Six Stages of the Essay Writing Process - 2

Stage Two: Choosing Ideas

This step is about having a look at all the ideas we’ve got and assessing them. This is where we start to discriminate between the ideas we definitely can’t use, and ones that have some potential. To do that, we need to remind ourselves what our writing job is trying to do. The purpose of imaginative writing, you’ll remember, is to ‘entertain’, so for choosing an idea the test will be: can the idea be made ‘entertaining’? The answer will be yes if the idea could engage a reader’s feelings, let the reader see or hear something, or make a reader want to know what happened next.

The purpose of an essay is to persuade or inform or both, so the test we’ll use will be: can this idea be used as part of an argument, or as information about the topic? The answer will be yes if the idea would give the reader facts about the subject, a general concept about it, or an opinion about it, or if the idea could be used as supporting material or evidence. Once you’ve chosen the ideas you think you can use, two things will happen:

• You’ll get a sense of the shape your piece might take—what it could be about.
• You’ll see where there are gaps—where you need to think up a few more ideas.

You might be thinking: ‘Why didn’t we just gather useful ideas in the first place?’ The reason is that useful ideas and useless ideas often come together in the same bundle. If you never let the useless ideas in, you’ll miss some of the useful ones too.

So, the purpose of an essay is to persuade or inform or both. That means engaging the readers’ thoughts rather than their feelings. They might get some information from your essay or they might see information arranged to illustrate a general concept. Or they might be persuaded of a particular point of view about the topic. In this case the point of view will be supported by examples and other kinds of evidence. For an essay, then, we’ll apply three basic tests to all our ideas. At this stage you probably don’t know exactly what arguments or points your essay is going to make. That’s okay, you don’t have to know that yet. Going through the ideas you have (the ones you collected in Stage One) and applying these tests will help you clarify that:

1. The information test

• Does this idea provide any facts about the subject (for example, a definition, a date, a statistic or background information)?
• Ask yourself:

• Could I use this to clarify the terms of the assignment (a definition, explanation of words)?
• Could I use this to clarify the limitations of the assignment (narrowing it to a particular aspect)?
• Could I use this as a fact (a date, a name, a statistic)?
• Could I use this as general background information (historical overview, background information, some sort of ‘the story so far . . .’)?

If the answer to any of these is yes, choose it.

2. The concept test

• Could I use this to put forward a general concept about a subject (an opinion, a general truth or a summary)?
• Could I use this as part of a theory or an opinion about the subject (either my own or someone else’s)?
• Ask yourself:
• 
  

Could I use this as part of a general concept about the subject (a general truth or broad idea)?

Is this an opinion about the subject (either my own or someone else’s)?

Could I use this as part of a theory about the subject?

If the answer to any of these is yes, choose it.

3. The evidence test

• Could I use this to support any information I present?
• Could I use this to support an opinion (point of view) or theory about the subject?
• Is it a concrete example of the idea I’m putting forward?
• Is it a quote from an authority on the subject, or some other kind of supporting material?
• Ask yourself:
• 
  

Could I use this as an example of something to do with the assignment?

Could I use this to support any idea or point of view about the assignment?

Is this a quote from an authority or an established fact, or any kind of specific case in point?

If the answer to any of these is yes, choose it.

What if this isn’t working?

Ask yourself:

• Am I stuck because I’m not sure exactly what points I’ll make in my essay?

• (Solution: you don’t have to know that yet. Just choose anything that seems relevant to the assignment. Once you’ve chosen your ideas, then you can work out exactly how to use them.)

• Am I setting my standards for choosing unrealistically high?

• (Solution: lower them, just to get yourself started—even Einstein had to start somewhere.)

• Am I trying to find things that could be used just as they are?

• (Solution: recognise that these early ideas might have to be changed before you can use them.)

• Am I disappointed not to be choosing more ideas?

• (Solution: even if you only choose a couple of ideas from your list, that’s okay. You can build on them.)

Repeat this process with the other things you did in Stage One

• the cluster diagram;
• the research;
• the freewriting.


Previously…
Stage One: Getting Ideas

To Follow…
Stage Three: Outlining
Stage Four: Drafting
Stage Five: Revising
Stage Six: Editing

Six Stages of the Essay Writing Process - 1

Stage One: Getting ideas

For an essay, your aim is to persuade or inform your readers about the topic, so you want to end up with ideas that will persuade or inform. Where do you start? Should you find out about the topic by doing research first? But how do you know what you need to research? Like so much of writing, it’s a chicken-and egg sort of thing. The thing is not to worry about whether you’ve got a chicken or an egg. You need both and it doesn’t matter which you start with. The place to start is to put down everything you already know or think about the topic. Once you get that in a line, you’ll see where to go next. Don’t worry yet about your theme or your structure. You’re not writing an essay yet—you’re just exploring. The more you explore, the more ideas you’ll get, and the more ideas you have, the better your essay will be.

Making a list

Writing an essay takes several different kinds of skills, but the first one is easy. We can all write a list. Start the list by writing down the most important word or phrase (the key word) from the assignment, then putting down every thought that comes to you about it.

Making a cluster diagram

A cluster diagram is really just another kind of list, but instead of listing straight down the page, you list in clusters around a key word. Think of the spokes of a wheel radiating out from the hub. Something about the physical layout of a cluster diagram often makes it easier for ideas to start flowing. You can jump around from cluster to cluster, adding a thought here and a thought there.

Researching

When you write an essay, you’re usually expected to find out what other people have already thought about the subject. Your own ideas are important too, but they should be built on a foundation of what’s gone before. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Since most essays rely on this kind of foundation, you need to know how to do it properly. I’ll take a moment here to talk about how to research (otherwise known as independent investigation). Research is about getting some hard information on your subject: actual facts, actual figures. The sad thing about research is that usually only a small percentage of it ends up in your final draft. But like the hidden nine-tenths of an iceberg, it’s got to be there to hold up the bit you can see. You often research several times during the writing process. The first time you mightn’t know exactly what you’ll be writing about, so research will be fairly broad-based. As the essay starts to take shape, you’ll have narrowed the topic down. At that stage you might research again to find specific details.

