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, a disheveled
drunk in a rumpled business suit staggered into
the Starlight Hotel’s bar at midnight for one
last shot of whiskey before stumbling off to
bed.
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:
• Show, don’t tell.
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
(Continued)
Use the following techniques and tools to
polish your writing:
• Use transitions between sentences and
paragraphs.
Small towns may be quiet and
peaceful. However, I prefer the
excitement and variety of a big
city.
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:
• Use synonyms to avoid repetition and
tightening to avoid wordiness.
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.