- introduce your claim;
- support your claim with logical reasoning and relevant evidence from the texts;
- acknowledge and address alternate or opposing claims;
- organize the reasons and evidence logically;
- use words, phrases, and clauses to connect your ideas and to clarify the relationships among claims, counterclaims, reasons, and evidence;
- establish and maintain a formal style;
- provide a concluding statement or section that follows from and supports the argument presented; and
- check your work for correct grammar, usage, capitalization, spelling, and punctuation.
- think about ideas, facts, definitions, details, and other information and examples you want to use;
- think about how you will introduce your topic and what the main topic will be for each paragraph;
- develop your ideas clearly and use your own words, except when quoting directly from the source texts; and
- be sure to identify the sources by title or number when using details or facts directly from the sources.