How do you research?

First you have to find your source of information. You might look at books, journals, videos, newspapers, on the Internet, on CD-ROM. You go to reference books like dictionaries and encyclopedias. You might also do your own research: interviewing people, conducting an experiment, doing a survey. In the case of my topic, reading the novels themselves is research (the novels are ‘primary sources’), and so is finding anything that critics or reviewers might have said about them (these are ‘secondary sources’).

A word about acknowledgement

Because you’re piggy-backing on other people’s work, you have to let your reader know that—to give credit where credit is due. You can do this either in the text of the essay, in footnotes or in a list of sources at the end. Once you’ve found your source, you can’t just lift slabs of it and plonk them into your essay. You have to transform the information by putting it into your own words and shaping it for your own purposes. An essential first step in this process is taking notes. If you can summarise a piece of information in a short note, it means you’ve understood it and made it your own. Later, when you write it out in a sentence, it will be your own sentence, organised for your own purposes.

How to take notes

Before you start taking notes, put a heading that tells you exactly what the source is. This means you can find it again quickly if you need to and you can acknowledge it. In the case of a book, you should note the name of the author, the title of the book, the date and place of publication, and the page or chapter number. The call number (the library number on the spine) is also useful. (It’s tempting to skip this step, and I often have. The price is high, though—frustrating hours spent flipping through half-a-dozen books looking for one particular paragraph so you can acknowledge the source of your information or find some more detail.) With the net, make sure to bookmark interesting or relevant pages visited.

• Use the table of contents and the index to go straight to the relevant parts.
• Skim-read to save time once you’ve got to the relevant parts.
• Write down the main words of the idea with just enough connecting words for your note to make sense.
• Put only one point per line.
• Sometimes turning the information into a diagram is the best way to make notes.
• Put your notes under headings so you can see the information in bundles. Often, the research is already organised under headings: you can just copy those.
• If you can’t see how to reduce a big lump of research to a few snappy lines, try the ‘MDE’ trick: find its Main idea, then its Details, then any Examples.
• Develop a shorthand that works for you—shorten words (for example, char. for character), use graphics (for example, sideways arrows to show cause and effect, up and down arrows to show things increasing or decreasing).

The cheat’s note-taking

People often ‘take notes’ by highlighting or underlining the relevant parts of a book or article. This is certainly easier than making your own notes, but it’s not nearly as useful. The moment when you work out how to summarise an idea in your own words is the moment when that idea becomes yours. Just running a highlighter across someone else’s words doesn’t do that—the idea stays in their words, in their brain. It hasn’t been digested by you.

Freewriting

Freewriting is just a fancy word for talking onto the page—a way of thinking aloud about the topic in an unstructured way. It’s like the ‘free association’ exercises that psychologists use: it’s just nonstop writing. The reason freewriting works is that you can let your brain off the leash for a while and send it out to find ideas. Ideas are shy little things and they won’t come if you try to bully them, or if you keep criticising them. The important thing with freewriting is not to stop and think. Just keep the ideas flowing out the end of your pen onto the page. It’s true that your essay needs to be thought-out and planned, and it will be. But this isn’t the essay—this is just another way of getting ideas for the essay. There’s a time to question whether these ideas are useful. But that time isn’t now. Now is the time to invite in any ideas that may happen by.

ERROR IDENTIFICATION #3

What's the wrong with each of the sentences below?

The answers are in the COMMENTS below. Be sure to try to find your own answers before looking at mine!

1. Her parents can have influenced her decision to resign.
2. I was in my office all day. You may have come to see me at any time.
3. We made some research into the state of the Swedish car industry.
4. I'm afraid I did a mistake in the calculation.
5. The fence was collapsed during the storm.
6. Before his lecture Professor Taylor was introduced us.
7. The orchestra was conducted.
8. I'm not able to believe she's 50. She looks much younger than that.
9. After the trees have been cut back, we can see more of the garden from the sitting room.
10. She was bruised quite badly in the accident. It has got to still hurt a lot.
11. When I went to school we must learn Latin.
12. He didn't cook the dish himself so you mustn't eat it all. He won't be offended.
13. You needn't a special pass to get in.
14. 'Can I use the computer?' 'Of course you could'
15. He should like some milk, please.
16. He appeared having trouble with his car.
17. The police got suspicious of two men looking into all the cars.
18. He would have a distinction in the exam, but he answered question two badly.
19. It's not worth having the trouble to write to him. He never replies.
20. Oh dear! Yogya is the cpaital of Indonesia? You couldn't be wronger!

Don't give in too easily. Don't check the answer as soon as your brain starts hurting. Figure it out for yourself.

Supplementary Reading

Writing Strategy and Style

Purpose, the end you are aiming at, determines strategy and style. Strategy involves choice—selecting particular aspects of a topic to develop, deciding how to organize them, choosing this word rather than that, constructing various types of sentences, building paragraphs. Style is the result of strategy, the language that makes the strategy work.

Think of purpose, strategy, and style in terms of increasing abstractness. Style is immediate and obvious. It exists in the writing itself; it is the sum of the actual words, sentences, paragraphs. Strategy is more abstract, felt beneath the words as the immediate ends they serve. Purpose is even deeper, supporting strategy and involving not only what you write about but how you affect readers.

A brief example will clarify these overlapping concepts. It was written by a college student in a fifteen-minute classroom exercise. The several topics from which the students could choose were stated broadly—"marriage," "parents," "teachers," and so on—so that each writer had to think about restricting and organizing his or her composition. This student chose "marriage":

Why get married? Or if you are modern, why live together? Answer: Insecurity. "Man needs woman; woman needs man." However, this cliche fails to explain need. How do you need someone of the opposite sex? Sexually is an insufficient explanation. Other animals do not stay with a mate for more than one season; some not even that long. Companionship, although a better answer, is also an incomplete explanation. We all have several friends. Why make one friend so significant that he at least partially excludes the others? Because we want to "join our lives." But this desire for joining is far from "romantic"—it is selfish. We want someone to share our lives in order that we do not have to endure hardships alone. [125 words]

The writer's purpose is not so much to tell us of what she thinks about marriage as to convince us that what she thinks is true. Her purpose, then, is persuasive, and it leads to particular strategies both of organization and of sentence style. Her organization is a refinement of a conventional question/ answer strategy: a basic question ("Why get married?"); an initial, inadequate answer ("Insecurity"); a more precise question ("How do we need someone?"); a partial answer ("sex"); then a second partial answer ("companionship"); a final, more precise question ("Why make one friend so significant?"); and a concluding answer ("so that we do not have to endure hardships alone").

