A GUIDE TO WRITING FOR LITERARY MASTERPIECES

STAGES OF THE WRITING PROCESS:
Critical Reading, Note-Taking, Outlining, Drafting, Revising, Editing:

Here are the basic stages to follow:

Understanding the nature of the assignment: are you required to compare and contrast, analyze an argument, write about causes and effects, or simply expound? Your answer to this will govern the way in which you read and re-read the text(s).

Critical reading: this involves:

(a) awareness of exactly what we are looking for

(b) effective note-taking

It's a good idea to read the text through once fairly quickly; this will give you a broad overview of the main themes and issues raised, the writer's style and approach. Before you read it again, you need to be aware of what specifically you are looking for. As you re-read the text, you might underline or highlight what appear to be the most significant passages and words, making notes in the margins. But, no matter what the assignment, you should have a firm grasp of the writer's main points and of the basic structure of the text. This will enable you to write a summary, which might be a point by point statement of the thesis and main points.

Organizing one's notes: the kind of assignment required will determine how you order your notes into a series of specific points. For example, a comparison-contrast paper demands a different kind of organization than an argumentative paper (see the next section).

Working out a thesis: after reviewing your notes, you need to decide what your general position is going to be. A good thesis will (a) give a clear statement of your position or viewpoint on the given subject, (b) indicate the overall purpose of your paper, and (c) cite two or three reasons in support of your perspective.

The precise format of the thesis will depend on what the overall assignment is. In general, a thesis statement need not be a single sentence; the more detailed and refined it is, the better the reader will be able to understand the author's exact position and purpose. Without a clear and detailed thesis, a paper is liable to be badly organized.

Drafting an outline of the paper: it's a good idea to make our outline about one page long so that you can see the structure of your proposed paper at a glance.

A standard format for an outline is as follows:

(1) Introduction: briefly introduce the topic of the paper. Don't, however, indulge in statements of the obvious, such as "Dante was a writer of genius" or "Sophocles was a major Greek dramatist." Use the introduction to sketch any relevant and necessary background to the topic under discussion. If you can't think of an appropriate introduction, it will do you no harm to start off with the thesis.

(2) Thesis Statement: state your overall position, citing perhaps three reasons A,B,C, in the order of their importance.

(3) Part I of body of paper: One/Two paragraphs supporting reason A with evidence from the text or elsewhere: it is always confusing for the reader if you talk about two or more unrelated issues in a single paragraph. Hence, each paragraph (or each set of related paragraphs) should be unified. In other words, it should focus on one aspect of your argument or discussion. You can make this focus clear by including a topic sentence which indicates the main theme or argument or subject-matter of the paragraph.

(4) Part II of body of paper: One/Two paragraphs supporting reason B with evidence: as you move to elaborating your second reason, you need to use an effective transition sentence, which helps the reader to see the connection between your first reason and your second reason. The transition sentence might be incorporated into the topic sentence or it could be a separate sentence. It's a good idea to avoid transition phrases and sentences which denote mere addition,e.g. "Also," "Furthermore," "Another reason..."

(5) Part III of body of paper: One/Two paragraphs supporting reason C with evidence: again, you need an effective transition to introduce this section.You also need to end with a powerful or striking point.

(6) Conclusion: don't simply restate your thesis; in a short paper, such repetition will be superfluous. There are a number of ways in which you might fruitfully conclude: you could highlight your most important point; you could point to additional implications of an issue; you could end with a provocative question; or you might offer a general reflection, generated by your specific analyses.

In brief, your outline may look something like this:

Introduction

Thesis + reasons A, B,C

Part I: reason A: -- topic sentence, evidence (points 1,2,3)

Transition

Part II: reason B:-- topic sentence, evidence (points 1,2,3)

Transition

Part III: reason C: -- topic sentence, evidence (points 1,23)

Conclusion

Given the widespread use of computers, it's not always necessary to make an outline before you start writing. You may find it easier to begin by free-writing, by writing down in sentences and paragraphs whatever ideas come into your head. However, you still need to organize retrospectively what you have written, by making an outline based on what you have already produced. This will give you a clearer sense of whether your paper has a clear thesis, a coherent structure, and whether the points you make follow an ordered pattern. What is important is that you do make an outline at some stage during the production of your first draft.

