How to Write Exactly What We Mean
In English while composing text some basics need to be considered. The basics, meant primarily for non-literary compositions, are useful for students, teachers, lay writers and anyone who is interested in developing writing skills.
In his essay "Of Studies", Francis Bacon says, "Reading maketh a full man, conference [speaking] a ready man, and writing an exact man." With the knowledge we gather from readings, we are empowered. With good speaking skills, we are ready to communicate, to say things we need and want to say. Often, we may not be exact in saying what we actually mean to say when we open our mouths. There are chances that we will digress, overstate or understate. As Bacon says, in writing we have to strive to be ‘exact’, as it is a much more considered activity than speaking. We have even more of a compulsion to choose just the words that are required. If we don't, we may not be able to appeal to the readers. In this article we present some basics that need to be considered while composing text. The basics, meant primarily for non-literary compositions, are useful for students, teachers, lay writers and anyone who is interested in developing his/her writing skills. We begin with the types of compositions and go on to the mechanics of writing before presenting the ‘writing process’. In the end, I present a sample composition written by a teacher of English.
Types of Compositions
If we can decide what type of composition we want to write, we will be in better position to give it proper shape. Below are some types that we usually need to produce, each type briefly introduced.
Classification
The classification type of writing is one which groups items or subjects into categories on the basis of similarities or characteristics they have in common. This is meant to help the reader understand better. We classify the items or subjects on the basis their characteristics and describe each category.
Journaling
A journal is a record of what we did or what happened to us, and it can kept daily. Journal writing serves several purposes, all of which are very important. It helps us work through our emotions, makes the words flow more freely, helps us in our communication with others, helps us remember past events, and (in the case of students) makes class notes clearer. Thus, journal writing helps us improve we writing and thinking skills in various ways.
Cause and Effect
Cause and effect writing helps a reader understand the relationships between events and what they lead to. A cause is something that makes something else happen; an effect is the thing that happens. ‘Cause and effect’ writings identify the actions (cause) that bring about certain condition (effect). The purpose of such essays is to explain either the reason why something happens, or what happens.
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The Geography of an English Classroom
You can tell a lot about students in a classroom before they open their mouths or put pen to paper. You can tell a lot about what kind of student they are according to where they have chosen to sit in a classroom (assuming they're allowed to sit where they want). I know this from personal experience. When I was in college, my favorite perch was always well to the back of the classroom — not necessarily in the Back Row, because I thought that was reserved for true, inveterate slackers, but just in front of the Back Row. It was part of my scheme to get through four years of college without ever being called on in class. I had other devices - pretending to be scribbling notes furiously in my notebook or looking up something in my book (Profs won't bother you if they think you're taking notes on their precious words), pretending to be suffering from a nasty cold - but none more effective over the long haul of a semester than simply choosing my seat carefully.
How I loathed the students in Front Row, especially Bob Engstrom! He always raised his hand to ask and answer questions. That was bad enough, but all class long he bobbed his head up and down in agreement with everything the professor said. I wanted to throw spitballs at the back of that bobbing head. I would have whacked that head with my copy of Bleak House if it weren't so far in front of me. I continue to associate everyone in Front Row with the back of Bob Engstrom's head.
Later on - irony of ironies - I became a college instructor who depended greatly on students' willingness to participate in class discussion. I can confirm that what I learned earlier from the back of the classroom is true. Front Rows are students who want to appear more interested in what's going on in the class; they interact more often and more expertly with the instructor, and they get better grades. Back Seats are either too shy or unwilling to engage in the life of the class; they get lower grades. I have no statistical analysis to back this up, but I'd bet a new eraser on it.
The geography of the classroom is divided into additional segments. Actually, I've found that Back Seats are not necessarily the best seats for avoiding the eye of the questioning professor. A professor who stands in front of his class might well look over Front Seats and look Back Seats right in the eye. This is bad for Back Seats because the professor knows why they're sitting there and will overlook the waving arms of Front Seats to get at the squirming, coughing victims of Back Seatdom. For this very reason, SIDE SEATS are often the safest. Not only are they more comfortable — year after year students have been leaning their sleepy heads against the walls until there is a nice groove worn in the plaster — but the instructor needs stereoscopic vision to catch them. Thus, if they do fall asleep, Side Seats are far less apt to fall onto the floor because they enjoy the support of the wall, but they are also never in the direct gaze of the instructor. Surprising point of fact: the very best seat for avoiding the instructor's questions might very well be the FIRST ROW, SIDE SEAT (either side, perhaps depending on whether the instructor is left- or right-handed or blind in one eye).
The largest segment of classroom geography, of course, is the area of CENTER SEATS, that circle of seats in the middle of the classroom, not front or back or off to the sides. Here you find the good friendly citizens of academia. They haven't really made a commitment to being an academic star, nor are they willing, quite yet, to write you off and fall asleep on you. The students of Center Seats deserve the benefit of the doubt, always; they will get B's and C's, and frequently there will be a pleasant surprise sitting among them — perhaps they came to class late and couldn't find a seat in the front or they just wanted to be disguised for some reason.
