WRITING USING APPROPRIATE LANGUAGE CONTENT AND STYLE. BY Samson Mwita

WRITING USING APPROPRIATE LANGUAGE CONTENT AND STYLE.

THE WRITING PROCESS

Writing is a process that takes place at different stages. These stages are listed below.

Ø  Pre-writing

Ø  Drafting

Ø  Revising and editing

Ø  Proofreading

Ø  Final draft/publishing

These stages may be repeated several times during the writing process and they need not necessarily follow one another in order. You can go back and forth between steps as often as you wish. You can repeat whichever step you need to repeat until you get the result you want. The diagram bellow shows you how the writing process works for most people.

                               STAGE 1. PRE WRITING

During this stage you decide what you are going to write about by exploring ideas, feelings and memories. Prewriting is the stage in which you not only decide what your topic is but also;

·         You refine your focus and explore your topic.

·         You gather information about your topic.

·         You make notes about what you want to say about it

·         You think about your audience and your purpose. Your audience is whoever will read your work. Your purpose is what you hope to accomplish through your writing.

In prewriting stage you need to do the following activities.

a.       Choose and explore your topic

b.      Identify purpose and audience

c.       Arranging and organizing ideas.

1.    CHOOSING AND EXPLORING YOUR TOPIC.

There are many techniques you can use to generate ideas and define and explore your topic.

1.1. Keeping a journal/diary.

 Journal or diary can help you to record your thoughts, from day to day. You can then refer to this record when you are searching for a writing topic. You can record your daily experience, observations, thoughts, feelings and opinions. Use your imaginations, be inventive and don’t worry about grammar, spellings or punctuations.

1.2. Free writing

As its name suggests, you may write freely without worrying about grammar, spellings, punctuation, logic or anything. You just write what comes to your mind. Let you thoughts flow; just write them down. You can evaluate them later. Evaluating your ideas at this point may dry up the flow. Accepting any idea that comes is the way to encourage more ideas. The important point is to allow your mind to follow its own path as you explore a topic.

1.3. Brainstorming

Start with a key idea, word or question then list other ideas as they occur to you. Don’t worry about the order. Just let your ideas flow freely from one to the next. It is advised to do your brainstorming with others. You can do the following.

·              Choose someone to list the ideas as they are called out.

·              Start with a topic or a question.

·              Encourage everyone to join in freely.

·              Accept ideas, don’t evaluate them now.

·              Follow each idea as far as it goes

1.4. Collecting information

Whether you are deciding on your topic or exploring a topic that you have already chosen, you need to get information about it. You can begin the process of collecting information by;

·         Asking questions

·         Doing a library research

·         Observing

·         Interviewing

You may also need to use all of these four methods to collect information.

1.5. Clustering

You need to do the following.

·         Start with a key word or phrase circled in the centre of your paper.

·         Brainstorm to discover related ideas; circle each one and connect it to the central idea.

·         Branch out with new ideas that add details to existing ideas. Use as many circles as you need.

·         Review your chart looking for ideas that interest you.

2.    IDENTIFYING PURPOSE AND AUDIENCE

2.1. Purpose

Before you start to write you must determine your primary purpose for your writing. E.g. to inform, to amuse or entertain, to narrate, to describe, persuade etc.

Sometimes you may want to accomplish more than one purpose; in that case you will have the primary purpose and secondary purpose. To determine the primary purpose you may need to answer the following questions.

a.       Do I want to tell a story?

b.      Do I want to describe someone or something?

c.       Do I want to inform my readers about the topic or to explain something about it?

d.      Do I want to persuade my readers to change their minds about something or take some actions?

e.       Do I want to amuse or entertain?

2.2. Audience

Your audience is just anyone who will be reading your writing. Sometimes you write just for yourself. As you write consider the following questions;

a.       Who will my audience be?

b.      What do I want to say to them?

c.       What does my audience already know about my topic?

d.      What type of information will interest my audience?

3.    ARRANGING AND ORGANIZING IDEAS

As a writer you need to organize the facts, statistics, reasons, and concrete and sensory details you gathered and put them in order. Some possible patterns of organization are;

·         Chronological order (by time)

·         Spatial order (relationship based on space, place and setting)

·         Order of importance or order of impression

·         Cause and effect (events described as reasons and result, motive and reaction, stimulus and response)

·         Comparison and contrast. (measuring items against one another to show similarities and differences)

·         You can also organize details visually by making a chart.

STAGE 2; DRAFTING (INITIAL DRAFT)

At this stage you are now organizing the facts and details you have accumulated into unified paragraphs. Make sure that each paragraph has a main idea and does not bring in unrelated information. The main idea should be stated in a topic sentence; and it must be supported by details that explain and clarify it. Details can be facts, statistics, examples, incidents or sensory details.

Organize your details in one of the methods discussed in the pre-writing stage.

To make your sentences interesting, vary their length. Use some short sentences and some long ones, unless otherwise your writing will sound choppy.

Your composition should consist three parts;

Ø  Introduction – it gives the reader a brief explanation of what your composition is about.

Ø  The body – organized in paragraphs each with a topic sentence that states what the paragraph is about.

Ø  Conclusion – it give a feeling of completeness. You may conclude your composition in one of the following ways;

o   Summarize what you have said in your essay.

o   Restate the main idea (using different words)

o   Give a final example or fact.

o   Make a comment on the topic or give a personal reaction to it.

o   End with a quotation that sums up the topic or comments on it.

o   Call for some actions (especially in persuasive/argumentative essays)

STAGE 3: REVISING/EDITING

The word revision means “seeing again”. You need to look at your writing again to see if it is clear and well organized, it accomplishes your goal and that it reaches your audience. The revision phase however includes other people. You may share your writing with another student, a small group of students, or your teacher who can suggest improvements.

After you evaluate your work you might want to move some sentences around or change them completely. You may also need to add or cut information. Mark all these changes in your draft and then include them in your final draft.

At this stage your interest is to;

·         Improve paragraphs

·         Use self-evaluation and peer evaluation.

·         Check content and structure e.g. Subject-verb agreement

·         Make sure that the language is specific and descriptive.

·         Check unity and coherence

·         Check style and tone.

STAGE 4 – PROOFREADING

The purpose for proofreading is to make sure that;

·         The words are correctly spelled/spelt.

·         The sentences are grammatically correct.

·         Punctuation marks are correctly placed.

·         Capitalization is appropriate.

STAGE FIVE – FINAL DRAFT/PUBLISHING

T

his is the stage at which you write your final copy to share your work with others.  You might read your work with others. You might read your work aloud in class or submit it to your teacher, school newspaper or to a friend to read.

Proofread, Revise and edit the following text making the necessary corrections

trees play a  important role in preserving and protecting our enviroment of Earth. They absorb carbondioxide and release oxygen into the air. in this way they help to reduce the ammount of pollution in the Earth's atmos phere. They also play an important part in the water cycle as they release moisture into the Atmosphere through their leaves. This helps the formasion of clouds which bring rain. Loss of trees can there fore be a cause of drought. In addition at times when there is a lot of rain, trees can soak up much of the extra water and so they help to prevent floods. Trees also benefit the soil where they grow. They prevent soil erosion as they work like nets traping soil and stoping it from being washedaway. In adition  fallen Trees, branches and leaves decay on the ground, making the soil more fertile