Brandy Pace - Cochise College



Brandy Pace

English 101

Instructor: Jeff Sturges

26 March 2004

Research Paper

What is Good Writing?

There are so many different qualities that make something good. Like a beautiful woman, a great hamburger, curling up with a great novel. Students You can know what makes something good, but they you must be able to apply it. the qualities Good writing is a long process which begins with from knowing you want to write, to doing the research, to having the body fully developed, and finally then to having your final draft. Following this process while also keeping your readers interested and informed in what you are trying to say is the hard part.

Bill Reed, Interim Vice President for Institutional Advancement and Public Relation said:

If you want to write well…read, read and then read some more. Read Good writing, read bad writing. Learn to know the difference for good contemporary conversational writing, look no further then Bob Greene’s column in your weekly SPECTATOR. Note his simplicity of style: noun, verb, object, noun, verb, object. It worked for Hemingway, who often said that his ultimate goal was to create the perfect sentence. Read some Hemingway, and not just his novels, but some of his early newspaper writings. There’s never been better news and feature of writing ever. When you read the works of these and other fine writers notice the simplicity of three languages and how they vary their two or three words; others run entire paragraphs. There are countless tips on writing well, but I leave you with this one: read first, then write.

Many writers read other writers people’s work. They get inspired by their ideas, on how they want there writing to be, and to get a inside look on competition in their field. Where do we students get quotes, and they’re our information to write? Students We get them from other people and their writing(’s). We people then get ideas to form our there own. Many writers and teachers say that one can only write as well as one can read. All writers must be readers, you can’t write without reading as well as you write. You sure cannot write without first knowing how the language works to communicate ideas.

?If you students want to write better you they must learn to read better. Consciously evaluating you’re writing, and critiquing it. Becoming more conscious about your reading behaviors can tell you what you are doing wrong in your writing. Reading can teach us some things about the writing process, seeing how well someone else expresses themselves dose not mean you will suddenly be able to do the same. Just because students we appreciate someone’s good writing and his or her skills of writing does dose not mean that we can duplicate it. Only when we can understand what was expressed and how it was used, then we can begin to do the same.

In order to become a good writer, you students have to become (a) good readers, but how do you get better at reading? First, Knowing how to see what is written and then what is said, but (to) trying understand what the written assumptions and perspectives of the author areso alskdjf asdf so important. As college student’s, we know that teachers no longer ask us to “read and remember,;” they now ask us how did dose the author view the topic, and what (is)was the underlying thesis of the book or story? Students We then have to read the text thoroughly and then write what we thing was asked of us. The more students (we know about the ideas conveyed by the author and the meaning behind it, the more the students (we) can apply (them) the tools.

Captivating the reader is ideal. Trying to get the attention of your readers, your writing must be interesting. Writing should engage its readers through original ideas expressed in your own voice. It should demonstrate your awareness of the specific audience for whom you are writing for.

One of the hardest things to do is trying to keep the readers interest. Nathaniel Hawthorne said “Words -- so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.” Words can create powerful pictures. They can create (Creating) sights, smells, (touch,) taste, and details of appearance. Especially Trying not to leave any details out that would engage in the reader’s attention.

Making sure that students we know how to write a well thought of introductory paragraph is key to good writing. A good introduction should immediately attract the reader’s attention. It should prepare the reader for what is to come by presenting some background information, definition of terms, and a clear statement of the thesis.

Students (Your objective should be to) need to make sure that the paragraph is clear and tightly structured conveying the writer’s main idea, logical or associative connections and transitions that clearly express the relationship of the ideas described. The first paragraph serves as a kind of opening to the paper, which draws and invites the reader into the discussion, but that is only the beginning to good writing.

Now that students you have the reader’s interest in the introductory paragraph, the body must keep them interested. The body is the meat of the your paper. The paragraphs contained in the body support your introductory paragraph and provide necessary information and details to the reader. After you have thoroughly discussed all of your points it needs to come to a conclusion.

The conclusion paragraph should summarize the students (your) main idea, but should not just repeat it. Bringing the paper to a close is the main idea, while avoiding introducing new information, or other unneeded facts. Having new information added and concluding the paper is important for the tone and style. ( A tightly written paper begins and ends with the same tone and the style is well represented. )

Tone and Style can both be used to convey an attitude. Fowlers English Usage recommends that students you try to use a simple word rather than a larger word if you can (Fowler, par 6). (It’s) Tone and style is all part of writing so that you can impress the reader with your knowledge of words. In a general sense, the tone is the attitude of the writer. Making sure that students you start off with the right tone for the (your) topic is the key to good writing. The attitude that a student starts off with will, either engage in the readers attention or have them discard with the reading.

The tone in a paper may be happy, it may be sad, or it may be funny. The tone and style(It) usually is expressed by the choice of words and by the usage of punctuation. There are many different ways to change your tone if you feel that you need to. By changing the grammar you can create a sense of stability and excitement. Also your word choice may not be the right one. Good word choice involves being able to look critically at verbs and select ones that are active, powerful, and energetic. It means being about to choose just the right words to make your writing sound natural and precise. Making sure that your tone matches the right points in your paper is critical; adding the right tone it can catch the reader’s attention and invite them to read on.

