Ten Core Concepts for

Effective Writing 2
WHEN I FIRST LEARNED to rock climb, an experienced climber gave me some
advice: Always climb with your eyes. That may sound strange, since climbing obvi-
ously involves moving your body up a cliff, but it actually makes good sense. The
key to climbing a vertical rock face is finding the right holds for your hands and feet,
which is not always straightforward. To keep moving safely and efficiently up the
cliff, climbers have to link together handholds and footholds. So even before starting
up the cliff, climbers examine it carefully and identify a possible route that they can
follow to the top. Climbers call this process “seeing the line” up a cliff or a mountain.
Once on the cliff, they are always looking ahead to the next handhold or foothold.
That simple statement—“always climb with your eyes”—turned out to be some of the
best advice about climbing I ever received. It was a way to boil down the complicated
act of climbing into a single, simple, basic idea.
This chapter does the same thing with writing: It boils down the complex, power-
ful, wonderful, and sometimes challenging activity of writing into ten essential ideas, or
Core Concepts. There’s much more to learn about writing than these concepts, just as
in climbing you have to learn more than how to “climb with your eyes,” and Part II of
this textbook goes into much more detail so that you can apply these concepts to various
writing tasks. But these concepts are fundamental insights that every writer must learn
in order to write effectively. Students who incorporate these insights into their writing
process will become better writers, no matter what kind of writing they are doing.
Learning to write effectively also requires developing a certain kind of attitude
toward writing. Some climbers talk about “conquering” a mountain, but many climb-
ers reject that way of thinking. For them, the point of climbing is not about defeating
a mountain but about respecting it, adapting to it, and experiencing it. That attitude
influences their decisions about which routes to follow up a mountain, when to start
a climb, when to abandon it. It also affects the meaning of climbing; for them, climb-
ing is about appreciating the experience of being in the mountains and meeting their
challenges.
In the same way, the experience of writing can depend a great deal on a writer’s
attitude toward writing. Students who believe that writing is mostly about follow-
ing certain rules tend to see writing as a process of learning and applying rules,
which can become tedious and diminish the joy of writing. If, on the other hand,

ProfStocker/Shutterstock.com; Dudarev Mikhail/Shutterstock.com

The Ten Core Concepts for Effective Writing 23

you think of writing as a process of discovery, then each writing task can become a
way to learn—about your subject, about yourself, and about the world around you.
Students who approach writing in this way are open to the possibilities of writing
and better able to harness its power. For them, writing isn’t primarily about applying
rules; it’s about understanding and engaging the world and communicating effec-
tively with others.
The ten Core Concepts discussed in this chapter, then, are not rules to learn or
directions to follow. They are insights into how to write more effectively. Learning
these concepts is a matter of experiencing the variety, complexity, and power of
writing so that you can harness that power. Learning to write more effectively is
partly a process of learning how to think differently about writing and about your-
self as a writer.
This chapter asks you to examine your beliefs about writing and adopt a certain
attitude about writing—an attitude that might differ from what you have learned
about writing in the past. It encourages you to shift your focus as a writer from
remembering and applying rules to exploring your subject, addressing your readers,
and accomplishing your rhetorical goals. That shift can change your entire experience
as a writer. In learning and applying these Core Concepts, you will, I hope, feel more
like a rock climber who is fully engaged in the arduous yet exhilarating act of moving
toward a mountain summit.

The Ten Core Concepts for Effective Writing

The ten Core Concepts are based on what research and experience indicate about writing
effectively. Each concept is based on a fundamental insight that student writers can learn in
order to write well in a variety of situations—in school, in the workplace, and in the com-
munity. Understanding these concepts doesn’t guarantee that you will always write effec-
tively, but you cannot learn to write effectively without applying these ten essential insights
about writing:
1. Writing is a process of discovery and learning.
2. Good writing fits the context.
3. The medium is part of the message.
4. A writer must have something to say.
5. A writer must support claims and assertions.
6. Purpose determines form, style, and organization in writing.
7. Writing is a social activity.
8. Revision is an essential part of writing.
9. There is always a voice in writing, even when there isn’t an I.
10. Good writing means more than good grammar.

24 Ten Core Concepts for Effective Writing

 Core Writing is a process
Concept 1 of discovery and learning. 2
A few years ago, a student in one of my classes decided to write an essay about her relationship
with her parents. Writing that essay turned out to be a much more involved—and important—
experience than she expected.
In the first draft of her essay, Chelsea, who was 22 years old, described how her relationship
with her parents was changing now that she was an adult. Her draft was lighthearted and full of
fond memories and funny anecdotes about her parents that revealed how much she enjoyed her
new relationship with them. But something was missing from the draft. For one thing, Chelsea
mentioned briefly that her parents had recently divorced after more than 20 years of marriage,
but she wrote nothing about why they divorced. That seemed strange to Chelsea’s classmates,
who asked her about the divorce during a workshop of her draft. The more we discussed her
draft, the clearer it became that there was a lot more to the story than Chelsea had revealed in
her draft.
As Chelsea revised her draft, her essay began to change. It was no longer a lighthearted story
about what it was like to have an adult relationship with her parents; it was now a more compli-
cated essay that revealed Chelsea’s conflicted feelings about what had happened to her parents’
marriage and how it affected her (see “Changes” on page 26). There was still humor in the essay,
but it was bittersweet, tempered by her realization that her changing relationship with her parents
was accompanied by loss as well as gain.
Chelsea’s essay became a journey of discovery through which she learned a lot about herself,
her parents, and the experience she was describing in her essay. She also learned a valuable les-
son about writing. When she began the essay, she thought it would be a simple narrative about
her changing relationship with her parents. But the process of writing took her deeper into her
experience and the complexities of human relationships. It helped Chelsea gain insight into an
important period in her life and, maybe, understand something important about relationships
(and life) in general.
Writing her essay also enabled Chelsea to communicate something interesting about rela-
tionships to her readers, but what she communicated was knowledge and insight that she gained
through the act of writing, which enabled her to reflect deeply on her experience. This capacity of
writing to help writers learn about and understand something is part of what makes writing so
powerful—and so important.

Core Concept 1 Writing is a process of discovery and learning 25

 FINAL DRAFT

Changes
I didn’t know how to handle the fact that my parents were actually two separate people
who had ceased to exist as one entity, two people who had other interests and other
desires besides just solely being parents. With three grown children they felt that it
was their time to move on and become separate people. The combination “Momand-
dad” that I had once imagined as this real thing suddenly transformed into a Mom and
a Dad who were pursuing their own separate lives and their own interests.
And I had to choose. My brother moved out and found an apartment to hide in,
away from the crumbling walls of our family. I was torn—torn between moving out
and moving on from the only thing I ever knew, from this Momanddad that was sud-
denly becoming non-existent. But we can’t leave Dad alone. And so it was decided that
I would live with Mom and my sister would live with Dad. How do you choose? Is who
you live with the one you side with, because in that case, it would change everything.
Changing. Everything was changing.
—excerpt from “Changes” by Chelsea

As Chelsea discovered, writing is more than a step-by-step procedure for organizing ideas into
a specific form, such as a five-paragraph essay, a lab report, or a story. Writing effectively requires
understanding that you are on a journey of discovery that enables you to understand something
and to convey what you discovered to others. That journey sometimes takes you to places that you
didn’t expect, and it is rarely a straightforward, linear process from start to finish. If you approach
a writing task as such a journey, it won’t always be easy, but it can be much more satisfying—not
to mention more successful.

SIDEBAR LEARNING BY WRITING

The Irish singer-songwriter Conor O’Brien

revealed during an interview that his song-
writing has been influenced by postmod-
ern poetry. O’Brien says that he developed
a deep appreciation for the poetry of John
Joushua Wainwright/Alamy

Ashberry in a college English literature

course. “I remember having to write an
essay about John Ashberry and I abso-
lutely despised his words,” O’Brien said.
“I thought they were really elitist. But
then by the end of my essay, I actually fell in love with it and I thought the complete
opposite about it . . . . It was very rhythmic and very beautiful.”

26 Ten Core Concepts for Effective Writing

 Any writing task can be a surprising journey that leads to new learning and insight, no matter
what your topic is or what kind of assignment you’re working on:
■ When you write a narrative about an experience, as Chelsea did, you might understand that

■
experience more fully.
When you write an analysis of someone else’s words or ideas, as singer-songwriter Conor
2
O’Brien did (see “Learning by Writing”), you can develop a deeper appreciation for those
words or ideas.
■ When you write a blog post about a political campaign, you engage the ideas of others who
might disagree with you, which can help you examine the basis for disagreement.
■ When you write an argument about a problem, you might understand that problem better so
that you are able to see solutions that were invisible to you before you began writing.
■ When you write a lab report about an experiment you did for a chemistry class, you might
gain a better grasp of the experimental process and the specific research question you were
examining.
This kind of discovery and learning is possible because writing engages your intellect in a way
that goes beyond reading or listening. If you have ever been so immersed in a writing task that the
time seems to fly by, then you have experienced this capacity of writing to engage your mind fully.

What This Means for You as a Writer

■ Approach every writing task with curiosity. Don’t assume you already know exactly what
you want to say or where your writing will end up, even when you’re writing about something
you know very well. Don’t expect to know at the beginning exactly how everything will turn
out in the finished text. Be open to unexpected possibilities as you work through an assign-
ment. Even when your assignment is very specific and has rigid rules to follow (for example,
a chemistry lab report with explicit directions for format or a persuasive essay in which you’re
required to provide exactly three arguments for and against your position), remember that you
can’t know everything at the start. That’s why you’re writing in the first place: to learn some-
thing new or deepen your understanding of something you thought you knew.
■ Be patient.  To engage in writing as a process of discovery and learning almost always
involves working through several drafts as you explore your subject, gather information,
develop ideas, consider your audience, learn more about your subject, and refine what you
thought you wanted to say. This process can be messy and even frustrating at times, but it
can also be illuminating. Forcing this process into a step-by-step procedure will not only
make it more difficult (as you probably already know) but also prevent it from becoming a
worthwhile journey of discovery. And it will usually result in less effective writing. But if you
approach a writing task as a process of discovery and learning, you might be surprised by
where your writing can take you.
■ Don’t try to make your writing perfect as you work through an assignment. Early
drafts of any assignment are opportunities to explore your subject and learn more about it.