The persuasive purpose is also reflected in the writer's strategy of short emphatic sentences. They are convincing, and they establish an appropriate informal relationship with readers.

Finally, the student's purpose determines her strategy in approaching the subject and in presenting herself. About the topic, the writer is serious without becoming pompous. As for herself, she adopts an impersonal point of view, avoiding such expressions as "I think" or "it seems to me." On another occasion they might suggest a pleasing modesty; here they would weaken the force of her argument.

These strategies are effectively realized in the style: in the clear rhetorical questions, each immediately followed by a straightforward answer; and in the short uncomplicated sentences, echoing speech. (There are even two sentences that are grammatically incomplete—"Answer: Insecurity" and "Because we want to 'join our lives.' ") At the same time the sentences are sufficiently varied to achieve a strategy fundamental to all good prose—to get and hold the reader's attention.

Remember several things about strategy. First, it is many-sided. Any piece of prose displays not one but numerous strategies—of organization, of sentence structure, of word choice, of point of view, of tone. In effective writing these reinforce one another.

Second, no absolute one-to-one correspondence exists between strategy and purpose. A specific strategy may be adapted to various purposes. The question/answer mode of organizing, for example, is not confined to persuasion: it is often used in informative writing. Furthermore, a particular purpose may be served by different strategies. In our example the student's organization was not the only one possible. Another writer might have organized using a "list" strategy:

People get married for a variety of reasons. First. . . Second . . . Third . . . Finally . . .

Still another might have used a personal point of view, or taken a less serious approach, or assumed a more formal relationship with the reader.

Style

In its broadest sense "style" is the total of all the choices a writer makes concerning words and their arrangements. In this sense style may be good or bad—good if the choices are appropriate to the writer's purpose, bad if they are not. More narrowly, "style" has a positive, approving sense, as when we say that someone has "style" or praise a writer for his or her "style." More narrowly yet, the word may also designate a particular way of writing, unique to a person or characteristic of a group or profession: "Hemingway's style," "an academic style."

Here we use style to mean something between those extremes. It will be a positive term, and while we speak of errors in style, we don't speak of "bad styles." On the other hand, we understand "style" to include many ways of writing, each appropriate for some purposes, less so for others. There is no one style, some ideal manner of writing at which all of us should aim. Style is flexible, capable of almost endless variation. But one thing style is not: it is not a superficial fanciness brushed over the basic ideas. Rather than the gilding, style is the deep essence of writing.

VOCABULARY BUILDING - Module 4

4. 1

1. impressed, 2. distributed, 3. analogy,
4. energy, 5. perpendicular, 6. speculate,
7. text, 8. administer, 9. rejected,
10. spontaneous, 11. assembled,
12. intervene

4. 2

1. sphere, 2. psychology, 3. investigate,
4. axis, 5. appraises, 6. symbols,
7. heredity, 8. discourse, 9. acquire,
10. tentative, 11. emotion

4. 3

1. d, 2. k, 3. e, 4. a,
5. l, 6. j, 7. f, 8. b, 9. i,
10. c, 11. g, 12. h

4. 4

1. alleged, 2. ceased, 3. elaborate, 4. alter,
5. fragment, 6. philosophy, 7. upsurge,
8 subsided,9. induced, 10. reservoir,
11. litigation

4. 5

1. superimpose, 2. atoms, 3. revolt, 4. attributed to,
5. research, 6. project, 7. internal, 8. eliminated,
9. logic, 10. goal, 11. integrate, 12. constitute

4. 6

1. flatly contradicted, 2. atom bombs,
3. high proportion, 4. Western culture,
5. judicial system,
6. dedicated his life, 7. dense fog,
8. embodies the principle, 9. mobile phones,
10. military service

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Reading Material

E-communication and society

A cyber-house divided

Online as much as in the real world, people bunch together in mutually suspicious groups—and in both realms, peacemaking is an uphill struggle

Sep 2nd 2010 | washington, dc

IN 2007 Danah Boyd heard a white American teenager describe MySpace, the social network, as “like ghetto or whatever”. At the time, Facebook was stealing members from MySpace, but most people thought it was just a fad: teenagers tired of networks, the theory went, just as they tired of shoes.

But after hearing that youngster, Ms Boyd, a social-media researcher at Microsoft Research New England, felt that something more than whimsy might be at work. “Ghetto” in American speech suggests poor, unsophisticated and black. That led to her sad conclusion: in their online life, American teenagers were recreating what they knew from the physical world—separation by class and race.

A generation of digital activists had hoped that the web would connect groups separated in the real world. The internet was supposed to transcend colour, social identity and national borders. But research suggests that the internet is not so radical. People are online what they are offline: divided, and slow to build bridges.

This summer Ms Boyd heard from a scholar in Brazil who, after reading her research, saw a parallel. Almost 80% of internet users in Brazil use Orkut, a social network owned by Google. As internet use rises in Brazil and reaches new social groups, better-off Brazilians are leaving Orkut for Facebook. That is partly because they have more friends abroad (with whom they link via Facebook) and partly snobbishness. Posh Brazilians have a new word: orkutificação, or becoming “orkutised”. A place undergoing orkutificação is full of strangers, open to anyone. Brazilians are now the second biggest users of the micro-blogging site Twitter; but some wonder whether the dreaded o-word awaits that neighbourhood too.

