Developing Writing Skills

Ling-hsia Chen

National Taiwan University

Elements of Communication

AUTHOR AUDIENCE

LANGUAGE

SUBJECT

Goals of Writing

Expressive writing situations

personal feelings, thoughts (the

writer) Referential (expository) writing situations

facts, information (outside subject) Persuasive writing situations

argument (the reader’s support, action)

The Writing Process

The Writing Process

Planning Drafting

The Essay

Revising

The Writing Process

Planning thinking about your purpose and

audience deciding what to write about developing ideas gathering details

The Writing Process (cont’d)

Drafting connecting ideas deciding the order of details incorporating new ideas

Revising deciding what works and what doesn’t changing the draft to improve it

Four Principles

Start with a clearly stated point. Organize and connect your supporting

material Provide logical, detailed support for your

point. Revise and edit to have error-free and

effective sentences

Basic Shape of Writing

Paragraph Structure topic sentence supporting sentences

sensory details, facts, statistics,

examples, anecdotes concluding sentence

Paragraph

A paragraph is a group of sentences, organized to state or support one main idea. Together, the sentences make the main idea clear. It usually consists an opening point called a topic sentence followed by

a series of sentences supporting that

point.

Pre-Writing Activities

Keeping a writer’s journal Free writing Brainstorming Clustering Asking questions

Brainstorming

Topic: Summer job at a convenience store

1. 8 hours a day, 7 days a week2. Went to work at 6 a.m. got back at 5 p.m.3. Only had 30 minutes for lunch break4. A chance to meet different people5. Convenience stores are booming these

days.

Brainstorming

6. Most customers were there to kill time.7. Lifted heavy cartons of merchandise for at least half a day8. A risky job9. There are 4 convenience stores in my neighborhood.10. No pay for lunch break11. Didn’t know how to operate a cash register at the beginning

Brainstorming

12. Could not remember the locations of different goods

13.Bosses yelled at me sometimes

14.Pay was only NT$79 per hour, $100 for overtime

15. Have to stand all the time

16. Co-workers were unfriendly

A Scratch Outline

My experience of working at a convenient store was bad.

1. Hard work

2. Poor Pay

3. Poor interpersonal relationships

Topic Sentence = Your Viewpoint

How to come up with a topic sentencePurpose statement

My purpose is to describe to my classmates the experience of working at a convenience store. I will focus on hard work, poor pay, and poor personal relationships.

Clustering

Summer Jobs

summer jobs

manager

restauranta 2-year-old

babysittingwaiter

car washing

Convenience store

factory

computer chips

kitchen

7-eleven 8 hours per day

Clustering

Job at convenience store

bad working environment

lift heavy merchandise

hard work

stand all the time

poor pay

unfriendly co-workers

NT$79 an hour

NT$100 for overtime

mean boss

long workhours

Asking Questions

When did it happen? Where did it happen? Who was involved? What is my opinion of it? How did I react? Why did I react in this way? What can I suggest about it?

Four Bases of Writing

UnityEvery word, phrase, or sentence directly supports the topic sentence.

Support Support the point with specific evidenceCoherence Organize and connect the specific evidence

Four Bases of Writing (cont’d)

Transitions Using Pronouns Repetition, Restatement, and VariationEffective Sentences Write clear, error-free sentences Use parallelism. Use a consistent point of view. Use concise words. Vary your sentences.

Strategies of Development

Description Illustration Classification Process Analysis Comparison and Contrast Narration Cause-and-effect Definition Persuasive Argument

Evaluating Written Work

Worthwhile content

Does the writing worth reading? Sensible organization

Is the writer’s line of thinking easy to

follow? Readable style

Is the style economical and convincing?

CEEC Grading Standard

Rank Score Outstanding 19-20 Excellent 15-18 Good 10-14 Poor 5-9 Bad 1-4

大考中心作文評分標準 級距 分數

特優 19-20 優 15-18 可 10-14 差 5-9 劣 1-4

The End