Core Concept 1 Writing is a process of discovery and learning 27

 Avoid the impulse to make everything perfect the first time. Rough drafts are just that:
drafts. They can be changed and improved. Sometimes you have to allow yourself to write
messy drafts, especially in the early stages of an assignment. You can even temporarily
ignore rules of usage and style in your early drafts and focus instead on exploring your
subject matter and discovering what you want to say in your piece, as Chelsea did. You will
go back later to correct errors, tighten up your sentences, develop ideas, or clarify a point.
(See Core Concept #10.)
■ Allow yourself sufficient time to write.  Writing at the last minute forces students
to rush the process and undercut the discovery and learning that writing can lead to. It
is also stressful and less enjoyable. Allowing sufficient time to move through the process
deliberately will result not only in greater learning but also greater enjoyment—and more
effective writing.

Practice This Lesson

Keep an informal journal or a private blog as you work on your next piece of writing.
Each time you work on your writing, describe in your journal or blog what you did.
If you read something and take notes for your writing, describe that. If you make an
outline or jot down some ideas for your introduction, describe that. If you get an idea
while taking a shower or riding a bus, describe that. If you share a draft with a friend or
roommate, describe that. Also record any questions, concerns, or problems that arise
as you work on this piece of writing, and explain how you addressed those questions,
concerns, or problems. Describe how you feel as you work on the piece. What seems
to be going well and what doesn’t? Keep a record of everything you do and think as
you complete the writing task. Once you’re finished with the writing task, go back and
review your journal or blog. What does it reveal about how you write? What does it
suggest about writing in general? What surprises you about your descriptions of what
you did to complete your writing task? What do you think you can learn from this jour-
nal about writing? About yourself as a writer?
If possible, interview someone who is a professional writer or who writes regularly
in his or her work, and ask that person what he or she does when writing. What steps
or activities does the person engage in when completing a writing task? How does
this person explain what he or she does when writing? After you finish your interview,
describe in a paragraph or two what you learned about writing from this writer, and
compare what he or she does to what you do.

28 Ten Core Concepts for Effective Writing

 Core Good writing fits
Concept 2 the context. 2
If writing is a journey of discovery, how do we know when that journey produces writing that is
good? The answer is: It depends.
Consider the expression, “Today was a very good day.” People say this all the time, but what
exactly does it mean? A student who earned a good grade on a test could say it was a good day.
Someone receiving a raise at work might consider that a good day, but quitting a job could also
make for a good day. Winning the lottery would be a very good day for most people. So would
getting married. But getting divorced might also be considered a good day. You get the point:
What counts as a good day depends on the person and the circumstances.
The same goes for writing. Students generally believe they know what an instructor means
by “good writing,” but what counts as good writing can only be determined by examining the
specific context of the writing.
When it comes to writing, context is often understood as the rhetorical situation, which tra-
ditionally includes the writer, the subject of the writing, and the audience (see “The Rhetorical
Situation”). These components determine what constitutes effective writing in a given situation.
For example, a lab report that earns an A in a biology class might not qualify as a good report in
a pharmaceutical company because the biology instructor and the lab supervisor in a pharmacy
might have different expectations for lab reports; moreover, the purpose of the writing differs in
each case. Writers have to determine the expectations for each writing situation. They must con-
sider their audience and make decisions about content, form, and style that they believe will most
effectively meet the expectations of that audience. Good writing is writing that meets the needs of
the rhetorical situation—which often means meeting the specific criteria for an assignment (see
“Grades vs. Good Writing”).

FOCUS The Rhetorical Situation

Writer In classical rhetorical theory, the rhetorical situation is
represented as a triangle. The metaphor of a triangle illu-
minates the relationships among the writer, reader, and
Subject Audience subject matter in a particular act of writing. The writer
and the audience have a specific relationship to the sub-
ject matter in the form of their shared knowledge about the subject, their opinions about it,
their respective experiences with it, their stake in it, and so on. In addition, the writer has
some kind of relationship to the audience, even if he or she doesn’t actually know that audi-
ence. For example, a historian writing an article for a professional journal assumes that she
(Continued )

Core Concept 2 Good writing fits the context 29

 is writing as a member of the community of professional historians, with whom she shares
certain values, knowledge, and expectations when it comes to the subject of the article and
to history in general. To write well requires understanding your audience and its relationship
to your subject—and to you—so that you can adapt your writing appropriately to achieve your
goals in that rhetorical situation.
The rhetorical situation is an essential concept that helps writers better understand
the social nature of writing and thus create more effective texts. Most instructors use the
term to highlight the observable elements of the writing situation, especially the intended
audience and the writer’s purpose in addressing that audience. (In this textbook, I generally
use the term in this basic way.) Some theorists, however, have illuminated how other factors
can influence writing within a rhetorical situation. These factors might include the writer’s
identity (including race, gender, ethnicity, and so on), the cultural context of the writing,
the historical moment, and the reader’s background, among other such factors. These fac-
tors can shape not only what and how a writer writes but also how the writer’s text is given
meaning within the rhetorical situation. (See Chapter 8 for more discussion of the rhetorical
situation.)

To write effectively, then, requires assessing the rhetorical situation. Writers should consider
four key dimensions of the rhetorical situation to guide their decisions as they complete a writ-
ing task:
■ Purpose.  Why you are writing helps determine what to write and whether your writing
is appropriate and effective in a particular context. A high school guidance counselor
might praise your college admissions essay because it is clear and well organized, but
can that essay really be considered “good” writing if it does not convince the college
admissions officer to admit you to the college? And what if you are rejected by one col-
lege but accepted by another? Does that make your essay “good writing” or not? Writing
can never really be evaluated without considering the writer’s purpose: Are you trying to
persuade an admissions officer that you are a good student? Are you attempting to solve
a problem by analyzing it carefully? Do you want to share an insight about love by tell-
ing the story of a relationship? Good writing accomplishes the writer’s goals in a specific
rhetorical situation.
■ Form or genre. Each rhetorical situation demands a specific form or genre—that is, a spe-
cific kind of writing: an argument, a report, a blog post, a multimedia presentation, a poem.
And each form is governed by specific criteria regarding structure and style. A lab report will
be written in a formal, objective style, whereas a blog post might have a more informal, pro-
vocative style. Writers select the appropriate form for the rhetorical situation and adapt their

30 Ten Core Concepts for Effective Writing

 writing to the expectations of that form. Certain forms of writing are appropriate for specific
rhetorical situations, and no one style is appropriate for every kind of writing. Understanding
and using various forms for different rhetorical situations is essential for effective writing.
■ Audience.  Good writing meets the expectations of the intended audience. That college
admissions essay is “good” if it resonates with the college admissions officer who reads it. To 2
write effectively, then, requires identifying your audience, analyzing their expectations, and
adapting your text to their expectations for that situation. Sometimes that’s a straightforward
task: You adopt a formal writing style and avoid irrelevant personal tidbits in a job applica-
tion letter, assuming that such language and information would be considered inappropriate
by the person reviewing job applications. Usually, though, analyzing your audience is more
complicated, even when you know the audience. That’s because there is always a subjective
element to writing. Readers can agree on the general characteristics of good writing but dis-
agree on whether a specific piece of writing is good. For example, they might agree that an
editorial is well organized and clearly written—characteristics usually associated with good
writing—but disagree about whether that editorial is “good” because one reader finds the
writer’s style too glib whereas another finds it engaging. Readers react to a piece of writing
on the basis of their backgrounds, age, gender, experiences, and personal preferences as well
as their reasons for reading that piece. Different audiences might judge the same piece of
writing very differently. Writers must understand the challenge of anticipating such differ-
ences and adapt their writing as best they can to achieve their purposes with their intended
audience.
■ Culture. The dimensions of context described so far are all shaped by the broader cultural
context. Culture can be defined as your sense of identity as it relates to your racial and
ethnic backgrounds, your religious upbringing (if any), your membership in a particular
social class (working class, for example), and the region where you live (for example,
central Phoenix versus rural Minnesota or suburban Long Island). Not only does cul-
ture shape how readers might react to a text, but it also shapes basic aspects of a rhe-
torical situation such as the subject matter and language. Consider, for example, how
the issue of gender equality might be understood differently by readers from traditional
Muslim households as compared to readers with more secular backgrounds. Writers can’t
be expected to address all the complex nuances of culture that might influence a specific
rhetorical situation, but to write effectively requires being sensitive to these nuances and
understanding how a factor such as religious background or ethnic identity might shape
readers’ reactions.
In addition, the rhetorical context for any writing task includes the medium, which can signifi-
cantly affect what and how a writer writes in a given situation (see Core Concept #3).
So the question of whether the writing is “good” is really beside the point. What matters is
whether the writer accomplished his or her purposes with a specific audience in a specific rhetori-
cal situation.

Core Concept 2 Good writing fits the context 31

 SIDEBAR GRADES VS. GOOD WRITING

Most students understand that producing good writing and getting good grades on writ-
ing assignments aren’t always the same thing. Usually, instructors have specific criteria
for grading student writing based on course goals and their own views about effective
writing. Different instructors can have different expectations for writing even in the same
course and for the same writing assignments. Getting an A on a specific assignment
doesn’t necessarily mean that the student is a “good writer”; it means that the student’s
writing successfully met the criteria for that assignment in the view of the instructor. By
the same token, getting a poor grade on an assignment doesn’t mean that the student is
a poor writer. Students who regularly get good grades in one subject—English, say—are
sometimes frustrated when they get lower grades in another—say, psychology. But usu-
ally the lower grades mean that the student has not adjusted to the demands of writing
in a different subject.