Facebook’s architecture makes it easy for groups to remain closed. For example, it suggests new friends using an algorithm that looks at existing ones. But simpler, more open networks also permit self-segregation. On Twitter, members can choose to “follow” anyone they like, and can form groups by embedding words and shortened phrases known as “hashtags” in their messages. In May Martin Wattenberg and Fernanda Viégas, who research the display of social information, looked at the ten most popular hashtags on Twitter and discovered that most were used almost exclusively by either black or white authors. The hashtag “#cookout” was almost entirely black; the hashtag “#oilspill” almost entirely white.

With ideology, the pair’s findings were a bit more hopeful; liberals and conservatives at least communicate—by trading taunts. They do so by appropriating hashtags so as to surface in each others’ searches. By now, only one keyword in American political discourse remains unaffected by such games of tag: #NPR, or National Public Radio, used only by liberals.

All this argues for a cautious response to claims that e-communications abate conflict by bringing mutually suspicious people together. Facebook has a site called “Peace on Facebook,” where it describes how it can “decrease world conflict” by letting people from different backgrounds connect. (The optimism is catching; this spring a founder of Twitter described his service as “a triumph of humanity”.)

Peace on Facebook keeps a ticker of friend connections made each day between people from rival places. Israelis and Palestinians, the site claims, made about 15,000 connections on July 25th, the most recent available day. That is hard to put in context; Facebook does not make public the total number of friendships in any country. But Ethan Zuckerman, a blogger and activist, used independent data to estimate that these links represent roughly 1-2% of the combined total of friendships on Israeli and Palestinian accounts. Using the same method for Greece and Turkey, his estimate was 0.1%. That understates the role of Greek-Turkish friendship groups, or groups dedicated to music or films that both countries like. Among, say, people from either country who are studying outside their homeland (and have a better-than-average chance of becoming decision-makers), the share of trans-Aegean links would be far higher. And their mere existence sends an important moral signal.

But Mr Zuckerman frets that the internet really serves to boost ties within countries, not between them. Using data from Google, he looked at the top 50 news sites in 30 countries. Almost every country reads all but 5% of its news from domestic sources. Mr Zuckerman believes that goods and services still travel much farther than ideas, and that the internet allows us to be “imaginary cosmopolitans”.

Peace on Facebook offers data for India and Pakistan, too. That is even harder to put in context. Pakistan has banned Facebook in the past, and offers too few users to qualify even for independent estimates. John Kelly, founder of Morningside Analytics, a firm that analyses social networks, examined links between blogs and twitter accounts in India and Pakistan and discovered two hubs that link the two countries. South Asian expats in London who self-identify as “Desis”—people from the sub-continent—link freely to each other and to their home countries. And cricket fans in both countries link up spontaneously.

Mr Kelly believes that clusters of internet activity, when they do cross national borders, flow from pre-existing identities. Ethnic Baloch bloggers in three different countries link mainly to each other. Blogs in Afghanistan show some ties to NGOs and American service members, but a far greater number to Iranian news services and poetry blogs. That reflects old reality, not some new discovery. There is also some hope in Morningside’s data. Four websites most consistently account for links between countries: YouTube, Wikipedia, the BBC and, a distant fourth, Global Voices Online. The last of these, launched at Harvard University in 2005 and mainly funded by American foundations, works to create links between bloggers in different countries, and to find what it calls “bridge bloggers”: expats and cultural translators, like London’s Desis, who help explain their countries to each other. (This newspaper has a loose editorial collaboration with the site.)

Onnik Krikorian, Global Voices’ editor in Central Asia, is a British citizen with an Armenian name. He couldn’t go to Azerbaijan and had difficulty establishing any online contact with the country until he went to a conference in Tbilisi in 2008 and met four Azeri bloggers. They gave him their cards, and he found them on Facebook. To his surprise, they agreed to be his friends. Mr Krikorian has since found Facebook to be an ideal platform to build ties. Those first four contacts made it easier for other Azeris to link up with him.

But the internet is not magic; it is a tool. Anyone who wants to use it to bring nations closer together has to show initiative, and be ready to travel physically as well as virtually. As with the telegraph before it—also hailed as a tool of peace—the internet does nothing on its own.

The Economist - 2nd September 2010

Session 4 - Task

What kind of writer are you?

Tawachai: For years I was confused about my writing because I simply could not carry out my teachers’ instructions to ‘make a plan’ and they were always telling me that my essays should ‘be more organized’. I found it very difficult to make an outline and then stick to it. My mind didn’t seem to work that way. I always had to start writing and sometimes write quite a lot before I knew where I might be going. That meant I had to cut and do different drafts. Sometimes I would find that I had to start writing one section even if it was in the middle of the assignment, and then build up the whole thing slowly, in bits. In the end it worked out and now I seem to have found my own mix of a method.

Winnie: When I write I try to get down some headings that seem to relate to the question. At least they give me an idea of what topics and divisions my writing will have. But I am not yet sure exactly if I have an argument. I start to write what I can under these headings and as I go I am trying to find a way of making these fit together. When I have got my first draft like this I will go back and put in bits that will show the links between the different parts. I may have to move around some material. Sometimes I have to cut out quite a lot because now that I am much clearer about my argument, I realize that not everything I thought was interesting is actually relevant or important. I still have to work out what exactly I have to leave out, add, or move around but gradually I fit the bits together.

Rosemary: I spend a great deal of time reading and making notes – I try to absorb it all thoroughly. I have to read much more than I need. Then I think about it a lot. I can think as I’m doing other things. Finally, I just sit down and write it out in longhand and it’s as though it has all come together in my inner mind. Sometimes I add an introduction once I have finished and I will read the whole assignment through, but really I have never found I could write down a plan and my work hardly ever needs redrafting.

Deborah: First I wrote down some notes – ideas for headings. I used the space of a whole page so that I could space out my ideas in a diagram-like fashion. Sometimes I had a column on one side to note down ideas that I might use later on or for jobs I would need to do before I could begin writing the assignment. I kept this list to one side so that I could add to it as I was trying to develop my central overarching idea on the main part of the page. When I had finished I had some notes which all related to this ‘central idea’ so that I had an outline for the whole piece. Sometimes I like to use visual diagrams for my planning. I think and plan before I even begin to think about starting to write.

