Notes before the rough draft, Feb 3 2008

A lot of you did very well on prospectuses. That’s great. However, please remember that each milestone is graded independently; you can get a check-plus followed by a U. Or the reverse—which is more important!
You can turn in your draft in class or in my mailbox before 4:00pm.
If you have questions as you write your rough draft this weekend, get in touch. I have taken a few good questions already.

Some things from the readings:

Page xi: note that there’s no one way to write—this is why the assignments are open ended. As long as you meet the guidelines, work the way you like to. Start longhand if you prefer. Make your self-evaluation first, or last.
Use the cross-references in NFGW. They provide links to other readings which can help with different writing-related tasks.
Note the glossary/index in the NFGW, which is convenient. You can look something up and get a definition without a bunch of back and forth.
Use the table of contents up front as a reference. Read what you need. Note pages 378/9 which aren’t in the reading but which offer a strong guide to MLA documentation.
Read the examples in NFGW! Examples really help understanding both what you should and should not be doing as you write. Use the extra examples in the back of the text, especially.
Note that for each genre NFGW has very useful material geared toward how-to. For example, for profiles, pp15–5 describe the features a good profile needs. And pp 156–7 suggest ways to collect material and organize a profile. This is provided for every genre; one of the main reasons I really like this book.
If you are wondering what to put in your self-evaluation: see the genre sections; use them as checklists. Fill this in and develop it. Remember that because writing is recursive you can’t work through this in one pass; you have to go back and forth as you move between different phases of writing.