Self-assessment questions.

1. Do the students of your department need writing skills?

2. Is academic writing difficult for you?

3. How many course papers have you already written?

4. What subjects were they dedicated to?

5. Do you suppose to continue your research in your diploma paper?

6. How long was your last course paper? How many pages did it contain?

7. What was the purpose of your writing? (To inform, to persuade, to entertain)

8. Who receives and reads your writing?

9. What do your know about the process of writing?

1.2. What do We Know about the Process of Writing?

Writing any research paper is a challenging activity. First, such a task requires specific writing skills, which have to be learnt. Secondly, a potential writer is expected to be able to elect, to argue effectively and to arrange the subject matter. Third, there are certain requirements of form to be followed.

In brief, the process of writing according to Hedge (1992) contains a number of stages, which can be represented in the following figure:

Being motivated to write

Getting ideas together

Planning and outlining

Making notes

Making a first draft

Revising replanning redrafting

Editing and getting ready for publication

Figure 1.

However, the figure oversimplifies matters because, although writing in general involves these overall stages, the process of composition is not a linear one, moving from planning to composing to revising and to editing. It would be more accurate to characterize writing as a recursive activity in which the writer moves backwards and forwards between drafting and revising, with stages of replanning in between. As Shaughnessy (1977) describes it, it is 'a messy process that leads to clarity'.

Frank Smith (1982) represents this messy process in terms of the ways in which the text is moved around, modified, cut, or expanded:

Figure 2.

It is also important to point out that the amount of time spent on any part of the process will depend on the type of writing. For example, in writing a letter to a friend with the purpose of bringing her up to date with family news, one may well scribble down a list of things to include, but the planning is not likely to be as elaborate as when writing a report for colleagues at work on a matter of serious concern.

Writing an effective paper, as Langan (1988) underlines, is almost never done all at once. Rather, it is a step-by-step process in which you take your paper through a series of stages – prewriting, first draft, added drafts, and final draft.

In the first stage, you go over, change, improve, add to, and perhaps subtract from your material as you take your paper through several rough drafts. Many people, especially those who feel uneasy or insecure about writing, dread the rewriting stage. The act of writing a first draft is often so painful that the writer has no desire to revise the work. However, simply writing a first draft, in order to be done with a paper, is a great mistake – rather like thinking you've made a stew if all you've done is throw raw vegetables into a pot. It takes work to create a paper with a clear thesis and strong supporting details. With each draft, you can tighten the organization of your paper and make the writing flow more smoothly.

For example, in the second draft you may spot some details that do not clearly relate to the main point of a paragraph. You may also spot areas where more details are needed. In the next draft, you may work on inserting transitional devices to bridge the gaps between ideas.

In the last stage, you proofread the next-to-final draft. Proofreading is another essential step that some people avoid, often because they have worked so hard on the previous stages. It may be better to set your paper aside for a while and then proofread with a fresh, rested mind. Proofreading for sentence-skills mistakes can turn an average paper into a better one and a good paper into an excellent one. Proofreading to strengthen your sentence skills is a basic part of clear and effective writing.

1. Self- assessment questions.

1. What are the stages of the process of writing?

2. Do you usually follow these stages before starting to write?

3. What is the most difficult stage (stages) for you?

4. Do you think that fig.1 oversimplifies the process of writing or exaggerates the difficulties?

5. Why is the process of writing characterized as a recursive activity?

6. Why will the amount of time spent on writing depend on the type of writing?

7. Why is it considered a great mistake to avoid writing a second draft and proofread the next-to-final draft?

8. What is the proofreading? What do you do in the process of proofreading?

2. Answering the questions below will help you evaluate critically your attitude towards rewriting and proofreading.

1. When do you typically start work on a paper?

______ Several nights before it's due

______ Night before it's due

______ Day it's due

2. How many drafts do you typically write when doing a paper?

_______ One _______ Two _______ Three ________ Four or more

3. How would you describe your proofreading?

a) Do not look at paper again after the last word is written;

b) May glance quickly at paper for obvious errors;

c) Read paper over carefully to find mistakes.

4. Do you ever get back papers marked for obvious errors?

_________ Frequently ________ Sometimes ________ Never.

1.3. Writer’s Block and Getting Started

A writer's block is the feeling of being unable to write. It is different from writer's cramp, which is stiffness of the hand caused by writing for a long time. Three different kinds of block have been diagnosed: physical, procedural and psychological (Smith, 1982). Beard and Hartley (1984, p.258) have neatly summarized the main differences:

Physical blocks occur when the writer is tired and it just becomes too much of an effort to continue. Procedural blocks occur when the writer cannot decide what to write next. Psychological blocks occur when the words should come, and could come, but the writer cannot bring himself or herself to let the words appear on the paper.

One of the main difficulties in writing for native speakers of English is the process of 'getting started'. A questionnaire was sent to academics at a university in England and one in Canada by Hartley and Knapper (1984, p.158). They posed the question 'What do you like least about writing?' A common response was: 'Writing the first paragraph'. Hartley and Knapper commented that 'Almost every respondent confessed to experiencing writer's blocks'.

If writing the first paragraph presents difficulties for native speakers of English, the problem for non-native speakers of English must be at least as great. This was confirmed by Jordan (1993, p.75) who conducted a survey by questionnaire of overseas students studying at a British university. Based on their experience in their own countries when writing an essay, 67% of the students admitted to having difficulty in starting.

Various suggestions have been made to overcome the problem of 'getting started' in writing. One fairly common one is to begin by simply jotting down ideas or notes on paper (Hartley and Knapper, 1984; Northedge, 1990). In other words, to get what you want to say down on paper as quickly as possible. 'Editing, polishing, changing, resequencing and the like can be left until later. At this stage it does not matter if sentences are incomplete.' (Beard and Hartley, 1984, p.253)

References

Beard, R.M. and J. Hartley (1984: 4th ed.). Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. London: Harper and Row.

Hartley, J. and C.K. Knapper (1984). Academics and their Writing. Studies in Higher Education, 9 (2).

Jordan, R.R. (1993). Study Skills: Experience and Expectations. In G.M. Blue (Ed.) Language, Learning and Success: Studying through English. Developments in ELT. London: Macmillan, Modern English Teacher and the British Council.

Northedge, A. (1990). The Good Study Guide. Milton Keynes:

The Open University.

Smith, F. (1982). Writing and the Writer. London: Heinemann Educational.

Date: 2016-01-14; view: 1084