Writing Tips

Just copying this down from the Little Brown Essential Handbook for Writers, by Jane E. Aaron (NYU) and Elaine Bander (Dawson College). 1st Canadian Edition, Addison Wesley Longman, 1999.

This is on the inside of the cover. Anything in italics = my personal commentary.

Writer's Checklist:

• Make your subject your own. Pick a subject you care about or adapt an assigned subject so that your writing is worthwhile for you and your readers.
  Fo'shizzle. If you don't give a shit about your writing, why should your professor?
  
  
• Explore your subject in writing. List your ideas, write them out in sentences, or map them using arrows and circles. To make ideas flow, write without stopping to re-read and edit.
  This is actually more useful than you think. "Freewrite" is the term I use, although other students have called it other things. I've done it pretty often on this journal, where it's just an outpouring of ideas. It's also an extension of making your subject your own, and the more you become involved in it, the more you'll actually like your paper.
  
  
• Think about your purpose and readers. What do you want readers to do or think after reading your paper? What do they expect from the kind of paper you're writing? What information do they need?
  This is a very good consideration. Usually in my major, I assume my reader has read the literature in question, but at the same time, I also need to consider who I'm writing to. Readers have to understand what the writer is saying. It's kinda pointless if they don't. I've had a professor chide me for that before, not necessarily in the lack of information, but my wording was obscure.
  
  
• Focus your ideas. What is the central idea your paper will develope? What is the central question it will answer? An informal outline may help you sharpen your focus, or you may need to do considerable writing.
  This is probably one of the hardest parts of brainstorming the paper. Again, freewriting helps this tremendously. The next point also helps.
  
  
• Research your subject. If necessary, read or conduct other research to supoprt or extend your ideas.
  In Introduction to Literature courses, students are not likely to require research, just read the text and write some stuff with just the text. However, for other students, particularly in the Arts, research is essential when writing an argumentative essay.
  
  Ideally, the research will help the writer know the subject better, and interesting things can be found through research. Some people (heh, Mike, thinkin' of ya) just don't know when to stop, especially with intertextual references - we keep looking for the sources that were cited in the articles we've read, and we read what THEY've cited, and so on.
  
  More likely, though, people will research just to find evidence that backs up what they're saying, rather than to know more about the subject in question.
  
  
• Draft your paper. Writing one section at a time, concentrating on working out your ideas. Ignore problems with organization, style, grammar until you revise and edit.
  To be perfectly honest, I've never actually been able to do this. I usually start out with a pretty detailed outline of what I want to have on my paper and write section by section, polishing as I go along. Probably due to my constant practice, my grammar and organization tend to be pretty spot-on and aside from typos, I don't have any bad habits with my first draft such as disorganization and the like.
  
  
• Revise your daft. Read your draft from your reader's perspective. Add, delete, sbustitute, or rearrange to clarify your purpose and support your central idea. Make paragraphs develope subtopics and substantial evidence.
  Oh man, I cannot stress how important this is. Writers become very attached to what they've written, and they sometimes get offended when I, the writing assistant, tell them the format is hard to follow, that there's a standard format in place because it works, and for all their "hard work", their paper is disorganized, messy and they have to do a massive rewrite.
  
  I always tell them, "pretend you've never seen this paper before. Does it make sense?" This is especially towards ESL students who have trouble expressing themselves, but see nothing wrong with what they've written and have to be quizzed further on what they mean with some specific phrasing. Once they explain it, it makes sense, but the reader should be able to understand on the first reading, not have to ask the writer!
  
  
• Acknowledge your sources. If it's not your idea, cite it. Major citation styles are: MLA (Modern Language Association), APA (American Psychology Association), Chicago Manual and CBE (Council of Biology Editors).
  When in doubt, cite. Seems these days people do NOT understand that, if it's not your idea, you must give credit, and somehow they think it's okay to stick in any old thing they read to back up their arguments when it's not their idea. Some people aren't sure whether they should cite it - it was their idea first, but they found it in one of the evidencial texts they're using, should they cite it? I say, "yes." When in doubt, cite it. Getting expelled for plagiarism is not worth the principle of "I thought it was mine first!"
  
  As for how to cite, there are useful guides to be found online. Sometimes they conflict on certain details, though, so when in doubt on that? Check with your professor. Usually they're not picky as long as you're consistent, eg. if you put volume number before issue number with one entry, do it with the rest.
  
  
• Edit your revision. Tighten and clarify sentences, polish words, repair mistakes in grammar, punctuation and spelling.
  And this is why people should not write papers at the last minute.
  
  
• Proofread your final draft. Look for and correct mistakes such as repeated words, misspellings, missing words and other typograhical errors. Don't rely on your computer's spellchecker because it will miss many such errors (eg. their for there).
  And this is also why people should not write papers at the last minute. *coughs* I'm guilty when it comes to typos - terrible ones too, that I could have caught if I ran my paper through spellchecker, and then read it carefully. I don't often make mistakes a computer can't catch, but I'm HORRIFIED at the lack of care most North Americans have towards spelling.
  

I know a lot of people out there probably don't write research papers, but many of the points here also apply to other kinds of writing, academically and professionally.