Words in Transition

Having revised your paper, you are now ready to edit it. In other words, having made it right, you now want to make it correct.

When you Edit, Check Grammar, Punctuation, and Mechanics (Capitalization and Spelling)

How do editing errors creep into your composition? Two ways: first, there are the inadvertent errors. You know how to capitalize proper nouns, but rushing to get down your thoughts you write spanish instead of Spanish.

Second, there are errors pointed out by friends, fellow students, or teachers. The best way to catch errors of this sort is to know yourself as a writer. That means (1) taking seriously the feedback you get from friends and teachers and (2) using your handbook. If you know you have trouble remembering how to use punctuation with quotation marks, you are on your way to correcting the problem. Simply check your handbook during editing. For easy access to the information you need, use the tab indicators, the table of contents, or the index.

The more you know yourself as a writer, the more, too, you will develop a sense of what does not seem to sound or look quite right. Which is correct, none are or none is? Is receive spelled with ei or ie? Turn to the appropriate section of this Handbook for the answer.

Prepare the Final Copy

Having revised and edited your work, you are ready to prepare the final copy of your composition. Consult FORMAT 7 for details. The sample essay in COMP 6 shows what your final draft should look like.

Proofread the Final

Always proofread thoroughly. Your reader cannot tell whether recieve, for example is a spelling error or a typographical error. Many such seemingly small matters add up. If you are aware that you frequently make particular kinds of errors (in comma usage or subject-verb agreement, for instance), read your manuscript once for each specific problem.

Here are some questions to ask yourself as you proofread your composition:

1. Did my manuscript print out as I expected it to? Is it properly linespaced? Is all the text legible?
2. Have I left out words or unnecessarily repeated words or phrases? Have I overlooked any errors in grammar or punctuation?
3. Has my spell check approved a word that is properly spelled but has the wrong meaning for this context?
4. Will I need to reprint my composition, or will my instructor allow me to handwrite in minor corrections?

Check for spelling slips by reading lines of your manuscript backwards. This allows you to read the words out of context and to view them separately, so your eye picks up errors you ordinarily pass over when reading for content.

Finally, it is a good idea to keep your notes and early drafts together with a copy of your submitted manuscript until your graded assignment is returned.

Having revised the largest elements of your composition, turn next to the sentences themselves. Again, the best approach is to ask yourself specific questions. Use the following list:

1. Do my sentences convey my thoughts clearly?
2. Do I subordinate less important ideas to more important ones?
3. Do my sentences emphasize the most important part of the thought?
4. Are they varied?
5. Are my sentences complete sentences?
6. Have I unintentionally written any sentence fragments?
7. Are any of my sentences comma splices or run-ons?

You may find that some of your sentences are long and rambling and that others are short and choppy, giving the impression that your thoughts are disconnected. Perhaps you shifted focus within some sentences or used the same sentence pattern throughout most of your composition. Sentence problems like these may drive you to reconsider paragraphs you previously thought were effective. Again, all this is good. Writing is recursive, moving back and forth between larger and smaller elements and among the various stages.

WPTips

Saving Materials

You never know when sections of text (more than a few phrases or sentences), references, or quotations you wish to delete from a draft may later prove useful, sometimes even after you have completed an assignment. Block off the material you want to delete, and move it to the end of your file in a section labeled “Supplementary Material.” When you are finished writing, print only up to that point, saving the file with the supplementary material intact.

Now look at your diction or use of words. Do you use the word tedious when you mean dull? Do you use man when you mean human? Do you use three words when one would do? To revise for diction, ask yourself the following questions, using the cross-referenced sections for help.

1. Is my diction exact, with each word meaning precisely what I think it does?
2. Do I engage my reader with concrete nouns and strong action verbs?
3. Do I use appropriate language, avoiding slang, regional language, pompous language, and doublespeak?
4. Is my language unbiased?
5. Is my writing fresh and forceful or burdened by unnecessary words?

Some aspects of editing allow for personal choice. Another writer, for example, might have changed the opening of the first sentence to As a sports fan who is also a purist. Both revisions solve the problem of wordiness. Of course outright errors must be corrected.