The diver writer

Tawachai just plunges in to her work. She always finds that she has to do some writing before she knows what she wants to say and in order to find out. She might use practice writing for this purpose. Only then can she begin to build up a plan. If she were the child building her house with bricks she would get started and see what kind of building emerged from how she moved around the bricks. She would start to ‘just build’ her house.

The patchwork writer

Winnie writes sections at an early stage, which she then has to fit together to make the whole assignment, adding links as she goes. If she were the child building a house of bricks she might make a series of different ‘rooms’ which she would then need to join together to make up the whole house.

The grand plan writer

Rosemary is a writer who doesn’t seem to make an outline at all: she has a ‘grand plan’ in her ‘inner mind’. In fact, she must have a structure in her mind before she begins to write but she can’t quite say what it is until she writes it down. Then it comes out nearly complete. The child builder with a grand plan would have a clear picture in her mind of the house she was going to build before she began and would build quickly without getting diverted.

The architect writer

Deborah has a sense of design in her writing. She would not find it too difficult to produce a complex plan. Writers who find it easy to put their thoughts in the form of a spider diagram or mind map are this kind of writer. They have a sense of a broad structure almost before they know what content will go into it, whereas other writers have to know what they have to say before they can make a plan. The ‘architect’ child building a brick house might start with an outer structure for her building, which she would then fill in to make all her rooms.

Things to think about

1. What do you think might be the advantages and disadvantages of these different ways of organizing writing?
2. Which way of planning and shaping is most like your own approach?
3. How do you think your way may be different from any of these?

In practice, you may, of course, vary your approach for different purposes and for different kinds of assignment. As with all aspects of writing, it is a good idea to be aware of different methods and to try them out.


Taken from “Writing at University: A Guide for Students” by Phyllis Creme and Mary R. Lea. Open University Press (2008)

So, now your task is to answer the question: What kind of writer are you?

One paragraph - using the COMMENTS feature below.

VOCABULARY BUILDING – Module 3

3. 1
1. norm, 2. discrete,
3. co-ordinate, 4. geography,
5. sources, 6. preposition,
7. estimates, 8. underlying,
9. rational, 10. pole,
11. scheme, 12. task

3. 2
1. deficient, 2. plot,
3. transition, 4. appropriate,
5. proprietor, 6. communes,
7. convened, 8. satellites,
9. issue, 10. deviate,
11. factor, 12. abandoned

3. 3

1.c, 2. j, 3. f, 4. d,
5. l, 6. g, 7. e, 8. k,
9. i, 10. h, 11. b, 12.

3. 4

1. dispose of, 2. chemicals,
3. credible, 4. rely on,
5. adequate, 6. consume,
7. accomplished, 8. occupied,
9. exerts, 10. manifested,
11. conduct, 12. areas

3. 5

1. adjust, 2. superficial,
3. maximum, 4. circumstances,
5. revealed, 6. image, 7. drama, 8. motive, 9. orientate,
10. explicit, 11. contaminated,
12. contact, 13. appreciate

3. 6

1. labour shortage
2. dynamic personality
3. physical exercise
4. power and prestige
5. final decision
6. classic example
7. previous experience
8. Positive aspects
9. outspoken critic
10. common feature
11. computer network
12. global economy

Reading Material - Pen and Computer

You can write only with your brain; but whether to process your thoughts with a computer or pen and paper is your first practical choice as a writer. I suppose it is still possible to ignore the computer and write just with pencil and paper. A surprising number of writers, including Martin Amis, A. S. Byatt, Ted Hughes, John Irving, Joyce Carol Oates, Susan Sontag, John Updike, and Edmund White prefer longhand for serious writing. But the advantages of the computer are so great that it seems almost irresponsible to pass them up. A computer greatly accelerates editing procedures, allowing you to take a piece through far more drafts than you could otherwise. On-screen correction is so easy that people of all ages find the process relaxing, even pleasurable. Computers give a sense of freedom from lasting error that no one who has experienced it will want to give up. I shall never forget the excitement I felt, twenty-five years ago, when I discovered that words had ceased to be indelible. So in this book I shall take for granted that you will probably use a computer for some, if not all, the processes of writing.

Many people use a computer throughout, and never feel the need to print out hard copy. Mathematicians, in particular, produce papers and even books entirely onscreen. In principle, it is possible to write and publish electronically, without ever lifting pen or pencil. For some, however, especially those engaged in literary work, this may not always be the way to get the most out of the computer.

Computers of the present generation have certain limitations, arising from the screen display, which for some people tend to complicate the process of writing long pieces. Even with the best flat-screen monitor you can’t comfortably read long texts. And you can’t actively browse with any clear sense of where you are in the text.

Good writing depends on extensive reading, not only previous reading of other works but also frequent scans of your own piece, the one you’re working on. Yet if it runs to any considerable length, uninterrupted reading on-screen is difficult. A monitor’s field of view is necessarily local, limited to about 150 words—much less than a printed page. This is fine for drafting a postcard; but not for extensive reading or browsing. To scroll through successive screenfuls is hardly an adequate substitute: it is too fragmentary and remote from ordinary reading. In active browsing you need to be able to skim or read a page or two here, check the index there, and jump back or forward at will, always aware of structure and proportion, always aware of each passage’s relation to the text as a whole.

Working by the screenful can have the unfortunate consequence of smoothing your writing prematurely. For onscreen correction is so easy that the grammar and word choices gel too soon, without enough consideration being given to the overall sequence or the underlying structure. Decisions about the piece as a whole may tend to be passed over, so that the end result is polished enough, but boring: flat, shapeless, even garrulous.

Some have gone so far as to argue that the fluency and facility of composing on-screen are positively bad for writing, since they make you forget the reader’s experience of your piece. The beautiful screen is supposed to delude us into a false consciousness, flattering us with the illusion that technical procedures (correction of typos, format changes, boilerplate insertions, rearrangement of phrases, and the like) can do it all by magic. You cast wonderful spells, but find they are somehow not enough. But the evidence for all this (cited by Edward Mendelson in a 1990 Academic Computing article) is no longer thought compelling. In any case, the remedy is a very simple one: any limitation you feel in the computer’s display can be overcome by printing out hard copy. I shall assume, in fact, that you will work from printouts whenever you find it more convenient to do so.