What This Means for You as a Writer

■ Consider your purpose. What do you hope to accomplish with a specific piece of writ-
ing? Answering that question, even in a general way, can guide your writing and make
it more likely that your text is effective for your rhetorical situation. For college writing
assignments, avoid the temptation to think of your purpose as getting a good grade. Instead,
identify your purpose in terms of the assignment and what the instructor expects you to
learn or do. If your instructor doesn’t provide such information, try to obtain it so that you
have a clear idea of the expectations or guidelines to help determine what counts as good
writing for that assignment. Have a clear sense of purpose that matches the expectations for
the assignment.
■ Consider your audience. The decisions writers make about matters like content, form,
and style should be driven by their sense of what will work best for their intended audi-
ence. Even when writing for a general audience (for example, when writing a letter to the
editor of a newspaper read by thousands of people with very different backgrounds and
expectations), try to identify basic characteristics of your audience (e.g., readers of a regional
newspaper are likely to be familiar with a local political controversy or be generally sup-
portive of a local industry) and their likely expectations about a given subject. One of the
first things you should always do when you begin a piece of writing is think carefully about
your audience.
■ Consider the form of the writing.  Form does matter when it comes to determining
whether a piece of writing is effective. The form of your writing will shape your decisions
about style, organization, and length as well as the content of a piece. For each writing task,
use an appropriate form and identify the standards for organization, style, length, and so on
for whatever form of writing you are using.

32 Ten Core Concepts for Effective Writing

 ■ Study good writing. Although there is no single definition of “good writing,” students can
learn a lot by paying attention to what others—including their instructors—consider good
writing. What counts as good writing in each of your classes? What is different or similar
about how different instructors evaluate their students’ writing? What is it about a specific
piece of writing that certain readers like or dislike? Exploring such questions can lead to 2
insight into what features of writing readers value in different situations.

Practice This Lesson

Find a short piece of writing that you think is good. (You might select one of the read-
ings included in this textbook.) Share that piece of writing with two or three friends
or classmates, and ask them their opinions of it. What do they like or dislike about the
piece of writing? What did they find especially effective or ineffective about it? Ask
them to explain their opinions as clearly as they can. Then write a brief reflection on
what you learned about “good” writing from this activity. In your essay, compare the
reactions of your friends or classmates to the piece of writing you chose, and draw your
own conclusions about the role of audience in writing.

Core The medium is part

Concept 3 of the message.
Good writing depends on context, and that context includes the medium—that is, the tools or
technology the writer uses and the venue for the writing. Writing a blog entry about a controver-
sial parking policy on your campus will be different from writing an analysis of that parking policy
for a business course or a letter of complaint to the campus parking office. Different media place
different demands on writers. Effective writing means adjusting to the medium.
Students today are fortunate to be living in an age of astonishing technological developments
that open up countless opportunities for writers. Using widely available technologies, students
exchange ideas and information in ways that were unimaginable even a few years ago. They can
communicate easily and widely through social media. They can use cell phones to send text
messages, take and share photos, or download music and videos. They can participate in online
discussions with their professors and classmates without leaving home. They can use computers to
produce sophisticated documents that only a decade ago would have required a professional print-
ing service. They can easily create multimedia presentations incorporating sound, image, and text.
These technologies are dramatically changing how we communicate and may be changing
the very act of writing itself. When I create a website for one of my classes, I write differently than
when I create a printed syllabus for the same class, even though most of the content is the same. I
organize the website differently, because students will use it differently from the syllabus. I change

Core Concept 3 The medium is part of the message 33

some of the content, because my students don’t access
content on the website in the same way they find it on
the syllabus. I include images as well as links to other
online resources. Even my writing style changes a bit. In
short, the medium changes my writing.
Think about creating a Prezi presentation as com-
pared to, say, writing a report for an economics class.
The audience and purpose might be the same, but the
form and some content will differ. More to the point,
the tools for composing are different. Prezi enables you
to create documents that include much more than text.
All these factors can influence both what and how writ-
ers write. For example, you will probably use less text
in a Prezi presentation, which will affect your decisions
about the content of your presentation. In addition, you

Cameron Whitman/iStockphoto.com
will likely incorporate images and even audio and video
clips into your Prezi document but not in your report.
You also adjust your writing style: For the report, you
will use a formal academic style and probably complex
sentences and lengthy paragraphs, whereas the Prezi
presentation will require more concise language, bul-
leted lists, and brief titles for most slides. All these differences might seem obvious, but because
writers today often have several choices for the medium they will use, they need to be aware of
the ways in which the medium shapes what they write and how they use writing to accomplish a
specific purpose.
Although most essays, reports, and research papers assigned in college course still require stu-
dents to write in conventional print formats, increasingly students are asked or choose to write in
other media. More and more students are required by their instructors to participate in online
discussions about course topics, use multimedia programs to make presentations, and produce
videos instead of traditional papers. In each case, the medium can shape the writing task in
important ways. The medium can also affect your relationship to your audience (see “Blogging vs.
Writing a Newspaper Column”). Part of your task as writer, then, is to understand how different
media might affect your writing and to adapt to the medium you’re using.

SIDEBAR BLOGGING VS. WRITING A NEWSPAPER COLUMN

Political writer Andrew Sullivan writes a popular blog called The Daily Dish as well as a
column for the Sunday Times of London. Each medium, he says, influences his writing
style, choice of subject matter, and interactions with his readers. According to Sullivan,
blogging “is instantly public. It transforms this most personal and retrospective of forms

34 Ten Core Concepts for Effective Writing

 into a painfully public and immediate one.” It also calls for “a colloquial, unfinished tone.”
Here’s part of how he describes the differences between these two kinds of writing:

A blogger will air a variety of thoughts or facts on any subject in no particular order
other than that dictated by the passing of time. A writer will instead use time, synthe- 2
sizing these thoughts, ordering them, weighing which points count more than others,
seeing how his views evolved in the writing process itself, and responding to an editor’s
perusal of a draft or two. The result is almost always more measured, more satisfying,
and more enduring than a blizzard of [blog] posts.

Source: Sullivan, Andrew. “Why I Blog.” The Atlantic, 1 Nov. 2008. Web. 24 Apr. 2013.

What This Means for You as a Writer

■ Know the medium. For most college writing assignments, students use computers to
write conventional papers or reports. Such assignments place familiar demands on writ-
ers when it comes to organization, style, and so on. Other media, such as blogs, wikis,
or Prezi, call for different strategies regarding organization, style, and even content. In
many cases, what and how you write may be similar in different media, but not always.
Be familiar with the characteristics of the medium in order to use it effectively for the
task at hand.
■ Choose an appropriate medium.  If given a choice, consider which medium would
enable you to create the most effective document for that rhetorical situation. A Prezi
presentation with embedded audio and video clips might be the best choice for an assign-
ment in which your audience will be your classmates. For other writing situations, a blog
or even a Facebook page might be more effective, depending upon your message and
the audience you hope to reach. Consider the medium carefully as you decide how to
complete the writing task at hand in order to achieve your intended purpose with your
intended audience.
■ Adjust your writing process to the medium. All writing tasks require planning, devel-
oping ideas, drafting, revising, and editing. But those activities can differ depending upon
the medium, so effective writers adjust their writing process accordingly. Obviously, you will
organize a research paper for a history course differently than you would a blog entry or video
script, but sometimes the differences between one medium and another aren’t so obvious.
For example, many students make the mistake of writing a PowerPoint or Prezi presentation
as if it were a conventional report. As a result, they include too much text in the presentation
and fail to take advantage of the capabilities of the medium to engage an audience visually.
The outcome can be an ineffective document that may be tedious or difficult for an audience
to follow. It is more effective to consider the characteristics of the medium as you are creating
your document.

Core Concept 3 The medium is part of the message 35

 Practice This Lesson
Review several text messages or tweets that you recently sent or received. Then write
a brief style guide for text messaging and/or tweeting. In your style guide, include
what you believe are the main rules for writing text messages or tweets to specific
audiences and for specific purposes. Include any advice that you think writers should
heed when writing texts or tweets. Also include common abbreviations that writers of
text messages use. Consider the different ways that people might use texts and tweets.
Now compare your style guide to standard academic writing. What are the main dif-
ferences and similarities between the two? What might the differences suggest about
the role of the medium in writing? (Alternatively, write a brief style guide for another
medium, such as Facebook or Prezi.)

Core A writer must have

Concept 4 something to say.
Having a clear, valid main point or idea is an essential element of effective writing—not only in col-
lege but also in the workplace and other settings. In most cases, college instructors expect students to
have a clearly defined main point or idea that is appropriate for the assignment, no matter what kind
of writing the assignment calls for. (Research shows that college instructors identify the lack of a
clearly defined main idea as one of the biggest problems they see in their students’ writing.) Readers
expect writers to have something to say; as a writer, you should oblige them. (See “So What?”)
This is not to say that the main point or idea is always simple or easily boiled down to a
one-sentence summary. Much college writing is about complex subjects, and students are often
required to delve into several ideas or bodies of information in a single assignment. A 20-page
research paper for an information science course about how new digital technologies are affecting
the music industry will include many complicated points and key ideas. So will a critique of the
major arguments about the existence of God for a philosophy course. But even such involved pieces
of writing, if they are to be effective, will be focused on a main idea and will convey a clear main
point. That critique of major philosophical arguments about the existence of God, for example,
might focus on the central point that all those arguments reflect the human desire to understand
why we exist or that many philosophers equivocate when it comes to this basic question.
Remember, though, that you when you’re beginning a writing assignment, you won’t always
know exactly what your main point will be. Sometimes the assignment will determine your main
idea or point. For example, in an anthropology class you may be asked to write an essay defining
culture as anthropologists generally understand that concept. In such a case, you will be expected
to convey a main point based on what you are learning in the course about how anthropolo-
gists understand culture. Sometimes, however, identifying your main point or idea will be more
complicated. A student of mine once wrote a research paper about being a vegetarian. She started

36 Ten Core Concepts for Effective Writing

 2

iStockphoto.com/MsLightBox
out thinking that she would write about the pros and cons of being a vegetarian to show that
vegetarianism is not practical for most people. But as wrote, she learned more about the subject
and began to shift her focus to the environmental destruction caused by eating meat. In the end,
her main point changed; she argued in favor of a vegetarian diet as an ethical response to the
environmental destruction caused by the standard American diet. As she explored her subject, she
was guided by a sense of her main idea, which evolved as she wrote. Her final paper had a clearly
articulated main point but not the one she started with.

