- make a list of ideas that relate to your subject
- organize the details into three supporting groups and prepare a scratch outline
- focus your essay on the positive or negative aspects and provide a thesis which includes a plan of development and topic sentences for supporting paragraphs
- write the first draft
- revise the draft for content and style
- and edit errors in grammar, punctuation and spelling
- check your essay one last time against the checklist below; and present the final version of your essay with an appropriate title.
- Clear opening statement of the point of your paper?
- All material on target in support of the main point?
- Specific evidence? (62- 66)
- Plenty of it?
- Clear Method of Organization?
- Transitions and other connective devices?
- Effective introduction, conclusion and title?
- Fragments eliminated?
- Run-ons eliminated?
- Correct verb forms?
- Subject and verb agreement?
- Faulty parallelism and faulty modifiers eliminated?
- Faulty pronouns eliminated?
- Capital letters used correctly?
- Punctuation marks where needed?
- Apostrophe
- Commas
- Dashes; Parentheses
- Quotation marks
- Colons; semicolons
- Hyphens
- Correct paper format and citation and documentation of sources?
- Needless words eliminated?
- Effective word choice?
- Possible spelling errors checked?
- Careless errors removed through editing and proofreading?
- Sentences varied?
- Use APA
- Margins
- Page number
- Abstract
- Introduction
- Conclusion