Composing on-screen, revising as you go, is obviously fine for short letters, emails, and routine reports. But many people find that anything longer than 250 words or so—and certainly any competitive or ambitious piece that needs much thought—is better printed out for reading and drafting. For many writers drafting is not a detour but the best way forward.

An additional reason for alternating screen and paper applies only to some writers, who find their thinking in front of a screen slower. After a time the computer has for them a dulling, even stupefying effect. Others report quite the reverse, finding that the computer’s pleasurability encourages thinking on-screen, as Michael Heim claims in Electric Language (1987). People differ; but it does no harm to take a break from the screen every half hour or so, for your circulation’s sake.

Some writers find it helps to jot down the earliest draft on paper, where they can vary the size of words for emphasis, use abbreviations, and resort to private symbols. Even illegible scribbles can be turned to account: paper writers can postpone resolution of ambiguities, defer grammatical structuring, delay lexical choices, allow their minds to explore vague surrounding associations, and perhaps encounter serendipities. For them, the computer closes off too many syntactic options, and calls for definition of ideas still inchoate. Other writers, however, more at ease on the keyboard, value the rapid rearrangement and deletion that can be done on-screen. Inserts can go in as they come to mind, without need for memos or post-its. In drafting, the choice between pen and keyboard may be partly a matter of age, partly of training and temperament.

At any rate, when you have reached the stage of a rough outline, you may want to print it out for ease of reading. Working with the draft on paper, you can read it more easily, and see whether each passage is proportioned and positioned where it should be. But don’t forget to have the latest draft on-screen, ready for you to slot in corrections, references, and new ideas.

Except for a complete beginner, computer spellchecks can waste time. They have a way of giving the correct spelling of the wrong word. Better to have a good dictionary on disk (or on your desk), and consult it for yourself. When you work on the final draft, though, a spellcheck sometimes finds inconsistencies. A grammar check, too, if it is a very good one, can be instructive. But again it is better still to learn some grammar. If you could have a program to write the whole piece for you without effort on your part, would you buy it? If the answer is yes, read no further.

Taken from “How to Write” by Alastair Fowler (Oxford University Press 2006)

The Game - Task Session 3

What do you think it should be called?

How do we play it?

Clear and concise, please!

ERROR IDENTIFICATION #2

What's the wrong with each of the sentences below?

The answers are in the COMMENTS below. Be sure to try to find your own answers before looking at mine!

1. When I grow up I'll be an astronaut.
2. Len shan't be able to join us after all.
3. Take your umbrella; it'll rain.
4. The world's supply of oil is soon running out.
5. Put your coat on before you'll go out.
6. I promise I call you as soon as I get home.
7. I won't be able to meet you next week. I will stay in London for a few days.
8. Can I borrow your camera? I'll be giving it back to you tomorrow.
9. The army needs to change its image if more women will be recruited.
10. There's no point asking John for a lift - he will leave by now.
11. The last time I met John, he's getting on a train to go to Brussels.
12. James was only to have discovered years afterwards that the painting he had sold for a few dollars was actually worth thousands.
13. You'd better to leave now if you want to catch the last bus.
14. If Tom can afford to go on holiday to the Bahamas, he should have lots of money.
15. I'm sure you will already hear the President's announcement.
16. I didn't actually see the film, but from what I've read I'm sure I wouldn't enjoy it.
17. We would have a cat, but one day it just disappeared.
18. Before I went to university, I used to work as a carpenter for about five years.
19. If the drought goes on much longer, there can be water rationing before the end of the month.
20. May it snow this far south?

Don't give in too easily. Don't check the answer as soon as your brain starts hurting. Figure it out for yourself.

VOCABULARY BUILDING – Module 2

2. 1

1. manipulate, 2. creating, 3. conceived, 4. ensued,
5. innovative, 6. automatic, 7. mathematics,
8. achieving, 9. period, 10. equilibrium, 11. tradition,
12. series, 13. preceded, 14. sections, 15. stable

2. 2

1. occurs, 2. passive, 3. respective, 4. infer,
5. accelerating, 6. major, 7. portion, 8. fluctuate,
9. contribute, 10. focus, 11. design, 12. convert,
13. comprehend, 14. authorise

2. 3

1. h, 2. d, 3. k, 4. f, 5. a, 6. l, 7. c, 8. j,
9. b, 10. m, 11. e, 12. n, 13. g, 14. I, 15. o

2. 4

1. decade, 2. emphasise, 3. expose, 4. structure,
5. signified, 6. generated, 7. consequent,
8. capillaries, 9. notion, 10. affects, 11. predict,
12. pertinent, 13. undergone, 14. select

2. 5

1. external, 2. contrast, 3. simultaneous, 4. chapters,
5. approximate, 6. technology, 7. verify, 8. phase,
9. principle, 10. obtained, 11. magnetic, 12. segments,
13. individual, 14. empirical

2. 6

1. natural phenomena, 2. highly sophisticated,
3. sequence of events, 4. reacted angrily,
5. economically feasible, 6. endangered species,
7. assert the right, 8. verbal agreement,
9. precise details, 10. devote time
and money, 11. inhibit growth,
12. transmit signals, 13. separate entities

Task: Session 2 - 3rd September

MISSION AND VISION STATEMENTS

TALENT AGENCY - ORPHANAGE - ENGLISH COURSE - CAFE - YOUTH MAGAZINE - DOMESTIC AIRLINE - UNIVERSITY - SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS - ARCHITECTS - CAR RENTAL - WEDDING CATERERS - BANK

Error Identification # 1

What's the wrong with each of the sentences below?

The answers are in the COMMENTS below. Be sure to try to find your own answers before looking at mine!

