With your essays coming due soon, you might find that this overview is helpful; of course you've read quite a bit about the writing process in other classes, but here are a few additional tips

a note on professor corbally's lectures: does he just make this stuff up?

I don't think I want to answer that.

In fact, I want you to. This week's discussion has you reading two tightly-written narratives--Maya Angelou's "Champion of the World" and Amy Tan's "Fish Cheeks." Both Angelou and Tan are very popular, successful (probably RICH) writers. People buy their works; they want to read them. Your task will be to figure out why? What magic secrets (no, it is not magic, and there are no secrets) make their writing readable? I'm sure you will have no problem answering the discussion question, but don't stop there. You are reading to learn techniques to make your own writng more readable.

These lectures merely reinforce (and focus) ideas that you can pick up on your own if you read closely and think about what makes successful writing successful.

It is up to you to apply it.

what not to say

Read the following speech.

Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen:

It is indeed a great and undeserved privilege to address such an audience as I see before me. At no previous time in this history of human civilization have greater problems confronted and challenged the ingenuity of man's intellect than now. Let us look around us. What do we see on the horizon? What forces are at work? Whither are we drifting? Under what mist of clouds does the future stand obscured? My friends, casting aside the raiment of all human speech, the crucial test for the solution of all these intricate problems to which I have just alluded is the sheer and forceful application of those immutable laws which down the corridor of time have always guided the hand of man, groping, as it were, for some faint beacon light for his hopes and aspirations. Without these great vital principles we are but puppets responding to whim and fancy, failing entirely to grasp the hidden meaning of it all. We must readdress ourselves to these questions which press for answer and solution. The issues cannot be avoided. There they stand. It is upon you, and you--and even yet upon me--that the yoke of responsibility falls.

What, then is our duty? Shall we continue to drift? No! With all the emphasis of my being I hurl back the message--no! Drifting must stop! We must press onward and upward toward the ultimate goal to which all must aspire.

But I cannot conclude my remarks, dear friends, without touching briefly upon a subject which I know is steeped in your very consciousnesses. I refer to that spirit which gleams from the eyes of newborn babes, that animates the toiling masses, that sways all the hosts of humanity past and present. Without this energizing principle all commerce, trade and industry are hushed and will perish from this earth as surely as the crimson sunset follows the golden sunshine.

Mark you, I do not seek to unduly alarm or distress the mothers, fathers, sons and daughters gathered before me in this vast asemblage, but I would be recreant to a high resolve which I made as a youth if I did not at this time and in this place and with full realizing sense of responsibility, which I assume, publicly declare and affirm my dedication and my consecration to the eternal principles and receipts of simple, ordinary, commonplace JUSTICE!

Now think about what you have just read. What exactly have you just read. It's a speech. It seems to contain the serious tone of many speeches, perhaps a political speech. The language is formal and suggests that the speaker is fairly well educated. There are several references to problems, solutions, taking responsibility.

But what really does this piece say?

Nothing!

There are words and phrases and sentences (correctly punctuated, without spelling errors), but there is no substance. It's just writing/speaking for the sake to taking up time. Perhaps there is a purpose to this speech--to win some votes or to encourage donations. But if someone were to support this speaker, it would not be because of any specific or concrete details from the speech; there aren't any. The speech makes vague general referneces to problems and issues, but never cites any. It also uses several charged abstract words and phrases such as toiling masses and which gleams from the eyes of newborn babes and JUSTICE realizing that most people react positively to these terms--they manipulate the non-thinking listener/reader.

Your writing should avoid these lazy, easy, meaningless uses of language.

so what should you say?

OK, so you saw an example of what not to include in a college-level essay, but now, faced with papers of about four full pages, what do you say that will both satisfy the assignment (and instructor) and fill up the page?

