Unit - 1 Clarity & Lucidity in Writing Structure 1.0 Objectives 1.1 Introduction 1.2 The Composing Process 1.3 The Writing Process 1.4 Clarity & Lucidity 1.5 The Writing Routine 1.6 Let Us Sum Up 1.4 Review Questions 1.5 Bibliography 1.0 Objectives This unit explains what are the fundamental principles of writing and you will learn that – • How your writings can be clear, consice, beautiful, effective and convey what you intend the readers to understand. • Discuss the need for a clear design, manner of drafting, conveying a theme or an idea. • Stresses on some fine essential elements of writing. 1.1 Introduction Teaching of writing has gained great momentum in the past quarter century. Whether we talk about theory or methodology employed, writing has always had an important place in language teaching until the development of cheap sound recording equipment, writing was virtually the only way of obtaining evidence of learned performance, either as a record of what they could do, or as material for evaluation, as in written tests and examination. Indeed, the performance of writing has always given it a high status, to the extent that ability to write in a foreign language has commonly been taken as the only acceptable evidence of proficiency. The great rise in interest in spoken communication, characteristic of the past 20 years, has challenged the status of writing. The development of oral testing combined with cheap and effective means of recording has reduced reliance on writing as evidence of proficiency. Ability to speak a foreign language has become a moral highly rated skill than being able to write in it. Even so, writing in a foreign language such as English still remains an important requirement for many learners, especially given the role of English in international communication and commerce. As a result, writing in English has now become an end in itself, and not just a means of display linguistic achievement. 1.2 The Composing Process Writing can be viewed as involving a number of thinking processes which are drawn upon in a varied and complex ways as an individual composes, transcribes, evaluates, and revises. Writers, it is clear, have highly varied ways of composing, and any writing task involves a highly creative use 1 of composing processes. Although there are differences between composing in a first and second language, there are many common underlying processes Typically, a writer has to:- • produce relevant ideas • evaluate these ideas in relation to purpose, topic, and audience. • consider the knowledge, attitudes and tastes of the intended reader. • make decisions about the amount of information to be shared with the reader, the kind of information that has to be made explicit and the need for indirectness. • take account of the separation in time and place between the writer and the reader. • confoum to conventions of style and format in the social group concerned. • confirm to grammatical and other language conventions. • organize and structure ideas, content and purposes into a coherent whole. • write a draft • revise and improve the draft • produce a fine version to be published in some way. In addition to these, a writer may have to work to a deadline. It is scarcely surprising, then, that writing is a challenge. Being blocked as a writer often means not being able to produce relevant ideas, and a number of techniques can be used to overcome the block. Some of these techniques are brainstorming, mapping, outlining and fast writing. What they have common is a focus on content and meaning. And because brainstorming encourages an uninhibited approach to idea generating, a writer has freedom to give priority to producing ideas before involving question is of judgment and evaluation. Writing is not just an ideas free for all, however. It is also a social process involving a reader who is to be engaged in some way by the writer. Such engagement doesn’t have to be prefound – it may only be a fleeting capturing of attention, long enough to communicate a simple message. Nonetheless, it is important for the writer to win the reader’s attention, interest and involvement. Achieving this will require giving some thought to where the reader is coming from, in other words, what does the reader already know about the subject, what attitudes does the reader have about it, what does he want or need to know, what will it take to influence or affect him? Even on a simple, everyday level, a writer would have to consider the answers to such questions when, for instance, writing a note to arrange a meeting. “See you at the office at 3”. May make sense to the writer, but the message will only make achieve its purpose - a successful rendezvous – it by “the office,” writer and reader mean the same place. Although writing is traditionally regarded as a solitary process, with the isolated writer communicating with an individual reader, learning to write can usefully benefit from being a social process. There are a number of reasons for this: first, apprentice writers need to have rapid response from readers if they are to develop social awareness as a writer. Second, feedback is an important part of skill development – readers reacting to a draft will provide this. Finally, collaboration can be a significant way of enhancing effective learning. We learn from each other, and we learn to contribute to each other’s learning and development through collaboration. Hearing to write cannot be separated from reading. Reading can provide content, ideas, guidelines and models. Identifying useful information, comprehending a writer’s purpose and viewpoint, selecting key ideas, following the organization and development of ideas – these are all reading skills relevant to writing. Writers must be readers, and they may need to evaluate, interpret and summarize what they read so as to provide input to their own writing. Thus, summarizing and paraphrasing become important writing skills based on reading. Synthesizing material and ideas from different sources will draw on such summaries and notes. Drafting – or committing to print – is the process of converting thoughts to tangible form. 2 Once a draft has been produced, it can be evaluated as a way of developing or improving it. This can be done by the writer, or better still, by other readers. In the teaching profession the other reader is usually the teacher. Placing the burden of reading draft on the teacher ignores an important resource already present with us; other learners. The peer group can and should be involved in evaluating each other’s draft, learning from and contributing to each other. In moving from one draft to another, writers begin to shape the text, ideas are not assembled in random order. Lines of text are not simply scattered across the page in a disorderly fashion. Writers find that they have to organize their moves in a way which is logical to a reader. There must be coherence. Like wise, the display of text upon the page requires organizing into visual units which reflect the organizational structure while also helping the reader to make their way through the text. For many types of writing, there are very explicit conventions which writers are expected – or even required – to follow. Learning and applying these conventions is part of the induction into the writing community. As we have discussed the importance of writing skills in the academic field, one more very important issue comes before us is how to be clear enough in writing because ambiguous and vague writing is no use for anybody. Every writer must be amply clear regarding the purpose as well as about the target audience. Here are a few steps toward clear and better writing. 1.3 The Writing Process As we all know writing well is easily one of the most sought after and useful skills in the business and academic world. Ironically, it is one of the rarest and most undervalued skills among students, and few teachers have the time, resources, or skills to teach writing skills effectively. The following are a handful of tips and general principles to develop writing skills which will help in developing our ability to think and explain the most difficult topics clearly. • Pace your self – To straightaway start writing is a typical and difficult task so we need to manage our writing time like time for research, time for writing and time to draft and a few days to revise and proofread. If we write a little every day, it won’t be a problem to write long passages and answers. • Plan, then write – For some reasons, the idea of planning out a paper strikes fear deep into the hearts of most students. There is no successful writer who does not plan his work before he starts writing – and if he says he doesn’t, he’s lying. So before writing always draw an outline - heading, sub-headings. What we are going to talk about and the list of the points, we want to cover. Whatever form it takes, an effective outline accomplishes a number of things. It provides a ruler to measure our progress. It acts as a reminder to make sure we cover all the topics as fully as possible. Finally, having a plan at hand keeps us focused on the goals we have set for our writing. • Introduction – One of the biggest problems facing writers of all kinds is figuring out how to start. We all look for and think about something awe-inspiring and profound to open our paper. Here we make a mistake don’t try to do anything unusual, just try to warm up with the topic, and, once our pen starts moving we can surely produce something good.