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MAP

Mapping your essay is simply a different approach to conceiving of the flow and effect of your writing. Many people use purely visual means to map their essays, but most find the combination of image and text effective.

Two great analogies for how you might map out your text:

Fantasy adventure: Everybody loves the detailed maps at the beginning of a thick fantasy book like the Lord of the Rings. Most of these maps have some implied or definite "beginning point" and end point. How are they going to get from Beg-End to Mordor?

The question you ask yourself is this: how am I going to get my reader from the beginning of my essay to the end, at which point they will agree with me or at least accept my ideas a interesting or valid.

Make the map: Choose a starting point and a finish point. Define the journey in between by representing on paper all the things your reader will have to experience, discover, or know in order to reach the end. Who will be their allies on the journey --which authors, books, and concepts do you need them to hear about? Who are their enemies --what dark, evil writers, thoughts, or beliefs might keep them from believing in you? Will their journey be straight ahead without stop? Or will it wind around all over the map? Is the journey one way? Or does the reader travel far away only to return to where they started, but changed, smarter?

The other analgy...

The Board Game: Everybody loves board games! In most board games there is a path to a destination, things that help you on your way, things that slow you down. Use the conventions of a board game to imagine your reader's experience of your ideas and what will help them to get to the end safely and with the most points. Consider the "context" of the game. Is the reader moving through a forest, an ocean? When do you want the reader to feel sad, expectant, happy, angry, challenged, informed.

	OUTLINE Outlining your ideas: 1. Begin by sketching out your thesis analysis in short. see Writing guide p.30 and 34 2. Determine the general order of things, for instance: Paragraph 1: INTRO (story about chipmunks) P 2: Problems with chipmunk poaching P 3: My Solution (thesis) P 4: Neighborhood watch (feasability, history of, examples of effectiveness... problems with... solution to these problems, except the lack of arms. P 5: Small arms for neighborhood groups (non-lethal poacher-traps, semi-automatic weapons, + the best option--sniper rifles on every block P 6: A different, complementary approach: chipmunk registration programs w/ gps monitoring. Examples: Calcutta, Boise P 7: The poacher's position P 8: The moral, ethical, and ecological problems and contradictions in the poacher's beliefs and practices. P 9: The consumer: buying non-chipmunk-based products and servcies. P 10: a happy ending. Orphaned chipmunk learns to live in the wild, feels safe to go out at night again.		MAP Mapping your essay is simply a different approach to conceiving of the flow and effect of your writing. Many people use purely visual means to map their essays, but most find the combination of image and text effective. Two great analogies for how you might map out your text: Fantasy adventure: Everybody loves the detailed maps at the beginning of a thick fantasy book like the Lord of the Rings. Most of these maps have some implied or definite "beginning point" and end point. How are they going to get from Beg-End to Mordor? The question you ask yourself is this: how am I going to get my reader from the beginning of my essay to the end, at which point they will agree with me or at least accept my ideas a interesting or valid. Make the map: Choose a starting point and a finish point. Define the journey in between by representing on paper all the things your reader will have to experience, discover, or know in order to reach the end. Who will be their allies on the journey --which authors, books, and concepts do you need them to hear about? Who are their enemies --what dark, evil writers, thoughts, or beliefs might keep them from believing in you? Will their journey be straight ahead without stop? Or will it wind around all over the map? Is the journey one way? Or does the reader travel far away only to return to where they started, but changed, smarter? The other analgy... The Board Game: Everybody loves board games! In most board games there is a path to a destination, things that help you on your way, things that slow you down. Use the conventions of a board game to imagine your reader's experience of your ideas and what will help them to get to the end safely and with the most points. Consider the "context" of the game. Is the reader moving through a forest, an ocean? When do you want the reader to feel sad, expectant, happy, angry, challenged, informed.