Preparing a first draft: writing your first draft will be much easier if you have a detailed outline. Here are some steps you might follow:

(1) Type or write down your thesis statement. Since it is the basis of your paper, everything you say in the paper should be related to your thesis. Ask yourself what kind of introduction would be appropriate. Do you need a substantial introduction or will a very brief one suffice? Remember to cite the titles of the works you are dealing with.

(2) Look at the first point in your outline which supports the thesis. This point will be the basis of the topic sentence of your first paragraph, which you should now type or write. With your notes about the text in front of you, decide which points from/about the text you might use for this first paragraph. List those points in order of importance and write one or two sentences about each of them in turn, supporting your remarks with appropriate quotations or citations from the text.

(3) You can follow a similar procedure for the remaining points in your outline.

(4) Before you type or write your conclusion, look over your paper carefully to decide where your arguments have led. Your actual conclusion may be different from the one you initially anticipated.

Revising extensively: in many ways this is the most important part of the writing process, so it deserves considerable time and attention. Often, the difference between a good paper and a poor paper lies in the revision process. You can revise a poor paper to improve it in many ways. Here are a few hints:

Set aside your draft for at least a few hours or, if possible, for a few days. This will allow you to achieve some distance from your work, and you may discover errors, oversights and possible connections which escaped you earlier. You can then revise the paper according to the following basic schedule, which focuses first on the overall organization and structure of the paper, and then considers more local issues such as grammar, syntax (sentence construction), diction (word choice) and punctuation.

(2) Look closely at your thesis. Is it clear? Detailed? Sufficiently focused? Does it accurately reflect the essential content of your paper? If your answer is "no" to any or all of these questions, your paper is unlikely to succeed and you need to undertake major revisions.

(3) Read quickly through each of the paragraphs in your paper and ask yourself: does each paragraph deal with a single theme or point? If, for example, you deal with a given issue in paragraph one and return to the same issue in paragraph five, you need to amalgamate these two paragraphs, or at least place them in consecutive order. In general, you might ask: are all the paragraphs in the right order? Do they follow an ordered pattern (based on logic, evidence, or importance), or do they need to be shifted?

(4) Consider the transitions between paragraphs: do they exhibit clearly the connections between successive paragraphs? Have you used the same transitions too often?

(5) You can now review in detail the structure of each paragraph in turn. Is the point of the paragraph clear? Is there a topic sentence, and is this adequately developed and/or illustrated? Have you made adequate reference to the text on which you are writing? Are there any sentences which are superfluous, irrelevant or repetitive? Are there any sentences which might be shifted? Is any sentence in need of clarification or amplification?

(6) Look at your use of reasoning and evidence throughout the paper. Do you offer clear reasons for the points you make? Are these reasons appropriately ordered, according to importance or logical consequence? Above all, ask yourself: does the paper display a thorough knowledge of the text under consideration? Is the basic point of each paragraph supported by reference to specific parts of the text? It's a good idea to use several brief quotations from the text; if you lack room for quotations, you can cite (refer to) specific parts of the text.

(7) Once you are satisfied that the thesis, overall structure and paragraph development of your paper are sound, you can focus on more local problems concerning sentence construction and mechanics. Ask yourself: is the meaning of every sentence clear? Is every sentence concise? Are there any superfluous or repetitive words or phrases? Is the diction (word choice) appropriate?

(8) Finally, you can address possible mechanical problems. Look for any common errors (listed later in this handbook) such as: sentence fragments, comma splices, run-on sentences, dangling modifiers, lack of subject-verb agreement and lack of noun-pronoun agreement.

(9) It's always a good idea to show your paper to a peer or colleague who might give you feedback on the questions enumerated above. He or she might also comment on whether or not the tone and audience-awareness of your paper are appropriate.

Here is a brief Revision Checklist:

Thesis: clear and detailed?

Paragraphs: appropriately ordered?

Transitions: clear and accurate?

Each Paragraph: point clear? topic sentence? any repetition?

Reasons: clear? ordered?

Evidence: sufficient reference to the text?

Sentences: clear? concise?

Mechanics: any common errors?

Editing and proofreading:

Once you have made the necessary revisions of your paper, you are ready to edit it, to look for and remedy any minor errors in use of grammar, punctuation, spelling, italics and capitals. It's worth taking some time to edit since you have the opportunity to correct unintentional oversights.

To proofread, you need to look carefully through your paper, line by line and to correct neatly any errors you find. If there are numerous errors, you should re-type the paper. It's a good idea, when proofreading, to read the last sentence first and to proceed backward; in this way, you might catch errors which have so far eluded you.