In Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace, Joseph Williams discusses and explains how to write in a clear and concise manner. Throughout lesson five and nine, Williams details the importance of cohesion, coherence, and concision. All three of these aspects add to the clarity, grace, and comprehension of academic writing. In lesson five, Williams focuses on effectively connecting sentences to ensure understandability and organization (65). It is vital that writers avoid connecting sentences without the use of transitions, to safeguard against having broken, shifting, and unorganized sentences that confuse the reader (65). Further, Williams elaborates on the arrangement of words in the sentences, specifically focusing on how writers begin and end sentences (65). Writers must make certain that their …show more content…
Further, Williams states that sentences should begin with simple information, then smoothly transition to more complex information, a delicate balance that ensure cohesive flow (67-68). This brings Williams to the topic of coherence. Williams explain that coherence in a paper ensures that the whole paper, including all the sentences, work together seamlessly to present information clearly and concisely (69). According to Williams, writer can ensure coherence by making individual sentences and clauses easily identifiable, and by ensuring that all sentences relate to a common concept (70-71). Writers can check these concepts through a three-step process. Williams emphasizes a revision process, where the writer analyzes, assesses, and rewrites his work (72). Through this process, the writers must ensure that subjects name topics and ensure the proper context of all topics (72-73). Lastly, Williams states the importance of consistency of topics and subjects, and he warns against false coherence
The art of writing is a complex and difficult process. Proper writing requires careful planning, revision, and proofreading. Throughout the past semester, the quality of my writing has evolved significantly. At first, I struggled with the separation of different types of paragraphs, and I found writing them laborious. Constant practice, however, has eliminated many of my original difficulties, and helped to inspire confidence in my skills. As a collegiate writer, my strength lies in my clear understanding of the fundamentals of writing, while my primary weakness is proofreading my own work.
On a more serious level, coherence is undermined while being one of the writer's and reader's most basic need. "The problem is not that the Five-Paragraph formula produces incoherence but rather that it limits students to a superficial, predictable level or coherence," (232) states Foley. This allows for students to throw any three liberally related ideas together for the body of the essays. Once students fabricate a thesis statement that elucidates for their three ideas, the students feel they have mastered structure. Foley states, "To be asked merely to enumerate three aspects of any topic relieves the student of the need to probe relationships... it robs them of any motivation to do so," (232). Juxtaposition is not
After this semester of English 102, at Bristol Community College I feel that I have gained the skill to articulate what I want to convey to the reader in many ways. I don’t just look at grammatical error, but instead I look for ways to make my sentences more effective and concise. Nevertheless, I hope that this strategy will continue to help me improve my writing even further on in the future.
Writing properly can be very challenging for a new student embarking on being a scholarly, professional writer. Before starting assignments, it is important to read very broadly about the main topics of the assignment, and also read the specific chapters listed in the assignment, because they will guide a student’s thoughts in developing a paper.
This is the second required general core course in collegelevel writing. Observing the conventions of
Rosenblatt, Louise M. Writing and Reading: The Transactional Theory. Champaign: University of Illionois at Urbana-Champaign (1988)
In their book They Say I Say, Gerald Graff, Cathy Birkenstein, and Russel Durst outline strategies writers can use to avoid common mistakes often seen in academic writing. The book thoroughly outlines the different components that make up academic writing, such as initially summarizing what others have said before, responding with original ideas, proving a purpose to the writing, and connecting the writing in a logical and eloquent manner.
Thus, out of fear, closer attention is paid to the organization of the paper, grammar being key to the delivery of content, and overall presentation of the writing. Forever proofing and re-working the draft. Hence, quality is important in any relationship, how we associate, what we say, and how we say it, determining success or failure of the
From elementary school to high school, I was taught that my writing had to be structured and follow strict criteria. After I arrived in Mr. Mukherjee’s ENG 102 class, I was given the opportunity to express my creative freedom through words and graphical pictures. It can often be difficult and challenging to improve upon my own writing abilities unless motived with an idea in mind. When looking back on my time at ASU, I thought about the goals that I wanted to address for myself and the course goals that my instructor had set for the class. These goals include ones that I had accomplished to the best of my ability and ones that I need to address as well as improve.
So, you’ve got Bywater’s English 1010 class and you don’t know what to write about? Don’t worry, you are not alone. Although Professor Bywater’s class may seem intimidating, it truly is one of the most rewarding classes you will take at DSU, and it will help you throughout your college career when it comes to writing papers. Professor Bywater’s class comes with an amazing textbook titled Rules of Thumb and a checklist, or Writing Guide 101, and this checklist will save your life and your paper. Using transition sentences between paragraphs, understanding pronouns, and using the correct point of view are the most important points in Professor Bywater’s checklist, and I will show you the correct usage and implementation of all three. Read and retain the following information and you will succeed in English 1010 and gain the skills you need to succeed in college making your life, and your papers, easier.
Some elements of writing (development, organization, style) fit task, purpose and/or audience; others are mismatched.
At 11:15 on Monday, August 17, 2015, my first official college class, English 1101, began. In general, I had no idea what college classes would be like let alone how college English would be. Even though this class taught me a great deal in one semester, it took a large amount of time and effort to make the adjustment from high school. The simplistic writing style of high school was put to rest the moment the first college English class began. As a result, I learned quickly that college writing is complex and less systematic than high school writing. Five paragraph essays with three strict body paragraphs were no longer the norm for writing. Even though my professor helped guide my writing, I was no longer coddled through the whole writing
They Say I Say preface and introduction explain how this book is going to educate us and how we should exercise different writing ideas as students. It discusses how the book is going to help us look at different writing methods like templates. The prefaces’ main topic is templates and the benefits and disadvantages of the students use of templates. In the introduction, rather than centering on the principles of writing, this book gives you templates that assist you put those writing principles into practice. These templates for writing give you a feel on how to work with different styles of critical thinking that you will need in college. Once conformable with the use of templates, students will be able to use them in new settings. Rules
When composing an essay, or journal entry, or just plain writing, I struggle as a writer with avoiding awkward or wordy phases in my written work. This struggle is yet again based on last year’s experience and feedback from my English class. Improvement with this struggle can be made by the following strategies: reading over my paper more carefully, avoiding the use of words that sound intelligent but don’t flow with the paper, and editing my paper with peers. Recognizing this struggle and following these strategies would improve my writing.
Over the course of this past semester, my ability to write has improved tremendously. Prior to undertaking this course, my expertise in writing was not as fine-tuned as it should have been. I had never previously been enrolled in a class specifically tailored to writing-- which was quite clear. Upon reading my past works, it becomes apparent that my writing style consisted of fluff, small words, and inconsistently structured sentences. These problems have, for the most part, been remedied with the coursework I have tackled in College Writing. Rather than long, drawn out papers that take an eternity to reach the primary point, my recent work is much nicer in terms of composition and grammar. I credit these improvements to the three primary