The Expressive Macro Skills

- Writing -
 Nature and Purposes of Writing

The writing skills are complex and sometimes difficult to

teach, requiring mastery not only of grammatical and
rhetorical devices but also of conceptual and judgmental
elements. However as one of the macro skills, students
need to develop and enhance it for this one of their avenues
to express their ideas and feelings. The many and varied
skills necessary for writing good prose is grouped into five
general components or main areas, namely:
 language use: the ability to write correct and appropriate
sentences;
 mechanical skills: the ability to use correctly those
conventions peculiar to the written language --- i.e.
punctuation, spelling;
 treatment of content: the ability to think creatively and
develop thoughts, excluding all irrelevant information;
 stylistic skills: the ability to manipulate sentences and
paragraphs, and the language effectively;
 judgment skills: the ability to write in an appropriate manner
for a particular purpose with a particular audience in mind,
together with an ability to select, organize and order relevant
information.
 Mechanics and Process of
Writing
In the previous years of your studies, you were
introduced to the practice of critical reading. In using
different critical reading strategies, you gained a deeper
appreciation for the thought and the work that different
writers put into their writing. Though it may seem like
these writers produced their work effortlessly, their
pieces are the result of going through drafting, writing,
and revising at different times.
In other words, these writers went through the
writing process to come up with their final
product. Whatever you are writing, it will be
helpful to see the writing process: a series of
steps that can be broken down in order to
accomplish a specific objective.
The writing process has the following
general steps: pre-writing, writing, and
revising. The process can be further
broken down into the following
sequence:
 Discovering ideas by pre-writing;
 Finding a thesis statement;
 developing a thesis statement with supporting
details;
 organizing the details using an outline;
 writing paragraphs in the first draft;
 revising the draft; and
 editing and proofreading
Understanding the writing process can help improve your
writing skills, because being aware of how each part works
can make writing more manageable. You may rely on your
writing habits, but try improving them by experimenting
with the suggested practices. Thus, you can adapt what
works for you.
Concerns and Strategies in Pre-Writing, Drafting,
Revising, Editing, and Proofreading
 Using Pre-Writing
Strategies:
The first stage of the writing process is pre-writing, which
pertains to different techniques that help you discover ideas
before writing the first draft of the paper. During pre-
writing, you use a variety of strategies to find out things
that interest you about a topic or new ways of thinking
about a it.
Determining the Writing
Situation

The pre-writing stage begins with knowing

the kind of paper that you will be required to
write. What are you being asked to do? Look
at the key words in the instructions.
The next thing to do is determine the writing
situation, or the context of your assignment.
The context can be clarified by initially
thinking about the purpose and audience of
your paper.
To write effectively, it is always best to assume that you
are writing to be read. Your audience is your target reader.
You must recognize who your readers are and
anticipate their expectations, background, and
knowledge of the topic if you are to tailor-fit your writing
to their tastes. Identifying your audience helps you
determine how you want them to respond to your writing,
and thus helps you write with that in mind.
Here are some questions to help you analyze
your audience:

Who is most likely to read my work? Will I have

multiple audiences?
 What are their age, sex, and educational attainment?
 Why would they be reading my work?
 Does the assignment give me an idea of who the
audience should be?
What would they find interesting about it?
Why should they be concerned about my opinion?
What do I want them to learn from my work?
 How much do they already know about my topic? What do
they need to know?
How do I want to influence them?
 What are their political, cultural, and religious beliefs?
Will they act on what I want them to do?
What questions would they have for me?
After you have determined your audience and your
purpose, you are ready to think about your paper’s topic.
This results from a broader subject that may be found in
the assignment, or could be something you are free to
think about.
After you have thought about your purpose, audience,
and topic, it would be good to consider the tone you
plan to use. This refers to the attitudes and feelings you
want your writing to reflect toward your purpose, topic,
audience, and yourself. These are manifested in your
chosen point-of-view (first, second, or third), sentence
structure (long and short sentences), and chosen words
(connotation and denotation).
Pre-Writing
Strategies
Brainstorming is one of the better and more popular
methods of discovering your writing topic. All you need
to do is begin at the top of the sheet of paper and list
down everything that comes into your mind as fast as
you can for a certain amount of time.
The aim of a brainstorming exercise is not to produce a
logical flow of ideas but to provide yourself with as many
choices for your topic as possible. You can be free,
whimsical, and personal with the list as you please. After
listing down all your ideas, browse through them and pick
the one that best appeals to you, or the one that you know
best.
Clustering or Mapping is another technique that you
can use to find your writing topic. Start by writing a
word or phrase at the center of the page and encircle it;
this becomes your main topic. Then, think of other
words and phrases related to the main topic, write them
down, encircle them, and draw lines connecting them to
the main topic.
These becomes your subtopics. From there you can
branch off the subtopics with other supporting ideas, or
you can think of new subtopics related again to the
main topic.
Freewriting uses the force of narration to draw a
stream of connected ideas out of the writer’s mind. It
is writing down your thoughts nonstop, in the exact
order, language, and form in that what you think
them.
The good thing about freewriting is that it maintains some
coherence between a writer’s thoughts. Furthermore, the
key to using this method successfully is speed; you write as
quickly as you can to create constant momentum for your
thoughts to keep on flowing.
Writing Thesis Statements
A thesis statement is the central idea of an essay,
around which all other ideas revolve. It is not just
the most important idea; it also controls the essay
by determining what you should not include in your
work.
In one sentence, it reveals and summarizes the
argument you intend to develop and defend. The
thesis statement reflects your purpose of writing. It is a
constant reminder of your main point and your stand,
directing the entire flow of your writing.
For example, if you were asked to write an essay on
Noli Me Tangere or Martial Law during President
Marco’s time, your thesis statement would inform the
reader of how you understand such topic and what you
deem to be important or debatable about it.
Formulating a Thesis Statement
The following questions will help you to formulate a
thesis statement:
 What main idea most of my pre-writing support?
 What are the relationships that exist among my ideas?
 Which aspect of the topic seems to be given the most
detail?
 Where does my stand seem to be the most consistent?
 What is the focus of the most interesting and significant
points of my pre-writing?
 What ideas should I do more research on?
Whatever thesis statement you come up with initially is
called a working thesis statement, an argument
containing your stand and that you intend to prove with
evidence in the essay. It is called such because you may
have to adjust your thesis statement depending on your
research and writing.
Characteristics of an Effective Thesis Statement

• Responds to the assignment by following instructions

• Expresses the main idea in one or two sentences
• Focuses on a specific issue
• States a stand on the topic
• Says something meaningful by answering the questions: “So
what?” “How?” “Why?”
• Previews the rest of the essay by being placed in the introduction
• Reflects a tone and point-of-view appropriate to the identified
purpose and audience
More Guidelines on Writing Thesis Statements
• Avoid making overly-opinionated stands
• Avoid making announcements
• Avoid stating only facts
Thank you!!