FOCUS So What?
One useful way to help identify and refine your main idea or point in a piece of writing is to
ask, So what? Suppose you’ve written a personal narrative about your first job. So what? Why
should readers care about that experience? What’s in it for them? What will you say about that
experience that might matter to others? Answering such questions can help ensure that you
are telling your story in a way that conveys a relevant main idea or point to your readers. The
same applies to just about any kind of writing you will do in college. For an economics class,
you might write an analysis of tax cuts as a way to generate jobs. So what? To answer that
question requires you to decide whether your analysis is relevant in the field of economics.
Why analyze tax cuts now? What makes that topic something that will interest others in the
field? Is your main point something that economists would consider relevant and important?
Asking this question about your topic also ensures that you are thinking about your audience
and connecting your main point or idea to their interests as well.

Core Concept 4 A writer must have something to say 37

What This Means for You as a Writer
■ Identify your main idea. Every kind of writing—even the most formulaic lab report in a
biology or chemistry class—should have a main point. However, it is important to distin-
guish between your subject and your main idea or point. The subject of a biology lab report
might be osmosis, but the main point might be that osmosis doesn’t occur with a certain
type of membrane. Similarly, for an American history course, you might write an analysis of
the impact of the Civil Rights movement on race relations in the United States. Your subject
would be the impact of the Civil Rights movement on race relations, but your main point
would be what you have to say about that impact on the basis of your analysis—for example,
that race relations were changed in specific ways as a result of the Civil Rights movement.
■ Have something relevant to say. Having something to say is one thing; having something
relevant to say is another. Whenever you write, you are participating in a conversation (see Core
Concept #7), and what counts as relevant or appropriate depends on the nature of that conversa-
tion. In college, what counts as relevant usually depends on the academic subject. For example,
in an analysis of the social importance of hip hop music for a sociology class, you might con-
clude that hip hop’s popularity reflects discontent among young people of certain social and
racial groups. For a paper in a music appreciation class, by contrast, you might argue that certain
musical qualities, such as rhythm, account for hip hop’s popularity, an argument that might be
considered irrelevant in a sociology course. Part of what makes writing effective is not only hav-
ing something to say but also knowing what is relevant or appropriate to say in a specific context.
■ Make sure that your main idea or point is clear to your readers. Don’t assume that
because something is clear to you, it will also be clear to your readers. Sometimes, students
can become so deeply immersed in their writing that they lose perspective. They think they
have made their points clearly, but their readers may have trouble seeing the main idea.
This is especially true when the assignment is complicated and lengthy. So it’s important
to revise with your audience in mind to make sure your main idea comes through clearly.
■ Don’t try to say too much. A clear main idea is partly a result of what the writer doesn’t
say. Including too many ideas or too much information in a piece of writing can obscure
the main point, even if the ideas and information are relevant. Because most college writing
assignments address complicated subjects, it can sometimes be a challenge for students to
decide what to include in their writing. It’s important to decide whether an idea or piece of
information is essential in an assignment. If not, consider removing it.

Practice This Lesson

Post a draft of an assignment you are working on to your Facebook page or to an
online forum for sharing documents, such as GoogleDocs. Ask your friends to summa-
rize the main idea of your paper. Compare their summaries to your own sense of your
main idea. Do their summaries match your idea? If not, consider revising your draft so
that your main idea is clear to other readers.

38 Ten Core Concepts for Effective Writing

 Core A writer must support
Concept 5 claims and assertions. 2
“Winters are warmer than they used to be around here.”
“Most drivers don’t obey speed limits.”
“The average person doesn’t pay attention to politics.”
In casual conversation, we usually don’t expect people making statements like these to provide
supporting arguments or facts to prove the point. In most college writing, however, appropriate
support for claims and assertions is essential.
As we saw in Chapter 1, a central purpose of writing in college is to understand and par-
ticipate in conversations about the topics and questions that define each academic discipline. To
participate in those conversations requires knowing how to make a case for a particular point of
view and support conclusions about a relevant topic. In other words, not only must writers have
something relevant to say, but they must also be able to back up what they say.
Students sometimes fail to support their ideas or assertions effectively because they are unfamiliar
with the expectations for doing so in a specific academic subject. The important point to remember
is that all academic disciplines have such standards, though different disciplines might have different
conventions regarding what counts as appropriate support or evidence for a claim or assertion:
■ In an English literature class, you might cite passages from a poem or quote from critical
reviews of that poem to support a claim about the work of a particular poet. Your claim
would be more or less persuasive depending upon whether readers consider those passages or
quotations to be sufficient support for your claim.
■ In economics, some kinds of statistical information carry more weight than other kinds when
drawing conclusions about economic trends or developments.
■ In a biochemistry lab, data from experiments might be the main evidence for conclusions
or claims.
In each case, an important element of effective writing is using evidence that is considered appro-
priate and persuasive by readers familiar with that discipline. The same holds true outside of
school, though the standards for supporting your statements tend to be less well defined and less
rigorous in most popular writing than in academic or workplace writing.

FOCUS Supporting a Claim

The need for writers to support their claims or assertions applies to any kind of writing,
including newspaper and magazine articles, business proposals, legal documents, govern-
ment reports, petitions, blogs, and many other kinds of documents. The following examples

(Continued )

Core Concept 5 A writer must support claims and assertions 39

 are taken from various sources: a government report on higher education, an excerpt from a
book on women and careers, and a newspaper column about fair pay for baseball stadium
vendors. As you read them, notice how each writer backs up his or her statements, and con-
sider how that support affects your reaction as a reader:

There is a troubling and persistent gap between the college attendance and graduation
rates of low-income Americans and their more affluent peers. Similar gaps characterize
the college attendance rates—and especially the college completion rates—of the nation’s
growing population of racial and ethnic minorities. While about one-third of whites have
obtained bachelor’s degrees by age 25–29, for example, just 18 percent of blacks and 10
percent of Latinos in the same age cohort have earned degrees by that time.

Source: U.S. Department of Education. A Test of Leadership: Charting the Future of Higher Education.
2006: 1. Print.

When I arrived at college in the fall of 1987, my classmates of both genders seemed
equally focused on academics. I don’t remember thinking about my future career differ-
ently from the male students. I also don’t remember any conversations about someday
balancing work and children. My friends and I assumed that we would have both. Men
and women competed openly and aggressively with one another in classes, activities,
and job interviews. Just two generations removed from my grandmother, the playing
field seemed to be level.
But more than twenty years after my college generation, the world has not evolved
nearly as much as I believed it would. Almost all of my male classmates work in profes-
sional settings. Some of my female classmates work full-time or part-time outside the
home, and just as many are stay-at-home mothers and volunteers like my mom. This
mirrors the national trend. In comparison to their male counterparts, highly trained
women are scaling back and dropping out of the workforce in record numbers. In turn,
these diverging numbers teach institutions and mentors to invest more in men, who are
statistically more likely to stay.

Source: Sandberg, Cheryl. Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead. New York: Knopf, 2013. 14. Print.

The Angels are one of the richest and most successful franchises in Major League
Baseball—in fact, in all pro sports.
They’re valued by Forbes at $554 million (up 6% from a year ago), carry the fourth-
largest player payroll in the major leagues, and at this point in the season rank fifth in
per-game attendance. As they’re very much in the hunt for their division lead, it’s quite
possible that lucrative post-season games will be added to the schedule.

40 Ten Core Concepts for Effective Writing

 So why are they trying to nickel-and-dime their stadium ushers, ticket sellers and
janitors?...
The Angel Stadium employees are the worst paid among all California ballpark
workers in their job classifications, the SEIU says. Here are some comparisons provided
by the union, which also represents some of the workers at the other parks:
2
Angel Stadium ushers (the lowest paid among the affected employees) earn
$11.21 an hour. At Dodger Stadium the rate is $12.77, and at the Oakland Coliseum
it’s $14.03. Janitors in Anaheim receive $11.50 an hour; at Chavez Ravine it’s $12.31,
in Oakland $17.50 and at the San Francisco Giants’ AT&T Park $15.15. Ticket sellers
at Angel Stadium get $13.65 an hour, but at the San Diego Padres’ Petco Park they
get $16.43.

Source: Hiltzik, Michael. “Angel Baseball, Paying the Little Guy Peanuts.” Los Angeles Times, 7 Aug.
2011. Web. 25 Apr. 2013.

What This Means for You as a Writer

■ Provide sufficient support. First and foremost, make sure you have adequately supported
your main points, claims, and assertions. Regardless of your subject or the kind of writing
you are doing, readers expect you to make a case for what you have to say. Review your drafts
to be sure you have provided the necessary support for your ideas.
■ Provide relevant and appropriate support. What counts as appropriate and effective
support for a claim depends upon the subject, the academic discipline, and the rhetorical
situation. The kind of evidence used to support a claim in a history course, for example,
won’t necessarily work in a psychology course; similarly, readers of newspaper editorials have
different expectations for relevant support than, say, economists who read professional jour-
nals. As a writer, part of your task is to understand the expectations for evidence and support
for the kind of writing you’re doing. You should be able to anticipate readers’ expectations
so that the support you provide for your claims will be persuasive and appropriate for the
rhetorical situation.
■ Evaluate your sources. Citing relevant sources to support or illustrate a point is a crucial
part of effective academic writing, but not all sources are created equal. A self-help blog
might not suffice as an appropriate source in an essay about teen depression for a psychology
course, whereas a study published in a professional journal would. Having information from
a source to support a claim or assertion is not the same as having information from a credible
source. Make sure the sources you cite are not only appropriate for the writing task at hand,
the course, and the rhetorical situation but also trustworthy. (Chapters 21 and 22 provide
detailed discussions of finding and evaluating sources.)

Core Concept 5 A writer must support claims and assertions 41

 Practice This Lesson
Compare how the authors of the following two passages support their statements
or arguments. The first passage is from a report by an economist examining the
impact of poverty on educational achievement. The second is an excerpt from an
analysis by an economist about how the American public’s misconceptions about
economics affect their voting habits. First, write a brief summary of each passage,
identifying the main assertions or points in each. Then identify the supporting
evidence or arguments for each main point. What kinds of evidence or support does
each author use? What sources do they use to support their points? Finally, discuss
the differences and similarities in how these authors support their points. How
might you explain these similarities and differences?

1 The impact of education on earnings and thus on poverty works largely through
the labour market, though education can also contribute to productivity in other
areas, such as peasant farming (Orazem, Glewwe & Patrinos, 2007: 5). In the
labour market, higher wages for more educated people may result from higher
productivity, but also perhaps from the fact that education may act as a signal
of ability to employers, enabling the better educated to obtain more lucrative
jobs. Middle-income countries—which frequently have well developed markets
for more educated labour—are particularly likely to see the benefits of education
translated into better jobs and higher wages. In Chile, for instance, between one
quarter and one third of household income differences can be explained by the
level of education of household heads (Ferreira & Litchfield, 1998, p. 32).

Source: van der Berg, Servaas. Poverty and Education. UNESCO. Paris: International Institute
for Educational Planning, 2008. 3. Print.

2 Consider the case of immigration policy. Economists are vastly more optimistic
about its economic effects than the general public. The Survey of Americans
and Economists on the Economy asks respondents to say whether “too many
immigrants” is a major, minor, or non-reason why the economy is not doing
better than it is. 47% of non-economists think it is a major reason; 80% of econo-
mists think it is not a reason at all. Economists have many reasons for their con-
trarian position: they know that specialization and trade enrich Americans and
immigrants alike; there is little evidence that immigration noticeably reduces
even the wages of low-skilled Americans; and, since immigrants are largely
young males, and most government programs support the old, women, and chil-
dren, immigrants wind up paying more in taxes than they take in benefits.

    Given what the average voter thinks about the effects of immigration, it
is easy to understand why virtually every survey finds that a solid majority of

42 Ten Core Concepts for Effective Writing

 Americans wants to reduce immigration, and almost no one wants to increase
immigration. Unfortunately for both Americans and potential immigrants, there
is ample reason to believe that the average voter is mistaken. If policy were
based on the facts, we would be debating how much to increase immigration,
rather than trying to “get tough” on immigrants who are already here.
2
Source: Caplan, Brian. “The Myth of the Rational Voter.” Cato Unbound, 6 Nov. 2006. Web. 25
Apr. 2013.

Core Purpose determines form,

Concept 6 style, and organization
in writing.
A resumé is a carefully structured record of the writer’s work history and qualifications; a cover
letter for a job application is a statement of the writer’s suitability for the job. Each document
has familiar conventions regarding content, organization, and style, which the reader (usually a
person involved in hiring for the job) expects the writer to follow. A resumé shouldn’t be organized
in the narrative format that might be used for a report on an internship, nor should a cover letter
be written in the informal style and tone of a text message or Facebook post.
The conventional forms of a
resumé and cover letter serve very
specific purposes for both reader and
writer. These forms convey relevant
information efficiently within the
rhetorical situation. They are func-
tional. That’s one reason that they
have become standard. Writing an
effective resumé and cover letter,
then, is partly a matter of knowing
how to use a well-established form
to accomplish a specific purpose (to
get a job interview) within a specific
rhetorical situation (the job applica-
vicky/Fotolia LLC

tion process). The same is true of any

kind of writing, including academic
writing. Every kind of text—a lab

Core Concept 6 Purpose determines form, style, and organization in writing 43

report, a research paper, a personal narrative, a blog entry, a proposal, a review—is governed by general
expectations regarding form. (See “What Is Form in Writing?”) A writer must be familiar with these
expectations if a text is to be effective.

FOCUS What Is Form in Writing?

You have probably heard teachers refer to form when discussing writing assignments, but
what exactly is form? Generally, form refers to the way a piece of writing is organized as
well as to any features that determine the shape or structure of the document, such as
subheadings or footnotes. Form also includes the introductory and concluding sections of a
piece of writing. Form is often used interchangeably with genre—that is, the kind of writing;
for example, you might hear an instructor refer to narrative as both a form and a genre of
writing. (The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines genre as “a category of artistic, musical,
or literary composition characterized by a particular style, form, or content.”) Often, terms
such as design and layout are used to describe features of documents that include visual
elements, such as graphs or photographs; design and layout can therefore be considered
part of the form of a document. In many kinds of digital texts—including multimedia docu-
ments and online media such as web pages—design, layout, and related components can
be as important as the text itself. The alignment of the text or the contrast in font sizes
and colors can influence how the text is received. (Chapter 20 discusses these elements of
document design.)
For most traditional college writing assignments, form is generally used in two ways:
(1) to refer to the genre, or the kind of writing, expected for that assignment (research paper,
narrative, argument, and so on); and (2) to describe the relevant conventions regarding the
format, style, and structure of the document for a specific kind of writing.
Notice that purpose is implicit in form. A writer uses narrative forms to tell a story, a lab
report to present the results of an experiment, or an argument to support a particular point of
view about a controversial issue. In this sense, it is helpful to think of the form of a piece of
writing as a tool to help you achieve your purpose in a specific rhetorical situation.

For many students, however, the problem isn’t learning rules or guidelines for specific kinds of
writing, such as lab reports or books reports; the problem is that they learn only rules and guide-
lines for specific kinds of texts without understanding the purposes of those rules and guidelines
and without considering the rhetorical situation—that is, how their intended readers will read
that text. As a result, they tend to approach writing as a matter of creating a certain kind of docu-
ment rather than adopting a specific form that serves a specific purpose for a specific rhetorical
situation. Think again about a resumé. An effective resumé requires more than proper format. It

44 Ten Core Concepts for Effective Writing

must also include appropriate information about the job applicant that is presented in carefully
chosen language. An employer reviews a resumé quickly, looking for specific information to deter-
mine whether the writer is a suitable candidate for the job. A resumé is designed to present that
information clearly and efficiently. Knowing that, the applicant must select and present relevant
information strategically so that the qualifications match the requirements of the job. A successful
resumé is one in which the writer uses the form to present his or her qualifications effectively to
2
an employer. Form follows function.
The same principle applies to the writing that students commonly do in college. The format
of a lab report in chemistry, for example, enables a reader (the course instructor, other students, or
perhaps other chemists) to find relevant information about a lab experiment quickly and easily. A
literary analysis essay has less rigid guidelines for format, but readers still expect the writer to fol-
low recognizable conventions when presenting an analysis of a poem or novel. The same is true of
analytical writing in philosophy or psychology. The specific forms might differ, but in each case,
the form serves certain purposes within the academic discipline. Writers in each discipline learn
to use the form to achieve their rhetorical purposes.
Many students focus only on form (on the rules and guidelines for a specific kind of text) and
neglect function (the purpose of the text within the rhetorical situation). Good writers learn the
rules and guidelines for the forms of writing they do, whether those forms are business letters or
lab reports or blog posts, but they also understand the purposes of those forms of writing and apply
the rules to accomplish their purposes.

What This Means for You as a Writer

■ Determine the appropriate form for the rhetorical situation. In many situations, the
form will be obvious: a resumé and cover letter for a job application; a lab report for a chem-
istry class. For most college writing assignments, instructors will specify the form of writing
(argument, analysis, review, report, and so on) and provide guidelines for organization, style,
length, and so on. When the form of writing isn’t clear or specified, assess the rhetorical situ-
ation to determine which form would be most appropriate and effective. What is the purpose
of the writing? Who is the intended audience? What form of writing would mostly likely
reach that audience and communicate your message effectively? Answering these questions
will help you decide on the best form of writing for the task at hand. Remember that the
form is a rhetorical choice: Select the form that will enable you to accomplish your purpose
with your intended audience.
■ Become familiar with the conventions of the form of writing you are doing. Writers
should follow the conventions of well-established forms (e.g., lab reports) to meet their
readers’ expectations. But there are no universal rules governing forms or genres of writing
that apply to all situations. In many instances, writers have a great deal of choice regarding
organization, style, length, and similar features of a document. Digital texts such as web
pages and social media offer writers great flexibility, and even very specialized forms, such
as resumés and cover letters, can appear in many acceptable variations of format, style, and

Core Concept 6 Purpose determines form, style, and organization in writing 45

 even content. As a writer, your task is to learn the basic expectations for a specific form of
writing but to adjust your style and tone according to the specific rhetorical situation and orga-
nize your text accordingly. In most academic disciplines, there are established conventions
for form, style, and so on, but sometimes instructors do not make those conventions clear.
If you’re not sure about those conventions—for example, how to organize an assignment,
whether the style must be formal, and so on—ask your instructor and then draft your
assignment accordingly.
■ Pay attention to organization. How a document is organized is one of the most impor-
tant elements of form in writing. It is also one of the most challenging for many students.
Studies show that college instructors consider the inability to organize texts appropriately
to be one of the biggest problems in their students’ writing. So it’s important to learn how
to organize an essay, report, or digital document appropriately for the specific academic
subject. In some cases, the format will be provided. For example, lab reports usually require
specific sections in a specific sequence; the same is often true of reviews of assigned readings.
Following the guidelines for such assignments will essentially organize the report for you.
However, other forms allow for more flexibility in organizing the text. Ask your instructor
about the expectations for organizing writing assignments, and if possible, find examples of
that form or genre to see how they are organized.

