Becca Honeycutt English 1102 Professor Padgett April 5, 2013 The Theory of Good Writing The question a writer

has the most difficulty answering is what is good writing? There are many factors that play a key role in good writing that it is hard to come up with just one answer. First, we must define the term good. According to the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, good means having the qualities that are desirable or distinguishing in a particular thing. So does this mean ones writing can be good but also ineffective and vice versa? We must also recognize our audience whenever we discuss good writing. The audience can make or break a writers work. There are many loopholes and ambiguities when it comes to good writing but, I value being concise and specific, having confidence in your writing, being able to relate to the audience, and being able to convey your message successfully as good writing. Of course grammar and punctuation are important when writing an essay, but I would rather read an essay that challenges me mentally and has a clear message with a few spelling errors than a bland essay that uses proper grammar. I strive to achieve both of these goals in my own writing, but having a clear purpose when you write comes before punctuation and grammar. While we are on the subject of being unclear and ambiguous, we must not fall victim to rambling in a paper. It misleads and confuses the audience and more importantly, they lose interest. Being concise and specific keeps the audience intrigued and gives them a chance to agree or disagree with your argument. I find myself struggling with staying on topic and I feel as if my writing

suffers from that. This is an excerpt from a writing assignment about how literacy is important to writing: Literacy plays a huge role in sports; you have to know the correct terminology to understand what you have to do. When I first started playing basketball, I had to learn all the rules and terms they used. I had to start out young and learn so that I would be more familiar with the rules and regulations. I strayed off topic and started to talk about basketball when I should have been discussing literacys role in my writing. This piece is also very vague and does not tell the audience much of anything. I am learning to focus on the main goal of my essays and to get to the point as efficiently and effectively as possible. Having a clear thesis and using concise and specific evidence and support make for not good, but great writing. If you do not believe in your writing, who will? Having confidence in your writing builds for a stronger paper and is more convincing. If you do not think that you are a good writer, it will show in your writing. I am not an excellent writer, but I believe in my work and I write to the best of my ability. If a writer lacks confidence in their writing and gets a bad grade or bad review, it might cause them to get discouraged or they might not even care at all to fix it. I believe that you must have confidence in order to achieve anything. Yes, it may be clich or trite but it is what I have valued throughout my writing and in my life. Let me show you a piece from our most recent paper in my English 1102 class, the interpretive essay: Without self-determination, hard work, and raw talent, these men would not be successful. Being at the right place at the right time can only amount to so much, you cannot give all the credit to luck and opportunity. To be successful you have to have the

drive and motivation. It takes effort and hard work to earn success, not just good fortune and fate. You can clearly see the confidence and a clear thesis in this piece, which was rhetorically effective for this assignment and writing in general. Whenever I write about a subject that I am not interested in nor know anything about, it shows in my writing. Therefore, to make my writing up to par, I do the research and actually take the time to form a credible paper. The main objective for writing is to give my audience a purpose for reading my work. Throughout my writing process, I tend to find myself asking, What is the purpose for this paper? I try to reel my audience in from the very beginning of my essays because that is where you either win or lose their attention. Being able to relate to the audience is important because the whole purpose of writing if essentially for an audience. If the audience cannot connect with your writing, they will not want to keep reading. Now I will show an excerpt from a research paper about World War II from my LBST 2101 class last semester: Changing roles during the great depression was a significant part in the World War II aftermath. Women took the roles as breadwinners while men pitied themselves. There was also a major shift in the household roles that women now had to take on, often taking on the role of bringing home the bread and helping to create the foundation for modern-day women in the workforce This was the beginning of my twelve paged research paper. There is no attention grabber or any real connection to these opening sentences. Though it was a research paper, there still should be a bond between you and the audience, not just meaningless facts slapped onto the paper. Facts and data may get you an A on an assignment, but I would not consider it good writing.

I am guilty of giving an unclear message at times and I see that my writing is flawed. I try to convey the message or purpose of my essays correctly without being vague or uncertain. I always try to argue my point and give clear evidence to support my thesis. Whenever I find myself rambling or getting off topic, I take a break and then come back to my writing. My goal is to provide the reader with my opinion and let them form their own after reading my work. If I do not deliver my message successfully, then my audience might misinterpret my writing completely. Dr. Seuss is an excellent example of an author who is able to connect with the audience and display his ideas while being concise at the same time. For instance, in Oh, the Places Youll Go! He writes: You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go... You do not have to be a genius to figure out what Dr. Seuss means and that is the beauty of his work. It is very hard to misunderstand a thesis that is simple and to the point. The whole paper or piece of work revolves around the thesis, so it must be important, right? Sometimes good writing comes naturally, but for the rest of us, it takes a great amount of effort. This paper is not to pretend that I am a great writer but it is to show what I value most about good writing and what I prioritize in my own writing. Good writing is a process that each individual learns over time. You must learn how to connect with the audience, be clear and confident in your writing, and convey a clear message in order to be a good writer. Writers should stick to what they believe, as a writer, to be good writing. Everyone has a different opinion on what they believe to be good writing and I think that is important to how each

audience views a piece of writing. If each member of the audience has different mindsets on what they think is good writing, there are many opportunities for someone to enjoy your work.

Becca, I think you have a strong essay here. I really like you discussion of how a piece of writing really needs to connect to an audience and you define this connection in different but similar ways (clear communication and content that is geared toward a particular audience). I think, in revision, you would benefit from bringing some focus to your writing. There are moments where you seem to wander off topic a little or you are not making a direct enough of a connection to your thesis. Interestingly, your discussion of being off topic could be more closely tied to your thesis of audience-driven writing. I also think that you thesis could be focused a little more. You mention clarity and audience in your thesis. I think if you turned to focus on just audience, that might give the paper more uniformity and more cohesion (and you wouldnt have to do that much rewriting, just make the connection to audience more relevant).

Works Cited "Dr. Seuss Quotes." Dr. Seuss Quotes (Author of Green Eggs and Ham). N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Apr. 2013.