1. This large goat is only living in the mountains of Switzerland.
2. I call to thank you for the present you sent.
3. John is resembling his older sister.
4. The rise in demand for timber destroys large areas of rainforest.
5. I work at the University for over ten years now.
6. When have you got here?
7. Have you read a book called Accountancy Is Fun? 'Who has written it?'
8. Charles is a gifted footballer, but up to now he didn't play well in international matches.
9. We've seen Jean in town the other day.
10. Have you ever been to the opera when you lived in Milan?
11. I was meeting a lot of interesting people while I was working in Norway.
12. Being in large crowds was always making her feel nervous.
13. How long are you wearing glasses?
14. We've been staying with Paul and Jenny until last weekend.
15. That's twice I've been forgetting to bring my diary to work this week.
16. I've never been listening to any of Plop's music before.
17. The new bridge had been opened six months ago.
18. He just heard the news and was rushing home to tell his family.
19. When I saw the vase, I knew it was exactly what I had looked for.
20. I had been knowing Helen for a number of years.

No cheating. Agonize a while before checking the answers!

VOCABULARY BUILDING – Module 1

1. 1

1. similar, 2. formulate, 3. context, 4. devised, 5. vertical,
6. impact, 7. usage, 8. summary, 9. denote , 10. arbitrary,
11. assigned, 12. criteria, 13. ignored, 4. data


1. 2

1. evident, 2. publishes, 3. involving, 4. negative,
5. environment, 6. evaluate, 7. range, 8. modified,
9. restricted, 10. derive, 11. varies, 12. pursued,
13. consists of


1. 3

1. m, 2. c, 3. a, 4. h, 5. b, 6. g, 7. j, 8. e, 9. l, 10. k,
11. i, 12. d, 13. f


1. 4

1. comply with, 2. equivalent, 3. specify, 4. is required,
5. obvious, 6. presuming, 7. guarantee, 8. methods,
9. imply, 10. sum, 11. proceeding, 12. concluded


1. 5

1. assess, 2. dominate, 3. definite, 4. approach,
5. potential, 6. elements, 7. components, 8. compensate,
9. subsequent, 10. distinct, 11. indicates, 12. regions,
13. prime


1. 6

1. valid reason, 2. new concept, 3. constant temperature,
4. new dimension, 5. analyse results, 6. establish a link,
7. tense atmosphere, 8. initial results, 9. leading role,
10. ultimate responsibility, 11. marital status,
12. put forward a hypothesis, 13. reverse the verdict,
14. minimum requirement

Web Site - www.samples-help.org.uk

You might find this web site useful:

http://www.samples-help.org.uk/index.htm

Confronted with a task? Not sure where to start? Samples Help! This free website provides definitions, samples of different topics ranging from free samples of letters and Business documents to Report Writing and Body Language presentations! A section on letter writing with good free samples of a resignation, recommendation or reference, a thank you, complaint, business, cover and application letters. There are also samples and examples of report writing, letter writing and how to develop and give a presentation. Our sample invitations include the wording and templates for wedding invitations, birthday invitations, anniversary invitations together with tips and hints for making invitations from our 'Make your own invitations' article.

• Free Samples of invitations, letters and mission statements
• Free samples of presentations & samples of letters - resignation, letters recommendation or reference letters, thank you letters, complaint letters, business letters, cover and application letters & Car Bill of Sale Printable
• Free Samples of Personal Letters, Business Letters & Documents and Presentations & Mission Statements
• Presentation Skills, Report Writing presentation, Letter Writing samples, Body Language Presentation and PowerPoint presentations
• Free Presentations, Samples reports
• Free samples and examples of invitation wording for wedding invitations, engagement invitations, party invitations, Baby shower invitations, bridal shower invitations, birthday invitations, kids party invitations, Christmas, New Year party and Anniversary invitations.
• 30th, 40th, 50th, 60th birthday invitations samples

Mission Statements & Vision Statements

Mission Statements & Vision Statements

Unleashing the power of purpose

Vision Statements and Mission Statements are the inspiring words chosen by successful leaders to clearly and concisely convey the direction of the organization. By crafting a clear mission statement and vision statement, you can powerfully communicate your intentions and motivate your team or organization to realize an attractive and inspiring common vision of the future.

“Mission Statements” and “Vision Statements” do two distinctly different jobs.

A Mission Statement defines the organization's purpose and primary objectives. Its prime function is internal – to define the key measure or measures of the organization’s success – and its prime audience is the leadership team and stockholders.

Vision Statements also define the organizations purpose, but this time they do so in terms of the organization’s values rather than bottom line measures (values are guiding beliefs about how things should be done.) The vision statement communicates both the purpose and values of the organization. For employees, it gives direction about how they are expected to behave and inspires them to give their best. Shared with customers, it shapes customers’ understanding of why they should work with the organization.

Tip:
Mission Statements and Vision Statements usually refer to an organization or an organizational unit. Team Charters can have a similar role when briefing teams.

First we look at creating mission statements. Then we create vision statements.

Mission Statement Creation

1. To create your mission statement, first identify your organization’s “winning idea”. This is the idea or approach that will make your organization stand out from its competitors, and is the reason that customers will come to you and not your competitors (see tip below).
2. Next identify the key measures of your success. Make sure you choose the most important measures (and not too many of them!)
3. Combine your winning idea and success measures into a tangible and measurable goal.
4. Refine the words until you have a concise and precise statement of your mission, which expresses your ideas, measures and desired result.

Tip: OK, so we’re a bit glib here talking about the “winning idea” – this is a prime subject of the discipline of business strategy, and it can take a lot of effort to find, shape and test. See our articles on USP Analysis, SWOT Analysis and Core Competence Analysis for starting points, and make sure you do the homework needed!

Example:
Take the example of a produce store whose winning idea is “farm freshness”. The owner identifies two keys measures of her success: freshness and customer satisfaction. She creates her mission statement – which is the action goal that combines the winning idea and measures of success.

The mission statement of Farm Fresh Produce is:

“To become the number one produce store in Main Street by selling the highest quality, freshest farm produce, from farm to customer in under 24 hours on 75% of our range and with 98% customer satisfaction.”

Vision Statement Creation

Once you’ve created your mission statement, move on to create your vision statement:

1. First identify your organization’s mission. Then uncover the real, human value in that mission.
2. Next, identify what you, your customers and other stakeholders will value most about how your organization will achieve this mission. Distil these into the values that your organization has or should have.
3. Combine your mission and values, and polish the words until you have a vision statement inspiring enough to energize and motivate people inside and outside your organization.

