Write better essays in just 20 minutes a day part 3

S E C T I O N Planning the Essay hile creativity and inspiration can play an important role in good essay writing, planning, drafting, and revision are critical. Whether you have to write an essay in class, during a test, or at home, getting down to the business of writing means focusing on these three things.In this section,you’ll learn planning strategies that will not only improve the effectiveness and quality of your writing,but will also help eliminate many ofthe frustrations writers face.In addition,they’ll benefit your reader by showing him or her how the various points you make in your essay work together and how they support your thesis. When you begin your essay with planning, you will have guidance and direction through the writing process, especially if you are in a timed situation. Planning lets you see how your many developing ideas fit within a framework,and clearly maps out any type of essay you are required to write. 17 L E S S O N Thinking about Audience and Purpose LESSON SUMMARY The first step toward effective essay writing is to know why and for whom you’re writing. This lesson explains how to understand your audience and purpose and how these two factors affect your writing. magine you’ve just had an amazing experience: You were able to save someone’s life by performing CPR. You want to share the experience with three people: your father, your best friend, and the admissions offi-cer at your first-choice college. How will you describe what happened? Will that description be the same for each person? Probably not.Although the subject remains a constant,each person is a different audience,requir-ing different word choices, levels of formality, and tone. Because you are sharing the experience with these three people for different reasons, the purpose of your description changes, too. You might tell your father to let him know that his advice about taking a CPR course was invaluable. To your friend, you might stress the emotions the experience evoked. In your college application essay, you place an emphasis on the experience’s revelation of your competent and responsible nature. Audience and purpose not only determine howyou write;they shape your content,or whatyou write as well. Therefore,the first step to writing better essays is to understand who you are writing for and why you are writing. 19 –THINKING ABOUT AUDIENCE AND PURPOSE– þ Understanding Your Audience Imagine that you’ve been asked to write about your life-saving experience for the local hospital newsletter. You expect your audience to be adults, so you plan and draft your article in anticipation of that audience. But when you submit it,you find that the hospital plans to use your article in a supplement for elementary school students. Can they print it as written? Not if they want their readers to understand what you’ve written. Understanding your audience is a critical component of effective writing.Before you begin any type of essay, you must find out: 1. Who will read your essay and why are they reading it? 2. What do they know about your subject? 3. What is your relationship with the reader? Pinpointing Your Audience If you’re writing for a teacher,you know his or her name and face,as well as the expectations he or she has for your writing. But determining your audience doesn’t always mean knowing exactly who will be reading, grading, or scoring your essay. In fact, often you’ll need to write for someone, or a number of people, you’ll never meet. For example, if you are taking the ACT or SAT, you know that two people will read your essay and score it. You also know the criteria for each score. You don’t know the readers’ names, or where they’re from, but you know enough about what they’re looking for to understand how to write to them. Knowing your audience in this case means knowing what they’re looking for. In other words,your readers will pick up your writing in order to give it a grade or score.You need to know their expectations in order to fulfill them. What does your English teacher consider an A essay? How does a col-lege admissions officer judge an essay? For the SAT and ACT,what does the scoring rubric look like? What are the differences between an essay that gets a 6, and one that gets a 2? Here are some general guidelines: WHO THEY ARE Admissions officer SAT and ACT scorers AP Exam evaluators High school teachers WHAT THEY’RE LOOKING FOR an engaging essay that reveals your personality, goals, and values; evidence that you can organize your thoughts and communicate effectively a polished rough draft that responds to the topic, develops a point of view, and sup-ports that point of view with examples and evidence a clear and cohesive essay that demonstrates mastery of the subject matter a combination of the following: mastery of the material (do you understand the book, concept, issue?); a clear and original thesis; mastery of the essay form (clear thesis, strong support, logical organization); mastery of standard written English Here’s an example. Imagine that you have been asked to write about a poem. Clearly, you could not write the same essay for a college application and an English Literature AP exam. You have two different sets of actual readers who want two very different things from you. 20 –THINKING ABOUT AUDIENCE AND PURPOSE– Admissions officers, for example, would prefer a very personal response to the poem, one that reveals something about who you are and what is important to you.They might want to know if the poem helps you bet-ter understand something about yourselfand your values.They might want to know how you understand the poem. What does it mean to you? How does it make you feel? What do you get out of it? How can you relate it to yourlife? The Audience’s Relationship to the Subject In addition,it’s essential to consider the relationship of your audience to your subject.What are they likely to know about your topic? How interested will they be in what you have to say? How likely are they to agree or disagree with your ideas? What Your Readers Know about the Subject One of the biggest mistakes writers make is to assume that their readers know what they’re talking about. Just because you know your subject intimately doesn’t mean your readers do.You need to carefully consider how much your readers may know about your subject. For example, you’ve decided to write about your interest in robotics for your college application essay.If you use terms like “range weighted Hough Transform”and “sensor fusion algo-rithm,”chances are your readers won’t know what you’re talking about. You’ll either have to explain your terms or replace the technical jargon with words the average reader can understand. Similarly, say you decide to write about your favorite novel. Should you assume your readers have read the novel? If they have, should you assume that they read it recently enough to remember its characters, plot, and themes? Unless you know for sure,or unless your assignment specifically mentions an assumption (“assume your readers have read The Great Gatsbycarefully”),you must provide sufficient background information for your read-ers. You’ll need to briefly summarize the plot and provide context for the specific scenes and issues you’d like to discuss. How Your Readers Feel about the Subject Another important consideration is how your readers might feel about the subject. Will they be interested in it? If not, what can you do to arouse their interest? If you’ve taken a position on an issue, how likely is it that your readers will share your opinion? If they’re likely to disagree,how can you help them accept,or at least understand, your position? (You’ll learn more about this issue in Lesson 11.) Your Relationship to the Reader Finally,there’s one more question to ask about your audience:What is your relationship to him or her? This rela-tionship helps determine the style, tone, and format of your essay. Though the writing situations discussed in this book are different, your relationship to the actual reader is quite similar in each case:that of evaluatee to evaluator.The primary reason your actual readers—college admis-sion officers, SAT and ACT scorers, AP essay exam readers, and teachers—are reading your essay is not for their reading pleasure. Instead, they are reading to evaluate. How does this relationship affect your writing? For most situations, it is in your best interest to be formal (but not stuffy), respectful (but not overly gracious), and courteous (but not ceremonious). You must also fol-low the provided guidelines or expectations.For example,if your instructor wants your essay typed in a 12-point font, double-spaced, with one-inch margins, and one staple in the top left-hand corner, that’s exactly what you should hand in. 21 ... - tailieumienphi.vn