Style is important for the tone, and for it to be well expressed. Your style of writing will set your writing apart and make it unique from fellow writers. Ernest Hemingway's style is like listening to a conversation. He is a master of (swift,) tense dialogue, often using understatement to imply greater depths of feeling than he puts into words. The following excerpt from "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" is a good example of his style:

"In the day time the street was dusty, but at night the dew settled the dust and the old man liked to sit late because he was deaf and now at night it was quiet and he felt the difference.” (the writing center @ Del Mar College)

While William Faulkner, on the other hand, uses more explicit and showy language. He often writes of seemingly ordinary matters in an emphatic, impassioned way. The following excerpt from "Barn Burning" is a good example of his style:

"His father did not answer and now he heard again that stiff foot striking the hollow portico with that wooden and clocklike deliberation that outrageous overstatement of the weight it carried. The rug, hunched, not flung (the boy could tell that even in the darkness) from his father's shoulder struck the angle of wall and floor with a sound unbelievably loud, thunderous, then the foot again, unhurried and enormous…." (The Writing Center @ Del Mar College)

The choice and usage of words is important in tone, style, and grammar.

New York Times columnist William Safire said that, “Only in grammar can you be more than perfect.” By Having an effective grasp of what perfect grammar is, and by the usage of good grammar, it is necessary for good writing. In order to bend or break the rules, students you have to know (them) all the rules of grammar fluently first. The better students your knowledge of grammar, the better your writing will be. Pronouns, subject, verbs, prepositions, adjectives, and adverbs are just a little part of good grammar. Other parts of good grammar are punctuation and mechanics. Knowing when and were to use them is the key.

To help the reader understand what the written material is, it is important to use punctuation.? By using punctuation you will be able to separate ideas and emphasize them to the reader or audience. By not using proper punctuation and the correct grammar you could confuse the reader and not display your idea or topic clearly.

Proper sentence and paragraph structure are also known as mechanics, which is essential to produce good writing. There are many ways to write any sentence, but picking the best one can change the flow of your writing?. Spelling is another important part of mechanics because improperly spelled words make it hard for the reader to understand your ideas. Grammar and mechanical error should be corrected during the editing and re-writing process.

In the process of writing you will learn that to re-write what you have written is no big deal, it is actually a great process of locating your mistakes and when you are able to do that, then your ready for a final draft. The more you write, the more that you will see that your ideas can be improved. Many thoughts can be better once you have the general idea down, re-write it and you will be amazed how much your paper will improve. “Write your first draft with your heart. Re-write with your head.” (From the Movie Finding Forrester)

When you’re editing your paper, “edit how you say what you say” (Jessalyn Swindoll, 2001) trying to make sure that your paper flows and is consistent. By reading your paper out loud to your self, this then will give the student (you) an idea on how it sounds; it will be easier to find (your)the little mistakes that way. says:

After you edit the content of your paper, edit the mechanics—grammar problems, misspellings, punctuation and typos. Read your paper backwards: read the last sentence, then the next to last, and so on, all the way back to the first sentence. This may sound ridiculous, but it helps you not to overlook details and make sure each sentence is complete.

The final critical part of your writing should be proofreading?. This allows you to carefully check for problems with grammar word choice punctuation and mechanics correcting any problems you can find. Proofreading requires time and patience and can be very dull but is it crucial in finding errors. “Errors strewn throughout an essay are distracting and annoying. If the writer doesn’t care about this piece of writing thinks the reader, why should I? A carefully proofread essay on the other hand, sends a positive message: It shows you value your writing and respect your readers.”(Diana Hacker, p22).

Marc H. Raibert, President of Boston Dynamics, Inc. says:?

You can only produce good writing if you want to.  It takes lots of hard work, and an unfortunate fact of life is that for most people, it will always take lots of hard work.  Your writing will get better with experience and confidence, but it will probably not get much easier. The more you practice at writing the better you will get, so write as much as you can. Because good writing requires hard work, your motivation is a key factor - you must want your writing to be good if you are to spend the time and effort required to make it good.

Believing that you are a good writer is hard?, and then producing it is even tougher. Not having the confidence that you can write can lead you to rely on someone else’s help, or worse lead you to “borrow’ someone’s idea as your own.

Merrian-Webster defines plagiarism as “to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own: use (another's production) without crediting the source.” The Most common methods to use are (is) done first by identifing the source in the text, then putting the author's last name and the publication year in parenthesis, with the page number of the cited material. There are also footnotes and endnotes, which are raised numbers at the end of an idea or quoted words to link the reader to the source at the bottom of the page, which is called a footnote and a endnote is what is given at the end of the paper.

Having a work cited page or a bibliography at the end of your paper is important. (They are)You should have the resources that you have used and they should be be fully identifed by the authors name, title, publisher’s name, year of publication, and page numbers. Having all of that will guarante (insure) that you gave the authors credit for their information. The bibliography also gives your reader more resources on the subject matter you discussed. The diffrence between the bibliography and a work cited paper is that the bibliography is a list of the works of a specific author or publisher. And the work cited page is a list of the works you actually refer to in your research paper or project.

A major part of good writing is knowing your target audience. You should take into consideration who will be reading the material before you deicde the style in which you write it. Also making sure you have done the proper research and do study and evaluation of your subject. You want your readers to know why you are writing it and that you put forth the effort in presenting the information for them.

As you can see good writing is a long and tedious process. Studying other writings, as well using proper grammar and giving credit to your research is all? a part of this process. It may take time to become a good writer but in the? end your audience is who decides whether it is really good or not.

Brandy Pace

English 101

Instructor: Jeff Sturges

20 Jan 2004

Assignment type

Bibliography

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