A. Decide what you want to write about and what you want to say.  Know your purpose for writing.  What effect do you want to have on your reader?  Do you want to entertain, inform, or persuade?  Or are you writing as in a journal, for your own benefit, to explore your thinking on a topic?  Although your purpose may change in the course of developing your ideas, you should always have a purpose clearly in mind.

B. Develop your ideas in French.  Look at your text materials for ideas and phrasing.

C. In the first draft, write comfortable, simple sentences.  You can combine and elaborate them later in a subsequent draft.

D. Use vocabulary that you have studied and that we have used in class discussions.  You should not have to look for many words in the dictionary.

E. If you do look up a word in the dictionary, look it up in both the French and the English sections.  Check for part of speech and different meanings that may be given.  Beware of slang.

F. Proofread meticulously.  You may use the following suggestions as a checklist for proofreading:

 1. Check the tense of the verb.

 2. Be sure the verb agrees with the subject.

 3. Check the gender of nouns.

 4. Check the modifier.  Should it be an adjective or an adverb?

 5. Be sure that the adjective agrees with the noun it modifies.

 6. Check for contractions. For example, a + le  =  au.

 7. Check for elisians.  For example, le + hôtel  = l'hôtel

 8. Check spelling.  Be careful not to anglicize spelling.  Check accent marks.

 9. Check punctuation.

 10. Check word order, paying special attention to placement of object  pronouns and adjectives.

 11. Check comprehensibility.  Is your meaning clear?

 12. Be sure the purpose of your composition is clear.  You may need to reconsider your introduction or your summary paragraph.

 13. Do you have any questions?  Ask your instructors for help.

Adapted from Testing the Way We Teach, Harper, Lively, and Williams.