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Begin - We begin with the understanding that both of us are ex­perienced. I have taught more than 10,000 high school stu­dents through the years and have marked well over 100,000 compositions. You have been attending school somewhere be­tween eight and eleven years and have already written hun­dreds of compositions of one kind or another in your various subject classes. Therefore, we can take certain things for granted.

01. You Writer? - When you go to see a doctor, the first thing he does is ask you to describe what is bothering you. He needs this informa­tion so that he can begin his diagnosis. I said begin because, after you get through talking, the competent medical man conducts his own examination. He must probe beyond the surface evidence. It wouldn't do to treat a stomach disorder if further study proved that the real trouble was something entirely different. For instance, emotional upset can produce aches and discomfort. Thus, after your doctor pokes around a bit, he may conclude that there is nothing physically wrong with you at all.

02. Good Writing - Electronic sorting devices are commonplace these days. They do equally well grading peas, tabulating election re­turns, or checking the quality of manufactured goods. It would be a wonderful thing if we had such a machine for evaluating compositions. Not only would it make English teachers forever grateful, but it would be very useful to us right now. We could toss into it the models presented in the previous chapter and arrange the sorting process so that out would come all the desirable features.

03. Right Topic? - He was just a boy when his father died and his family moved back horn California to Massachusetts, where eight generations of his forefathers had lived. When the boy grew older, he worked in the mills, tried college for a while, taught school, made shoes, edited a newspaper, and finally settled down as a farmer. After struggling with the earth for eleven years, he sold out even though he loved the soil, went to England with his family and tried his hand at something that had been bubbling within him for a long time. He began to write poetry— about stone walls, hired hands, snowy evenings in the country, and tall birches.

04. Prepare to Write - Across the street several tree experts were cutting down a huge old oak that had been hit carelessly by the builder's bulldozer and had not recovered from the shock. The upper leafy fringes were sawed off first. As they fell, ropes caught them momentarily before they were lowered to the ground. Then the main branches were removed, section by section. That done, a power saw made short work of the massive trunk. Finally, a trench a foot or so deep was dug around the base, the heavy root formations were sliced away, and the last traces of the tree disappeared after soil had been shoveled back into the excavation. Everything proceeded neatly and quickly, step by step.

05. Paragraphs - Let's see how far you have progressed. You now know how to:

§ select a topic that suits you

§ narrow it down in terms of the required words

§ try to take an original, unusual approach

§ plan an appropriate number of paragraphs

§ prepare idea headings for the middle paragraphs

§ list specific details under the headings

06. Language Tricks - Let's return for a moment to our comparison between building a house and writing a composition. The way the foundation, walls, partitions, and roof are put up determines the soundness and durability of a house. However, a solid framework will not in itself attract most buyers. Their inter­est is aroused mainly by the finishing materials that have been used—the stone, brick, or shingles of the exterior; the paint, paper, or wood paneling of the interior; the style and texture of the appliances.

07. Revise - This facsimile of the opening sentences of the Declaration of Independence has been reproduced to dramatize another important principle in writing: First words are rarely the best words. As you see, Thomas Jefferson, the writer of the fa­mous document, made frequent revisions before he was satis­fied with his sentences.

08. Final Copy - Let's go back a bit to the point where you have com­pleted the last re-reading and revision of your rough draft. You are now ready to write the copy that you will hand in. Will its outward appearance affect the grade you get?

Technically, it shouldn't and, if teachers were machines, it wouldn't. But teachers, like other human beings, react to com­positions the way they, and we, react to people the first time we meet them.

09. Literature Questions - It's time to pause again, to look back before we go ahead.

You have learned how necessary it is to follow a step-by-step procedure to turn out a good composition.

You know that the final quality depends upon what you do about:

The topic

Its scope

Your approach

An outline

Paragraph development

Language interest

Revision

Now, if you get one more point clear in your mind, you will be well on your way toward meeting all of your writing needs.

10. About Letters - There are those who say that the art of letter writing is fast disappearing.

These mournful words are not without some truth. For one thing, there is the telephone. Years ago, if you wanted to keep in touch with someone who was far away, order some goods from a store, or raise the roof because something had gone wrong with a delivery, you wrote a letter. Now, often all you do is dial a number and talk.

11. Term Paper - We have been concentrating on how you should write the great majority of the compositions required of you in high school, the relatively brief ones rarely exceeding 300 words. But in some courses, especially in your senior year, you may be asked to submit much longer pieces of writing that may be loosely classified as term papers or research reports. Typi­cal among these are studies of an author's characteristics or surveys of literary movements in honor English classes, analyses in depth of various topics in your science or social studies courses, and independent investigations encouraged by teachers of special subjects like psychology, merchandis­ing, or home economics.

12. Examinations - If you could take as long as you liked to complete it, there would be nothing special about writing a composition for a mid- or end-term test in school, a state examination in Eng­lish, or a college entrance essay question. Admittedly, under these conditions, you miss some of the advantages of doing an assignment at home, such as having a dictionary handy for checking spelling and vocabulary or drafting friends and relatives to act as consultants. But when you find that, in or­der to answer all the questions on an examination, you must start and finish a composition in an hour or so, your biggest obstacle is not the lack of help. It is the time limit.

THE END

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