When you have finished writing your draft, give it an honest appraisal. Focus on the large issues of thesis, purpose, content, organization, and paragraph structure that affect your entire composition. It would be counter-productive to look at grammar and punctuation, for example, if the elements that make an essay “go” need work. Suppose you inherit an old car. Anyone can see that it badly needs a new paint job, but should you spend the money to have the work done if you do not know whether the car runs? What if you discover after you have invested in a paint job that the engine needs extensive repairs or, worse yet, is not worth fixing at all? So it is with writing. First you revisework on the large issues that clarify your purpose and improve your organization-and then you edit-check for correctness and style.

No one-no one-produces perfect prose on the first draft. Be prepared to revise and, in the words of one Canadian critic, “be prepared to revise your revision, and when your revision is revised, prepare yourself for the final revision. Then revise it again.”

Revise the Largest Elements of your Composition First

Revision is best done by asking yourself questions about what you have written. Otherwise, you can stare at a draft for a good long time, wondering what you should be looking for. Begin by reading, preferably aloud, what you have written. Reading aloud forces you to pay attention to every single word; you are more likely to catch lapses in the logical flow of thought. Then ask yourself the following questions, using the cross-referenced sections for help.

1. Is my topic well focused?
2. Does my thesis statement clearly state the point of my composition?
3. Do I have enough supporting details, and are my examples well chosen to support my thesis?
4. Is my organizational pattern the best one given my purpose?
5. Are my paragraphs effective?
6. Do I accomplish my purpose?

In answering these questions you may discover that parts of your paper bear little or no relationship to your thesis and purpose. You may need to rearrange your examples for greater impact. Or, perhaps you need a transition between paragraphs. All this is good. Revision is a process, and effective writing is the result of thoughtful revision.

The beginning of your paper, or the lead as journalists refer to it, is like a personal greeting; it attracts and holds the reader’s attention.
You might consider using one of the following beginnings:

1. An incident, anecdote, or illustration
2. Historical background
3. A quotation
4. A broad, general thesis statement
5. A contradictory or ironic statement
6. A surprising fact or idea
7. A statement
8. A rhetorical question

No matter how you attract your reader’s attention, however, your introduction should clearly relate to your thesis. For this reason, even though the temptation is to get it just right from the outset so you feel you are off to a good start, you may find it best to draft a workable beginning and then revise it after you have written and revised the body of your composition. When the body is in final form, you may have a better idea how to introduce it to your readers.

A good conclusion does more than indicate the end of your composition. You may use it to inspire your reader to some action or new way of thinking about a subject, or you may want to drive home a point you made in your lead by giving another particularly apt example or by repeating a key word or phrase to remind the reader of where you began your composition. You may also use your conclusion to summarize what you have written, but never in a mechanical way and not with such expressions as in summary, in conclusion, or as you can see.

As with beginnings, there are no rules to tell you how to conclude, but there is this simple principle: your conclusion should be a natural outgrowth of what you have said, appropriate to your subject, thesis, purpose, and audience.

See the essays on pages 1-2 and 29-32 for examples of good beginnings and endings.

In writing a draft, your main concern is to get your ideas down on paper. To a certain extent, let the topic take you where it will. Keep writing and do not be overly concerned about the exact wording or whether you punctuate correctly; concentrate on producing a lively flow of ideas and information. Be alert to new ideas about your topic, ideas that are fresh and potentially fruitful. You will revise and edit later.

Try writing your body in two stages. First, concentrate on the paragraphs and look at each individually. Do you provide enough details and examples? Second, look at the paragraphs as a group. Do the paragraphs work together as a unit? Do you need transitions to connect the individual parts logically and make them flow smoothly?

In other section, which deals with paragraphs, you will find advice on writing the topic sentence (PARA la) and the controlling idea (PARA Ib): strategies for paragraph development (PARA 2b) including coherence (PARA 3); and the use of transitions (PARA 3b).
As you write the draft, be mindful of your outline but do not become a slave to it. You may find yourself departing from the outline because you discover something new about your subject through writing about it. Let this happen, but make an “X” or a note in the margin indicating that you may be deviating from your plan. These notes will remind you of what you were thinking as you wrote and allow you to reconsider those thoughts in revising.

WPTips

Triple-spacing for Revision

If you triple-space between lines, you can easily make handwritten revisions on a printout (hard copy). Carry your hard copy with you to read at odd moments; sometimes when you are relaxed and not feeling pressed to produce, you will get new insights into your topic. Before printing out a final copy,. type changes, reformat, and double-space your file.

