On pages 21 through 40, your copy of Process and Practice, Sixth Edition, offers four sample "short essays" for you to use as models and discuss in class.

To give you even more choice, here we offer a fifth model — from the previous edition of your text. In advocating more public transit, to be funded by car drivers, it presents a strongly argumentative case for improving life in the city and in the world as a whole.

Note these features:

• A brief introduction and outline for the first draft (any page numbers given refer to the fifth edition, not your sixth).
• The first draft, with all its original imperfections ranging from spelling errors to shaky organization.
• A brief intro to the second draft.
• The second draft, with all its improvements of content, organization and style. Note how each change from the first draft appears in a box, so you can compare versions at a glance.
• Finally, a paragraph by paragraph rundown on each change between drafts, to give a real-life demonstration of how you can improve your own short essays from draft to draft.

View "The Better Way"