Start Writing
There is no single best way to begin a writing project. What's best is what gets you going and builds momentum for the journey ahead. You may want to start right in on a draft or do some pre-planning.
Often, simply Choosing a Subject can be a challenge. You could start Freewriting to locate your subject and generate ideas. Or you might prefer to first gather information from Outside Sources, or to brainstorm using The Journalists' Questions.
Whether you're writing an informal essay, a technical report, or the next great American novel, the suggestions in Discovering What to Write will help you get going.
Write Strong Sentences
Effective sentences are vital to your writing. They are fundamental carriers and shapers of meaning—the pulse of style. If you want to work on your sentences, try the following Paradigm sections: Basic Sentence Concepts, Expanding the Basic Pattern, Six Problem Areas, Designing Effective Sentences.
For help with punctuation, try Basic Punctuation.
Pyramid Power
Many organizational patterns, especially outlines, are built on a hierarchical structure that classifies ideas and facts according to their level of generalization. At the top level is the thesis. Below this are the major conceptual divisions, each of which may be further divided along paragraph lines. This is the essential pattern of the Thesis/Support Essay, which takes the pyramidal structure through four levels (thesis, topic sentence, support sentence, detail).
Read more ...Basic Sentence Concepts
Our language organizes thoughts into sentences. As a core, these sentences have a two-part structure. For simplicity and easy reference, we can represent the two parts as follows:
Read more ...Unity of Purpose
As you revise you'll want to get all parts of your paper working together to produce a unified effect. Just as a basketball team whose members work as a unit has a better chance of success than one whose members work at cross-purposes, the papers you write-whether letters, reports, or essays will more likely succeed if they're unified, if they have a singleness of purpose to which every word contributes.
Read more ...Writing a Story
Informal essays are often written as stories that trace a sequence of events from beginning to end, with occasional intervals of description or analysis.
Read more ...A Learning Cycle
As you begin to identify key issues and problems for further exploration, you may wish to consider the learning cycle model below. It is based on the work of the French learning theorist, Jean Piaget.
Read more ...Arguing in Context
Like other types of writing, arguments respond to specific situations: a need is not being met, a person is being treated unfairly, an important concept is misunderstood, an outdated policy needs to be reexamined. Strong arguments respond effectively to such writing contexts.
Read more ...Supporting Your Thesis
Think of your thesis as a statement that remains to be proved. It commits you to showing your reader that it's founded upon good evidence and sound reasoning. That is, you want to show that you know what you're talking about, that you've investigated the matter thoroughly, have considered the implications of your findings, and are offering in your thesis not mere opinion, but a carefully thought-out conclusion. This job of uncovering and displaying your reasoning is the next step in writing a thesis/support essay.
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