The University of Arizona emphasizes writing across the curriculum, but offers students a special opportunity to flex their analytical and composition muscles in General Education courses (Tier I and Tier II). The University Wide General Education Structure guidelines state the following:

Later the guidelines add: "Written work should be evaluated for form, organization, grammar, punctuation, and style." And we must not forget spelling!

Writing assignments may follow a variety of formats and cover every imaginable subject, but they all require the same close attention to the basic issues of structure and organization just mentioned.

Learning to write well is not just a matter of getting good grades and keeping your teachers (and your parents) happy. After you graduate and enter the real world, you will find that basic writing and verbal skills are essential to advancement in every field (science, engineering, business, law…whatever). These skills also establish a firm foundation for continuing learning and intellectual flexibility for the rest of your lives.

When you stop to think about it, you can not expect to convince and persuade your boss, your colleagues, your clients, or any audience unless you present your argument or point of view in a coherent manner, using all the fundamental rhetorical tools that have been in every good writer's toolbox since Classical Antiquity.

The main focus here is on the traditional "research" paper, but we have added some related strategies that would apply for example to a "creative" paper that asks you to assume the persona of a fictional character, or perhaps to "rewrite" a piece of fiction adopting a different viewpoint or a different style.

Please remember that this is a brief guide, not a panacea or a magic formula. It is your responsibility to take the points made and incorporate them into your own assignments. The suggested structure may seem a little mechanical to you at first, but try to follow it as well as you can. Soon, once you have practiced a little, you will find it possible to adapt and maneuver to suit your own purposes.

Pay particular attention to the "final checklist" of questions at the end of this brief guide. These are the questions you should ask yourself as you edit your draft.

When you have finished your final editing for rhetoric (that is, how persuasive you have been), then check your paper for spelling and grammar. Do not rely on spell-checking software packages; they can miss errors, for example, in homonyms.

Writing well is not a gift like perfect pitch. Excellence comes from re-writing. No one gets it right the first time.

Start early. Start early. Start early. If you don't start early, you will have a mediocre result. And that means you will not have done your best work; you will not have done yourself justice.

This is your Introduction. It begins with a general statement about the topic. It then needs at least 3-5 succeeding sentences which narrow and specify the scope of your treatment. These narrowing and specifying sentences can be said to be "funneling" your thoughts, because each sentence gradually sharpens your own focus on the general statement about the topic.

It is as if you look at a landscape in the first sentence, then gradually orient your reader as to your own perspective, or lens, on the topic. The last sentence of the introductory paragraph should be your thesis statement. The thesis statement is a one-sentence statement of the main idea of your paper. Do not proceed any further until you have written a thesis statement!

The authorial stance simply means the perspective from which you view the material you are analyzing. Another definition would be, the "viewpoint."

Be sure that your authorial stance is clear to your reader by the end of your introductory paragraph. Do not leave your poor reader wondering, "Who is telling me all this?" Make sure the "Who" is crystal clear in the Introduction. The most successful papers have a clear authorial stance that is maintained consistently through the Conclusion.

The middle is the body of your paper. Each paragraph in the body is itself a whole: this means that each paragraph contains its own beginning, middle and end. These miniature "wholes" are linked to each other by a transition.

How does this work in practice?

The "beginning" of an individual paragraph is the topic sentence. The topic sentence states the main idea of that paragraph and only that paragraph. Each sentence in the middle of the paragraph must relate to that topic sentence. Do not put details in your topic sentence. That would narrow the scope of your paragraph too much. It must be broad enough so that it can be supported by evidence sentences. Evidence can be direct quotes from the text—short, and succinct. Evidence can be facts, analogies, details, anecdotes, examples, or paraphrases. Remember to use paraphrase sparingly and succinctly; always indicate your source. Only a short step separates paraphrase and plagiarism!

You may use figures (such as pie charts, bar graphs, schematics, drawings) as evidence in a literature course, not only in science or social science courses. This is much easier now because of computer software.

Please note that whenever a figure is given as evidence, there must be a sentence in the appropriate paragraph that refers to the figure and explicates its meaning. Scientists and engineers—please pay attention to this.

Finally, each paragraph has an "end" and that "end" is a significance sentence. The significance sentence is self-explanatory—it states for the reader the significance of the evidence you have presented.

