2. Assignment Criteria
      3. Creative Goals
   2. Overall general purpose
      1. to inform (understand)
      2. to entertain (understand & react emotionally)
      3. to persuade (understand & agree)
      4. to activate (understand, agree & take action)
   3. Central Controlling idea (specific to message)
      1. Clarify point/topic & subtopics
      2. Supported Thesis statement: T P S S S
3. Analyze Your Audience
   1. Create a Profile
      1. Age
      2. Gender
      3. Cultural/Ethnic background
      4. Education level
      5. Economic/Social background
      6. Concerns/Needs
      7. Desires/Goals
   2. Understand Human Needs (Maslow's Motive Needs)
   3. Engage Reader
      1. Use Persuasive Devices
      2. Use Introductory Hook
4. Develop Ideas
   1. Write a discovery draft (crummy first draft) to generate material
   2. Conduct research via formal or informal methods
   3. Incubate Ideas
5. Organize Ideas
   1. Determine appropriate order
   2. Create a keyword outline for essay

II. Drafting Stage: Organize and Develop Writing

1. Select appropriate expository techniques
   1. Description-use imagery
   2. Narration-tell sequence of events
   3. Illustration-use examples
   4. Definition-identify criteria
   5. Process Analysis-examine steps to completion
   6. Causal Analysis-examine cause/effect
   7. Comparison-identify similarities
   8. Contrast-identify differences
   9. Persuasion-appeal to emotions
   10. Argument-appeal to logic with evidence
2. Convert keyword outline to a full-sentence outline
1. Paragraph Types
1. Special
1. Introductory
2. Transitional
3. Concluding
2. Topical
1. Body
3. Write a Working Draft
1. Fill in details, evidence, examples as needed
2. Develop wording of ideas
3. Craft sentences and paragraph structure
4. Select appropriate document format
   1. Essay (English papers use MLA style guidelines)
   2. Report
   3. Memo/email
   4. Letter
   5. Presentation
   6. Web design
   7. Promotional ads/brochures/flyers

III. Revising Stage: Examine and Evaluate choices that shape writing

1. Global Revisions
   1. Use checklist for global revision
      1. Purpose and audience
      2. Focus
      3. Organization
      4. Content
      5. Point of view
      6. Paraphrasing, quoting & documenting sources
   2. Qualities of Effective Writing
      1. Order
      2. Unity
      3. Completeness
      4. Coherence
      5. Concision
   3. Writing Assessment
      1. Use S-I-I method
      2. Use Essay Evaluation form or a grading rubric
      3. Use specific assignment criteria
2. Local Revisions
   1. Major Illiteracies
      1. Sentence Fragment
      2. Comma Splice
      3. Fused Sentence
      4. Agreement
      5. Modifiers
   2. Sentence Variety
   1. Coordination
   2. Subordination
   3. Sentence Types
      1. Simple
      2. Compound
      3. Complex
      4. Compound-Complex
   3. Word Choice
   (colorful, colored, colorless)
   1. Tone
   2. Voice
   3. Denotation
   4. Connotation
   4. Proofreading (isolation method)
      1. Format
      2. Spelling
      3. Punctuation
      4. Typing

Literary Response

Until I can go through and provide insights of my own on the Literary Response, I am going to provide links to another instructor's website who should be able to provide some guidance for you.


I will eventually update this link, but for now, please see if this information helps you at all:

FORM - The Literary Response

GOOD LITERARY RESPONSES WILL . .

INTRO SENTENCES

PHRASES FOR EXAMINING POETRY

PHRASES FOR EXAMINING LITERATURE

INTEGRATING QUOTATIONS

STUDENT WRITING

POETRY RESPONSES

• DEATH OVER WATER - a six paper
• DEATH OVER WATER - another six
• DEATH OVER WATER - provincial examples
• DEATH OVER WATER - breaking down a six paper
• DEATH OVER WATER - revising your paper up a grade

