(a) what is writing--the definitions, ideas, thoughts, expressions, etc--you associate w/ writing. What makes writing good to you? When you think of arguments and writing--what comes to mind? How do you believe you create an argument? What type of writer do you see yourself as? (b) create a list of 5-8 key terms you believe define good writing and/or good argumentation. By the end of this first blog post, I want you to come up with a definition of writing and argumentation that includes a list of key terms.
(b) Once people begin to finish up their posts, you'll need to respond back to at least two of your peers.
(b) Once people begin to finish up their posts, you'll need to respond back to at least two of your peers.
(c) this is one of your in-class activities for Monday, June 16, 2014, which means it's due during class.
Writing is composing symbols on any medium in any language to relay thoughts and ideas in an archived and permanent location. Good examples of writing can vary from examples of creative work to more serious pieces. A good read is stimulating on a intellectual level, supplying a vast sum of ideas and subjects to convince the reader of the author's view. Yet as many pieces are serious, there are equally as many pieces of satire and humor which are equally as stimulating, for a different reason. Both create an argument or a point of conflict, which the author then fervently defends either through humor or rhetoric.
ReplyDeleteAs a writer I aim to create a complete thought that is both concise and clear, I have found that in a Business environment it is vital to complete ideas in the simplest form with an adequate amount description to provide the reader with a clear vision. I find myself not adding things to papers, but taking away and consolidating sentences to the very husk of the individual thought.
Things that I believe support good writing:
Concise
Colorful
Clear
Efficient
Appeal to Emotion
" to Logic
" to Reason
Writing can be incredibly dull and long winded leaving your audience bored. Using concise and clear language minimizes the time your audience has invested in your work, making them more likely to remember it. Also adding descriptive words that contribute to the work, not overload, adds another level of depth. Then comes to the actual meat of your paper, the actual argument or conflict. Any good conflict appeals to multiple levels of human thinking, be it either logic, reason, or emotion. All of these traits help produce a good writing.
It's true that it's not always necessarily expressing the author's ideas and emotions in a very serious way. Sometimes the sense of humor would make the writing more attractive and readable as long as it doesn't bother readers' understanding.
DeleteI completely agree that good writing should be clear and concise. I always dread having to read something that is obnoxiously long because usually there could have been a much shorter way of expressing the same ideas in a more condensed version. There’s no need, in my opinion to, add extra “fluff;” just get to the point because the audience will, as you stated, get bored and lose interest fast.
DeleteI also agree that being clear and concise is vitally important in argumentative writing within the business world, especially in the advertising industry. As a consumer I want to know exactly what is being sold and how it will benefit me.
(a) I consider writing as a way of expressing one’s ideas by words. Writing is good to me for its spirit of individual thinking and the author’s ability of collaborating with other information. It’s a combination of intelligence and technique. Argument writing should be based on credible and academic resources. Authors should be well prepared and develop their arguments based on these credible resources clearly and directly. When I have clear thesis sentences and support them with credible resources, I think I have made a clear argument. But first of all, the topic should be controversial enough to raise different arguments. The topic I chose should not be like common sense otherwise it would be difficult to develop conflicts or different arguments. Also a well-organized structure is vital for good writing. Not many readers are patient enough to read your whole writing very carefully and most of the time, they just pay much attention to the beginning and the end of your writing. A good author would put the most apparent and critical ideas at the beginning to arise readers’ curiosity and lead their attention to the following parts by expressing the main ideas in order instead of mixing them up so that readers would get confused and not willing to read the rest of the writing. A good argument essay should be consisted of a start with clear thesis statement, followed by well-organized body paragraphs with credible resource to support the main ideas. And at the end of the essay, the author should state his or her main ideas clearly again and maybe developing some space for readers to have further thinking would be better.
ReplyDelete(b) Clear, direct, credible, academic, formal, well-developed,
I, too, believe that a thesis should contain a good argument, although I think that writing can be everything you list without being academic, a good example would be realistic fiction like J.D. Salinger's catcher in the rye.
