Readability: The Critical Ingredient to Clear Writing

A good writer is someone who knows how to write well, have ideas to put on paper and write a well-organized essay that answers the question that a professor gives to you. I identify my own writing by not being good because I have issues sometimes getting words on paper, organizing the essay and my grammar is not very well. The methods that are effective for improving my own writing is practice writing and have someone proof read my work. I am in COM100L because my grammar is not good and my writing on paper is all over the place. My expectation for this course is to improve my grammar when I write essays and fix my mistakes when I write.

“Focuses on the aesthetic aspects of the text (e.g., plot, character development, setting, length and complexity of sentences, word choice, word order, figures of speech, and illustrations)” (Botelho & Rudman, 2009, pg. 25).

1. At the beginning of the essay Merrill seems to be a bit bashful about poor writing. But Merrill also uses “Poor” and “Principle” in his title “The Principle of Poor Writing.” This irony shows that it can be a negative or positive. Another example of Merrill using irony can be found on page 428 “Many scientists actually do write poorly, but they probably perform by ear without perceiving clearly how their results are achieved.” Merrill’s title, introduction or advice did not tip me off because many people in today’s society do struggle with writing.

Writing varies from a text message to a novel. Writers often have a difficult task in creating a piece of work that truly identifies the meaning of good writing. Every good writer usually starts with the basics such as genre, audience, rhetorical situation, and reflection of the piece. Throughout this semester, we have gone through all of these key terms in great detail with each new assignment that has come our way. In doing this, not only as students but also as writers, we have come to create our own theory of writing. Every writer has a different theory of writing though most are very similar. Now, at this point in the semester after doing countless journals, in-class exercises, and final assignments, I think I have figured out my own

When I was reading Writing is Easy by Steve Martin, I was thinking if writing was actually that easy. Then I finished the article and realized that writing will never be easy. Mr. Martin examples on how to make writing easier make no sense. His tip to getting over writers block gets the writer nowhere. He says “got to an already published novel and find a sentence that you absolutely adore. Copy it down into your manuscript” (Martin). What he is saying is plagiarism. If I was to use this method to overcome writer block I would be thrown out of college. I still believe that writer block is real because even the greatest authors struggle with writers block.

Use comprehension strategies to build literal and inferred meaning and begin to evaluate texts by drawing on a growing knowledge of context, text structures and language features

It is very important for the audience to have an understanding of the message the writer is trying to say. Singman’s article is full of different techniques which make her article intelligible for a majority of her audience. The techniques being used make the argument of the article more effective After writing this essay it has helped me to view writing differently. The way we put words together can make a huge difference to your audience. This is the reason why we need to be for careful with our word choice, depending on what we want our audience to take from our writing. We also need to understand that not everyone will be able to understand if we do not put it in a format that is clear to the

Throughout my years of schooling, I have become ambivalent about reading and writing. I have struggled in school to make myself enjoy writing. I didn’t mind reading as much, as long as it was to my interest. It has differed throughout the years I have been in school. Some years I have enjoyed both, reading and writing, and other years I have not liked either. Getting myself to enjoy reading and writing has been quite the adventure.

In the video “The The Impotence of Proofreading” by Taylor Mali the purpose of the video was to give techniques to help students in the process of proofreading a paper. Also, it talked about the most common mistakes people make when proofreading a paper for example, just checking the grammar in the computer causes to do not catch all errors included in the paper. A better option to check all errors is to print the paper and make the corrections with a red pen which will be easier for the student to go back and make those changes in the computer.

According to journalist William Zinsser, a writer must be clear in order to write well. A writer who fills his/her pages with pretentious words, flattery prose, or intricate syntax clouds up his/her sentences and prevents the reader from fully understanding the message at hand. Therefore, Zinsser contends that good writing is achieved when bombastic language and confusing words are avoided. Indeed, stripping “every sentence to its cleanest components”, removing excess verbiage, and molding words into coherent, simple structures prevents the reader from getting lost in a whirlwind of words and thus allows him/her to fully grasp the author’s message (Zinsser 6). In short, clarity leads to writing that is done well.

I think the type of writer that I am is a mix between a casual off and on kind of writer and sorta plans ahead in advance depending on what I'm writing about. The way I approach in writing a paper is to write a topic sentence first, then look for facts to support my topic sentence, that I can spread out between three to four sentences and then I try to find a proper way to conclude what I covered in rephrasing facts with the topic for the final sentence. Then After I do that if I have to extend the facts to better explain them, I try to think about what kind of wording can I use to better describe the facts to make sense to the reader to clarify so they can see my perspective on what I'm talking about. To conclude all that I think my strength in writing is over thinking what topic I'm writing about because in the past teachers said to me that sometimes I describe too much in fields that were never necessary.

When writing with fluency your writing has and even easily flow tone when read. The reader is able to focus on the writer's topic. Each word connects to the next word adding structure to the writing. Combining fluency with the structure you developed an organized well put together thought that is easily read and is informative.

Every student should know about the writing process, since elementary school, we have used the writing process. Now I’m a senior and taking a college writing course still struggle with some aspects of the writing process. I struggle with all 5 writing process in some way or another. Some a barley struggle and some I really struggle with and need to improve to improve my writing. Although some high school senior use their lack of experience with the writing process to explain not challenging themselves I use this same theory but to justify enrolling a senior writing class.

Why has the love of reading diminished over the years? Is it the reader’s lack of concentration? Or are there too many other entertainments to distract them? While these all play a part, the biggest reason is because writers have lost the art of using effective words. I used to not think twice about the words I used. But after reading five articles about writing, I saw how much of an effect word choice has on the reader. Five of the most important ways are using words with purpose, words with voice, simple words, imaginative words, and concrete words.

In order to make an impression over the reader, in other words to make a paper readable following some points should be noted: