The Writing Process Part 2

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The Writing Process Part 2

• Dr Desmond Thomas,
• University of Essex

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What does being a successful writer involve?

• Planning what, when, how, where
• Monitoring achieving distance
• Awareness of the writing process of drafting,
  re-drafting, editing, revising
• Self-motivation
• Self-discipline

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Some concepts to unpack

• Clarity what is clear writing? Does it mean
  coherence at sentence level?
• Coherence is it something built in to a text or
  in the mind of the reader?
• Structure how is this different from coherence?
• Conciseness the same as clarity?
• Style do the demands of academic style clash
  with clarity coherence?

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Step 1 Clarity at sentence level

• Decisions in regard to the administration of
  medication despite the inability of irrational
  patients voluntarily appearing in Trauma Centres
  to provide legal consent rest with a physician
  alone.
• Our lack of knowledge about local conditions
  precluded determination of committee action
  effectiveness in fund allocation to those areas
  in greatest need of assistance.
• (See Williams, J. 1995, Style, U.of Chicago)

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Sentence 1 problems of clarity/coherence

1. We have to sort out and mentally reassemble
   actions expressed as abstract nouns
2. Distortion of their underlying sequence
3. Ambiguity of who does what
4. Distance between subject and verb
5. Ambiguity of despite
6. Grammatical subject not the real subject

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Sentence 2 problems of clarity/coherence

• Not clear who the main characters are. The
  subject is an abstraction our lack of
  knowledge
• Not clear what the main action is precluded?
• Are we part of the committee or not?

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The sentences re-written

• When a patient voluntarily appears at a Trauma
  Centre but behaves so irrationally that he cannot
  legally consent to treatment, only a physician
  can decide whether to administer medication.
• Because we knew nothing about local conditions,
  we could not determine how effectively the
  committee had allocated funds to areas that most
  needed assistance.

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Williams principles of clear writing at sentence
level

• When prose seems turgid, abstract, too complex
  locate the cast of characters and the actions
  that those characters perform (or are the objects
  of). If the characters are not subjects and their
  actions not verbs, then revise.

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Problem areas?

1. English has no convenient indefinite pronoun for
   when the agent is unclear. One? We?
   Nominalizations and use of the passive can avoid
   this.
2. The Institutional Passive some academics and
   teachers in some disciplines want to avoid . I
   will show .. We may cite .We may begin by

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Step 2 Coherence principles at paragraph level

• Put at the beginning of a sentence those ideas
  that you have already mentioned, referred to, or
  implied, or concepts that you can reasonably
  assume your reader is already familiar with, and
  will readily recognize.
• Put at the end of your sentence the newest, the
  most surprising, the most significant
  information information that you want to stress
  perhaps the information that you will expand on
  in your next sentence. (Williams 1995 48)

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And most important of all

• A reader will feel that a paragraph is
  coherent if (s)he can read a sentence that
  specifically articulates its point.
• (Williams 1995)

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Structure without coherence?

• Soil is a serious problem in many countries.
  Besides, around 7 million hectares of fertile
  land are lost in the world each year. On the
  contrary, about 10 million hectares of forest are
  being lost. Therefore, the consequences are
  indeed serious .

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Coherence without structure?

• The net bulged with the force of the shot. The
  referee blew his whistle and signalled. Offside.
  The goalkeeper sighed with relief. The crowd
  started to jeer. Soon the slow handclapping
  started again

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Coherence at core chapter level

• Need for the main points writers position to
  be articulated at the beginning
• Headings and subheadings should act as a test of
  coherence
• Need for one idea per paragraph rule
• Need for topic sentences (usually the first
  sentence(s) of each paragraph)
• Need for interim summaries at the end of a
  section to reinforce arguments

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Consequences of breaking the rules of coherence
dont let them happen!

1. Reader confused doesnt know what to expect
2. Reader misled expects something different
3. Reader impatient forced to re-read sections
4. Reader loses the plot totally misunderstanding
   the main arguments
5. Reader loses faith and gives up

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Obeying the demands of style

• The first attribute of the art object is that it
  creates a discontinuity between itself and the
  unsynthesised manifold.
• http//www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2006/dec/0
  4/1

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A prize-winning text!

• Dialectical critical realism may be seen under
  the aspect of Foucauldian strategic reversal--of
  the unholy trinity of Parmenidean/Platonic/Aristot
  elean provenance of the Cartesian-Lockean-Humean-
  Kantian paradigm, of foundationalisms (in
  practice, fideistic foundationalisms) and
  irrationalisms (in practice, capricious exercises
  of the will-to-power or some other ideologically
  and/or psycho-somatically buried source) new and
  old alike of the primordial failing of western
  philosophy, ontological monovalence, and its
  close ally, the epistemic fallacy with its ontic
  dual of the analytic problematic laid down by
  Plato, which Hegel served only to replicate in
  his actualist monovalent analytic reinstatement
  in transfigurative reconciling dialectical
  connection, while in his hubristic claims for
  absolute idealism he inaugurated the Comtean,
  Kierkegaardian and Nietzschean eclipses of
  reason, replicating the fundaments of positivism
  through its transmutation route to the
  superidealism of a Baudrillard.
• Bhaskar, R. 1994 Plato etcThe Problems of
  Philosophy and Their Resolution (Verso)

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We do need to consider what makes a text look
academic

• Conventions such as the use of quotations
  referencing, use of statistical and other
  evidence to support arguments, use of hedging.
• Style preferring abstract nouns to verbs,
  preferring passive voice to active voice

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But we have to get the balance right

• Academic style

Clarity coherence
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Editing issues

• Check for content
• Check for structure
• Check for coherence style
• Proof-read referencing, spelling, punctuation,
  grammatical accuracy, sentence and paragraph
  lengths, labelling of charts and diagrams,
  bibliography details