Using the example mission statement developed for Farm Fresh Produce, the owner examines what she, her customers and her employees value about her mission.

The four most important things she identifies are: freshness, healthiness, tastiness and “local-ness” of the produce. Here’s the Vision Statement she creates and shares with employees, customers and farmers alike:

“We help the families of Main Town live happier and healthier lives by providing the freshest, tastiest and most nutritious local produce: From local farms to your table in under 24 hours.”

Further reading for those interested in this topic: http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/3342.html

Adjective Order

Adjectives cannot be written in any order. There are rules, so you should use the following order:

1. Determiner or article

* Determiners e.g. this, that, these, those, my, mine, your, yours, him, his, her, hers, they, their, Sam's ; or
* Articles - a, an, the

2. Opinion adjective

e.g. polite, fun, cute, difficult, hard-working

3. Size, including adjectives, comparatives and superlatives

* height; e.g. tall, short, high, low; taller, tallest
* width; e.g. wide, narrow, thin, slim; wider, widest
* length; e.g. long, short; longer, longest
* volume; e.g. fat, huge; fatter, fattest

4. Shape

e.g. circular, oval, triangular, square, 5-sided, hexagonal, irregular

5. Age

e.g. new, young, adolescent, teenage, middle-aged, old, ancient

6. Colour

e.g. red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, white, grey, black, black and white, light blue, dark red, pale blue, reddish brown, off-white, bright green, warm yellow

7. Nationality

e.g. Hong Kong, Chinese, English, American, Canadian, Japanese

8. Religion

e.g. Buddhist, Taoist, Christian, Moslem, pagan, atheist

9. Material

e.g. wood, plastic, metal, ceramic, paper, silk

10. Noun used as an adjective

e.g. campus (as in 'campus activities')

11. The noun that the adjectives are describing.

Reading Session 1

Books, not instruction, key to creating writers

Setiono Sugiharto , Jakarta | Sat, 23rd August 2008 10:01 AM | Opinion

Conventional wisdom advises this: "If you want your student writers to be able to write, have them write, and nothing else." Our tendency in teaching writing seems to reflect this wisdom.

The best we can do to assist our students of all levels of language proficiency in developing their writing skills is to give them writing instruction, to encourage them to do more writing practice and then to give feedback.

In addition, as writing entails ability in adeptly using language rules (grammar) and as students often find it hard to write using correct grammatical structures, teachers cannot resist the temptation to explain the rules as painstakingly as possible to their students. In this case, grammar instruction is considered necessary.

Both writing instruction and the mastery of language rules, however, are of little value in helping student writers acquire writing competence. Many published studies demonstrate that the effects of instruction on students' writing are weak, fragile and immediately wear off over time. Other studies show that instruction has no effect at all on writing development.

With research confirming that instruction has little or no effect on accelerating writing competence, it is pretty safe to conclude that writing competence cannot be acquired via either instruction or practice.

It is really unfortunate, however, that most teachers are not well-informed about what research on literacy has told us. Because, in their view, research is often incompatible with what they are experiencing in the classroom, they just ignore it.

While it is true that research often makes statements incompatible with teachers' experience, its importance in helping shape our teaching methodology cannot be overlooked.

We need a philosophical justification of what underlies our methodology. At this time, research helps us discern the extent to which our justification is consistent with the reality we are facing.

In fact, teachers' ignorance of research findings has prevented them from finding good solutions to the problems they are constantly confronting. Writing teachers, for instance, have enthusiastically endeavored to assist their student writers in bolstering their writing ability via writing instruction and practice, with little success.

Such a persistent problem can be solved, as long as teachers are willing to pay attention to the following suggestions based on current research, and then take the other alternative which offers much better and less tedious effort on the part of both teachers and students.

Writing instruction doesn't give students a feel of what good and acceptable writing looks like. Specifically, it doesn't help students acquire writing style, appropriate diction and correct spelling. Increasing writing frequency either through self-sponsored writing or classroom-instructed writing doesn't result in significantly increased proficiency. It must be emphasized that the ability to write is the result of acquiring written codes, not the cause of it.

Similarly, the mastery of language rules, which is the result of grammar teaching, doesn't necessarily contribute to writing development. It has been evident that students who are exposed to grammar lessons for many years and grapple with understanding and memorizing rules are still unable to display competence in writing.

A general conclusion then is that writing competence cannot be acquired via either writing and grammar instruction. Forcing students to write without sufficient competence is tantamount to forcing an engine to work without gasoline. This, however, doesn't mean writing and grammar instruction are of no use and should be jettisoned from the school curriculum.

Their relative usefulness can best be explained in terms of Stephen Krashen's dichotomy: writing competence and writing performance. The former refers to the possession of technical writing skills (i.e. grammar, vocabulary and spelling), while the latter designates the ability to write using efficient writing strategies (i.e. planning, drafting, revising and editing).

Writing instruction, it should be reiterated here, cannot make students competent in writing, but it does help equip students with efficient writing strategies. As these strategies are teachable, writing instruction is key to raising students' awareness of how to compose efficiently.

By contrast, writing competence can only be acquired via reading. That is, the ability to write in an acceptable manner using correct grammar, vocabulary and spelling is derived from reading, not from writing practice. It is reading, Krashen says, that gives the writer the "feel" for the look and texture of reader-based prose.

One might argue that language components such as grammar and vocabulary are teachable via instruction. However, it could be counter-argued that they are much too complex, not to mention tedious, to be taught. What is more, we need to invest more time and energy in making students understand and acquire them.

It seems then that the best and the only way of accelerating students' writing competence is to get students hooked on books and to make them fly to books, just as an opium smoker flies to his pipe.

The writer is chief editor of the Indonesian Journal of English Language Teaching and teaches English composition at Atma Jaya Catholic University, Jakarta. He can be reached at setiono.sugiharto@atmajaya.ac.id.

Copyright © 2008 The Jakarta Post - PT Bina Media Tenggara. All Rights Reserved.

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