Read Elizabeth Wardle’s “You Can Learn to Write in General” from our BIAW book (Links to an external site.).

Summarize the chapter: naming who wrote it, what it’s called, where it appears, and what it argues. Share how she argues her point, and what its value might be. Include: specifics–identify her main points and include the genre of text this is. An effective summary holds a closing line: what, overall the text does for a reader, for example.

Then, in a second paragraph (minimum), practice responding to and working with the text. Draw upon “College Writing (Links to an external site.)” from UNC Chapel Hill’s Writing Center to help you describe the BIAW chapter and why it matters for writing in college.

This first reading work is meant to introduce you to the field of writing studies, help you practice the work of reading to write (it is important in academic work to accurately summarize/name a writer’s ideas first), then working with sources. Always ask yourself what the texts say and why it matters–that’ll give you something to say. Feel free to draw upon your own experience here!

Don’t forget to practice MLA formatting– I’ll give you feedback on formatting and the trickier pieces here, so you can build from it moving forward. That’s why we study, after all. Basics of in-text citation linked here.