The Complexity of Writing - Essay Example

The Complexity of Essay Writing (Insert your name here) (University or college affiliate here) The complexity of essay writing process A well written essay requires hard work. This is because more attention is given to the choice of words, argument construction, and in using the concepts. However, there is also no specific formula used when writing, and it basically involves bringing out a ray of ideas and facts that are well argued and clear to the reader. Despite the fact that different academic disciplines have their set ways of writing essays, there are common objectives that can be used as a guide in the essay writing process. These objectives could include and not limited to in text analysis to explore their bases and provide opportunity for further discussions to argument presentation in which case both sides of the debate are closely analyzed and criticized. Proper techniques are required in the process trying to clarify the complexity of the issue being discussed in order to effectively communicate. This essay thus discusses four key aspects of essay writing namely; writing process, topic selection, essay planning and finally writing styles. These aspects are further discussed below; Writing process The actual writing process in essay writing is very time consuming meaning that enough time has to be set aside in order to produce a good work. Leaving this stage for the last minute rush may be very risky and may lead to a poor outcome even if the research was conducted well. David (2008) says that the process of re-drafting is an inevitable stage in the creation process. By this he means that a lot of revisions have to be done on the draft before production of the original document. This drafting process does not however have to follow a specific order, i.e., one can start with the sections she/he feel comfortable with or at times by starting in the middle or the end can help one overcome the problems of hesitations or doubts. David (2008) further adds that drafting of an essay should not be a once process rather one should take their time to enable them correct all possible mistakes. He says that with time being a limiting factor, inclusion of an honest and trustworthy friend who can read the essay and help point out corrections is a better way to improve this essay. Loud reading of the essay can also help in re-drafting process as it helps point out incomplete thinking and awkward writing. With this in mind, it is important to remember what is already said when drafting the essay to enable easy flow of ideas from each section to the next making it more logical and coherent. This means that the points of discussions within a given topic should be well arranged in a manner that would be more powerful and logical to the reader, and they should be linked such that one point leads to the other up to the last one. Despite the fact that the writing process is the last part in essay writing and may be viewed by some people as the easiest, it is actually as demanding as the other aspects and ample time needs to be given to it to allow the production of good essay. Topic selection This can be one of the most difficult stages in the creation process of an essay depending on the writer and also the point of discussion. There are cases where one is supplied with the topic and asked to research on it while in some cases a list of topics are supplied and one is asked to choose that which best fits him/her. It is therefore important for one to remember the task ahead when choosing a topic, that is, the scope and the objectives should both fit into his abilities of writing. According to Learning Centre, Essay Writing (2008) topic selection process is one of the complexities in essay writing. It adds that topics may have different meanings and that the student ought to know exactly what each one of them mean and require then identify the key words in the topic. For instance, there are some topics that state arguments or rather are controversial. In writing of these, the student should argue out on both the positive and the negative sides of such and come up with a concrete and most convincing reason which explains the side they think is better. Those topics that explain a particular occurrence should be tackled in a different way I that evidence and logic are used instead of critic. Irrespective of whether the topic is controversial or general, analytical thinking is required in the creation process for a good argument that will lead to a good essay even if the views may at times be similar to other already written topics (Northey & Proctor, 1998). This repetition forms part of the complexity process and when argued out properly all make up part of a key development in essay writing. Better understanding of the topic of discussion is therefore the key to a good essay as relevant research will be done on the topic and the deductions made. Essay planning Incoherent organization of arguments and evidence is one of the most common mistakes done by students when preparing drafts from previously done work. This may be so because they are collecting reference sources from previously done work by scholars and trying to put them together for comparison purposes. There are no paths or guidelines that are laid out in the research materials being used as references and thus the students work turns out to be disorganized. The aspect of planning in the essay writing process is therefore very important in trying to avoid such mistakes. A proper map or outline of the proposed essay should be done before one starts to write and after viewing all the research materials. This will enable the writer to avoid time wastage and also help in the flow of the points of discussions. The outline is therefore treated as a draft and helps the writer to organize his/her materials of research as well as break the whole research to manageable portions for the sake of writing, which however is tentative. Rayside (2008) comes to a conclusion that there are cases where half way down the writing of the draft the writer discovers that he/she is out of topic of that there is no flow in the essay or that he/ she have run out of ideas and have to go back and start afresh. Despite the fact that the point of discussion often becomes clearer at this point and the flow also eases, it proves to be double work as the student or the researcher has to re-do the whole or major part of the work. The draft that is also the plan will therefore help the writer to figure out which is the most suitable sequence for the arguments he/she expects to put across and thus help avoid unnecessary time wastage. In the process of developing an outline that will be used in the writing process, one should ponder over which sequence makes more sense for the required sub-topics, basing priority on the sections that should come first in a logical manner to create a series of arguments that can be related to one another. However, figuring out this sequence is not an easy task and most times one will be forced with the challenge of coming up with a better approach to this problem. This may include analyzing the second sub-topic in almost the same way that they did the first in order to avoid shifting out of topic and repetition. It is therefore important to note that this stage goes hand in hand with the writing process as it is in both cases that one can discover the downsides of the proposed arguments in the presentation. It is however important to note that the essay planning stage comes before the actual writing stage, and that it forms just a rough idea of what the writer is planning to write. Writing styles There exist several styles used in the essay writing process. Having wonderful ideas and nicely argued analysis does not warrant an essay to be perfect especially when the use of language is poor. An article, SWOT, LEARNING TO LEARN (2005) explains analytical writing as the process of reorganizing information in a way that it is related to the other information and is valued in the written field. It further explains that analytical writing is more preferred to descriptive writing in most disciplines at the universities is analytical writing, rather than descriptive writing which is valued in most disciplines at University. Better communication, both in written and spoken form is a continuous process that cannot be learnt in a day. Most of the best writers attribute their success to regular practice and learning through the writing process and none so far has admitted to have been perfect from the start. According to the writing guide provided by the University of Adelaide (2011), “…one of the first rules that need to be learnt is the rule of grammar" (p.4). It adds that the use of personal pronouns, such as “I’, should be avoided and in their place use of third person quotation should be used. This is because a lot of grammatical errors are often made in the essays even by the experienced writers. Northey & Proctor (1998) on the other hand seem to have been published in the attempt to resolve this problem. The books describes the types of challenges that writers encounter with more preference given to the writing styles and offer guidelines on how these problems can be overcome. In the attempt to reduce grammatical errors, a device used for grammar-checking has been developed in the word- processing packages. These, however, are not perfect as they come with different setting and also the fact that there exist different languages makes it very confusing. The devices used in the spell-checking are more reliable but also do not miss out their downfall as some words may be missing in the computer dictionary. Proper punctuation is also a challenge to most writers in essay writing. Speaking with the right pauses is much easier than writing. A good number of writers thus do not know how to differentiate the more substantial pauses from the minor ones in a sentence that are signaled by colons and semi-colons, making their wok difficult to read. There is also the issue of formality, that is, the avoidance of the aspect of the “first person singular”, unless one is working on an autobiography where he/she is expected to quote people. Too much use of passive voice, trendy words, and being too wordy are also some of the common mistakes that writers do commit. All these tend to reduce the quality of the essay and make it boring to read. Writers are encouraged to make sure that the work they produce and publish is such that it can gain more public attention (Northey & Tepperman, 2007). This may be by enriching their vocabulary to make their work more interesting to read and also by formation of different length size of the sentences subsequent to each other. However, overuse of the vocabulary can also make work look boring and unattractive. Use of complex sentences may make reading difficult to most readers who in return will shun away from reading the essay. The writing styles therefore need to be in precise e and well balanced in order for the whole essay to look original and easy to read. When stating a fact or introducing an argument, most times writers refer to already written literatures. It is therefore important to quote the source in which the article has been extracted from. Failure in doing so leads to academic offense, also known as plagiarism- borrowing or purchasing ideas from other already written literatures without acknowledging their source or the authors, and is subject to serious penalties. Conclusion The process of essay writing is quite complex and needs proper understanding in the aspects of essay writing. Despite the fact that this particular essay limits us to four of these aspects, several others exists that are used in the evaluation of the essay. When these aspects of an essay are done correctly then a better work is produced. As discussed above, however, these processes are not easy. It is therefore important for any person who wishes to be a writer, be it a student or a scholar, to have the proper knowledge of what they are getting themselves into. They also should be well prepared and acquainted with the proper tools for writing a proper and substantial work. Good dedication and research is required to enable one come up with a good essay. Reference Lists David, R, (2010), A Students Guide to Research and Writing: Social Sciences 3rd ed. Toronto, Prentice Hall Canada. The Learning Centre, Essay Writing, (2008). Retrieved from http://www.lc.unsw.edu.au/onlib/pdf/essay.pdf Northey, M & Tepperman, L, (2007), Making Sense: A Students Guide to Research and Writing, Social Sciences 3rd ed. Northey, M & Proctor, M, (1998), Writers choice: A Portable Guide for Canadian Writers. Toronto, Prentice Hall Canada. Rayside, D, (2008), Essay Writing: A Personal View. Retrieved from http://politics.utoronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/rayside_writing_guide.pdf SWOT, LEARNING TO LEARN (2005). Successful Essay Writing. Retrieved from http://sydney.edu.au/stuserv/documents/learning_centre/essay.pdf University of Adelaide Writing Centre (2011), learning Guide. Retrieved from http://www.adelaide.edu.au/writingcentre/learning_guides/learningGuide_writingEssays. pdf Read More