LITERARY RESPONSES

• UPROOTING - a six paper

Argument Writing Tools

Student Argument Writing Tools

from Paola Brown

What is an Argument?
Paola Brown's Visual Representation of an Argument Essay
Arguments At a Glance: P.A.P.A.
Writing Effective Arguments
Argument Thesis = Claim
Argument's Best Friends: Ethos, Logos, Pathos
Creating Outlines for Arguments
Creating Outlines for a Summarize-and-Critically-Analyze Essay
Quoting, Summarizing & Paraphrasing
Argumentative Fallacies
The Rogerian Argument
Sample Argument Essays
The Rhetorical Situation *PDF
Argumentative Topics
*Includes researched websites for various topics, and
a thesis statement (pro/con) for each subject.
Controversial Articles
*Includes links to articles on which you can write your Summary-Critically-Analyze paper.
Double Entry Log (to help you critically read and annotate your controversial article)
Sample Article that I Critically Annotated "Would you have surgery at the hands of a robot?"

Writing Samples

Writing Samples

When I was in my first psychology course in high school, Monday morning, the first day back to school after Thanksgiving break, my teacher pulled out a thick stack of packets of paper and told us we were going to have a test that day--a pop test.  Pop was right!  Kids started looking around the room, panic on their faces as their eyes began to 'pop' out of their heads!  A pop test?  A psychology pop test!!!  All I could think was, "My L-tryptophan hasn't worn off from the Thanksgiving turkey!"

Luckily for Seth, my best-friend from my neighborhood, the test was not on content learned in class.  The test was about us...our skills...our ability to learn in different situations.  The test was designed to find out our 'learning style'.  Do you know your learning style?  Did you ever have a guidance counselor, psychology teacher, or social studies substitute administer a learning style test to you?  If you have never taken one, you may want to give it a try.  You may learn a lot about yourself, but more importantly, you will learn a lot about how to move information from the world to inside your grey matter--and make it stick.

As learning-styles-online.com states, "by recognizing and understanding your own learning styles, you can use techniques better suited to you [to grasp information and store it in your long-term memory]. This improves the speed and quality of your learning."  While you may believe--or have been taught (depending on how old you are)--that there are only three types of learning styles: visual, verbal, and kinesthetic, there are actually more dimensions to learning than just those three avenues.

[If you want to take an online learning styles test, go to this link.  If you encounter any problems with it, please let me know.  If you find a better site for an online learning styles test, please send me the link.]

What are the different types of learning styles?  Even if you have never taken one of these tests, you probably have some clue as to what works best for you.

The Seven Learning Styles

• Visual (spatial):You prefer using pictures, images, and spatial understanding.

• Aural (auditory-musical): You prefer using sound and music.

• Verbal (linguistic): You prefer using words, both in speech and writing.

• Physical (kinesthetic): You prefer using your body, hands and sense of touch.

• Logical (mathematical): You prefer using logic, reasoning and systems.

• Social (interpersonal): You prefer to learn in groups or with other people.

• Solitary (intrapersonal): You prefer to work alone and use self-study. (learning-styles-online.com)

I learn best from solitary, visual, verbal and logical lessons.  While I pursued a career in the English field, and ultimately became a home-school and university-level instructor, I was urged to go into the math and sciences due to the logic and structure required in those fields.  However, there is actually just as much--if not more--structure and logic in the field of English.  English has structure in its grammatical make-up (parts of speech), its sentence organization (simple, compound, complex, and compound complex sentences), and in its writing layout (introduction, body, and conclusion paragraph order and flow).   I LOVE IT!!!  Sorry to yell, but there really is a lot of logic in English: writing and content.

Despite my love of logic, the best way for me to embed learning into my squishy brain is by combining logical and visual learning.  I bet many of your are this way, too.  Our culture used to be more of a 'doing' group of learners (kinesthetic--hands on learning--due to our industrial careers and the need for our country's infrastructure build-up).  With the advent of TV, educational games, and YouTube tutorials, our society is absorbing content more visually, thus producing learners who have grown more accustomed to the visual stimulation requirement for their learning.

