Final Editing of Essay 1

Organization and Focus of Essay

Organization and Focus of Essay:• Does your essay have a clear thesis

statement? Is it clear to the reader what your opinion of the movie is?

Your claim should come at the end of your opening paragraph. It should be the final sentence of your opening paragraph.

Clear Topic Sentences

• Does each of your paragraphs have a clear topic sentence?

• A topic sentence should clearly:– Support your claim (unless you are presenting the

opposing view in a particular paragraph)– Indicate the topic of the paragraph• Plot, acting, theme, etc.

Specific Evidence

• Does each paragraph contain specific evidence that supports what you state/claim in your topic sentence?

Awkward Wording

• Have you read your essay aloud?• Have you proofread and looked for small

words that are often missing such as prepositions (“on,” “of,” “off”)?

• Have you avoided beginning sentences with words such as “And” and “But”?

• Have you avoided words such as: “It is”… “there are…” “you” ?

Transitional Expressions

Have you been conscious of using transitional expressions and words?

Punctuation

• Did you use commas and periods correctly when quoting from your sources?

• Did you proofread for problems with apostrophes?

Formatting

• Did you place the title of the film in italics?• Did you place the title of any magazines or

newspapers that you mention in italics?• Is your works cited page formatted correctly?

When uploading your essay . . .

• Make sure that the title of your file reads:Essay 1 Final Copy

Do not name your document file with any of these symbols: # % @

Make sure that your file is a WORD file or a RTF file.Do not try to upload a PDF file. Do not upload a WORKS file. If you do not have WORD (.doc or .docx) please save your files as a RTF file (.rft).