The Elements of Writing
Competent academic writing relies on effective organization, clarity of expression, and correct use of writing conventions. How can you be sure you’re achieving these goals?
Organization – No matter how thoughtful, intelligent, or well-researched your ideas, your message will be hard to follow without effective organization. Especially with regard to academic essays, these principles with serve you well.
The Introduction – Hook your readers by getting their attention. Accomplish this task – with a compelling question, an interesting fact or statistic, a quotation – and you’ll pull your readers in. Make your controlling idea evident with a strong thesis, a statement that conveys your position on your topic. Here’s a student example of an introduction, using a general-to-specific pattern. The hook and the thesis are italicized:
Public education is both a blessing and a curse. The blessing falls upon those receiving the benefit of low standards of admission, grants, and loans and scholarships available to the general student population. The curse occurs when students who have not yet reached a certain level of responsibility and maturity receive these privileges. Billions of tax dollars are wasted each year when students discover that college is not just a break from the rules of home, cannot maintain the required grade point average, or drop out of college because of immaturity or irresponsibility. For this and other reasons, one must ask if changes could be made to the acceptance policies of colleges nationwide.
The Body Paragraphs – Let all your body paragraphs support your thesis. Let that controlling idea guide each paragraph, and let each paragraph deal with another supporting point. Signal your next point with a transitional sentence that may also serve as your topic sentence.
The Conclusion – No, it isn’t simply the point at which you stop writing. The conclusion is the wrap-up, signaled by a transitional statement. Conclusions shouldn’t introduce specific details that might be best expressed in earlier paragraphs. Conclusions function best when you leave your readers with something to think about. Typically, a competent conclusion should do one or more of the following: review key points (but not repeat exactly), ask a compelling question, call readers to action, offer a relevant quotation, and reinforce your thesis.
Be Coherent – To make your message understood, aim for coherence and the smooth flow of your ideas. When your ideas are linked clearly among sentences and paragraphs, you strengthen the ties. Beginning a paragraph with a topic statement and then sticking to that topic before moving on to another point is one way to achieve coherence. Using transitional words and expressions to signal shifts in ideas is another effective way. Finally, being consistent and reviewing key ideas reinforces your message.
Use Economy & Precision – No, we’re not talking about saving money on toner cartridges and paper, but the clarity of your expression. Do you tend to ramble or repeat? Is your writing filled with unnecessary details? Cut down on wordiness and get to the point as directly as possible. Make the thesaurus your best friend. Vague and empty words can muddy your meaning, so to develop your vocabulary by using fewer, more precise words.
It’s like walking. If you want to move forward, you put one foot in front of the other, right? Stepping sideways or backwards, or taking lots of tiny, irregular steps, makes for an awkward gait, slows down your progress, and confuses those who want to know where you’re going.
Use Formal, Academic Prose – Academic prose differs from the kind with which you may be comfortable when you compose emails, text messages, and instant messages. Avoid slang (unless you’re quoting someone) and abbreviations, minimize contractions (note that this article, aimed at a specific audience, is informal in tone and uses contractions and slang!), learn and follow punctuation conventions, and spelling shortcuts. If U dont U R gonna gt crappy grades!