Chapter 3 Reading Response

Chapter three of ”Patterns For College Writing” gives guidelines on how to write and organize the thesis, body, and conclusion to an essay. I thought it was a nice way to refresh thing that i’ve learned in the past, But also does a great detailed guidelines as well in the nice format of information the book gives.

Personally I found a lot of the information the chapter gave was stuff I already knew. The basic premise of a Thesis, Body and Conclusion is something a lot of people learn before they write their first essay. But even though I knew the basics going into the chapter. The finer details are always good to revisit. The part I found the most helpful was the highlighted blue checklist boxes that reminded me of some of the little things that I’ve forgot. For instance Don’t announce what you intend to. For my writing that tends to be a bad habit that I can slip into. or using the term “in my opinion” which is self discrediting.

Those little checklist boxes are what helped me the most. Professionally I think the layout of this book is great. for this chapter they would split the different parts of an essay into sections. then from those sections they would write what the goal of that section was. For example the wrote how the goal of your thesis is to grab the attention of your audience. Then after the The main writing the author inserted little pointers in a highlighted check box which is really easy to find if you want to reference it later. an example of one of these pointers in the Thesis introduction section is the book explains “ Don’t wander. your introduction should draw readers into your essay as soon as possible. avoid irrelevant comments or annoying digressions that distract readers and make them want to stop reading.” Then after each one of those the book has a little exercise that you can do if you want to practise what you have just learned.

From the little I’ve experienced with this book I’m happy with the way it displays information, and look forward to working with it in the future,

-Timothy J Wellmann

Image taken from (http://weknowmemes.com/2012/08/i-hate-writing-essays/)