Transcript No Slide Title
CHAPTER 12
Copyright © 2002 by the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
CHAPTER 12: Revising Your GED Essay
When you revise your essay, you do two things:
• • Examine your essay for ways to strengthen its content, organization, and wording Examine your essay for Edited American English: grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure
Go over your essay twice, because revising content is a very different task from revising grammatical errors.
Copyright © 2002 by the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
CHAPTER 12: Revising Your GED Essay
Make sure your essay has the following traits:
• • • • The whole essay is relevant to the essay topic.
The introduction is clearly written and has a thesis statement.
The essay has three body paragraphs, and each has a topic sentence.
The body paragraphs have enough supporting details.
Copyright © 2002 by the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
CHAPTER 12: Revising Your GED Essay
(Continued) Use the following techniques and tools to polish your writing:
• Give specific reasons, examples, and details to support the thesis.
A tax decrease is needed because people need more buying power to keep up with inflation.
Nearly tripping on the doorsill, drunk a disheveled in a rumpled business suit staggered the Starlight Hotel’s bar at midnight last shot bed.
into for one of whiskey before stumbling off to
Copyright © 2002 by the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
CHAPTER 12: Revising Your GED Essay
Use the following techniques and tools to polish your writing:
• Show, don’t tell.
(Continued) Telling: My daughter was delighted.
Showing: My three-year-old daughter danced around the room, clapping her hands and laughing.
Copyright © 2002 by the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
CHAPTER 12: Revising Your GED Essay
Use the following techniques and tools to polish your writing:
• Use transitions between sentences and paragraphs.
(Continued) Small towns may be quiet and peaceful. city.
However, I prefer the excitement and variety of a big
Copyright © 2002 by the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
CHAPTER 12: Revising Your GED Essay
Use the following techniques and tools to polish your writing:
• Use
synonyms
to avoid repetition and
tightening
to avoid wordiness.
(Continued) Wordy: In this day and age, computers are a significant part of our daily lives.
Tight: Computers are now an important part of our daily lives.
Copyright © 2002 by the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
CHAPTER 12: Revising Your GED Essay
Use the this checklist to make sure you’ve followed the standards of Edited American English (EAE):
• • • Is the first word of every sentence capitalized?
Are proper nouns capitalized?
Are the sentences complete? Does each one have a subject and a verb?
• • • • Do subjects and verbs agree?
Does every sentence end with end punctuation?
Are commas used correctly?
Are all the words spelled correctly?
Copyright © 2002 by the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
CHAPTER 12: Revising Your GED Essay
THE END
Practice the skills you learned in this chapter by taking the
Chapter Review Quiz
or the
GED Practice Quiz
.
Copyright © 2002 by the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.