Rough drafts

Given my firm belief that attention to process improves everyone’s writing, you are required to turn in a rough draft for each of the three papers in this course. You will turn it in rough drafts for your first two papers to just me. The rough draft of your third and final paper will be share with me and members of your peer review group. These groups will be shared with you well before the assignment is due.

Rough drafts can be hard to describe. To get credit for this assignment you need to make a solid effort at a rough draft. Every time I assign one, at least one student wants to clarify what I mean by “a solid effort.” By this, I don’t mean that you need to turn in a perfect paper, or even a completely finished paper. But you do need to write enough that it is a real attempt -- you need to attempt to write out / write through an idea that you’re thinking might work. You need to write long enough to give yourself either a firm sense that your plan is working or that it isn’t working at all. You need to have enough of a beginning that you can begin to see the difference between what you thought you’d write and what you’re actually writing. For these papers that would be at least 2000 words, which is about six double-spaced pages. You absolutely need to have a thesis statement.

In general, the more work you put into a rough draft, the stronger the final paper will be. If you have a very different experience, let me know and we can talk about strategies to change that.