Dialog is optional. Consider if including dialog will help or hurt your paper.
The Larry sample paper is heavy on dialogue. The practice dialogue exercise was intended to help you
write dialogue for this paper, if you choose to include it. Dialogue is NOT required for this paper. Limit
your dialogue to dialogue that you feel must be present in order to move the story along. For example, if
someone speaks a certain way and that way of speaking is important to the story, then include that
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dialogue. At the very least, don’t use dialogue as an opportunity to extend your paper. Unnecessary
dialog reduces the effectiveness of the paper.
Description: write vividly. Help readers experience your event by giving them great details.
The practice descriptive writing exercise was intended to help you write descriptively for this paper.
Your paper should show (not tell) the event’s sights, sounds, sensations, etc. well enough that readers
understand the experience, so that readers do not use their imaginiations. Review the descriptive writing
handouts.
Focus on showing how the event is significant to you.
For example, one time one of my students wrote about the opening ceremony of a religious convention
that she went to, which was fine for this paper. However, she spent the first 2/3 of her paper describing
when she learned that she was going to the convention, her packing and traveling to the convention, and
getting ready in the morning of the first day of the convention. The description of the significant
experience (the part of the convention that was so important to her) was done in one short paragraph.
Also, another important part of the paper – describing the significance of the event – appeared in one
short paragraph at the end of her paper.
Assignment Details
• The paper must be between four and five pages. The minimum is four full pages, so anything
less than four full pages is insufficient.
• This paper is worth 100 points.
• This assignment is a draft, which means you will likely have an opportunity to revise. Do not
squander this opportunity. Revision is not a right; it is a privilege. If it appears to me that you are
not giving your best effort on your first draft, I may not offer the opportunity to revise.
• I will announce the deadline for the final draft when I return the first drafts.
• Please write your paper in Microsoft Word, as instructed in the syllabus. (If you did not read the
syllabus, you should.) I do not accept PDF files or other non-Microsoft Word files.
• Format your paper according to the instructions that I posted in Content. There are two
documents in Content that explain how to format your paper.