Practice This Lesson

Visit a job search website, such
as Monster.com, and read several
advertisements for jobs that inter-
est you. Then write a resumé and
cover letter for two or three such
advertisements. (For this exercise,
you might write a “fictional” resumé
and cover letter, inventing appropri-
ate job experiences and relevant
NetPhotos/Alamy
background information, or you can
use your own work experience and
background.) Alter your resumé and
cover letter for each job. Then consider the differences in your resumés and letters. What
changes did you make? What remained the same? Why did you make those changes?
Now consider what this exercise might suggest about the conventions for the form and
style of resumés and cover letters.

46 Ten Core Concepts for Effective Writing

 Core Writing is a social
Concept 7 activity. 2
We tend to think of writing as a solitary activity. The image of the writer working alone in a quiet
study is a popular one. But this image is incomplete and even misleading. In fact, writing is an
inherently social act in at least three ways:
■ First, writers write for an audience. Unless you are writing an entry in a personal diary
that you plan never to share with anyone or a note to remind yourself to take out the trash,
your writing is almost always intended to be read by someone else. And as we saw earlier,
your audience significantly influences what you write, how you write, and even whether you
write. Whether the audience is a course instructor, classmates, a friend, an employer review-
ing job applications, or a larger audience, writers write with their reader or readers in mind,
even if they’re not always aware of it. In this sense, writing is always a social transaction
between writer and reader, a way to connect writers and readers. In addition, the reason for
writing something usually arises from a social situation: a paper assigned in a college class;
a problem in your town that prompts you to write a letter to the local newspaper; an essay
commemorating an important anniversary; a blog post about a current controversy. Writing
happens because our interactions with others give us reasons to write. (See “The Rhetorical
Situation” on pages 29–30.)
■ Second, writers often involve others in the process of writing. Writers regularly receive
advice or suggestions from trusted readers as they develop a piece of writing. In class students
might share drafts with classmates or comment on their classmates’ writing. College instruc-
tors offer their students suggestions for improving their drafts. Digital media such as blogs
enable writers to receive feedback from their readers; wikis allow writers to collaborate directly.
In these ways, the act of writing is social rather than solitary. In fact, in business settings and in
many other situations outside of school, collaborative writing is the norm, not the exception.
■ Third, the rules, conventions, and forms of writing are socially constructed. These
rules, conventions, and forms have evolved over time as a result of the way people have used
writing to communicate, to share ideas and information, to learn, and to accomplish a vari-
ety of other purposes. Familiar forms of writing, such as narratives and business letters and
research reports, have developed because people needed these forms in order to accomplish
specific purposes in writing. Research reports, for example, help make it easier for scientists
to share the results of their experiments and to collaborate in answering important scientific
questions. Resumés are efficient forms for conveying information about a job candidate's
qualifications. By the same token, certain rules for writing style, such as the rule that you
shouldn’t use the first person in scientific writing, have evolved to fit the purposes of that kind
of writing. Even what writers choose to write about is shaped by what others have written. The
topics considered relevant in, say, a course on business ethics are determined in large part by
what others in that field are saying. So both what and how we write are shaped by social factors.

Core Concept 7 Writing is a social activity 47

This idea about the social nature of writing is important because it undercuts the myth that writ-
ing ability is innate or exclusively the result of individual effort. This myth leads many students
to believe that they don’t have the ability to write or that writing is something that they have to
figure out exclusively on their own. Neither belief is true. In fact, many social factors shape an act
of writing. Individual skill and experience along with effort and motivation do matter, but many
other influences outside a writer’s individual control affect writing. In this sense, writing ability is
as much a function of how writers respond to specific rhetorical situations, which are inherently
social, as it is a result of individual skill. Your effectiveness as a writer depends not only on the
effort you put into a writing task but also on the way you fit in and respond to the social situations
in which you are completing that task. Learning to respond to those situations effectively begins
with understanding the social nature of writing.

What This Means for You as a Writer

■ Place your writing in context. As we saw earlier (Core Concept #2), all writing takes
place in a rhetorical context, which shapes what and how the writer writes. Make it a habit
to analyze the rhetorical situation for each writing task you have. Students tend to think of
writing assignments as a matter of producing a certain kind of text rather than responding to
the rhetorical situation. That kind of thinking can lead to ineffective writing because it tends
to focus only on the what rather than the why of the writing task. Focusing instead on the
rhetorical situation can help you adapt successfully to the different kinds of writing tasks you
are likely to face as a college student; moreover, emphasizing the purpose (that is, the why) of
your writing rather than focusing only on creating a specific kind of text (the what) is more
likely to engage you in inquiry and learning about your subject (see Core Concept #1).
■ Remember the larger context. Even when you write for a college course, you are part of
larger conversations about important issues in specific academic fields and in the society at
large. For example, an analysis of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War for a history course
can be shaped by current debates about the U.S. military efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Broader social, cultural, and historical factors can influence what you write, giving it a sense
of immediacy and significance. Being aware of these larger contextual forces can lend a sense
of relevance to your writing.
■ Seek the input of others. Even if you do most of your writing by yourself, at some point it will
be helpful to get advice or feedback from others. In your writing course, you may be required
to share your writing with classmates or to revise in response to your instructor’s feedback. But
even if you aren’t, you can benefit by asking a trusted friend, classmate, or co-worker to read your
work-in-progress and consider their reactions to what you’ve written. Many online sites enable
writers to share drafts and ideas and seek advice about their writing. Listening carefully to what
others say about your writing can help you decide how to revise to make your writing more effec-
tive. (Much more discussion about getting and using feedback appears later in this textbook.)
■ Write for your readers. When you’re in the midst of creating a document and perhaps
struggling with matters such as organization or style, you can easily forget that you are writ-
ing for a reader. Reminding yourself that your text is being created for an audience can often

48 Ten Core Concepts for Effective Writing

 help make the task clearer. Instead of focusing on whether a sentence is correct, for example,
consider how a reader might respond to it. That shift in perspective can help you keep the
purpose of your writing in view and avoid getting bogged down in rules and procedures. The
rules and conventions of writing are important, but following rules and conventions doesn’t
result in good writing if the writing does not effectively address the intended audience and
meet the needs of the rhetorical situation (see Core Concept #10).
2

Practice This Lesson

Take a piece of writing you did recently, and, in a brief paragraph or two, explore the
social aspects of that text:

1. Consider the topic. What made you decide to write about that topic? Was your
decision influenced in any way by others? Is the topic of interest to others?

2. Think about your audience. What do you know about that audience? What
was your purpose in writing to that audience? What kind of reaction did you
hope your writing would provoke?

3. Describe any advice or input you received as you completed this piece of
writing. Did you share your drafts with anyone? Did you consult an instructor
or post a draft on social media?

4. Examine the broader relevance of what you wrote. Does the analysis focus
on subjects that concern people other than your classmates in that course? If
so, in what ways? What makes the analysis relevant to your life outside that
course? What might make it relevant to others?

5. Consider what your experience with this piece of writing suggests about the
social nature of writing.

Core Revision is an essential

Concept 8 part of writing.
The famous American writer Ernest Hemingway once told an interviewer that he revised the ending
of his novel A Farewell to Arms 39 times. The interviewer asked, “Was there some technical prob-
lem there? What was it that had stumped you?” Hemingway replied, “Getting the words right.”
“Getting the words right” doesn’t mean fixing a “technical problem.” It means writing and
rewriting until the meaning is clear and the message comes through for the reader. Sometimes that
requires tinkering with words and phrases, but often it means much larger changes: adding new
material, deleting sentences or paragraphs, moving them from one place to another in the draft,
or completely rewriting entire passages. Such rewriting is an integral part of the writing process.

Core Concept 8 Revision is an essential part of writing 49

 Creating an effective text is rarely so simple that a writer can move from beginning to end in a
straight line and then go back to “fix” things. Writing is more often a circuitous, recursive process
in which the writer stops and starts, goes back, jumps ahead, changes something, adds or deletes
something, starts over, and maybe even writes the ending first (as the best-selling novelist John
Irving says he does). It is through this process that writers explore their subjects and make mean-
ing for their readers. Rarely does a writer know at the beginning exactly what his or her text will
finally look like or what it will say. The text and its meaning emerge from the process of writing,
and revising is central to that process.
Inexperienced writers often make the mistake of believing they can get everything right in
a single draft, which they can quickly review to correct minor errors. This belief arises from a
lack of practice with the various kinds of sophisticated writing required in college. Eventually
students learn that writing an effective text can’t be squeezed into a single draft. In most col-
lege writing assignments (and most other kinds of writing as well), there are simply too many
things going on for a writer to attend to all of them at once. For example, if you are struggling
to describe a complicated concept in an analytical essay for a political science course, you are
probably not going to be thinking much about spelling and punctuation. By the same token, if
you are focused on spelling and punctuation, you are probably not thinking in depth about how
to explain that concept.
Most experienced writers divide each writing assignment into manageable tasks. When writ-
ing rough drafts, they mostly ignore matters like spelling and punctuation, knowing they can
address those matters later, and focus instead on larger matters: Is my paper complete? Are the
ideas clearly presented? Are there unnecessary passages that can be eliminated? Is the piece well
organized? Have I addressed my intended audience appropriately? Does this piece achieve my
rhetorical goals? As they revise each draft, they don’t just “fix” mistakes; rather, they pay attention
to how well they’ve covered their subject, how effectively they’ve addressed their audience, and
how successfully they’ve accomplished their purpose. And they “listen” to their draft to see what
meaning begins to emerge from it, learning more about their subject as they write and revising
accordingly. Only after they have addressed these larger issues do they focus on improving sen-
tences and correcting errors (see “Revising vs. Editing”). Writers who understand revising in this
way usually find writing easier—and their writing becomes more effective.