DeleteGood writing/good argumentation to me is organized, creative/original, informative, thought provoking, and persuasive. In my opinion a piece of writing must be well planned out so the reader/audience has a clear understanding of the ideas the author is trying to express. For example, almost everyone has learned the standard 3-5 paragraph essay with an introduction including a thesis statement, body paragraphs stating the ideas or arguments outlined in the thesis, and finally the conclusion paragraph designed to wrap up the arguments and main ideas used in the essay. Although this is a very standard and rather boring way of writing, it is organized and well planned out for the reader. Good writing should also be creative/original, and informative. The author should use his/her own thoughts and ideas to compose the piece they are writing and the particular piece should inform the reader or at least give the reader some insight into the authors thoughts. Along with being informative, good writing should be thought provoking. When I read a piece of writing, in particular an argument, I want to be able to step back after reading and create my own ideas or arguments based on the authors. Writing should inspire readers to think for themselves and create original ideas. Finally, good writing/argumentation should be persuasive. The writer should be trying to persuade the intended audience to believe what he/she is writing. Whether it is a poem, a lab report, a sci-fi novel, etc. the reader should be at least persuaded to believe the words on the page, however true they might be. By using these five key terms I believe any author can create a good piece of writing or a selling argument.
ReplyDeleteI’m studying Electrical Engineering and to be honest I haven’t written anything besides a lab report since high school, so I’m hoping to grow as a writer and develop some if not all of the ideas mentioned above to improve my writing.
I totally agree with your ideal that good writing need to be well planned and organized. It will be more interesting if the author uses his or her personal experience because it is special and unique. What's more, good writing need convinced evidence to persuasive others.
DeleteWriting is the best medium to perpetuate your ideas and opinions. Every single time you write something, not only does it get saved for posterity, but you even remember it better. If all we did was speak and debate out loud, our ideas will last as long as the recipient interprets it. Then it becomes the result of the recipient's own take on what you said. If its written it will be there, saved as you intended it forever. Writing has allowed scientist to overcome the test of time. The writings of famous past thinkers has allowed us to keep studying their ideas, a college freshman is able to study and understand research from Stephen Hawking, who in part was able to study the writings of Albert Einstein, who studied the writings of Isaac Newton.
ReplyDeleteA good understanding of your target audience is what could make your writing fantastic. Your message needs to be able to reach your audience, this will never be possible if you use too many technical words or acronyms. One has to be aware that usually the best method of conveying a message it’s the simplest. Occam’s razor states that the simplest hypothesis is the best one. That is something to always remember when writing for an audience, make it short and sweet. Have dominion over the topic you are writing about, if you dont have a good understanding of the topic, research it. Read everything, time permitting, that you can, become a semi-expert on that topic. Always proofread everything you write, there is nothing more distracting that trying to take somebody serious after reading that the author used the incorrect “their/there/they’re”. In the same respect, asking somebody else to read what you are writing will give you that much needed perspective. They may be able to point out a sentence that went on for too long or simply point out that it was unnecessary.
I completely agree that writing things down helps us to more accurately remember all things, whether it be historic events, research evidence, personal experiences, etc. We also need to research our target audience just as much as we research our topic because this will not only help the readers to understand our argument, but will also inspire them to have their own original thoughts and ideas.
DeleteKey terms
Delete*Know your audience
*simple is better
*be concise
*dominion over topic
*no errors/ proofread
*get outside opinion
Writing is the way that people show their personal thinking or ideals to others. Ideals should be clear in writing because readers need to understand what this article is talking about. I think good writing not only has distinct ideals, but also has logical statements. Main ideals will firstly come into my mind when I start to write an argument because the ideal is the most significant part of argument article. It will take times to find logical and convince statements in good writing. In addition, good writing needs to understand quickly and preciously, rather than confused words or sentences. I think I am the one who pay more attention on ideals because I am good at analysis and I know I am week at grammar. It is really not easy for international students to write like Native American students because both sides have different culture backgrounds, which means the writing written by Chinese students may confuse American students. But I have tried to write like American students since I come into America.
ReplyDeleteI think the key terms of good writing should contain the following things. First of all, good writing should have specific statements and clear ideals. Readers need to know what this article talks about at the first time when they read it. It is important because people don’t have time to find the topic before they read. Secondly, good writing needs to have good sentence structures and grammar because people want to read fast, and obviously bad structure and grammar would confuse readers. Thirdly, good writing should have convinced evidence which can make readers to believe what the article says. People will think this is a good writing if the author persuades them. Next one I think is the reference because good writing should respect others if the author used something from other papers. Finally, good writing should have correct format because it will affect the reading experience, such as double space, first line, which will make readers easier to find the main ideals.