Sometimes we are so eager to get on with the actual writing that we begin before we are ready, and the results are disappointing. Before beginning to write, therefore, ask yourself, “Am I ready to write?” If you have done a thorough job of gathering ideas and information, if you feel you can accomplish the purpose of your paper, and if you are comfortable with your organizational plan, your answer will be “yes.”

If, however, you feel uneasy, review the steps in the planning stage to get at the cause of your uneasiness. Do you need to gather more information? Adjust your thesis? Rethink your purpose? Refine your organization? Now is the time to engage in critical thinking, to evaluate and clarify your writing plan. Time spent at this juncture is time well spent, and although it may not exactly feel as if you are making progress, you are making critical decisions that will affect the outcome of your composition.

Choose a Good Title

When you write your title is a matter of preference. Some people like to write it first, using it as a banner to guide the rest of the writing. Others prefer to write it last, after they have seen the final development of their ideas. Either way, when you decide to write your title, instead of trying to create the best one, brainstorm about a half dozen so you can choose among them.
A good title announces your subject and prepares your reader for the approach you take. For example, “Why We Crave Horror Movies” by Stephen King is an essay that delivers what its title promises: it explains what for many people is a difficult phenomenon to understand. A good title also hooks your reader. It sets up a question that makes your reader want to read on for an answer. Some titles, such as “Cholesterol” or “The Campus Bookstore” are merely labels. They are not bad, but they do not grab the reader’s interest the way these titles do: “Never Get Sick in July” (why is July worse than other months?); “When Television is a School for Criminals” (can criminals get ideas by watching television?).

WPTips

Capturing Titles

As you work on your composition, titles will occur to you. Do not lose your good ideas; designate an area at the beginning or end of your file and label it “Title Ideas,” so that when a good idea comes along, you can quickly move to that area of the file and type it in. Then, when it comes time to decide on a title, you will have some possibilities and not have to start from scratch.

Organize your material so as to present a logical sequence or flow of ideas and to provide the strongest support for your thesis statement. Begin by making an informal outline. State your title, purpose, and thesis at the top. List the three parts of your essay-introduction, body, conclusion. Select those ideas from your brainstorming or clustering activities that are essential to your thesis; these will form the body of your essay.

Informal Outline

Title: Signs of the times: Bumper Stickers
Purpose: Informative: to explain the purpose of bumper stickers.
Thesis: Bumper stickers express people’s beliefs, interests, and attitudes.

1. Introduction
2. Body - types of bumper stickers arranged in order of increasing social and cultural significance
   • Advertising on bumper stickers - examples
   • Humorous bumper stickers - examples
   • Ethnic and religious statements on bumper stickers - examples
   • Environmental, political, and social issues on bumper stickers - examples
3. Conclusion

Following is the formal outline for the Annotated Student Essay in COMP 6. Andy Pellett, a university student, prepared this outline to submit with his essay.

Title; The Perils of AstroTurf
Purpose; Persuasive; to argue for banning artificial turf and returning to natural turf as a playing surface for football and baseball.
Thesis; Artificial turf is a change for the worse.

1. Arguments for artificial turf
   • AstroTurf saves money
     • Counterargument: installation costs are high
     • Counterargument; artificial turf needs to be replaced more frequently, which further increases costs.
   • AstroTurf increases traction, especially during inclement weather.
     • Counterargument; Football and baseball are meant to be played in all kinds of weather.
     • Counterargument: Fans’ satisfaction is increased by seeing their teams playing in inclement weather.
2. Arguments against artificial turf
   • Artificial turf causes the ball to hop unnaturally, affecting player statistics and game strategy.
   • Artificial turf causes player injuries.
3. Conclusion: If we stick with real grass we cannot go wrong.

In writing a formal outline, follow these rules:

1. Include the title, a statement of purpose, and the thesis statement.
2. Write in complete sentences unless your meaning is immediately clear from a phrase.
3. Divide each category into at least two sub-categories. The reason for this is simple: you cannot logically divide something into fewer than two parts.
4. Observe the traditional formal outline pattern. Notice how each new level of specificity is given a new letter or number designation.

WPTips

Outlining

Develop a master outline file that can be copied for use with each writing project. Fill it in on the screen. Having a master file assures correct outline form (roman numerals, letters, and numerals), and using a word processor makes it easy to revise your outline during the writing process-adding, deleting, and rearranging ideas as you develop your composition.

Having arrived at a thesis statement and decided on your purpose for writing, it is time to consider your audience or intended readership. Tammi Lipski’s intended audience would be a fairly general one-readers interested in human traits and qualities-whereas Terry Mote’s audience would be somewhat narrower-college or university students preparing to embark on a career. Lisa Denis’s audience would also be narrower than Tammi Lipski’s; those who use or could potentially use disposable diapers.

Students often mistakenly assume their instructor is their only audience. Though it is true that your teacher will read your composition, do not forget the other students in your class. They, after all, make up the writing community to which you belong.

Use the following list of questions to identify your audience so you can make appropriate decisions on content, sentence structure, and word choice.

Audience Questions

Who are my readers?
Is my audience specialized (my chemistry lab partners, other Macintosh computer users) or general (literate adults)?
What do I know about my audience (age; sex; amount of education; religious, social, economic, and political attitudes)?
What does my audience know about my subject? What is their knowledge level-expert or novice?
What does my audience need to know that I can tell them? Will my audience have misconceptions that I can clarify?
What is my relationship to my audience: Boss? Equal? Subordinate?
How will my audience respond to what I have to say (interested, openminded, resistant, hostile)?
Is there any specialized language my audience needs or that I should avoid? What do I want my audience to do? How can I help them?
How should I sound-formal or informal?

The best writers empathize with their readers. They try to see things as their readers might, recognize and understand their problems and address them, and appeal to their emotions, their rational faculties, and their humanity.

Implied in your thesis statement is your purpose, the answer you give the question, “What am I trying to accomplish in this composition?” Being clear about your purpose helps you choose the best supporting details and arrange them in the most effective order (see PARA3a). For example, it is clear in Tammi Lipski’s thesis statement that she wishes to describe a person, to re-create him and in particular his loneliness for her readers. Terry Mote’s purpose is to inform readers of the three basic rules of conducting a job search. Lisa Denis ends her paragraph with the thesis statement that it is time to stop using disposable diapers because they are harmful, especially to the environment, a statement she will try to prove in order to persuade her readers. At the editing stage, keeping your purpose in mind helps you use language with an awareness of the effect you want it to have on your readers.

Generally, nonfiction writing has one of three purposes: (1) to express the writer’s thoughts and feelings about a life experience, (2) to inform readers by explaining something about the world around them, or (3) to persuade readers to some belief or action.

Writing from Experience

In writing from experience, or writing expressively, you put your thoughts and feelings before all other concerns. When you express yourself about what it felt like to turn eighteen, describe the relationship you have with your father, narrate a camping experience you had with a friend, or share an insight you had about the career you want to pursue, you are writing from experience. The first purpose of expressive writing is, therefore, to clarify life’s experiences, and the second purpose is to communicate what you learn to someone else. That is not to say expressive writing is not immensely appealing to readers; the reflections of a thoughtful and sensitive writer illuminate the reader’s experiences and clarify his or her own feelings and ideas. Here, for example, are the reflections of a writer on her ambitious nature.

I’ve always liked ambitious people, and many of my closest friends have had grandiose dreams. I like such people, not because I am desperate to be buddies with a future secretary of state but because I find ambitious people entertaining, interesting to talk to, and fun to watch. And, of course, I like such people because I am ambitious myself, and I would rather not feel apologetic about it. - Perri Klass, “Ambition”

Writing to Inform

Informative writing focuses on the world outside the writer-the events, people, places, things, and ideas in the objective or real world. In informative writing you report, explain, analyze, define, classify, compare, describe a process, or get at causes and effects (see PARA 2b). Informative writing is the kind most often found in newspaper and magazine articles and nonfiction books. Informative writing encompasses everything from an article on the Hubble telescope, your chemistry textbook, and a news update on a railroad strike to a provincial government subcommittee report on housing, a travel guide, and a computer manual.

The following example of informative writing provides useful information about Canadian history:

No study of Canadian history is intelligible without some understanding of Canada’s geography. Indeed, geography has been (and still is) one of Canada’s chief problems and has, therefore, been a vital factor in determining its history. - J.A. Lower, Canada: An Outline in History

Writing to Persuade

In writing to persuade you attempt to influence your reader’s thinking and attitudes toward a subject or issue and sometimes move him or her to a particular course of action. Persuasive writing uses logical reasoning and authoritative evidence and testimony, and sometimes emotionally charged language and examples.

