General advice on writing
1. Finding topics
It isn't always easy to find a topic to write on for a paper, whether
the assignment is to write an argument, a narrative, or any of the other types
of papers instructors ask students to write. In all cases, the first step
in writing any paper is to understand the assignment. To risk making a
point that is obvious, if you have read or heard the
assignment and are still not sure what it is you are supposed to do, you should ask your instructor to clarify the assignment for you.
If
you have a vague notion of what you may want to write on, you might spend a few minutes freewriting or brainstorming on your topic.
Keep in mind that if your topic is too large, you will either drown in detail, come up with a woefully incomplete argument, or both.
In many cases, a good portion of your success in writing a college paper lies in
choosing a fitting, workable topic. If the assignment allows you to, choose a topic to write about that interests you, that is likely to be interesting to your audience, and that hasn't been "done
to death." There are a number of worthy topics for argument that don't often lend themselves to fresh angles (e.g., pro-life and
pro-choice, non-smokers' rights, legalization of marijuana, anti-Affirmative
Action, etc.). Finding an interesting, feasible topic requires an
interested--plugged in, intellectually curious--mind. This, of course,
requires some degree of patience and focus. If, after gleaning your brain, freewriting, and discussing the assignment with your instructor and classmates, you are at a loss to find an
interesting topic, try one or more of the following:
It is important to carefully consider the complexity of the issue you are going to address. Few, if any, arguments are easy; most issues are extremely complex and resist simple solutions. Consider the opposition's views on the issue you discuss. It might be a good idea to actually include opposing views in your paper and, as the need arises, refute, agree with, or appropriate them in your paper.
2. Freewriting
Freewriting can be a great way to get started writing on a topic, regardless of whether you know almost nothing, a little bit, or a whole lot about it. Freewriting allows writers to glean their brains without a concern for correctness, censoring, or even making sense. Far from mere verbal doodling, when it is done right, freewriting is one of the most active, engaging ways to explore a subject, to bring "to the surface" ideas submerged in the subconscious, to begin setting in order ideas that seem to run helter skelter. In his book Writing without Teachers, Peter Elbow explains the technique of freewriting this way:
The idea is simply to write for ten minutes (later on, perhaps fifteen or twenty). Don't stop for anything. Go quickly without rushing. Never stop to look back, to cross something out, to wonder how to spell something, to wonder what word or thought to use, or to think about what you are doing. If you can't think of a work or a spelling, just use a squiggle or else write, "I can't think of it." Just put down something. The easiest thing is just to put down whatever is in your mind. If you get stuck it's fine to write, "I can't think of what to say, I can't think of what to say" as many times as you want: or repeat the last word you wrote over and over again or anything else. The only requirement is that you never stop writing.
Once the writer completes a freewrite, she can go back and carefully read what she has produced, underlining ideas that seem interesting or surprising and which she can develop further in additional freewrites. Even if you and/or your teacher prefer(s) that you work from an outline, it is usually best to begin a moderate to large project with a freewrite or some other sort of heuristic process. Usually, freewriting is a way of "prewriting," of initially finding or exploring a topic, but it can be a valuable aid at any stage of the composition process. It can also be a good way to help overcome writer's block. (Note: In the above quotation Elbow recommends that beginning freewriters work for ten minutes, but some might find this a bit too much. Freewriting can work well in five-minute intervals.) Normally, freewriting should not be graded by teachers for content.
3. Drafting and revision
Books have been written on drafting and revising (rewriting) papers. What follows is a brief glance at these central stages of writing. While we admit that there is a great variety of writing methods between writers, we urge all writing teachers and students to approach writing principally as a means of discovering ideas. When it comes to drafting, some students may find themselves having one of two extreme attitudes. The first one states, "I'm doing only one draft because I don't like to write," and the other, "I only need to write one draft because I am an accomplished writer." Both attitudes are dishonest and lazy. Very few writers can produce a good final copy in one draft. Those who think otherwise are fooling themselves.
As with freewrites and other heuristic tools, a first draft is hardly ever ready for its audience. Many experienced writers think of a first draft as a place where they can empty their brains on a topic. Regarding his own writing process, the novelist C. S. Forester said, "How do I know what I think until I see what I say?" It might be helpful to regard a first draft in the same way as a sculptor regards a large, still-formless chunk of carving stone. A writer won't know precisely what his or her subject matter is, what details should be included, or even what the point of the paper is until he or she has produced a substantial body of words.
Once they conceive of a first draft (whether it is produced digitally or with ink and paper) as a mental dumping ground, writers may feel more free to, at first, aim for producing quantity as much as or even more than quality. Though writing is in many ways the ultimate means of thinking, some writers may think too hard, too self-consciously to get going at the first stage of a draft. Those who find themselves stumbling too much or daydreaming may want to approach the first draft as a sort of extended freewrite. Ambience is important for many if not most writers. For example, those who have trouble writing in complete silence may want to turn on some (perhaps nonvocal) music. Some writers work best in the quiet of morning, while others prefer writing late at night.
After producing a working draft, the writer needs to read the work carefully. Those who write with a computer might need to print out a hard copy at this point and make insertions, strike words out, draw arrows, and the like. For many experienced writers, revision is largely a matter of deleting unneeded words. Often, a change in one part of a text will make a change in another part of the text necessary. Writing can be a recursive process involving change upon change. Though not always a painless process, good writing is the result of good rewriting. While some writers prefer to work from an outline, others prefer to make an outline after they have produced a substantial first draft. The number of drafts a writer needs before producing the final product is a matter of personal choice or instructor requirement, but three or four drafts (including the final copy) is a reasonable minimum number. Other writers need five or more. (Henry David Thoreau, one of America's very greatest prose writers, completed seven different drafts before he was satisfied with his book Walden.)