Have you figured out where I am going with this?  I'm going to provide you with some writing samples...some good, and some in need of work, but nonetheless, they are samples that convey clear writings styles you may encounter in my class or other writing classes: process, cause/effect, narrative, expository, argument, classification, persuasion, literary analysis, and so on.  As I find time, I will add more samples to this section.  For now, learn more about writing by going through the Writing Examples below:

• Writing Examples
• process, 
• cause/effect, 
• narrative, 
• expository, 
• argument, 
• classification, 
• persuasion, 
• literary analysis

MLA 8th Edition Formatting - Quick Guide

• MLA 7th Edition Formatting Quick Guide
• MLA 8th Edition Sample Paper

Formatting

• 1’’ margins
• Times New Roman or Arial
• Size 12 font
• Double-spaced
• All parts of writing must be in the same size and style font (including the header and footer)

Style

• Use active voice
• Write in 3rd person voice unless you are told 1st or 2nd are an option
• Use present tense when referring to events that happen within the literature
• Remain consistent with tense (especially important to keep in mind when writing about historic non-fiction)

First Page

• Create a running header with your last name and page number in the upper right-hand corner (with only one space between name and number) one half inch from the top
• In the upper left-hand corner, type your name, professor’s name, course name, and date
• Center the title of your paper just below following standard capitalization rules for titles

Main Body

• Your paper should include a thesis statement, “a single sentence the formulates both your topic and your point of view . . . your answer to the central question or problem you have raised”  {See the Hamburger Method handout in the classroom for exact details on constructing your body paragraphs.}
• Use only one space after a period unless professor prefers two
• Indent the first line of each paragraph ½ of an inch
• Use block quotes sparingly and only when the prose quotation exceeds four lines
• Include parenthetical citations in your paper whenever you use another person's words or ideas. Usually this will include the author's last name and a page reference with no punctuation: (Smith 10)
• When referencing plays and poetry, use the line number (not the page number)

Works Cited Examples

• Your works cited page should have the words “Works Cited” center at the top. Your entries should begin right after and should be left-aligned with hanging indents. Eighth edition MLA citations operate on model. The model is a one-size-fits-all approach that asks for nine different elements and takes whatever are available.

These are the elements and the proper punctuation in a citation if they were all present in a source:

• Generic example for all citations:
  • Author. “Title of Source.” Title of Container, Other Contributors, Version, Number, Publisher, Publication Date, Location.
• Book:
  • Model: Last name, First name. Title of Book. Publisher, Publication Date.
  • Example: Smith, John. Hunting for Peace. Mifflin Publishing, 2004.
• Work in an anthology:
  • Model: Last name, First name. "Title of Source." Title of Container, Other Contributors, Publisher, Publication Date. Location.
  • Example: Smith, Joanna. “The Squirrel Poem.” Poems about Wildlife, edited by John Smith, Harvard UP, 2016, pp. 122-23.
• Journal article retrieved from database:
  • Model: Author. “Title of Source.” Title of Container, Number, Publication Date, Location.
  • Example: Smith, Sara. “Squirrel Habitat Reduction.” The Journal of the Environment, vol. 30, no. 2, 2009, JSTOR, jstor.org/stable/10/1086/000001
• Website:
  • Model: Author (if available). “Title of Source.” Title of Container, Other Contributors, Publisher, Publication Date, Location.
  • Example: “Human and Animal Relations.” Wildlife Details, edited by John Smith, Turtles Inc., 26 May 2011, www.turtlelist.com/squirrels. 

Information courtesy of MLA 7th edition and MLA 8th edition handbooks.

Assignment Writing

Assignment Writing

Learn the difference between the assignment writing types, including: persuasive writing and narrative writing.

·         Preparation

Learn how to accurately prepare to write by choosing a topic and an appropriate point of view.
View Guides

·         Writing Process

Understand the writing process from style and structure to content and organization.
View Guides

·         Specific Fields

Gain knowledge on what is expected for writing essays on applied and social sciences.
View Guides

·         Assignment Types

Learn about the diverse assignment types and how to differentiate formatting among them.
View Guides

·         View All

View all articles and worksheets in the Assignment Writing category.
View Guides

Note from Professor Dick:

None of the content posted above is my own writing. 

The links and content above comes from the links posted in the writing above.  Visit the webpage for more assistance.