There was a time when I traveled everywhere by train. The overnight trip from Toronto to Halifax aboard The Ocean or The Scotian used to be a delight and an adventure that most people today will never experience. But the government has decided to drastically reduce rail service, and Canada will be poorer for it. - Roger Mann, The Reluctant Writer

Most of the writing that you do in college or university will be informative and some will be persuasive in character; occasionally you may be asked to write from experience. Often you will use some combination of these types of writing in a single composition. For example, as an environmental science student you may find yourself informing your readers about the dangers of clear-cut logging, expressing your own beliefs about its effect, telling of an experience you had with an environmental group that has dealt with logging companies, and attempting to persuade your readers that changes are needed.

Having generated ideas and information, you are ready to begin organizing your thoughts. At this stage, you must commit to a controlling idea, a thesis. The thesis of a prose composition is its main idea, the point it is trying to make. The thesis is often expressed in one or two sentences called a thesis statement. Because everything you say in your composition must be logically related to your thesis statement, the thesis statement controls and directs the choices you make about the content of your essay (see PARA 1). That does not mean your thesis statement is a straitjacket, As your essay develops, you may want to modify your thesis statement. This is not only acceptable, it is normal. Remember that writing is a recursive process; you move back and forth among the stages as you clarify your thoughts and try to communicate them to your reader.

Here are some examples of thesis statements.

He was the best friend a person could have, but if I had to choose one word to describe him, it would be lonely. - Tammi Lipski, student

In order for students to successfully compete after graduation in the job market, they must follow three basic rules in their job search. - Terry Mote

These are good thesis statements because they lead naturally into the rest of the essay: we want to know more about the loneliness of the person Lipski describes, and we want to know what Mote considers to be the three basic rules of the job search. Both thesis statements set up expectations in the reader’s mind. For the writer, both thesis statements strike a level of generality that is not so broad as to be impossible to support in the space allotted or so focused as to require virtually no supporting evidence.

The thesis statement is usually set forth near the beginning of the composition, sometimes after a few sentences that establish a context. In the beginning of an essay on the harmful effects of disposable diapers, Lisa Denis builds a context for the last two sentences in which she presents her thesis statement:

Picture yourself having to change a child’s diaper. I’ll bet you don’t see yourself using a cloth diaper and pins. The use of disposable diapers has become the norm in today’s fast-paced society. But the fact is we have no idea of the damage they do. The time has come to put an end to their use. Disposable diapers are expensive, potentially harmful to babies, and environmentally unsound. - Lisa Denis, student

On occasion you may want to delay presenting the thesis until the middle or end of a composition. If the thesis is controversial or needs extended background discussion, presenting it later may make it easier for the reader to understand and accept it. Also, appearing near or at the end of an essay, a thesis gains prominence, and giving it such a position of importance may suit your purpose.

If you already know something about your topic, you might begin collecting ideas by brainstorming, listing the things you know in no particular order. Freely associate one idea with another; let your mind take you in whatever direction it will. Try not to censor yourself or edit your brainstorming because you simply do not know what will emerge or how valuable it might be in the end. Write quickly. Do not worry about spelling or punctuation; abbreviate. Also, because all your ideas may not occur during one brainstorming session, keep your list over several days, adding new thoughts as they come to you. Here is a typical brainstorming list.

When you complete your brainstorming list, number or color-code the entries that closely relate to one another. This is sorting, the first step in thinking about possible organizational patterns and outlining.

WPTips

Brainstorming

Brainstorming on a computer stimulates your thinking because it allows you to keep up with your thoughts, especially if you are a fast typist. Moreover, because a word processor provides a different medium for capturing your thoughts, it may take you down more imaginative paths.

Try brainstorming with your screen switched off or turned down low.

Brainstorming relies on free-association (the presence of one idea suggesting another), but some people find that looking at what they have written inhibits rather than stimulates their thinking. If you try this, every so often turn on the screen momentarily to make sure nothing has gone wrong technically and that you are actually capturing your thoughts. When you are done, turn on the screen to see what you have and print it out if you wish.

Clustering

Another strategy for generating ideas and gathering information is clustering. Put your topic, or a key word or phrase about your topic, in the center of a sheet of paper and draw a circle around it. (The example on page 10 shows the topic gun control in the centre.) Draw four or five (or more) lines out from this circle, and jot down main ideas about your topic; draw circles around them. Repeat the process by drawing lines from the secondary circles and adding examples, details, and maybe questions you have. Or, you may find yourself pursuing one line of thought through many add-on circles before beginning a new cluster. Do whatever works for you. As with brainstorming, keep writing-do not stop to think about being neat or capitalizing correctly.

