Every year it’s the same: I give a writing assignment, and immediately
the groans begin.
“I hate writing!”
“I’m not any good at it; I always make mistakes.”
“You’re a fat loser and you have body odor.”
Ironically, the same students who hate doing the assignment are the ones
who, in the first writing activity of the year, claimed they wanted to become
better writers. News flash: you can’t get better at something unless you do it.
A lot.
Not only is writing part of every English class, it is a skill with
remarkable value outside the classroom. Every job requires some form of
writing, even if only filling out forms. The better a person excels at writing,
the better they express themselves to others, improving their communication
skills, not just on the page, but verbally, too.
So, here are three basic writing tips to help you enormously in (and
out) of class.
1. Know your stuff!
Once we start a writing assignment, there are always a few kids who
turn in nothing and say, “I didn’t know how to start.” It’s easy to reply, “Well,
see that pencil there? Yeah, that one: pick it up and put the pointy end – you do
know which is the pointy end? Put the pointy end against the paper and just start
making letters…” It’s easy being sarcastic, but it does no one any favors.
Chances are likely a person can’t figure out where to start because he
or she doesn’t have enough information about the topic. There’s an old saying one
should write what they know; it’s impossible to write when you know nothing.
So, do your homework: research the topic. Writing a paper comparing the
universal themes in two short stories? Know
both stories backwards and forwards. Read articles about both stories and see
what others are saying. Pick your classmates’ brains. Then scribble your ideas
down – it’s amazing how easy the words come when you have a whole bunch of
ideas bouncing around upstairs.
2. Write in paragraphs!
When you go to the bank and ask for a thousand dollars from your
account, would you expect the teller to hand you a thousand dollar bill? If the
teller handed you a single bill, what would you say? No doubt you’d tell her to
break the bill.
Just like the thousand dollar bill, an essay needs to be broken into
smaller denominations, i.e. paragraphs. Writing a paragraph is not difficult.
Each should have a basic idea, and every sentence should work towards making
that idea clearer and stronger. Depending on the type of essay, each paragraph
should feature details and specific evidence to support the main idea. It’s not
exactly rocket science: if you say something, you need to back it up.
As for paragraph length, it shouldn’t matter. Look at the paragraphs in
this article. Are they all the same length? Some are shorter than others. This
is because I wrote on the topic of each paragraph until I had nothing else to
say, or until I figured I had clearly said enough. Try not to get tangled in
the trap of making every paragraph the same length. This is the design of
teachers who most likely believe they must set a sentence minimum to ensure
student effort; while it may work, and may even have its benefits, writing is
not a mathematical formula.
3. Don’t sweat the errors (well, maybe a
little…)
When I ask a student about what they believe makes good writing, the
first thing I usually hear has nothing to do with quality ideas, meaningful
word choice, beautiful style, or effective organization. No, usually it has to
do with the mechanics of grammar, spelling, and punctuation.
If you were asked about what makes a good car, would you talk about the
muffler, the sparkplugs, or the oil filter? The windshield wipers? The lugnuts?
Of course not! No one denies they are important elements to a car – after all, they
hold the machine together – but they are not going to open your checkbook at
the dealership.
The same is true for writing in any genre. The grammar, spelling, and
punctuation – known as the conventions
of writing – are essential to ensuring a reader understands what you are
saying. At the same time, they are not the decisive factor in whether or not a
work is quality.
The reason for this is that the conventions are easy fixings. It’s not
hard to open a dictionary, or pull up a dictionary app on your cell phone, to
check spelling. There’s not much challenge in going online and searching for “grammar
rules” to see if you’re punctuating correctly or using appropriate subject-verb
agreement. These are grunt tasks, like tightening the lugnuts, or changing the
oil filter – necessary, but ultimately invisible.
So, don’t worry about making mistakes as you write. If you think you
misspelled something, circle it and come back later. If you aren’t sure about a
comma, semi-colon, or whether a specific word should be capitalized, note it
and look it up later. Writing is meant to be done in multiple drafts, so you
will have plenty of opportunities to tighten all the bolts in your work.
These three writing tips are a good start, provided you have figured
out where to begin. If not, revisit tip number one.
