·McGraw-Hill书摘·

College Writing Skills with Readings

---Using a Computer at Each Stage of the Writing Process

About the Author
　　John Langan has taught reading and writing at Atlantic Cape Community College ne ar Atlantic City, New Jersey, for over twenty years. The author of a popular seri es of college textbooks on both subjects, he enjoys the challenge of developing m aterials that teach skills in an especially clear and lively way.

About the Book
　　College Writing Skills with Readings is rhetoric with readings that will help st udents master the traditional five-paragraph essay and variations of this essay. It is a very practical book with a number of unique features designed to aid inst ructors and their students.

Following are some ways to make word-processing a part of your writing:

Prewriting

If you' sea fast typist, many kinds of prewriting will go well on the computer. With free writing in particular, you can get ideas onto the screen almost as quic kly as they occur to you. A passing thought that could be productive is not likely to get lost. You may even find it helpful, when free writing, to dim the screen of your monitor so that you can' t see what you' se typing. If you temporarily can ' t see the screen, you won' t have to worry about grammar or spelling or typing errors; instead, you can concentrate on getting down as many ideas and details as possible about your subject. After any initial free writing, questioning, and list -making on a computer, it' s often very helpful to print out a hard copy of what you' re done. With a clean printout in front of you, you' ll be able to see everything at once and revise and expand your work with handwritten comments in the margins of the paper.

Writing Your First Draft

Like many writers, you may want to write out your first draft by hand and then type it into the computer for revision. Even as you type your handwritten draft, you may find yourself making some changes and improvements. And once you have a draft on the screen, or printed out, you will find it much easier to revise than a handwritten one.

If you feel comfortable composing directly on the screen, you can benefit from the computer' s special features. For example, if you have written an anecdote in your free writing that you plan to use in your paper, simply copy the story from y our free writing file and insert it where it fits in your paper. You can refine it then or later. Or if you discover while typing that a sentence is out of place, cut it out from where it is and paste it wherever you wish. And if while writing you realize that an earlier sentence can be expanded, just move your cursor back to that point and type in the added material.

Revising

It is during revision that the virtues of word- processing really shine. All sub stituting, adding, deleting, and rearranging can be done easily within an existing file. All changes instantly take their proper places within the paper, not scribbled above the line or squeezed into the margin. You can concentrate on each change you want to make, because you never have to type from scratch or work on a messy draft. You can carefully go through your paper to check that all your supporting evidence is relevant and to add new support as needed here and there. Anything you decide to eliminate can be deleted in a keystroke. Anything you add can be inserted precisely where you choose. If you change your mind, all you have to do is delete or cut and paste. Then you can sweep through the paper, focusing on other changes, such as improving word choice, increasing sentence variety, and elimi nating wordiness. If you are like many students, you will find it convenient to print out a hard copy of your file at various points throughout the revision. You can then revise in longhand ---adding, crossing out, and indicating changes--- and l ater quickly make those changes in the document.

Editing and Proofreading

Editing and proofreading also benefit richly from word-processing. Instead of crossing out mistakes, or rewriting an entire paper to correct numerous errors, you can make all necessary changes within the most recent draft. If you find editing or proofreading on the screen hard on your eyes, print out a copy. Mark any corrections on that copy, and then transfer them to the final draft.

If the word-processing package you' se using includes spelling and grammar checks , by all means use them. The spell-check function tells you when a word is not in the computer' s dictionary. Keep in mind, however, that the spell-check can' t tel l you how to spell a name correctly or when you have mistakenly used. Also, use t he grammar check with caution. Any errors it doesn' t uncover are still your responsibility.

A word-processed paper, with its clean appearance and handsome formatting, looks so good that you may feel it is in better shape than it really is. Do not be foo led. Take sufficient time to review your grammar, punctuation, and spelling carefully.