Process Analyses



Writing Process Analyses

Describing a Mundane Task

Choose any mundane task with which you are absolutely familiar, and write an analysis of the process involved in doing it. The task you choose should be simple, like eating a candy cane or tying a necktie. Work to present each step in the process, explaining its significance in the greater scheme of things. In other words, explain why readers should perform each step as well as telling them what to do.

Your essay should be more than a list of steps. Remember to consider your audience's knowledge and involvement, convincing them to be interested, if necessary, and using language proper to their knowledge of the subject. How will you engage your readers in the process? You may want to include what people tend to do wrong while performing the task you've chosen to analyze.

Learning Objectives

• To write informatively from a position of authority

• To pay close attention to a specific process and assumptions about that process

• To consider the needs and possible biases of the writer's audience

Describing the Writing Process

Explain how to write a paper of the style of your choosing. It could be a mode of writing you have discussed in class, or it could be the type of writing you do in another particular class, like biology or history. Describe the entire writing process undertaken in such a piece of writing. How should a writer get started, what sorts of preparation and prewriting are necessary, what should he or she remember to include or exclude, and what are special revision considerations, if any?

Try to write for a specific audience, like colleagues at work, classmates in your biology lab, college freshmen, or high school seniors on their way to college.

Learning Objectives

• To review the modes of writing encountered in class

• To exhibit a command of such modes, and to discuss the choices writers have to make

• To practice modifying tone to specific audiences

Writing a Process Analysis Paragraph

Writers use the process analysis strategy when they want to describe a process or instruct someone how to accomplish some task. When done well, however, this strategy is more than a simple list of steps. Process analysis explains to readers why a process flows in a certain way or why they should follow specific steps in a certain order.

Write a one or two page document in which you explain the best way to cut and paste a passage of text from one document into another--perhaps from a Web site into a document for keeping research paper notes. Be sure:

• To number the steps,

• To explain what each step accomplishes and why, and

• To discuss any possible problems--such as avoiding plagiarism or copyright infringement.

Again, process analysis passages are more helpful to readers when they explain why something is done, not just how to do it. You may want to include a paragraph that introduces the steps in the process. You may also want to reference any alternative paths. For example, "This is the suggested method, but you may also want to..."

Learning Objectives

• To focus on step-by-step description of a process

• To consider the organization and presentation of a process

• To practice structuring paragraphs

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