Clustering allows you to generate material and sort it into meaningful groupings at the same time. Again, sorting is the first step to outlining.

WPTips

Clustering

If your word-processing program has graphics capability, try clustering on screen. Use balloons, boxes, tree diagrams, and lines to diagram and group your ideas. This can be fun as well as productive.

Keeping a Journal

Many people find their best ideas come when they are not actually working on a writing assignment, so they have learned to keep a journal. They carry a little notebook to record thoughts and observations, bits of overheard conversation, ironies, insights, and interesting facts and statistics from newspaper and magazine articles.

Freewriting

Journals are also useful for doing freewriting. Freewriting is simply writing for a brief uninterrupted period of time, say five or ten minutes, on anything that comes into your mind. It is a way of getting your mind working and easing into the writing task. Start with a blank sheet of paper or computer screen and write as quickly as you can without stopping for any reason whatsoever. Don’t worry about punctuation or spelling. Write as if you were talking to your best friend. If you run dry, don’t stop; repeat the last few things you wrote or write “I have nothing to write” over and over again, and you’ll be surprised-writing with more content will begin to emerge. Once you have become comfortable with open-ended freewriting, you can move to more focused freewriting in which you write about specific aspects of your topic. By freewriting regularly, you will come to feel more natural and comfortable about writing.

Researching

You may sometimes want to supplement what you know about your topic with research. This does not necessarily mean formal library work (see UB); firsthand observations and interviews with people knowledgeable about your topic are also forms of research and usually more up-to-date. Whatever your form of research, take careful notes (see RESCH 2c), so you can accurately paraphrase an author or quote interviewees.

Rehearsing Ideas

Some writers find it helpful to rehearse what they are going to write before committing their thoughts to paper. Rehearsal involves running ideas or phrasings through your mind until they are fairly well crafted and then transferring them to paper. The image of the writer at the keyboard, staring off into space, perhaps best captures the essence of this technique. Rehearsing may suit your personality and the way you work; moreover, because it requires a lot of thought, rehearsing may help you generate ideas. Rehearsing may also be done orally. Try taking ten or fifteen minutes to talk your way through your paper with a roommate or friend.

Visualizing your Topic

Some experts believe that much of our thinking is done through images. Tapping into those images can be a productive way of developing your ideas. For example, if you wish to describe a totem pole, visualizing one you recently saw in British Columbia can make your task easier. Imagining that totem pole can also help you to visualize the lives of the traditional Haida people on the West coast.

Thinking Creatively

There are many definitions of creativity, but in one way or another, creativity involves moving beyond what is generally regarded as normal or expected. To push an idea one step further, to make a connection not recognized by others, to step to one side of your topic and see it in a new light, to ask a question no one else would, to arrive at a fresh insight, is to be creative. Creativity and inspired thinking are within the reach of most writers if they take the writing process seriously and work hard.

Ideas and information lie at the heart of good prose. Ideas grow from information; information (facts and details) supports ideas. To inform and intellectually stimulate your readers, gather as many ideas and as much specific information as you can about your topic. If you try to write before doing so, you run the risk of producing a shallow, boring draft. Good strategies for generating ideas and collecting information-and for beginning to make connections within the body of information you accumulate-include asking questions, brainstorming, clustering, keeping a journal, researching, rehearsing ideas, visualizing your topic, and always trying to think creatively.

Asking Questions

Ask questions about your topic to discover areas for exploration and development. The newspaper reporter’s 5Ws and an H - Who?, What?, Where?, When?, Why?, and How? - are excellent questions to start with. Usually, too, questions give rise to yet more questions. Every set of questions will vary with the topic and with the person formulating them. Here is one sample set.

1. Who discovered it?
2. What does it look like?
3. Where was it discovered?
4. When was it discovered?
5. Why did it take so long to be discovered?
6. How can I get some of it?
   • How much does it cost?
   • Are there limitations on how much I can buy?
   • Who sells it?
   • Where can I buy it?
   • Can I resell it?

WPTips

Saving Key Questions

Develop a master file of key questions that you ask yourself at various stages of the writing process: questions about your subject, your topic, various drafts you write, and so forth. Leave several lines between the questions. This way you can copy (and rename) the file each time you begin an assignment, typing in answers and notes as you work and keeping the original for use again. Over time, you will find yourself revising your master file questions as you discover more about your personal writing style.

