COMPOSING

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COMPOSING

• Composing is a systematic process and relates to
  the writing skills.
• Essentially there are THREE STAGES in composing
  
• 1. Pre-writing
• 2. Free Writing (Drafting)
• 3. Re-writing (Editing)

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• 1. PRE-WRITING
• Define Your purpose
• Analyze your audience
• Establish your main Idea/Central idea
• Do your research
• Select the appropriate channel/medium.
• Pre-writing is thus, the planning stage of
  composing

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• Your purpose
• - Why for What?
• Your Audience
• - what is the receivers position in the
  hierarchy?
• - What medium is best for the audience?
• - How much does the audience know about the
  subject?
• - Educational level of the audience
• - Likely reaction
• - Demographic Cultural differences?

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• Central Idea
• - Frame a clear picture about what you have to
  do and what exactly is to be composed.
• Research
• - Generate Information
• Library resources Internet
• Electronic Database Sampling
• Experimentation Interviewing
• observation
• Medium
• - Fax, E-mail or Formal letters (by post)

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• FREE WRITING
• - First Draft
• grammatical errors ignored
• - Include everything you want to say
• will get refined later
• - The blueprint is now ready
• Approaches to free writing
• Write main ideas first, then add less important
  details
• Careful word selection and sentence development
  from beginning.

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• Rewriting
• - Editing the rough draft
• making sentences crisp, precise
• - Several rounds of editing may be required
• carefully consider (layout)
• - length of the written material
• - type of paper and colour scheme
• - graphics/illustrations
• - preset guidelines
• - Headings, subheadings,footnotes

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Selection of words

• H.W. FOWLER gave five principles of selecting
  words.
• 1. Prefer familiar words to far-fetched ones
• e.g. gigantic,splendiferous, coruscart,misogyny
• 2. Use concrete words to abstract words
• e.g. The session will commence shortly
• There were some certificates which remain
• undistributed

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• 3. Prefer single words to round-about
  expressions/phrases
• e.g. swimming is a hobby and not a professional
  choice
• an assembly of listeners
• an assembly of watchers
• 4. Prefer Saxon (British) words to ROMANCE
  (latin) words.
• e.g. dead body corpse
• 5. Prefer short/simple words to lengthy words
• e.g. confabulate, terminate

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• Construction of Sentences
• - Write complete sentences
• e.g. Although the reports were sent
• Avoid choppy sentences
• e.g. he bought a pen.
• He liked it.
• Saket went to a movie
• He came out early.
• Position your words correctly
• e.g. My first husbands job was of a teacher.
  
• I saw a dead dog travelling on the
  road

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• - Maintain consistency
• e.g. Jay is tall and has grace
• Jay is tall and graceful
• Emphasize important words
• e.g. we have sent two reminders already
• Place adverbs correctly
• e.g. Only my brother asked her to save money
• My brother only asked her to save
  money
• My only brother asked her to save
  money
• Be careful about punctuation
• e.g. Woman, without her man, is incomplete
• Woman, without her, man is incomplete

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PARAGRAPHS

• Word paragraph Greek, write beside
• Paragraph
• are a stylistic technique and an aid to
  comprehension
• break a page into manageable segments for
  scanning and reviewing
• signal a step taken in the communication process
  one idea has been completed and another will be
  addressed.
• serve as the building blocks of an entire
  communication structure

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• are a series of thoughts that advances the
  development of the document as well as the
  readers knowledge of the subject.
• group related thoughts on a single idea
• are used only in writing (but not speaking)
• CONSTRUCTING PARAGRAPH
• A paragraph should develop a single idea. If two
  or more ideas are covered in one paragraph, the
  material is poorly organized.
• Each paragraph should relate to the overall
  subject of the document and fit well with
  connecting paragraphs.

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• A paragraph should include examples or other
  supporting material to increase reader
  comprehension. Material that can be used to
  explain can include analogy, anecdotes,
  comparisons, personal experiences, definitions,
  details, examples, facts and statistics.
• Paragraph may be
• - Introductory fully states the subjects of the
  paragraphs that follow
• - Expository describes a topic by developing,
  illustrating or supporting a particular point.
• - Transitional tells where you have been and
  where you are going.

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• - Emphatic gives greater attention to
  important points (signify that attention be paid)
  
• - Concluding reviews the important points
  covered or come to some conclusion about the
  subject.
• Length is a function of the amount of detail
  needed to develop fully the idea presented in the
  paragraph. The preferable length of a paragraph
  is 2 to 6 sentences, but the para should be long
  enough to deal adequately with the idea being
  discussed. (10-15 sentences)

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• The topic sentence expresses the idea that will
  be developed in the paragraph and sometimes the
  order of that development. Not every paragraph
  has a topic sentence. The topic sentence gives
  your reader a framework for understanding your
  message.