At some point in the drafting process, perhaps in a later stage, we strongly recommend that students seek outside readers, ideally students who are working on the same assignment, to provide detailed, written feedback on their work and, more importantly, to give them a wider sense of their audiences (beyond the instructor). Written feedback should discuss both what the readers find good or useful and the areas that might possibly be improved. Some instructors provide lists of revision questions for student writers to use as they reach an advanced draft stage. Click here to see such a sample list.
Revision should be regarded, not as mere proofreading, hair-splitting busy-work, or as punishment, but as a necessary stage in the development of a good paper. Erika Lindemann, who prepared the sample list linked above, describes rewriting this way:
Students need to view rewriting as more than editing, polishing, or proofreading, as more than correcting flaws in papers we've already graded. Although the draft represents an initial attempt to express a message, most writers don't find its meaning and form until they've reviewed the draft. Students need time to let the composition grow. They need to examine every level of the discourse, review the decisions they made, and incorporate responses from teachers and other students. They may rewrite the piece several times until they're satisfied that it says what they mean. But so must all writers, even talented ones like Hemingway, who revised the last page of Farewell to Arms thirty-nine times before it suited him. Hearing that, an interviewer asked him, "Was there some technical problem there? What was it that had you stumped?" "Getting the words right," he replied.
4. Some common errors for editing (under construction)
There is no way to cover every possible error a student may encounter while preparing a paper for its final draft. Some of the errors below are more substantial than others: some are rather simple, straightforward, and easy to correct, while others, hardly a matter of mere "editing," may be more substantial and hold ramifications for the paper as a whole. The errors are listed randomly, not in order of importance.
a. Look out for wordy constructions. Cut out unnecessary words for clarity and directness. For example, a phrase such as "due to the fact that" should in most cases be replaced with the word "because," and "at the present time" is more concisely represented by "today."
b. In most cases, numbers that are no more than two words should be spelled out, while higher numbers should be represented numerically. For example, spell out eighty-seven, three hundred, or one million, but use numerals for 287 or 29,035. Don't begin a sentence with numerals; rewrite it so the number will come later in the sentence.
c. Many teachers consider certain words trite and, at least most of the time, unnecessary. For example, "very" rarely adds important meaning to a phrase. "Etcetera" and "etc." look sloppy in most cases and suggest a lazy ethos. "Alot" is, of course, not a word and suggests an ethos of ignorance. "Everyday" is a word, but it is an adjective that means "ordinary" (as in "He was wearing his everyday clothes"). "Quote" is a verb, and "quotation" is a noun (one quotes a quotation). Many, perhaps most, teachers frown on the use of slang words, beginning sentences with coordinating conjunctions, and ending sentences with prepositions.
d. Italicize or underline titles or books, plays, magazines, newspapers, journals, films, TV shows, works of art, and longer poems such as Paradise Lost. Place quotation marks around titles of articles, essays, short stories, poems, songs, sections of books, and specific episodes of radio and TV shows.
e. Ellipsis marks (. . .) indicate a stretch of a text left out in a direct quotation. Use four marks if that stretch immediately follows a sentence ending with a period. Never use more than three or four marks. Double-space between each mark.
f. Be conscious of point of view, the person of your writing. By "person" in this sense, we mean the relation between a subject and a verb, whether the subject is speaking of itself (first person "I" or "we"), is being spoken to (second person "you"), or being spoken about (third person "she," "he," "it," or "they"). Generally, unless the context permits or calls for it, use the first person sparingly; some teachers disallow any use of the first person or second person. The second person often comes off as awkward, presumptive, and preachy. The third person is usually best in most writing contexts. Never use "they" to refer to a singular subject. Nor should writers use "they" or "you" in an indefinite sense (e.g., "At that restaurant they give you free chips and sauce" is better stated as "That restaurant gives its customers free chips and sauce").
g. When writing about a text, widely defined (a novel, poem, film, commercial, etc.), use the historical present tense, not the past tense (e.g., "Though Ishmael was scared of Queequeg when he first met him, they became the best of friends" is better stated as "Though Ishmael is scared of Queequeg when he first meets him, they become the best of friends"). On the other hand, when writing about an actual occurrence related to the text in question, use the past tense (e.g., not "Melville grows depressed when Moby Dick fails to find an audience" but "Melville grew depressed when Moby Dick failed to find an audience").
h. Whereas a writer may use parentheses to set off a remark that requires less emphasis than the surrounding material, dashes are commonly used to highlight a remark. A writer may use one dash to emphasize an idea at the end of a sentence ("For years, Al Capone was able to evade police officers, federal agents, and rival mobsters--but not the IRS") or two dashes within a sentence to set off a comment or explanatory material ("When the youngest child left for college--her siblings had left home many years before--the house seemed strangely quiet and vacant to her parents"). When typing, use two hyphens (--) to indicate a dash. Note that there is no space before, between, or after the dashes. Some word processing programs automatically combine two hyphens into a single mark.
i. In sentences and paragraphs, specific, concrete details are usually preferable to general, abstract generalities, though knowing how and when to give details requires attention to context, as well as practice in reading and writing. For example, "The well-dressed man drove his car to his girlfriend's house and knocked on her door" is rather dry and void of details that might make the image vivid for the reader. While not appropriate for all kinds of texts, the following sentence gives the reader a clearer picture of the idea: "The tuxedoed young man screeched his red sports car to a stop in his girlfriend's driveway, and, carefully balancing a bouquet of roses, he leaped out of the car, strutted to the front door, and quickly knocked four or five times."
Click here to see a list of some
books on writing.
Click here for The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing site