How to Begin a Writing Assignment
Writing
A common misconception about writing is that the first draft must be perfect. However, even excellent writers create multiple drafts before they feel content with their writing. In the first draft, focus on introductions, connecting ideas within paragraphs, and conclusions.
A good introduction catches the reader's attention and then provides a general orientation to the topic. You can interest the reader by using quotations, anecdotes, questions or addressing the reader directly. Paragraphs develop a single idea in a series of connected sentences. A unified paragraph stays focused on a single idea and is coherent and well developed. Your final statement should bring all of your points to their logical conclusion. You can leave the reader pondering your essay by using a quotation, a reference back to a point or question made in the introduction, or a story that emphasizes your thesis.
The first thing to look at when you're ready to organize your paper is your main idea or thesis statement. Putting yourself in a reader's place, imagine how you would expect to see the main idea developed. Then look at the notes you've taken. If you used your thesis statement as a guide in gathering information, you should see a pattern.
Look at the following thesis statement:
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Imposing sanctions on China would be a mistake because it would hurt the American economy, because sanctions are notoriously unsuccessful as a way to force change, and because the United States should not interfere in the internal policies of other countries.
This statement suggests that the paper will be divided into three main parts; it even indicates an order for those sections. When you go through your notes, decide where each note most logically fits. For example, a note about U.S. clothing manufacturers' increasing use of Chinese labor would fit into section one, and a note about the failure of sanctions in the Middle East in section two.
Of course, things aren't usually this neat. Your thesis statement might not be this precise, or the kind of essay you're writing might not lend itself to such an easy division. But starting from the moment you look at your topic and decide on your main idea, you should be thinking about ways to develop it. This thinking leads you to your organizing principle.
A review of some common methods of organization will help you. Remember, however, to avoid an overly rigid approach. After you begin to write, you may realize that your plan needs to be changed. Writing itself, often generates new ideas, or suggests a different direction.
Spatial or chronological organization
Some topics lend themselves to organization based on space or time. A descriptive essay might work well if you begin with a distant view and move closer—first describe how a barn looks from the road, for example, then describe the view you see when you stand directly in front of the barn, then describe the view (and smell and sounds) when standing inside the barn door, and completing your description with what you see when you climb the ladder into the loft.
In the narration of an event and in some kinds of technical writing—describing a process, for example—you write about events in the order they occur. Often dividing your material into stages avoids the “and then, and then, and then!” effect. If you were writing about making a ceramic vase, you could divide the process into three main stages—selecting and preparing the clay, forming and refining the shape of the vase on the potter's wheel, and glazing the piece and firing it in a kiln. The detailed steps in making the vase could then be organized sequentially under these sections.
Dividing a subject into categories
Just as you can divide a process into stages, you can divide a subject into categories. When you look over your notes, and using your thesis statement as a guide, see if logical groupings emerge. Look at the following topic and thesis statement, written by a fictional student.
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TOPIC Write a paper addressing an environmental concern and suggesting ideas for a solution.
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THESIS The United States is losing its forests, and the solution is everyone's responsibility.
Note that the second half of this thesis statement is weak: the solution is everyone's responsibility is a vague assertion.
In looking over his notes, the student quickly identifies those that relate to the first part of the thesis statement ( Less than 10 percent of U.S. old-growth forests remain, U.S. consumption of wood is up 30 percent since 1930, and so on). However, when he looks at the rest of his notes, he finds he has everything from Logging bans have been effective in many areas to Don't use disposable diapers to Agricultural waste can be effectively processed to make building materials that provide excellent insulation.
At this point he decides to create categories. He finds that many notes are related to simple, everyday actions that can help reduce wood and paper consumption (no disposable diapers, e-mail instead of memos, cloth bags instead of paper bags, recycling newspapers, etc.). Still others cover alternatives for wood, such as agricultural waste, engineered wood manufactured by the forest-products industry, the use of steel studs in construction rather than wooden ones, a method of wall forming called “rammed earth construction,” and so on. Then he notices that several notes relate to government actions— logging bans, wilderness designations, Forest Service reforms, etc. He decides to use three general classifications as a principle of organization:
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I. Problem
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II. Solutions
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A. Consumer actions
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B. Alternatives to wood
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C. Government regulations
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He may decide to change the order of the classifications when he writes his paper, but for now he has a principle of organization.