I can put it very simply (though it's not quite as simple to do; it takes practice): eliminate all of the abstractions (opinions, feelings, vague language) and replace them with concrete details (actual incidents, events, cases); also eliminate all overly-general statements (words like "things" and "music") and replace them with specific, exact, descriptive examples ("spent carbon rods" and "the machine-gun guitar of Nirvana's 'Smells like Teen Spirit'"). You need to make your writing distinctive and exact; after all, nuclear waste is not the same as puff pastry sheets, and grunge rock is nothing like Gangnam Style.

This is called showing rather than telling; it paints a picture for your reader. It is at the core of nearly ALL college-level (and professional) writing. When you write descriptive and narrative essays, the examples come from your observations and personal experiences. When you write a research paper (as you soon will), the examples come from outside sources rather than personal experience, but the strategy is the same: make some claims and back them up with specific, concrete evidence, not just opinions and undeveloped generalizations.

Here's another example, one that I use in my English 28 class, to demonstrate showing Vs. telling.

Imagine that your good buddy has just gone on a date. Like most friends you are curious about how the date went, so you call up and ask. "Oh, it was OK, but the restaurant wasn't very good; in fact, the food was awful."

If you're like most friends, you'll probably respond with, "Oh, that's too bad" (or something like that), but you don't really feel any great sorrow; you are just being supportive (and we all need supportive friends, so good for you!).

If your friend wanted you to actually empathize (feel just how awful the experience was), to respond genuinely, the words bad and awful just don't do it. They are negative, but they only tell you how you should respond rather than showing you what the food was like.

Try this version instead: "Two limp taquitos hung over the edge of the plate, their skins covered with congealed grey-green guacamole like pus that oozed from an open sore."

That is likely to get more of a response (something like "Ewwwwww...").

Notice in the revision two important things happen:

  1. you never have to be told that the food was bad or awful because the words show this and elicit the desired response

  2. the four-word "The food was awful" is now thirty-one words long (thirty-two depending on how you feel about the hyphenated grey-green). And the words aren't just filler; they convey a picture, an idea--they communicate.

One other thing occurs in the revision. You demonstrate respect for the reader/listener. You are trusting that your reader will get it, will respond the way you intend. It's possible that someone might read that passage and respond, "Yum! Sounds great! Let's go!" but it's not very likely. And if there's someone out there that is attracted to that dish, you just won't reach that person.

So what? You can't reach everybody every time. Don't bully the reader. You just paint as clear a language picture as you can, and you've done your job.

let's define a successful writer

as one who can get the point across effectively and who can maybe even get the reader to want to read the writing

no, really, what are the magic secrets?

As I suggest in the sidebar (the pinkish box on the right), there really aren't any. There are definitely techniques that successful writers use. You know what they are even if you have never articulated them before, and the class looked as some of these techniques in the first discussion.

selecting and narrowing a topic

Reading over the assignment instructions carefully is your first step. You need to make sure that you are writing about the assigned subject. That is the first way of focusing your topic, but it's just a start. You want to make sure you are writing about something very specific, something that makes a point, somethign that is narrow narrow enough to write about in incredible detail for the assignment length. For our first two paper, for example, if you selected the Observation topic, writing about one specific experience, one person, one day, would be appropriate.

I received an e-mail from one of the online 101 students, and the question is such an important one, I thought I'd share it and my response; it should help you as you shape your own topics and thesis statements for this first two essays. The chief problem is that the student has not narrowed the thesis to argue one clear point. It wanders all over the place, so the finished paper will wander all over the place (and likely not make sense). Yes, Student X is not the student's real name. And, yes, the e-mail has some errors, but let's just look at the question about topic / thesis.

Hi! Quick question! I'm choosing option #2. I'm writing my paper on America's Recent Obsession with partying. Now, I chose to write about the reality TV show Jersey Shore and incorporate the music that is on the show popular music these days and how the music influences behavior. Is this statement too general? Should I narrow down even more? Or is this topic too off base of the assignment?

Thanks :)

Student X

This was my response

Hi!

It's far too broad, AND it's a research project the way you've set it up. You are saying that listening to music causes a specific kind of behavior; to support that you would need a careful, scientific study, and you do not have time to conduct such a study with thousands of test subjects.

What exactly is unusual about Americans who like to party? This is not a "recent obsession"; it has always been true (even pioneers loved their barn dances). Is there a specific type of party you are focusing on? For example, my sister is a fan of Survivor, and she has been to and hosted Survivor parties. My son's friend is a Dr. Who fan and has hosted a Dr. Who party. EITHER ONE of those two would work for this paper because these are unique parties that do show an obsession with one specific thing (a specific television show). But to write about either of these YOU have to actually GO TO such a party. This is not a memory paper; it's an experience NOW paper. I want you to see, feel, touch, hear, taste, NOT rely on memory and not base any of your paper on on what you THINK is going on.

If you are going to write about a flash mob fanatic, for example, then you have to witness a flash mob from set up to event and write about that person and that particular experience. If you are writing about a freegan, then you need to actually go along with him/her to a dumpster dive and describe that experience.

The whole point is to start making student writing authentic, real, based on evidence and observation and experience, NOT on notions and beliefs and (mis)conceptions.

So keep that in mind when you craft a topic, and narrow your thesis to argue ONE POINT ABOUT your topic, and you'll be fine. For example, you might have a thesis like this: "Although Marcia spends her free time with a collection of obsessed, trivia-charged fans of the show Survivor, who think they can 'Outwit, Outlast, Outplay' the contestants on the actual show, the lush tropical feasting in luxurious home settings of one of their parties was actually the opposite of the stark life the contestants face." This thesis would have you compare/contrast what you watched on screen Vs. what happened at the party. It would show the party-goers are, essentially, Survivor posers, and it would allow for a lot of exact descriptive detail.

:) John C.

Now this is, of course, only one approach to the topic, but it points out how far off the original idea was. The attempt was to single out an unusual/distinctive group of people (along the lines of the Ren Faire Geeks or Mud Runners), but this ended up veering way off topic. In Student X's e-mail, there was mention of Jersey Shore, but that was never explained (what objective idea about the show would be explored?). There was no specific personal lifestyle mentioned, so this missed the point of writing about a person. There was also an idea to explore partying, but that was not original or specific enough. Finally, there was the plan to show popular music somehow causes some sort of behavior, but I've no idea if the student was relating this to the television show or what was meant by "influences", and, as I mentioned in my response, a cause/effect paper requires scientific research (besides, this last topic would most likely be filled with over-generalizations rather than limited examples supporting qualified conclusions). lost in this version, but a paper needs a single narrow focus.

develop an effective thesis

To summarize, here are a few points to remember about thesis statements:

People write for all sorts of reasons; sometimes a journal entry might just be a free outpouring of emotions; a list of words can remind us of what we need to buy at the store. Academic writing is different. For the most part you are expected to make a point when you write. You might be analyzing the symbolism of a complex poem or supporting a stand on a complex issue. In any case, an essay generally tries to prove something.

This single central point that your essay attempts to prove about your topic is called your thesis.

Note that there are two parts to a thesis:

  1. the topic of your essay
  2. and the point you intend to prove about that topic

Without an idea or a position to prove, your essay is just a list, without any real point. Here's an example:

"Evolution is a topic often discussed in biology classes."

This is a single statement; it points to a specific topic (evolution); but what's the point? There isn't one. It just states the simple fact that evolution is taught. No reasonable person would disagree that evolution is often taught in biology classes (some people may not like the fact, but this is not mentioned in the statement above. There is no position mentioned here; consequently, there's no real reason to develop this into an essay.

Now another element of an effective thesis has been introduced:

  1. it requires elaboration (expansion, explanation) and, therefore, is a sound basis for a paper

Try this statement from Carl Sagan's "Ballad of the Samurai Crab":

"Evolution is a fact, not a theory."

Hmmm...some might consider these fightin' words! Certainly the topic here (again, evolution) is now related to an issue. Since some people would disagree with Sagan's statement, it requires proof. Since Sagan's piece cannot be understood without detailed explanation of what he means by evolution, the statement requires expansion. This is an effective thesis.

Of course the thesis above does not fit our assignment; it's just an example of a thesis

how to develop the paper? (abstract Vs. concrete / general Vs. specific)

You have read several examples that demonstrate how to show with example rather than tell with generalizations and abstractions. "In New Mexico" is made up of actual examples of things that the family does to live on a limited income; "Shopping and Other Spiritual Adventures in America Today" lists exact products, names stores, notes brands of jeans, describes the narrator's actual experience. All of the essays in our anthology rely on detailed descriptions and examples.

Effective essays show rather than tell. Your essay, like the readings in our textbook, should be made up of examples that are fully described. Not only does this support and illustrate the claims you are making in your paper, but it also gives the reader something to picture, to understand. You want the reader to see what you see, experience what you experience. You do this by avoiding abstractions and generalizations, by writing concrete, specific details.

Abstractions are words and phrases that mean different things to different people (words such as good and beautiful are abstractions), so they do not communicate pictures to readers. General words could be several different things (the word dog, for example, could be anything from a Terrier to the cartoon dog Snoopy); the more specific your language is, the clearer picture you give to your reader ("terrier" is more specific than "dog," but "a soggy, limping Jack Russell terrier with a torn left ear" is a lot more specific than either. The more descriptive detail you add, the more specific your writing becomes; more specific writing communicates clearer pictures to your reader.

Consider the following real example from English 28. The student was writing about how texting can be distracting and how her friend Kimberly was missing a real, lively experience at Disneyland while staring at the screen of her smart phone. The original is very short; it is also so abstract and general that it doesn't really show the reader anything. It's just a statement without any evidence. The revised version provides the evidence in the form of detailed, descriptive examples. Notice the writer does not have to say she is "missing out"; the scene itself shows this. It's longer, yes, but it's also more polished and more communicative. It also uses dialogue because the scene described describes people talking (so it makes sense to use dialogue). The expanded version is much more effective writing.

      Original:

Kimberly misses out by texting during the beautiful fireworks, the rides, and the parades…

      Revised:

      "Oooooh. Look at the purple starburst. It's gorgeous."
      "Just a sec," Kimberly responded. Her face was not looking skyward; she was staring at her palm.
      "Kim, quick, look." A spray of six fiery bursts lit the night sky.
      "Huh? Oh, yeah. Michael texted. He's going out to the movies, and Jen is freaked out about her hair." She started typing furiously ignoring the art in the sky.

Notice that the revised version only looks at "fireworks," so the description will still go on to describe her missing seeing rides and a parade--both described in a lot of detail. Also notice that the revised version requires the student writing the essay to go to Disneyland and to look at the fireworks and rides and a parade, to describe what is actually seen (not just imagined or fuzzily recalled). The effective writer needs to experience the world, not miss it like Kimberly.

Review "Champion of the World" and "Fish Cheeks." Both of these narratives focus on a very short periods of time, and they make you feel as though you are there because they use such precise descriptive detail and concrete examples. Try to do the same.

and how do you begin (and end)?

Openings: How to Begin an Essay (and how not to)

Following are a couple of examples of actual student openings from English 28 papers. The first is an argument paper which should not be using first person "we" (but let's ignore that here). The second is a personal narrative, so the first person makes sense.

      As the modern civilization approaches the next level of living, we are getting more dependent on technologies, and we are getting our hands on all kinds of devices, and we are trying to own everything we can lay our hands on. People do not live simple lives anymore. We are not content with what we have, and we do not have the option of choosing what the right products are for us. It is undeniably true that technologies make our work faster and easier, but we do not notice that we are changing and getting attracted to different features and entertainment which harms people by creating procrastination, addiction and abuse to humans who are being replaced by machines.