Check each of your paragraphs to make sure that you have all three essential parts of the paragraph. Do not proceed until you do. A coherent paragraph contains a topic sentence, evidence, and a significance sentence—that is, a "beginning, a middle, and an end."

The second paragraph of your middle (or "body") must be linked to the first paragraph of the body, and each succeeding paragraph must be linked to its predecessor. A transitional word or phrase, usually in the topic sentence but not always, serves as the linking device. Transitions such as "furthermore," or "nevertheless," or "however," or "next" or "at the opposite extreme" will be found in your old composition books from high school. Just remember, transition is important for the reader, because it is a "road map" for him or her to follow you. Read your paper aloud to someone. Do they look puzzled? If so, one reason could well be that you haven't been clear enough in your transitions.

The end of your paper is your Conclusion. A conclusion can only conclude from evidence already presented in the paper. You may not introduce new material in your conclusion. Look back over your thesis statement and your evidence paragraphs. What is the wider significance of what you have shown? What is its deeper importance? If your mind fails here, sum up your points mentally, and then pretend to be an advocate for your thesis before an impartial jury. What would make it persuasive to them? What rhetorical strategies could help you best appeal to the jury and be logically persuasive? Apply that energy now to the Conclusion.

Remember how the sentences in your introduction "funneled" more narrowly and specifically as they occurred? Now you are opening up that funnel. Read your introductory paragraph backward. Do you see that your own scope is expanding? This little exercise should give you some ideas for how to word and shape the "wider significance" of what you are claiming in your conclusion. Do not fall back on the technique of mere summation. That is too elementary. Instead, try to show the significance of what you have written and the evidence of you have presented.

What is the broader significance of what we have been saying here?

The writing you do in all General Education classes is designed to see if you can marshal evidence to demonstrate the persuasiveness of your thesis—that is, your main idea. Whether or not you ever return at the UofA or in your career(s) to the subject of the class, the marshaling and presenting of evidence in written form is one of the most important skills required for success in our society.

Rhetoric is simply the art of persuasion. Being persuasive on paper (or on a computer!) will have a lot to do with whether or not you will be successful in your career(s). In the corporate world, whoever writes the memo, the agenda, the position paper, the report has a lot of power. Power, in corporate America, is defined as "the ability to make (or help make) and implement decisions."

1. Have I written a properly structured introduction that funnels down to a thesis statement?
2. Is it clear in my introductory paragraph what my authorial stance is?
3. Does each of my paragraphs contain a topic sentence which states the main idea of the paragraph?
4. Does each of my paragraphs contain evidence sentences consisting of examples, direct quotes, figures, facts, anecdotes, etc.?
5. Does each of my paragraphs conclude with a significance sentence?
6. Is each of my body paragraphs connected to the previous one by a transitional word or phrase?
7. Do I have a conclusion that emphasizes the importance or the wider significance of what I have demonstrated in the body of my paper?
8. As I read my paper aloud, have I convinced myself of the validity of my thesis statement? If not, then I have to start again!

A special feature of the paper topics in both courses is that you are adopting the perspective, the persona if you will, of a character either from a text, or a created persona. This is your authorial stance.

In RUSS 340, you can adopt the authorial stance in Topic #1 of an ante-bellum American visitor to Russia—this means you have a particular "slant" on the institution of serfdom already!

Oblonsky is the authorial persona in Question #3 of RUSS 340—he has certain biases that will govern his "take" on the material.

In RUSS 350 you have a different authorial stance for each paper topic. In Question #1 the "You" is a number from the One State who is a successful conspirator. That is your viewpoint. In Question #3, the "You" is a returning prisoner from the Gulag in the time of Khrushchev. Do not leave the reader in any doubt as to the viewpoint of the author of the paper, that is, the narrator.

For Topic #1 for RUSS 340 "Life on the Russian Country Estate" you might give a pie chart showing how the family spends a typical day. The pie chart would indicate the percentages of the day spent sleeping, eating, drinking, flirting, hunting, sewing, gossiping, etc. A parallel pie chart could give the day as spent by the serfs—working, cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc. etc.

But remember to explain the significance of each pie chart taken separately and when compared to the other, viewed in the context of your paper as a whole.