FOCUS Revising vs. Editing

Inexperienced writers tend to confuse revising with editing. Revising is the process of working
with a draft to make sure it explores the subject adequately, addresses the intended audi-
ence effectively, and meets the needs of the rhetorical situation. It is not simply correcting
spelling or punctuation errors, adjusting capitalization, and eliminating grammar problems.
Those activities are editing. Editing means making sure that your writing is correct and that
you’ve followed the appropriate rules for form and usage. It is usually the very last step before
a piece of writing is finished.

50 Ten Core Concepts for Effective Writing

What This Means for You as a Writer
■ Understand revision as a process of discovery and meaning making. The British
writer E. M. Forster reputedly said, “How do I know what I think until I see what I say?”
I take that to mean that Forster never began a piece of writing knowing exactly what he 2
was thinking or what he wanted to say. He found out through the process of writing. His
statement can serve as advice for all writers. If you believe that writing is simply a matter
of putting down on paper what’s already in your head, you’ll be frustrated and your writing
will never feel right. But approaching writing as a process of discovery opens up possibilities,
and revising is how writers find and realize those possibilities. It is the process of making
the meaning of writing clear—both to the writer and to readers. (In this sense, this Core
Concept is an extension of Core Concept #1.)
■ Don’t try to do everything at once. Approach every writing task as a series of smaller tasks,
each of which is more manageable than the whole. Write a first draft without trying to make it a
final draft. Once you have a first draft, work on it in stages, focusing on specific issues or problems
in each stage. Start with larger issues, such as whether you have developed your main idea suf-
ficiently or supported your main argument adequately, and then revise for organization or struc-
ture. Later, revise to make sure your tone is right for your intended audience, and then attend to
your word choice and sentence structure to make sure your sentences are clear. Finally, edit for
correctness. Working through a draft in this way will make revision easier and more effective.
■ Leave the editing for last. Focusing on matters like spelling and punctuation while you’re
writing a first draft will divert your attention away from your subject and make it harder to
focus on the meaning you are trying to convey to your readers. The best way to avoid this
problem is to ignore minor errors of spelling, punctuation, grammar, and usage until you are
just about finished with your text. At that point, after you have worked through your drafts
and developed your ideas sufficiently, you can run your spellchecker, look for punctuation mis-
takes, attend to usage or grammar problems, and make sure that you have followed the basic
rules of standard English. Leaving the editing for last will make your writing go more smoothly.

Practice This Lesson

Using a wiki or a site like GoogleDocs, share a draft of your writing with two or three
classmates or friends. Be sure to explain the assignment and purpose of your draft.
Ask each person to identify the strengths and weaknesses of your draft and suggest
at least one revision for each weakness. Then compare the suggestions for revision
provided by your classmates or friends. In what ways do their suggestions overlap?
Do they disagree about what needs to be changed in your draft? How might their sug-
gestions help you revise so that your text will achieve your rhetorical purpose? Now
consider what their various suggestions might indicate about the process of revision.
(You can do this exercise without using a wiki or GoogleDocs by simply having your
readers comment on the same copy of your draft.)

Core Concept 8 Revision is an essential part of writing 51

 Core There is always a voice
Concept 9 in writing, even when
there isn’t an I.
When I was in graduate school, I took a course in sociolinguistics. As someone who knew little
about sociolinguistics, I found the assigned readings slow and difficult. But one book by a famous
anthropologist named Clifford Geertz stood out. Geertz pioneered a research technique called “thick
description,” by which he would describe in very rich detail the rituals and common beliefs of a cul-
ture in order to understand the culture from an insider’s perspective. His research profoundly influ-
enced the fields of anthropology and sociolinguistics. What really struck me about Geertz's work,
though, was his writing style. Although his work was scholarly, specialized, and theoretical, it was
also engaging to read, even for someone who knew little about anthropology and sociolinguistics.
When I praised Geertz’s writing during a discussion with my professor, he smiled and acknowledged
that students often reacted as I did to Geertz. Geertz’s writing, he said, was seductive. His comment
surprised me because I had never heard anyone describe academic writing as “seductive.” (You can
judge for yourself: An excerpt from an essay by Geertz appears in “The Voice of a Scholar.”)
My professor was really talking about voice in writing. Voice is difficult to define, but it has to
do with what we “hear” when we read a text, how the writing “sounds.” Voice is partly a technical
matter of word choice and sentence structure, but it is also a function of the writer’s confidence
and authority (or lack of it). It is that nebulous quality that makes a piece of writing distinctive.
It’s what enables a reader to say, “That sounds like Stephen King.” Or Clifford Geertz. As I learned
in my sociolinguistics course, it isn’t only popular writers like Stephen King whose writing can
be said to have a distinctive voice. Even the most conventional scientific research report or philo-
sophical treatise can have a distinctive voice. In fact, a strong, distinctive voice is one of the key
elements of effective writing.

FOCUS The Voice of a Scholar

Here are the opening two paragraphs from “Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory
of Culture,” by Clifford Geertz, one of the most influential essays ever written in the field of
anthropology. As you read, consider which features of Geertz’s writing contribute to his voice:
In her book, Philosophy in a New Key, Susanne Langer remarks that certain ideas
burst upon the intellectual landscape with a tremendous force. They resolve so many
fundamental problems at once that they seem also to promise that they will resolve
all fundamental problems, clarify all obscure issues. Everyone snaps them up as the
open sesame of some new positive science, the conceptual center-point around which

52 Ten Core Concepts for Effective Writing

 a comprehensive system of analysis can be built. The sudden vogue of such a grande
ideé, crowding out almost everything else for a while, is due, she says, “to the fact that
all sensitive and active minds turn at once to exploiting it. We try it in every connection,
for every purpose, experiment with possible stretches of its strict meaning, with gener-
alizations and derivatives.”
2
After we have become familiar with the new idea, however, after it has become part
of our general stock of theoretical concepts, our expectations are brought more into bal-
ance with its actual uses, and its excessive popularity is ended. A few zealots persist in
the old key-to-the-universe view of it; but less driven thinkers settle down after a while
to the problems the idea has really generated. They try to apply it and extend it where it
applies and where it is capable of extension; and they desist where it does not apply or
cannot be extended. It becomes, if it was, in truth, a seminal idea in the first place, a per-
manent and enduring part of our intellectual armory. But it no longer has the grandiose,
all-promising scope, the infinite versatility of apparent application, it once had.

Source: Geertz, Clifford. “Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture.” The Interpreta-
tion of Cultures: Selected Essays. New York: Basic Books, 1973. 3. Print.

Many students believe that academic writing is supposed to be dull and “voice-less.” But
they’re confusing voice with style or tone (see “Voice vs. Tone”). A scientific paper might be writ-
ten in an objective style, but that doesn’t mean it will have no voice. Moreover, college instructors
usually expect students’ writing to have voice, even when they don’t allow students to use the first
person in course writing assignments. Being aware that you have a voice in your writing and that
voice is an element of effective writing is an important step toward developing your own voice
in writing.

FOCUS Voice vs. Tone

Trying to define voice in writing is like trying to describe the color blue: you can’t quite say
exactly what it is, but you know it when you see. Still, it’s important to be able to talk about
voice, because it is a key element of effective writing. It’s also important to understand how
voice differs from other aspects of writing, especially tone. If voice is the writer’s personal-
ity that a reader “hears” in a text, then tone might be described as the writer’s attitude in
a text. The tone of a text might be emotional (angry, enthusiastic, melancholy), measured
(such as in an essay in which the author wants to seem reasonable on a controversial topic),
or objective or neutral (as in a scientific report). Tone is kind of like your tone of voice when
speaking: you can be upset, sad, happy, uncertain, or concerned, and the tone of your voice
(how loud or soft it is, how you inflect your speech, how you emphasize certain words—for
(Continued )

Core Concept 9 There is always a voice in writing, even when there isn’t an I 53
 example, stretching out told in a statement like this: “I told you not to go outside in the
rain!”) reflects that mood. In writing, tone is created through word choice, sentence structure,
imagery, and similar devices that convey to a reader the writer’s attitude. Voice in writing, by
contrast, is like the sound of your spoken voice: deep, high-pitched, nasal. It is the quality
that makes your voice distinctly your own, no matter what tone you might take. In some ways,
tone and voice overlap, but voice is a more fundamental characteristic of a writer, whereas
tone changes depending upon the subject and the writer’s feelings about it. Consider how you
would describe Clifford Geertz’s voice as compared to his tone (see “The Voice of a Scholar”).

What This Means for You as a Writer

■ Recognize and develop your own writerly voice. Part of every writer’s challenge is to
refine his or her voice and use it effectively. The first step is to recognize that you always have
a voice in writing, even in academic writing. Many of the exercises in this textbook will help
you develop and strengthen your voice. It takes practice. Listen for the voice in the assigned
texts in your classes. Try to get a sense of what makes them distinctive. Listen for your own
voice in your writing as well. When revising a draft, pay attention to the “sound” of the
writing—not only to make sure your writing is clear and understandable but also to give it
the “sound” of confidence and authority. Adjust your style and tone so that they are appro-
priate for the kind of writing you are doing (for example, avoiding vivid descriptive language
in a lab report), but always strive to write with a strong voice. A strong voice is more likely
to make your writing effective.
■ Remember that all writing has voice. Although you might have been taught that some
kinds of academic writing, such as lab reports or science research papers, should be “objective”
and therefore do not have a voice, the truth is that good writing will always have voice. That
does not mean you should use “creative” language in every kind of writing you do. It does
mean that you should follow the appropriate conventions for style and tone and use them as
effectively as you can to bring out your own distinctive voice.
■ Don’t fake it. If you are unsure of your main idea or if you are confused about the assignment
you are working on, your writerly voice is likely to reflect that. Often when students are unfa-
miliar with a subject or learning something for the first time, they try to “sound” academic
by writing convoluted sentences, using inflated language, or substituting wordy phrases for
more common words (for example, using “due to the fact that” instead of “because”). Such
strategies usually make the writing less clear and weaken the writer’s voice. And it’s usually
easy for an instructor to see that students are “padding” their writing because they aren’t sure
they have anything valid to say or they’re confused about the assignment or subject (as Calvin
does in the comic strip). So one way to have a strong, effective voice is to explore your subject
sufficiently (Core Concept #1), do appropriate research if necessary (Core Concept #5), and
have a clear sense of your main idea or argument (see Core Concept #4).