Of course you will find deviations from this geography. Every once in a while, an academic superstar will sit in Back Row. Be assured she will be treated as an alien by her nearby classmates, and rightfully so. And, as a young teacher, in my very first literature class at the University of Connecticut, I was dumbfounded by a student who insisted on sitting in the very Front Row Center and yet fell profoundly asleep every class. It couldn't have been my fault; the others in Front Row were predictably alert. But fifteen minutes into the class this student's head would begin the old bob-and-weave and snap-to-attention and soon he would all but snore and drool. I was hypnotized by his drooping eyes and the class began to pay more attention to his weaving head than to my scintillating lecture. I should have taken up a collection to buy him a cup of coffee. It couldn't have been my fault, after all. He just didn't understand where he belonged in the geography of the classroom.
ma Ersatz
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Narration
Narration is story-telling, or the presentation of a series of real or fictional events in a chronological sequence. All narratives contain characters, setting, and plot. When we write a narrative, we usually answer the question: What happened? Our narrating should have a beginning, a middle and an end.
Personal narrative
Personal narrative is an account of an experience of a person written by the person who has experienced it. It introduces the incident, including the persons and places involved, making the significance of the event clear. It tells the outcome or the results of the event and presents the writer's feelings about the experience.
Expository Writing
Expository writing, or exposition, informs or explains to the reader by presenting facts and ideas in direct and concise language. Such writings attempt to explain what its subject is, how it works or perhaps how it is related to something else. Expository writing answers questions such as these: What is it? What does it mean? How does it work? How is it related to other things? Why did it happen?
Process description
Sometimes we are asked to explain how something is done or how to do something. How well we express ourselves will depend on how clearly we can sort out the steps of a process or procedure and present them in a clear, logical way. The reader must be able to understand the information clearly and follow the directions precisely. Thus, process involves explaining how something should be done or how something happens, e.g. how to prepare a meal or how to make a cup of tea. A process essay has to be structured in chronological order.
Biography
A biography is a description of someone's life story which tends to include work experience and significant events. We also discuss the character of the person. Usually, a biography is in chronological order from birth and childhood to the elderly stage.
Description
Description tells a reader how something looks, acts, sounds, feels, smells, or tastes. An effectively written description is one that presents a clear picture of something in real life to the reader. The writer creates an image of something by using words that appeal to the five senses. Good description involves using our senses to observe, selecting precise details, and organising ideas properly.
Mechanics of Writing
We systematise our writing by using different mechanics of writing. The punctuation signs are major components of the mechanics. We need to give careful attention to when to use them. The signs include the following:
a. The full stop or the period [.]
b. The exclamation point [!]
c. The question mark [?]
d. The comma [,]
e. The apostrophe [']
f. The quotation marks [" "]
g. The dash [–]
h. The hyphen [-]
i. The parentheses ( )
j. The semi-colon [;]
k. The Colon [:]
Together with punctuation, we also use the capitalisation, italics, and bold appropriately, especially if we happen to be typing on a computer rather than writing in long hand. If we use computers or typewriters, we also use these aids to format our writing. In that case, the alignments, line and paragraph spacing and the font selection also determine the quality and the style of writing.
Steps of Writing
Someone once gave this advice to writers, "Begin at the beginning, and go on until you come to the end, and then stop." This may sound obvious and funny but this is exactly what we need to do most of the time when we take up the pen to write. In order to know how to start and how to end, we need to know how we go about writing the composition. If we do not follow a systematic process, we may end up with an unacceptable product. This can also cause frustration as many a times we may not know what to do next. So if we follow the steps below, we will know where we are at and can decide what to do.
Step 1 Brainstorming
Brainstorming is writing down words or phrases about a topic as they occur to us spontaneously. This activity can be done individually or in a group. We should start with a key word or idea, and then list other ideas as they occur to us. Once we have brainstormed, we need to evaluate the list for its relevance.
Step 2 Clustering
Clustering is a technique of generating and organising ideas. It highlights relationship between and among ideas. We should begin clustering by naming the topic in the middle of the page, circling it and drawing lines from the circle to other ideas as they occur to you. Then we should look for relationships between those ideas.
Step 3 Collecting information
We can collect information about our topic by writing a list of questions about our topic. Then we can seek the answers to those questions through personal responses to those questions, through library research, through interviews, and through internet search where possible.
Step 4 Organising
After we have gone through these stages of pre-writing, we should organise those ideas into a working outline that should include a main idea and supporting ideas.
Step 5 Drafting
Writing a draft means organising the facts and details we have gathered into paragraphs on the page or computer screen. Each paragraph must deal with one idea. The main idea should be stated in a ‘topic sentence’, and it must be stated supported by details that explain and clarify it. [IS THERE A MAIN IDEA PER PAGE OR IS THERE AN IDEA PER PARA?]
Step 6 Revising and editing
The word revision comes form re-vision, which means “seeing again”. We should revise our writing to make sure that it is clear and well-organised. During the revision stage, we check our writing to improve our paragraphs, to check the content and structures make sure that the language used is appropriate, to check coherence and style, and to ensure that a paragraph flows into or is connected with the one following it.
In the revising and editing stage we need to be careful about our spelling, punctuation, capitalisation and grammar. It is during this stage that we finally proofread our writing to make sure that we have spelled all words properly, that the punctuation and grammar is correct.
Step 7 Writing the final draft
After going through the above stages, we have readied our manuscript, which we can call the final draft. This is the text that is then submitted, either to the teacher in class, or the editor if the piece has been written for, say, a magazine. Below is a sample of classification prepared by a teacher of English.
(Broderick, J.P. (1982) The Able Writer: Rhetoric and Handbook. London: Harper and Row. The essay is retrieved from http://grammar.ccc.comment.edu/grammar/composition/classif ication/htm retrieved on 01 september 2009.
This article is coordinated by NELTA.
