Main ideas and thesis sentences are really two sides of the same coin. Writers create thesis sentences. Readers pick out the main idea from what they read, which is usually the thesis sentence of the

Main ideas and thesis sentences are really two sides of the same coin. Writers create thesis sentences. Readers pick out the main idea from what they read, which is usually the thesis sentence of the writer.

• Locate one additional article related to one of this week’s case study topics, other than the one you used in your Discussion
• Determine the main idea of the article
• Complete the Source Quality Rating Document found in the Week 1 resources.
• Craft a thesis sentence and topic outline that could be written in response to the article
• Be sure to provide attribution, using APA formatting, for any sources used
• Create one document that includes:
  • The outline you created
  • Your completed Source Quality Rating document 

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/keyword/social-media

http://www.sciencedaily.com/news/science_society/ethics/

Chris Gilmer

NARRATOR: Why is it important to keep your audience and purpose in mind when writing?

CHRIS GILMER: The first thing that you should think about as you engage in a writing project is who am I writing it for and why am I writing it? If you can't answer those questions, you're not ready to write. You have to go back and do some pre-writing activities. What's the purpose in writing anything if someone is not going to be able to read it and understand it and take from it the message that you mean to imply? The same principle as cooking dinner. Why bother to cook dinner if nobody is going to like what it is that you prepare? So, it's critically important for a writer to keep the audience and the purpose in mind at all times in order for effective communication to take place.

NARRATOR: Please describe the relationship between critical thinking and writing. How does one influence the other?

CHRIS GILMER: I think that critical thinking is the higher order skill. It's when we understand why something happens, not just what it is that is happening. And as we write, it takes on an organic nature in that the writing process comes to life and it sparks creativity in the mind of the person who is writing. And every time we add a sentence, every time we revise the sentence before we think about it in a slightly different way, we hear it in a slightly different voice, we reflect on it from a slightly different perspective. And this causes us to be able to enhance our ability to think critically. So it's kind of a recursive process in which the writing and the critical thinking play back and forth against each other and enrich each other. And because of the two separate processes, the product that can come from them is richer than it would be without either of the processes separately.