54 Ten Core Concepts for Effective Writing

Universal Uclick
2

Practice This Lesson

Compare the three excerpts below. Each excerpt is the introductory passage from an
academic article published in a scholarly journal. How would you describe the voice
in each passage? What differences and similarities do you see in the voices of these
passages? What specific features of the writing do you think accounts for the voice in
each passage (e.g., word choice, sentence structure, use of first or third person, and so
on)? Which do you like best? Why? What do you think your reaction to these passages
suggests about voice in writing?

1 Writing represents a unique mode of learning—not merely valuable, not merely

special, but unique. That will be my contention in this paper. The thesis is
straightforward. Writing serves learning uniquely because writing as process-
and-product possesses a cluster of attributes that correspond uniquely to cer-
tain powerful learning strategies.
Although the notion is clearly debatable, it is scarcely a private belief. Some
of the most distinguished contemporary psychologists have at least implied
such a role for writing as heuristic. Lev Vygotsky, A. R. Luria, and Jerome
Bruner, for example, have all pointed out that higher cognitive functions, such
as analysis and synthesis, seem to develop most fully only with the support sys-
tem of verbal language—particularly, it seems, of written language. Some of their
arguments and evidence will be incorporated here.
Here I have a prior purpose: to describe as tellingly as possible how writ-
ing uniquely corresponds to certain powerful learning strategies. Making such
a case for the uniqueness of writing should logically and theoretically involve
establishing many contrasts, distinctions between (1) writing and all other ver-
bal languaging processes—listening, reading, and especially talking; (2) writing
and all other forms of composing, such as composing a painting, a symphony, a
dance, a film, a building; and (3) composing in words and composing in the two
other major graphic symbol systems of mathematical equations and scientific
formulae. For the purposes of this paper, the task is simpler, since most students
(Continued )

Core Concept 9 There is always a voice in writing, even when there isn’t an I 55
 are not permitted by most curricula to discover the values of composing, say,
in dance, or even in film; and most students are not sophisticated enough to
create, to originate formulations, using the highly abstruse symbol system of
equations and formulae.

Source: Emig, Janet. “Writing as a Mode of Learning.” College Composition and

Communication 28.2 (1977): 122. Print.

2 Over the past two decades, the presence of computers in schools has increased
rapidly. While schools had one computer for every 125 students in 1983, they
had one for every 9 students in 1995, one for every 6 students in 1998, and one
for every 4.2 students in 2001 (Glennan & Melmed, 1996; Market Data Retrieval,
1999, 2001). Today, some states, such as South Dakota, report a student to com-
puter ratio of 2:1 (Bennett, 2002).
Just as the availability of computers in schools has increased, their use has
also increased. A national survey of teachers indicates that in 1998, 50 percent
of K–12 teachers had students use word processors, 36 percent had them use
CD ROMS, and 29 percent had them use the World Wide Web (Becker, 1999).
More recent national data indicates that 75 percent of elementary school-aged
students and 85 percent of middle and high school-aged students use a com-
puter in school (U.S. Department of Commerce, 2002). Today, the most common
educational use of computers by students is for word processing (Becker, 1999;
inTASC, 2003). Given that, it is logical to ask: Do computers have a positive ef-
fect on students’ writing process and quality of writing they produce?
As is described more fully below, the study presented here employs meta-ana-
lytic techniques, commonly used in fields of medicine and economics, to integrate
the findings of studies conducted between 1992–2002. This research synthesis allows
educators, administrators, policymakers, and others to more fully capitalize on the
most recent findings regarding the impact of word processing on students’ writing.

Source: Goldberg, Amie, Michael Russell, and Abigail Cook, “The Effect of Computers on
Student Writing: A Meta-analysis of Studies from 1992 to 2002.” The Journal of Technology,
Learning, and Assessment 2.1 (2003): 3. Print.

3 Cognitive, or executive, control refers to the ability to coordinate thought and

action and direct it toward obtaining goals. It is needed to overcome local con-
siderations, plan and orchestrate complex sequences of behavior, and prioritize
goals and sub-goals. Simply stated, you do not need executive control to grab a
beer, but you will need it to finish college.
Executive control contrasts with automatic forms of brain processing. Many
of our behaviors are direct reactions to our immediate environment that do not
tax executive control. If someone throws a baseball toward our face, we reflexively

56 Ten Core Concepts for Effective Writing

 duck out of the way. We have not necessarily willed this behavior; it seems as if
our body reacts and then our mind “catches up” and realizes what has happened.
Evolution has wired many of these reflexive, automatic processes into our ner-
vous systems. However, others can be acquired through practice because learn-
ing mechanisms gradually and thoroughly stamp in highly familiar behaviors.
2
For example, consider a daily walk to work. If the route is highly familiar
and if traffic is light, our mind can wander. Before we know it, we may have gone
a considerable distance and negotiated street crossings and turns with little
awareness of having done so. In these cases, the control of our behavior occurs
in a “bottom-up” fashion: it is determined largely by the nature of the sensory
stimuli and their strong associations with certain behavioral responses. In
neural terms, they are dependent on the correct sensory conditions triggering
activity in well-established neural pathways.

Source: Miller, E. K., and J. D. Wallis. “Executive Function and Higher Order Cognition:
Definition and Neural Substrates.” Encyclopedia of Neuroscience. Vol. 4. 2009. Print.

Core Good writing means

Concept 10 more than good grammar.
When I was a brand-new professor of English, I submitted a grant proposal in which I mis-
spelled the name of Christopher Columbus in the very first sentence. (I spelled it “Columbis.”)
I learned of the error only after one of the members of the review committee told me about
it. It was extremely embarrassing, but it wasn’t disastrous. My proposal was selected as a
finalist for the grant competition. The reviewers obviously saw the error, but they neverthe-
less selected my proposal. Why? Despite such a blatant error, they considered the proposal
good enough to make the first cut in the grant competition. The error didn’t mean that the
writing was poor.
I sometimes tell this story to illustrate the point that a correct paper isn’t necessarily an
effective one—or that an incorrect paper isn’t necessarily ineffective. Following the rules and con-
ventions of standard written English is important, but good writing is much more than good
grammar. A perfectly correct essay can also be a perfectly lousy piece of writing if it does not fulfill
the expectations of the task and meet the needs of the intended audience. An error-free history
paper won’t earn a good grade if it does not meet the instructor’s guidelines for historical analysis
or if it includes erroneous information and unsupported assertions. By the same token, a brilliant
historical analysis that also includes numerous misspelled words, punctuation errors, inappropri-
ate word choice, and convoluted sentences is not likely to earn an A+. Those errors will probably

Core Concept 10 Good writing means more than good grammar 57

distract your instructor and might even suggest that you were unwilling to devote adequate time
and attention to the assignment. For better or worse, “grammar,” good or bad, makes an impres-
sion upon readers, even if it is only one element of effective writing.
As Chapter 26 explains, student writers tend to make the same errors, and for most students,
errors of spelling, punctuation, and usage are not a very serious problem. Nevertheless, many
students spend too much time worrying about correctness and far too little time attending to
larger issues that make writing effective. As this chapter makes clear, effective writing encompasses
many things, “good grammar” among them. It is essential that you apply the rules of usage and
follow the conventions of written English, because those rules are part of what makes writing
effective. However, if you learn the rules and conventions of standard written English but little
else about writing, you will most likely not be a very good writer.

What This Means for You as a Writer

■ Learn and apply the appropriate rules for standard written English. By the time
they reach college, most students know most of what they need to know about the rules for
correct writing. They may not always be able to explain those rules, but they have learned
many of them intuitively. So recognize that you already know a great deal about the rules for
correct writing, but also be aware of what you don’t know. When you’re unsure about a mat-
ter of usage or punctuation, consult your instructor, your campus writing center, an online
writing resource, or a textbook such as this one.
■ Recognize that few rules apply in every instance. Many of the rules for correct writing
are clear and well established, but some aren’t. There is often disagreement among grammar-
ians and writing teachers about specific points of usage and style. As a writer, you have to be
aware that such differences occur and that the rhetorical context determines what rules apply.
Learn the accepted conventions for the kind of writing you are doing. Remember, too, that
these conventions can change from one academic subject to another, so make it a point to
become familiar with the conventions for writing in the different courses you take.
■ Always edit your writing for correctness.  Don’t be obsessive about minor errors as
you’re working through early drafts of a piece of writing (see Core Concept #8), but make
sure you edit before submitting your work. It usually doesn’t take very long to review your
finished drafts for minor errors, to reread them for clarity, and to make corrections to words
or sentences, and it doesn’t take much effort to run the spellchecker on your word processing
program. Editing for minor problems and ensuring that you have followed the conventions
of standard English should become a regular part of your writing process.
■ Focus on the errors you regularly make. Identify the mistakes you regularly make, and
review the appropriate rule for each one. For example, maybe you often forget to include a
comma after an introductory clause (e.g., “When he woke up the next morning, his wallet
and keys were missing.”). If you’re not sure about the rule, talk to your writing instructor or
someone at your campus writing center, or review Chapter 26 of this textbook. Studies show

58 Ten Core Concepts for Effective Writing

that most students tend to make the same kinds of minor errors. If you focus attention on
the errors you tend to make, you will learn to look for these errors when you edit your assign-
ments. Eventually, most of those errors will disappear from your writing.

2
Practice This Lesson
Make a list of the five most common errors of spelling, punctuation, or usage that you
tend to make. For each one, consult Chapter 26 to identify the appropriate rule. (You
may have to review several past writing assignments to develop this list of common
errors.) Use this list when you edit your future writing assignments.

Core Concept 10 Good writing means more than good grammar 59