Re-creating Your Argument

You have identified your key information...

Now let us put your paper back together--tenatively.

Bringing your paper back together

Now that you have identified key paragraphs in your original paper, create a new document with just those paragraphs (in order!) in it. You will be doing this step as part of this page's activity ('Presentation Draft'--see below), so you can go ahead and download that document and work out of it so you do not need to create two documents. Give this new document a read-through aloud. It is okay if it feels clunky and poorly put together--you are missing smooth transitions. At this point we are just focusing on the content rather than the finesse.

Once again, time yourself with a stopwatch while reading aloud to see where your new paper is at time-wise. Is it close(r) to your goal? How far off are you? Do you need to cut more or did you cut too much?

Evaluating your new paper

How does your edited paper read? Does your original argument still make sense and have an in-depth example or a series of smaller examples to support it?

Your edited paper should still retain its original argument in this new, paired-down form. If it does not, you may need to revisit the paragraphs you elected to edit or delete entirely in the previous step and add some of those back into your new version. Moreover, if your argument cannot be paired down, it may be an indication that you need to revisit your original argument and make it more concise. A drawn-out argument and methodology will translate poorly to a shorter paper and be difficult to convey to your audience.

Presentation Draft Activity

Using the template provided (via Google Docs*), paste only the paragraphs you categorized as 'keep' in the 'Paragraph Splitting' activity into this new document. You may notice that many of the paragraphs flow poorly into one another where you removed transitions; this is completely okay because this new version of your paper removed the 'fluff' from your original paper.

Once all of the paragraphs are in the new document, read through it again (for a second time) and identify points of particular importance/emphasis or of concern. The activity document gives some suggestions (including places where there are poor or no transitions, key points of your argument, etc.) in its instructions.

Remember, at this point in the process you are still not actually editing the paragraphs themselves.

*Note: make a copy of the document in Googles Docs to edit it yourself.

Presentation Draft

Alt: Working with Generative AI

Remaining in the same conversation thread as you were on the previous page (you do not need to open a new chat window), ask the LLM you are using the following prompt, with necessary highlighted changes:

"Using the table of paragraphs to keep and edit or delete you just generated, generate an updated body of text that includes only the paragraphs categorized under the 'keep' category on the left. Do not include paragraphs categorized under the 'edit/delete' column on the right. Use only the text already provided in the previous-attached document. Do not add any new text. Do not change or alter any text."

Note: LLMs are finicky and some may struggle to distinguish between the paragraphs it (and/or you as the user) elected to keep in the paired-down paper and those it decided to remove. In this case, it is often easiest to manually pull out the 'keep' paragraphs and paste them into your new document.

Sample: Dining Frescoes in the House of the Triclinium, Pompeii, Italy

Below is the completed 'Presentation Draft' for the sample essay based on the 'Paragraph Splitter' activity from the previous page. The sample shows the sections of the paper to be deleted (highlighted in red), along with the sections that are essential to the main argument (highlighted in yellow). Additional comments on the paper have been made to the side.

SAMPLE Presentation Draft

Next page: Stitching Your Paper Together

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