What Makes Good Writing? Essay

Some of the top advice given to writers is to read prolifically. The more well-read a person is, the more they will intuitively understand what good, effective writing is. Moreover, good writing begins with critical thinking and careful consideration. Curiosity and open-mindedness aid in the endeavor and allow an author to think broadly about a subject. Careful reasoning allows a writer to logically organize information and thoughts and relay them in a compellingly clear way. In “College Writing and Beyond,” Anne Beaufort talks about how strong writers draw on five knowledge domains to produce good work. These five domains are: discourse community knowledge, writing process knowledge, subject matter knowledge, genre knowledge, and rhetorical knowledge. It is important to understand and consider what discipline and discourse community you will be speaking within in order to fashion your ideas into a well-received written contribution. Understanding effective writing processes and critical revising methods grants a writer greater ability to create succinct, effective, and enticing text. Understanding genres enables a writer to know what conventions of writing are expected of them and which best suit their purposes. Rhetorical knowledge facilitates the clarification of a text’s purpose and supports reader

This chapter of the textbook by E. Shelley Reid’s Ten Ways To Think About Writing: Metaphoric Musings for College Writing addresses writing students. Reid uses expository and descriptive types of writing in her text. She describes and explains about the ten different important things when it comes to writing. One example in her chapter is where she explains how to write by the rules, describes the steps on how to be a successful writer and why some people struggle with writing essays or paragraphs sometimes. The writer quoted, “Write about what you know about so that you can show not just tell in order to adapt to your audience’s needs and accomplish your goals. Unless you do a good job showing what you mean, your audience will not understand your message.” (4) She also stated in one of her steps that sometimes the audience or readers of an essay or writing cannot exactly understand what the writer is trying to tell them. She tells her audience to

It is essential to understand that classes taken in grade school do not give students a full understanding of each subject. With the topic of writing, there will always be a new lesson to learn, an aspect to improve, or a differing way to explain. Author Craig Vetter states in Bonehead Writing, “This is your enemy: a perfectly empty sheet of paper. Nothing will ever happen here except what you make happen.” Each story, essay, or response comes from a writer’s experiences. With each attempt at a new piece comes an underlying story of emotions the writer is facing. Each person’s writing is unique and the ideas people have are related to their past experiences and what they believe to be familiar with when deciding which writing style to use. As a high school student, I have learned many things about writing that helped me become the improved writer I am today, but the most essential advice I have received is practice makes perfect. Although there is no actual perfect way of writing, I have discovered that each essay I write, my writing improves. It is easier to spot mistakes, find areas to improve, and ponder elevated word choice to use.

Dan Melzer, a former student at Florida State University, discusses a few approaches to succeeding as a writer in “Understanding Writing Assignments: Tips and Techniques.” Melzer addresses seven methods to do well as a writer; whether that be in school or the workplace. To shortly summarize the tips, Melzer explores ways that students can help themselves by using their resources. Also, by analyzing the questions and instructions that a teacher asks of the class. He goes on to say that it is also important for the writer to figure out who the audience is. This will ultimately determine the writing style. Basically, if the writer is aware of the audience then he/she will execute the writing assignment differently than if he/she were to just make assumptions of who

Writing a paper on the writing process is pretty hard. The writing process is different from one person to another. You come across questions like, 'What exactly is the writing process?'; and 'Must you follow one persons writing process if yours is different?'; This is where I came across the answer to my questions, write however you wish to write. If one person likes free write first and another person likes to write a draft first, let them do how they please.

I believe a good reader is what makes a good writer. But because I lost my interest in reading, I’ve struggled with writing throughout the years. It wasn’t that I had trouble learning new skills but because I was pushed away from what I wanted to learn, so I decided to pursue other interests. Despite being eager to learn, my writing suffered due to my lack of interest in reading, however my skills in writing have increased as my drive to read has rekindled.

The way the writer communicates is through their style. It appeals to the audiences emotions, it can make the message more artistic and memorable.

written so clearly and practically which helps the reader to dwell in the writing and understand it

Voice is the key to getting the reader involved in an essay. Without it, the

What makes a piece of writing compelling to a reader? Every piece of good writing requires close attention to a rhetorical situation, genre, and an audience. Writing occurs within a rhetorical situation and is made up of a speaker, a subject, an audience, and the context (genre). Each of these criteria builds on one another to make a piece of writing. The speaker or writer can choose what form of text or genre he/she wants the audience to get out of the context. Genre and the audience make up a rhetorical situation. The genre and audience both rely on each other immensely to produce the targets responses.

I normally begin an essay by brainstorming ideas and writing them down via bullet list. Once I feel confident that I have enough information, I create my draft. After completing my draft, I then revise my essay; I try to have someone else read it to get a second opinion. Lastly, I edit my essay, revise it once more, and then I submit it. While writing an essay, I find it most difficult to write an introduction paragraph. I always want to grab the reader’s attention, but I have a hard time coming up with a creative way to do so. As a solution, I research examples of what others have used in past essays in hopes of a light-bulb moment. In contrast, I believe the easiest part of writing for me is the revising and editing. One thing I find useful when revising is to have my computer read my essay out loud, so I can here if it sounds like a well written essay. If I remain determine to learn and work hard throughout this semester I believe I can be successful in this class and improve my writing skills for the

From the second I was learning to write simple words in kindergarten to the hours spent writing essays in college I have always strived toward becoming a “good writer”. What can make a successful writer is the proper understanding and usage of rhetoric, knowing your audience, and engaging in critical analysis. Yet each time I was finally starting to get better at articulating my point of view or finally mastering the new writing style in my classes, the definition of good writing changed. Each grade level had a new definition of what good writing entailed and each time I had something new to learn. In elementary the early definitions of good writing was writing simple sentences to formatting paragraphs. While in middle school you started to

1. David’s primary purpose in sending a message is to inform the reader that the car company will not honour the customer’s claim. The writer’s priority is to inform the reader that the company would like to honour the claim, but point out that it could not happen because the warranty is expired.

The most important thing that a piece “good” writing does is make people question where they stand on certain topics. This is the most important thing because when you question things you learn more, and when learn more you will be able to teach more. When you read something you do not want to just read it and not learn anything from it, then there would have been no purpose in reading it. Writers do not just write papers so they can tell the reader what is right or wrong. They write to explain their theory, to make others understand where they are coming from and the logic behind them.

To become a success in life, we all need to learn to become a good student in every aspect of life. Becoming a good student takes much work and self-discipline. There are many ways that a student can stand out from the rest of the class. These good students are distinguished by their attitude, intellectual skills, consciousness, and achievement.