If some notes don't fit into these classifications, he may want to add another category, or add some subsections. For example, if several notes deal with actions by major conservation groups, he may want to add a division under Solutions called Conservation group activities. Or, if he finds some notes relating to disadvantages of wood alternatives, he may add some subtopics under B, for example, price, stability, public perception.
Dividing material into categories is one of the most basic forms of organization. Make sure the categories are appropriate to the purpose of your paper and that you have sufficient information under each one.
Organizing essays of comparison
Sometimes students have problems with topics that ask them to compare and contrast two things. After gathering information on each thing, they fail to focus on the similarities and dissimilarities between them.
When your topic involves comparison, you can organize in either of two ways. First, you can discuss each thing separately and then include a section in which you draw comparisons and contrasts between them. With this organization, if you were comparing and contrasting two poems, you would write first about one—covering, for example, theme, language, images, tone, and rhyme scheme—and then about the other, covering the same areas. In a third section you would make a series of statements comparing and contrasting major aspects of the poems. If you choose this method, make your separate discussions of the poems parallel—that is, for the second poem, address points in the same order you used for the first poem. Also, in the third section of the paper, avoid simply repeating what you said in sections one and two.
A second way of organizing requires you to decide first which aspects of the poems you want to compare and contrast (theme, language, and imagery) and then to structure your essay according to these. For example, if you begin with theme, you state the themes of both poems and compare them. Then you compare the language of the two poems, then the imagery, then the tone, and so on. Two advantages of this type of organization are, first, you are forced to focus on similarities and dissimilarities and less likely to include material that isn't pertinent and, second, you avoid repetition by eliminating a separate compare-and-contrast section.
You can also combine these two types of organization. For example, you may want to discuss each poem's theme separately, and then move into a point-by-point comparison of the other aspects of the poem (language, imagery, tone, and so on).
Inductive or deductive patterns of organization
In a logical argument, the pattern in which you present evidence and then draw a general conclusion is called inductive. This term can also be used to describe a method of approaching your material, particularly in an essay presenting an argument. You are using this method in an essay even when you state the general conclusion first and present the supporting evidence in successive paragraphs. In fact, in essays it is customary to begin with the general conclusion as a thesis statement
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EVIDENCE The student action committee failed to achieve a quorum in all six of its last meetings.
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During the past year, the student action committee has proposed four plans for changing the grievance procedure and has been unable to adopt any of them.
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According to last month's poll in the student newspaper, 85 percent of the respondents had not heard of the student action committee.
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Two openings on the committee have remained unfilled for eight months because no one has applied for membership.
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CONCLUSION The student action committee is an ineffective voice for students at this university.
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(Note: In an essay, this would be a thesis statement.)
Another type of organization borrowed from logical argument is called deductive. With this pattern you begin with a generalization and then apply it to specific instances. In a timed writing, you might be given a statement such as It's better to be safe than sorry or Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and then asked to agree or disagree, providing examples that support your view. With such essays, you aren't proving or disproving the truth of a statement, but offering an opinion and then supporting it with examples. For example, if you begin with a generalization such as Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, you could cite instances such as different standards for human beauty in different cultures, or different views of beauty in architecture from era to era. You could also use examples from your own experience, such as your brother's appreciation of desert landscapes contrasted to your boredom with them.
Order of examples and evidence
Within any overall pattern of organization, you must decide on the specific order of your examples and evidence. The best plan is to save your most important point or most convincing piece of evidence for last. The last position is the most emphatic, and a reader will expect you to build to your strongest point. Saving the best for last isn't a rule; you must decide, based on your thesis and the evidence and examples you've collected, which order works best. But do remember that you want to avoid having your essay trail off with a trivial example or weak argument.
Connecting paragraphs in an essay
Your essay should move from paragraph to paragraph smoothly, each point growing out of the preceding one. If you are shifting direction or moving to a different point, prepare your reader with a transition. Achieving continuity in your essay is similar to achieving continuity in a paragraph.
