A235, History of American Empire

For your writing assignments I have been encouraging you to be mindful of certain baseline elements of analytical writing:  a nuanced and forceful thesis statement, body paragraphs that are clearly organized via topic sentences and concluding sentences, and persuasive evidence throughout your analysis.  But the aim has been not only to sharpen you as a writer, but also as an analyzer and as an editor.

1.  As an analyzer, your task is to break down the logic of a given problem, and to assemble your evidence into those logical elements.  The key technique is outlining your evidence and analysis before you begin any writing, in turn to make the actual writing flow more easily.  So, how have you sharpened your outlining skills before writing?

2.  As an editor, your task is to evaluate the clarity of your main thesis, of the analytical focus of each body paragraph, and of the sufficiency of your evidence.  The key technique is double-checking your thesis, analysis, and evidence after you finish writing a first draft, in order to increase your confidence in your own work.  So, how have you sharpened your editing skills after writing?

3.  In other words, you can essentially evaluate (and grade) your own paper before you submit it.  So, how did writing assignment #3 go this time around — was it an improvement over writing assignments #2 and #1?  In what ways?