Writing Tips

Last Update:  19 Aug. 2024

Four Rules of Writing: 

1)      Spend more time planning than writing.

2)      Always have a specific thesis statement.

3)      Change paragraphs each time the direction of your thought changes or change paragraphs to show major organizational groupings in your work.

4)      Always include concrete analysis of an incident from the text in order to support your general conclusions.  Always use specific examples.  The purpose of writing about literature is to analyze the literature.

A paragraph consists of one general topic sentence.  All other sentences must be specific analysis of evidence from the text.  Your goal is to say a lot about a little, not a little about a lot.  Therefore, include as much detail as possible as long as it is relevant to the support of your topic sentence.

The Four Criteria Used to Evaluate Your Writing:

Focus:  Your writing has a clear and specific purpose, or it makes a clear, arguable point.  Each part of the essay contributes to that purpose or point.  Focus refers to the articulation of a clear thesis statement and its control over the entire essay.

Coherence:  Each paragraph of the essay is smoothly connected to the paragraph that precedes it.  Transitions are used between both paragraphs and sentences.  You explain your points in such a way that there is a logical relationship between and among all of the elements of your writing.  Your writing does NOT consist of a list of unrelated points.  You explain how your evidence is connected to your claims.

Content:  Your writing provides specific support from the assigned reading or source material.  It is not vague in its references.  Your writing demonstrates that you have seriously read the assigned reading or source material and you understand it. 

Conventions: 

Your writing conforms to the specific rules of the subject area in which you are writing.  For English, material is documented according to the Modern Language Association (MLA) Style.  Further, your writing makes use of standard English grammar and mechanics.  You use varied sentence patterns that communicate thoughts in a structurally sophisticated manner.

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The Schaffer Paragraph

TS = Topic Sentence (a general claim) [blue]

CD = Concrete Detail (a quote, fact, or incident from the text; such material is explicit in the text) [red]

CM = Commentary (an interpretation of the concrete detail; such material is implicit in the text) [green]

CS = Concluding Sentence (a general statement that ties all material back to the Topic Sentence) [blue]

For each CD, the paragraph should contain a minimum of two CMs.

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In Yann Martel’s Life of Pi, what was the most significant factor that allowed Pi to survive for 227 days on a lifeboat at sea?

Example Concrete Details (CD):

Pi spent his time training Richard Parker to accept him as alpha by blowing his whistle and rocking the boat.

         CM:  By associating the whistle with sea sickness, Pi can become the alpha after Richard

         Parker learns to fear the whistle.  Pi’s dominance will allow him to be safe on the boat in

         his own territory.

Pi claimed the territory at the bow and above the tarpaulin and left the bottom of the lifeboat to Richard Parker.

Pi further trained Richard Parker on the algae island to jump through a ring.

When the Japanese investigators refuse to believe his account of surviving at sea, Pi tells them another version of his story in which the French cook, a Taiwanese sailor, his mother, and himself are locked in a battle to control the emergency rations. 

Pi discovers an algae island that provides fresh water and plentiful food during the day, but turns acidic at night.

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Example based on Life of Pi by Yann Martel:

Pi was a boy with an extraordinary sensitivity to God’s presence in the world (TS).  While in his lifeboat, he devises a plan to save himself, that plan having seven parts (Chapter 55) (CD).  This seven part plan seems to parallel the creation account in Genesis in which God created the world in six days, but rested on the seventh (CM).  Pi comes to recognize that it is not in his own actions that he will save himself, but only through accepting things as they are; he must rest in God’s actions (CM).  Therefore, he must tame Richard Parker; that is, he must live with him (CD).  In taming Richard Parker, there is an allegorical expression of the religious need to tame our own inner spirits (CM) since Pi’s second story suggests that Richard Parker may be a symbol of Pi’s violent self (CM).  So Pi’s religious sensitivity comes through even in the structure of his plan to save himself (CS).  

Example based on A Handbook to Luck by Cristina Garcia:

Based on the text, what can you infer about the kind of life the Florit family had before the Cuban revolution?

The Florit family had a better life in Cuba than they have now in Los Angeles (TS).  In Cuba, Enrique’s father was a successful magician who could afford a house in Cardenas that had “marble floors” and “ceiling-to-floor shutters” (CD).  Such a house seems better than the apartment in which Enrique and his father now live.  They no longer own their own property but must rent (CM).  There is only one bedroom in this apartment, forcing Enrique to sleep on the couch.  While the apartment is near the beach, its position only serves to increase the mildew on the walls in the midst of an “unruly” bougainvillea that partially blocks a view of the alley (CD).  Such a description sharply contrasts with the house in Cardenas that is now in the past (CM).  Certainly, the Florit family’s fortunes seem to have declined after their move to America (CS).  

What is a dropped quote?

Original Source:

Such indifference borders on negligence. An average 64,000 high school football players

suffered concussions each school year from 2005 through 2008, according to Dawn Comstock of

the Center for Injury Research and Policy in Columbus, Ohio.

Student's Dropped Quote:

Concussions in high school sports are becoming an ever greater problem.  "An average of 64,000 high school football players suffered concussion each school year from 2005 through 2008" (qtd. in "Who needs concussion laws?").  Many of these players returned to the game without a medical examination.

Fixed Quote:

Concussions in high school sports are becoming an ever greater problem.  According to the Center for Injury Research and Policy in Columbus, Ohio, there were an average of 64,000 concussion injuries in high school sports each year over a three-year period (qtd. in "Who needs concussion laws?")

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The following signal phrases are banned from use:

This quote says…

In this quote…

On page 1145…

When Cassius says this “…” he means that he is jealous.  [Do not both give the quote and interpret it in the same sentence.]

Good Examples:

Wiesel observes, "It was night" (5).  

Johnson viewed the entire matter as "unworthy of comment" (22).  

When Creon becomes king, he establishes a hierarchy of values that puts the interests of the state before all else.  The Greeks were keenly aware of the abuses of power to which a ruler could fall prey, especially if he thought his power gave him special status.  Such entitlement was often extended to the ruler's family and friends, but Creon rejects this attitude.  He informs the Chorus, "I have nothing but contempt for the kind of governor who is afraid, for whatever reason, to follow the course that he knows is best for the state; and as for the man who sets private friendship above the public welfare – I have no use for him, either" (1. 20-24).  Creon pledges to give all equal treatment before the law. 

     Such is the basis for his proclamation that Polyneices is to remain unburied…