Let's ignore the editing errors for now and just look at what is not working with this opening. The main problem is that even though there are lots of words here, they do not give the reader any concrete picture or idea. It is apparent that the paper is taking a stance against "technologies," but what does that mean? Near the end the complaint is against "different features and entertainment." Those are two entirely different topics, and it's still not clear what "different features" means or what "entertainment" means. Is the paper against features? against entertainment? The word technologies could mean anything from a simple wheel to a specific sort of nanotechnology used in weapons design. Since it is not focused, the word is essentially meaningless. We could argue that the statement "we are getting our hands on all kinds of devices" eliminates the nanotechnology, but does it mean can openers? iPods? television remotes? bicycles? refrigerator freezers? automatic weapons? and so on.

The paper needs to be narrowed, to focus on just one thing to give the reader a picture, a starting point. For example, the paper could just be about the Nintendo Wii being used as an exercise tool-that gives the reader a very clear idea of an actual thing.

Then the paper shifts to "choosing what the right products are for us." Who gets to decide that? Here the word right is an opinion word. Different people have different ideas about right and wrong, and this is not a personal opinion class. Some people believe driving a car is wrong, but that is just their opinion; that does not make it wrong. Hindus believe slaughtering and eating beef is wrong, but that does not make it so; that is just the belief of a group of people. Words like right and wrong should not be in your thesis statements.

Besides, the student has shifted topics again; what happened to entertainment and technologies?

Next, the paper breaks the problem (or imagined problem, since there is not enough detail to actually explain what is causing a problem) down to something "which harms people by creating procrastination, addiction, and abuse to humans." Those are three different topics, three different arguments. The thesis needs to take one position only (not three). Of course "abuse to humans" is vague by itself, but either one of the other two points might make a workable thesis if it were attached to a specific thing (such as the inability to turn off a smart phone). Once a single focus is selected, though, the thesis must not over-generalize. Just because YOUR BROTHER'S iPhone causes HIM to ignore HIS responsibilities, does not mean that it has that effect on all iPhone users, so the thesis would have to be just about your brother.

Finally, the topic shifts once again in the last sentence to people being replaced by machines. This is an entirely different topic.

I've written a lot here about this short opening, but there was a lot to write about. The opening is unclear, unfocused, opinionated, overly general, and, ultimately, since it does not create a clear picture for the reader, it will not engage a reader (hook the reader and cause interest).

It is unclear, wordy and dull.

Now let's look at a successful opening:

      A few months ago I was in a pawn shop looking around, browsing through the over-priced junk, old guitars with rusty strings and tarnished wood, a dusty old amplifier that released a deafening screech of static, obsolete computers, ridiculously over-priced surfboards, used fishing poles running $300.00 apiece, and previously-owned jewelry bought at prices next to nothing, when something caught my attention: a wide-angle lens staring me down, fisheye to eye, giving me that look like she wanted to mess around.

A lot of things work here. First, it's an actual scene, an example. It creates a picture and has plenty of descriptive detail so that a reader can experience it (so it is engaging). The items described are mis-matched and unusual, and this is the effect one would expect browsing a pawn shop. The lens is given a bit of personification and is flirty, which adds to the human interest. It's also got a bit of humor (and readers often like humor).

This opening does not have a thesis statement. Typically, a thesis will appear at the end of paragraph one or the beginning of paragraph two. A logical thesis for this might be, "After I bought the lightly-used Nikkor AF-S DX 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5G ED and attached it to my Nikkor DX, it changed my view of urban architecture from plain to seductively theatrical." The paper will show the narrator "messing around" with the lens to see common surroundings in a dramatic new fashion, and that's all the paper will be about.

Review "In New Mexico." What a terrific opening--"Chicken power." Without context that makes absolutely no sense, but it certainly catches your attention. And, of course, the writer will supply the needed context. This is an example of the self-sufficiency that the essay is about.

And what about conclusions? Somewhere you were likely told that a conclusion should summarize the paper and restate the thesis in different words.

Why?

That's really just silly. In a short paper the thesis has not been forgotten, and the paper does not need summary. That would just be redundant, filler.

End with an example, with a thought-provoking incident that relates to the topic, with a call to some specific action (if appropriate). The conclusion is what the reader is left with; like the opening, it should have dramatic impact.