Good Writing in Natural Resources

An Important Skill

What Is Good Writing?

Five General Suggestions

There is no specific recipe or a one-size-fits-all model for writing a good story. However, there are four general suggestions that will help improve the effectiveness of your writing and, therefore, your ability to communicate. These are:

1. Identify Your Audience
2. Identify Your Objective
3. Use Writing Conventions
4. Write Clearly
5. Plan Your Writing Strategy - Writing Takes Time!

Here are here are some specific suggestions to help improve your effectiveness as a writer. and a story teller:

1. Identify Your Audience. As you write you must keep your reader in mind by consistently asking yourself questions such as:

• Who is the audience for your writing?
• Why do they do they need to hear the story?
• What do they know about the topic, concept, or issue?
• What background information do you need to provide?
• What is the format that is going to be used?

In addition to considering these questions, work hard to understand and live up to the expectations that your audience has for writing. Commonly, your audience will be your instructor and it is important for you to communicate with them about their specific expectations.

2. Identify Your Objective. Is it your intention to:

• Communicate knowledge and understanding or expose misconceptions about a topic.
• Demonstrate and document that a task has been effectively completed.
• Stimulate action from your reader.
• Present a convincing case or argument.
• Stimulate discussion about an issue.
• Explain an unfamiliar idea.
• Propose a solution to a problem.

3. Use Writing Conventions. Conventions are the ways we all agree to use punctuation, spelling, grammar, and other things that make writing consistent and easy to read. The so-called “rules of writing” (i.e., conventions) are not really rules, they are agreements between people in a society as to how written communication will be interpreted when it is read. Poor use of conventions can make your writing hard to read and take away from the message you are trying to get to your reader. English 150 and English 151 focuses on the study and practice of writing and the use of conventions. However, the use of conventions must be practiced in to become a skill.

• What is This Thing Called Conventions? Whenever you write something, you hear it in your head first. You know exactly how it should sound, but the reader doesn’t. Conventions guide the reader through your writing by telling the reader when to stop, when to go, when to speed up, when to slow down, and so on. Read on to learn more about conventions…(more)
• Grammar.  Grammar is the study of the underlying principles governing the use of language. The grammar most people in school and in the business world would like you to use when you write is called “Standard English” grammar, or “Common Standard English” (CSE) as it is known more officially.
  • UNL Writing Center resources related to grammar.
  • Check out the Baker’s Dozen, Common Writing and Grammar Mistakes:
    • Active voice/passive voice
    • Adverbs that don't end in 's'
    • Noun-verb agreement
    • Ever-changing tenses
    • Parallel construction
    • Participal phrase confusion
    • Vague pronouns
• Spell correctly. Spelling is the rare area in writing conventions where there’s pretty much a clean cut right or wrong answer for just about every situation. The spelling of words does not change from one person to another or from publisher to publisher. Bad spelling may distract and frustrate your reader. Spell checkers in word processing programs are helpful, but do not completely rely on them. Use your dictionary.
  • Tricky words
  • Not checking spelling vs. depending on spell check

Although conventions will help you write more effectively, your goal is to effectively use language to communicate your ideas and understanding. Keep the following quote in mind as you write:

The writer should not follow rules, but follow language toward meaning, always seeking to understand what is appearing on the page, to see it clearly, to evaluate it clearly, for clear thinking will produce clear writing. Donald Murray A Writer Teaches Writing, Houghton Mifflin College. January 1985.

4. Write Clearly. Good writing uses just the right words to say just the right things. Here are seven action items to consider when writing. These are modified from “Communicating Chemistry.”

• Be concise. Clear thinking and careful planning leads to writing that is to the point and avoids repetition.
  • Wordy, indirect and unclear
• Use simple words. Good style does not require you use big words (see With Words, More is Less).
  • Big words = confusing
  • Tricky words
    
• Write short sentences. Some experienced writers can write comprehensible long sentences; most cannot. If you find yourself writing sentence that have 30 to 40 words, consider ways in which you could divide it.
  • Run-on sentences
• Use your own words. Copying other people's words (or original ideas) without acknowledgement is plagiarism. This is always dishonest and wrong, and can lead to severe penalties. To quote passages from someone else's work may be useful at times, but in most of your work it is unlikely to be either necessary or desirable. If someone else has said exactly what you want to say then quote verbatim using quotation marks and acknowledging your source. Do not make minimum alterations and pretend you are using your own words;
• Use words correctly. Always write with a good dictionary at hand and check whether a word means exactly what you think it means. Use words you know and with which you are comfortable. If you have a word whose meaning is not quite right you might find it useful to use a thesaurus.
• Use words that your reader (i.e., audience) will understand. Knowledge of technical expressions (jargon) is often limited to a relatively small group of experts. Avoid jargon unless they are the only sensible means of saying what you want to say. Explain their meaning if there is a risk that your reader (i.e., audience) will not understand them. Avoid trying to impress by using grandiose words that your reader (and even you yourself) may not fully understand.

5. Plan Your Writing Strategy – Writing Takes Time!

Writing is a process. It takes time and planning. Few, if any, of us are able to write our final product on a first draft. A common barrier to good writing is not allowing enough time for the major stages of the writing process: invention, composition, and revision. While you as a writer may have your own, unique style there are steps and strategies that all writers can employ to make the process efficient and stress free.

An Approach: Break the writing project down into manageable parts. Starting from the due date, write out smaller goals you can reasonably meet each week prior to the due date. (Ideally, a large term paper could take several weeks since you have other time constraints other than this one paper.) For a literature research paper, common steps include:

1. Outline your general framework for the paper: audience, objectives or purpose, breadth of the topic, etc. and set realistic dates for certain steps you might take.
2. Search the literature. List the top articles or documents on your topic.
3. Find, read and summarize each article or document.
4. Schedule blocks of time committed to writing.
   1. Smaller blocks of time are often better than larger ones.
      • Example - 1/2 hour every day or 2 hours twice a week
      • Helps keep your mind fresh.
      • If you only have a large block of time, take a 10-minute break every hour.
   2. Set "productivity-goals", instead of a "time-goal"
      • Examples: Read one article and summarize key points each day Write 1/2 page per day
      • A Key: Stick to your goals.
   3. Choose a time of day when you are most mentally alert.
   4. Create a writing "oasis" (clean desk, minimal distractions, quiet).
5. Start writing!
   1. Brainstorm - write down all ideas and angles on the topic
   2. Forget about format, spelling, grammar, etc. at first.
   3. Paraphrase key concepts from the literature
   4. Just get started!!!!!
   5. It is easier to go back later and edit material than to try to write clearly or perfectly on a first draft.
6. Review and revise the entire paper.
   1. Writing is an iterative process
   2. Revisit the original purpose statement, re-outline, reorganize, or refocus subtopics; and/or cut subtopics to fit your purpose.
7. Edit and proofread.
   1. Read for content, clarity, spelling, grammar, punctuation, and proper citations.
   2. Ask a friend, writing lab assistant, instructor for an external review
   3. Let the paper sit for a few days or weeks before you proof read your own work. Gives you a "fresh" perspective.

References

• http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl or
• http://www.csuohio.edu/writingcenter/invent.html.