A topic is the specific aspect of a subject on which the writer focuses. Subjects such as literature, television, and sports are too broad to be dealt with adequately in a short composition; even books focus on only aspects of these and other subject areas. The writer’s task is to select a manageable topic within the chosen or assigned subject area. Thus, if your subject is sports, you might choose as your topic the growing popularity of soccer in Canada, violence in hockey, types of fan behaviour, the psychology of marathon runners, or the growth of sports medicine.

When moving from a subject to a particular topic, take into account any length or format constraints and the amount of time you have to write. These are practical considerations that affect the scope of your topic. The following examples illustrate how to limit a topic.

Farming » livestock » cows » dairy cow diseases » parasite control in dairy cows

Music » classical » Haydn » symphonies » Haydn’s Symphony 101

Advertising » TV advertising » TV advertising of food » TV advertising of cereals » TV advertising of high-fiber cereals

Notice that each successive topic is more limited than the one before it. Moving from general to specific, the topics become appropriate for essay-length work.

A subject is a general field of knowledge; farming, clothing, business, ecology, and transportation are all subjects. You may know a great deal about the subject of your essay or you may simply be curious about an area and wish to expand your knowledge of it.

If you are free to choose your own subject, begin by asking yourself these questions: “What do I really care about?” “What am I interested in?” “What do I know something about?” “What do I want to learn about?” Your answers to these questions will provide you with potentially good subjects. Resist the temptation to seize the first subject that comes to mind. Take your time. Review the possibilities, and then pick the one subject that most appeals to you and best suits your audience.

Much of your college writing will be in response to very specific assignments: your physical science professor may ask you to write a paper presenting pro and can evidence of the greenhouse effect. With such a narrowed topic, you can move ahead to collecting information and formulating a thesis, a one- or two-sentence statement of your main idea. At other times your instructor may assign only a general subject and ask you to choose a particular aspect of it to write on. For example, your business teacher may assign a paper on retail merchandising, giving you the opportunity to choose a specific topic (say, the popularity of recreational vehicles), and develop your own thesis (to explain how the sale of recreational vehicles is affected by the economy).

Sometimes your instructor will allow you to write on any subject that interests you. In such a case, you may already have an idea for a paper in mind (why you feel that federal funding for post-secondary education should be increased, for instance). What happens, however, when you are free to choose your own subject and you cannot think of anything to write about? If you find yourself in this situation, follow the advice set forth in the rest of this section. We give many approaches to selecting a suitable subject and topic; one will work for you.

The planning stage of the writing process encompasses everything you do before you actually begin to write. In planning, you:

1. Analyze the writing task,
2. Choose a subject,
3. Focus on a topic,
4. Generate ideas and collect information,
5. Formulate a thesis statement,
6. Determine your purpose,
7. Analyze your audience, and
8. Make an outline.

Each of these stages is discussed in detail in the following pages.

Throughout this writer’s resources, but most frequently in Composing, you will find suggestions to help you make the most of a word processor as you write. You do not need a word processor to write, of course, but most prefer to work on one. The word-processing tips are labeled WPTips and are found in the blue shaded boxes in the text. The tips are not meant to be exhaustive, nor are they a substitute for the directions and advice offered by your computer manual; rather, the tips serve as a bridge between the instruction in writing and the many ways a word processor can facilitate the composing process. Here, to begin with, are some general word-processing tips.

WPTips

Saving Files

The best tip anyone can give you about using a word processor is this: always save your work as you compose. If you do not have an automatic save feature, make it a habit to press the save key periodically. By doing so you will not lose your work because of a general power failure or because your computer crashes.

Backing up Files

Almost as important as periodically saving your files is making a backup copy of your finished work. Preferably, do this on a diskette and not on your hard drive; if your hard drive fails, you can simply run the diskette on another computer.

Saving Drafts

Rather than revising the same draft over and over again, keep each draft intact. Copy your file and designate it filename I, filename 2, filename 3, and so on. The point is that if you want to return to an earlier draft at a later stage, you will have it. An earlier organizational pattern or a particular phrasing may have been the best after all.

Shared Computers

If you plan to use any shared computer like a school’s or library’s computer lab, check the hours it is open, and keep in mind that others will probably want computer time just when you do. Leave enough time in your schedule to be flexible.