For me, writing is one of the most effective ways to share our ideas, emotions, information in a way that allows us to also express our creativity, and maybe a part of ourselves that others don’t know off. It takes out the weight, fear and tension of being in front of a lot of people, which just by itself can make good students, professors, or even regular people forget their line of thought, stay in silence during debates or conversations and be seen as weird or shy. For me, it gives a sense of freedom and a chance to know more, because in order to write about something, there has to be a research or an already high existent background related to the topic. Therefore, some of the key terms that I consider as important for a text are clarity, openness, background, subject and interest.
ReplyDeleteClarity relates to how clear the text is. I believe that there is no point in writing about a topic and not be able to write it in a way that others can’t understand. After that, comes what I could only think as openness. By that, I mean write as if you were talking to friends. Background relates to giving the readers a little idea of what is behind the topic, like facts, stories and maybe the reason for writing about that topic. By subject, I mean choosing a topic that is at least important, or at least chose a topic and know who you are writing for. At last, interest means writing in a way that it can motivate people to read your text. I consider myself as an emotive writer, which at least tries to make people laugh but still think about what I write.
Writing is a process in which we use signals to express ideas about a specific subject. I believe that the primordial or central idea Of writing was to preserve information, therefore today writing is having a more consistent purpose on the communication with the spread Of information and knowledge just like we are doing now. The Human being has been developing and creating a lot of new inventions and in my opinion the writing is the big event around all Of them. By writing we can easily organize our ideas and share them in a understandable way with other persons that most of times thank to it can help us in our purpose. That is what helped the men in the past to create big dictionaries and other books that helped to organize in a sustainable way the different languages that we have today, and today is still helping US to develop the great mechanism that I personally consider the greatest inventions Of the Human face like the computer; that even thought it represents all the information in a digital way his display is totally bases in the Human writing. In a general a good writing for me is the one that grabs the peoples attention and that has a good fluency and is easy to understand. This are also the points that I have in mind whenever I am writing something, specially the fluency because I believe that if we have a good organization and a good flow or change Of events this can make my writing better.
ReplyDeleteFor me personally, writing allows a person to express his or her own individuality through words in any language, but it also helps us to remember more accurately, understand better, and evaluate what we think more objectively. I enjoy reading what an author has written when it either identifies a question or problem which in turn provides a solution/conclusion or it is creative in nature and provokes us to emotion. Regarding arguments and writing, I think you need to focus on your specific audience and know who your readers are in order to present your argument in a manner that will peak their interests so that they will want to be invested in what you are writing.
ReplyDeleteI believe you can create a convincing argument by being both passionate and knowledgeable about your topic. I view myself as the type of writer who researches their topic in great detail and then provides a conclusive argument based on that research as well as a personal and invested viewpoint which ultimately inspires discussion and further progression. I think that it is also crucial to take into consideration other people's possible viewpoints on the particular argument you are making.
Ultimately, in order to create a solid argument which readers will be enthusiastic about one needs to first keep their target audience in mind, have reasons to support their argument, and credible evidence to back it up. In my opinion, one should keep in mind the terms conviction, passion, dedication, individuality, persuasion, and conclusive when writing an argument that is not only convincing, but also inspiring.
I'm totally agree with you, specially in the part that you talked about the how we should create a convincing argument. I have experienced that myself and that's one of the reasons why until today i keep reading philosophy books.And nothing makes an argument stronger than a solid background, i also believe that researches are the best way to enrich our argument, and not being bias is the best way to show that we completely understand what are we talking about making our writing becomes more reliable
DeleteWriting to me is a versatile tool used as a means of communication, a medium of argument and a form of art. I associate abstract thought and argumentation with writing, I also associate analysis of literature with writing. Writing is good because it is a monologue, yes you could speak as though you were writing but it has the chance of being interrupted and of course it would be harder to record. When I think of arguments and writing what comes to mind immediately is my senior honors English teacher who taught us perswaisive essay and about various appeals and logical fallacies shown in both good and bad arguments. To create an argument one only needs something to argue about and some good logic to back it up. I see myself as a writer who tries to be concise. A few terms to describe a good argument might be reason, deduction, appeals, counter argument, and good syntax. A definition of argument might look something like this based off those terms. If you can come to a conclusion with logic and reason you can argue the topic but you can also get there simply by deducing a reasonable answer, of course if you were trying to prove your argument to an audience you would need to try to appeal to them but also show them that the counter argument is also reasonable, and finally if you are writing a persuasive essay your choice of words and how you order them is important as to make you look like you know what your talking about.
ReplyDelete