Writing a Rough Draft

Writing a Rough Draft:

The rough draft is the first copy of your paper that you will write. After you have made an outline and wrote the information from your sources on note cards it is now time to write your rough draft. What is a rough draft? It consists of an introduction (general overview of the information), body paragraphs (describe the subject being discussed), and the conclusion (sums up the paper). Well how do you write it? The format that I want you to use is this.

Introduction:

The first sentence you write is the eye catcher. It is either a question or statement that makes a person want to read your paper. The next couple of sentences give a general description of the subject. The next sentence is the thesis statement, which states what the paper is about. Last is a transition sentence, which moves the reader from the introduction into the first body paragraph. It should look like this:

Introduction:

A. Eye catcher

B. General description of the subject like where they lived, what time frame they

C. lived in, or what important thing they may have done.

D. The thesis statement

E. The transition sentence

Bodies:

The body paragraphs give in detail the information that proves your thesis statement. This information may included but is not limited to their childhood, middle years, older years, death, important things they may have done or written, or how they changed world history. This may take three or more paragraphs to explain. The last sentence of each body paragraph is a transition sentence moving the reader from one body to the other. It should look like this:

Body I: Subject

A. Detail that tells about subject.

B. Detail that tells about subject.

C. Detail that tells about subject.

D. Detail that tells about subject.

E. Transition sentence into next body paragraph.

Conclusion:

The conclusion is meant to sum up the paper for the reader. In the introduction you presented the subject, in the bodies you tell about the subject, and in the conclusion you sum up all the information you wrote about. In each sentence of the conclusion you will sum up one body paragraph. You will also need to give evaluations that show that you proved your thesis statement. The last sentence of the paper is a restatement of the thesis statement saying that you proved your point. It should look like this:

Conclusion:

A. Summary of body one

B. Summary of body two

C. Summary of body three

D. Re-statement of thesis statement

Remember when you write your paper that you indent (leave about an inch space) each sentence that begins a paragraph. You cannot use any personal words like: me, my, mine, you, your, our, or so on; because you were not there. Remember that three to four hand written pages equal two typed pages of information. Also if you chose to use direct quotes from a source that you put it in quotation marks “” and give credit to the author, like: In the words of Mark Jones or According to Mark Jones, “Blah Blah.” If you are not sure if you have plagiarized cite your source by placing a citation at the end of the sentence like so, blah blah. (Adams, 1) It is usually the author’s last name, website, or encyclopedia title then page number. The period goes before the citation. Do not forget to write your reference page which is the last part of the paper.