Keeping Supplies

Keep a supply of spare diskettes on hand in order to make backup copies. Change the ribbon or toner cartridge in your printer regularly. (It is a good idea to have a spare cartridge, too.)

A good prose composition, regardless of its length, is purposeful and well organized. In the following essay Harold Krents uses examples from his personal experience to argue for an enlightened understanding of people’s abilities and limitations.

Darkness at Noon

Blind from birth, I have never had the opportunity to see myself and have been completely dependent on the image I create in the eye of the observer. To date it has not been narcissistic.

There are those who assume that since I can’t see, I obviously also cannot hear. Very often people will converse with me at the top of their lungs, enunciating each word very carefully. Conversely, people will also whisper, assuming that since my eyes don’t work, my ears don’t either.

For example, when I go to the airport and ask the ticket agent for assistance to the plane, he or she will invariably go to the phone, call a passenger agent and whisper: “Hi, Jane, we’ve got a 76 here.” I have concluded that the word “blind” is not used for one of two reasons: either they fear that if the dread word is spoken, the ticket agent’s retina will immediately detach or they are reluctant to inform me of my condition of which I may not have been previously aware.

On the other hand, others know that of course I can hear, but believe that I can’t talk. Often, therefore, when my wife and I go out for dinner, a waiter or waitress will ask Kit if “he would like a drink” to which I respond that “indeed he would.”

This point was graphically driven home to me while we were in England. I had been given a year’s leave of absence from my law firm to study for a diploma in law degree at Oxford University. During the year I became ill and was hospitalized. Immediately after admission, I was wheeled down to the X-ray room. Just at the door sat an elderly woman-elderly I would judge from the sound of her voice. “What is his name?” the woman asked the orderly who had been wheeling me.

“What’s your name?” the orderly repeated to me. “Harold Krents,” I replied.

“Harold Krents,” he repeated.

“When was he born?”

“When were you born?”

“November 5, 1944,” I responded.

“November 5, 1944,” the orderly intoned.

This procedure continued for approximately five minutes at which point even my saint-like disposition deserted me. “Look,” I finally blurted out, “this is absolutely ridiculous. Okay, granted I can’t see, but it’s got to have become pretty clear to both of you that I don’t need an interpreter.”

“He says he doesn’t need an interpreter,” the orderly reported to the woman.

The toughest misconception of all is that because I can’t see, I can’t work. I was turned down by over forty law firms because of my blindness, even though my qualifications included a cum laude degree from my university and a good ranking in my law school class.

The attempt to find employment, the continuous frustration of being told that it was impossible for a blind person to practise law, the rejection letters, not based on my lack of ability but my disability, will always remain one of the most disillusioning experiences of my life.

Fortunately, this view of limitation and exclusion is beginning to change. The federal government has issued regulations that mandate equalemployment opportunities for the handicapped. By and large, the business community’s response to offering employment to the disabled has been enthusiastic.

I therefore look forward to the day, with the expectation that it is certain to come, when employers will view their handicapped workers as a little child did me years ago.

I was playing basketball with my father in our backyard according to procedures we had developed. My father would stand beneath the hoop, shout, and I would shoot over his head at the basket attached to our garage. Our next-door neighbour, aged five, wandered over into our yard with a playmate. “He’s blind,” our neighbour whispered to her friend in a voice that could be heard distinctly by Dad and me. Dad shot and missed; I did the same. Dad hit the rim; I missed entirely. Dad shot and missed the garage entirely. “Which one is blind?” whispered back the little friend.

I would hope that in the near future when a plant manager is touring the factory with the foreman and comes upon a handicapped and nonhandicapped person working together, his comment after watching them work will be, “Which one is disabled?”

From the title, which introduces the writer’s blindness and foreshadows the ironic “blindness” of those around him, to the vivid examples of his frustrations and the hope he has for the future, Krents focuses every element of his essay on his purpose-to argue that since everyone has limitations, we should look at abilities.

Writers like Harold Krents do not rely on luck or inspiration to produce an effective piece of writing. Good writers plan, write, revise, and edit. Keep in mind, however, that the writing process is rarely as simple and straightforward as this. Often the process is recursive, moving back and forth among the four stages. Moreover, writing is very personalno two people go about it exactly the same way. Still, it is possible to describe steps in the writing process and thereby have a reassuring and reliable method for undertaking a writing task and writing a good composition.