Expository writing requires language to express far more complex trains of thought than it was biologically designed to do. Inconsistencies caused by limitations of short-term memory and planning, unnoticed in conversation, are not as tolerable when preserved on a page that is to be perused more leisurely. Also, unlike a conversational partner, a reader will rarely share enough background assumptions to interpolate all the missing premises that make language comprehensive. Overcoming one's natural egocentrism and trying to anticipate the knowledge state of a generic reader at every stage of the exposition is one of the most important tasks in writing well. All this makes writing a difficult craft that must be mastered through practice, instruction, feedback, and--probably most important--intensive exposure to good examples. . . . [A] banal but universally acknowledged key to good writing is to revise extensively. Good writers go through anywhere from two to twenty drafts before releasing a paper. Anyone who does not appreciate this necessity is going to be a bad writer.-Stephen Pinker, The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates LanguageThe following links form a natural sequence, but they are also interactive. I suggest you begin reading them in order, but you can read each independently, and links are provided in each selection to other documents as appropriate.
I.
Four Keys to Writing in the HumanitiesII.
Four Stages of WritingIII.
Paper Writing GuidelinesIV.
Sentence Structure and Puncuation: Clauses and CommasV.
Writing:
The Bridge between Consciousness and UnconsciousnessVI.
Checklist for PapersVII.
Writing Sample with Parenthetical In-line Page ReferencesVIII.
Peer Review GuidelinesIX.
On-line
guidelines
[Early on] I approached writing as primarily a matter of wording. Like the beginning pianist who focuses on the notes rather than the music, I thought of writing as a matter of choosing and arranging words in such a way as to sound impressive, or intelligent, or amusing, or touching. I had not reached a point at which writing becomes an end in itself, a means of discovering meaning. Nor had I developed an appreciation for the mystery of life. It was not that I lacked [life-]experience -- I lacked reverence for experience.
© Mark T. Unno 2000