All Writers Have More To Learn

From this weeks chapter reading, “What Do We Mean by ‘Good Writing'”?, it is mentioned that most of the time we can’t really explain what ‘good writing’ is, we just label things as a ‘good writing’ piece. I found this exceptionally true because I’ve never really heard a detailed explanation as to what ‘good writing’ is. It seemed all throughout school even, just examples of well done essays would be displayed but never really explained. With that being said, I found this weeks reading very interesting. I’ve learned that ‘good writing’ needs to be clear, concise, correct and compelling. To be clear, the writer pays attention when writing and double-checks their work. To be concise, writers don’t have long, drawn out sentences with information that is not related to the topic. To be correct, the writer doesn’t make factual errors and provides the reader with correct information. Finally, compelling, the writer keeps the reader interested by how they’ve written their work. These four ‘good writing’ ideas to keep in mind will be helpful for my future essays and writing pieces. As I explained before, this chapter was especially interesting and useful for me because it has never really been explained what ‘good writing’ looks like, in detail.

My initial thought of this chapter was that its useful information of the base of good writing. I do not remember learning the 4 Cs of good writing, makes it easier to understand what a writing needs to be qualified as a successful piece. I do think the chapter could have been longer, included more information. Either way it was clear, concise, correct and compelling! I now have an easy checklist to reference back and double check for a quality writing.

This chapter gives information that has pieces that most would have already learned about, but also provides newer information. One of the main lessons someone would already know would be making sure all facts used are correct. This is a very common subject in writing giving the right information to the readers. On the other hand, one thing that most would be least familiar with would be compelling due to teachers focusing on the facts instead of interest. Many teachers these days have this huge focus on having the correct information and this causes a lack of interest in this new generation of writing. There may be different opinions on this, but most would agree that all these points are important, and you cannot let one shadow the others.

I could relate to how they explained the way people see good writing because I happen to be one of those people who has read a book and said ” yea this is a great writer”. When the writer talks about clarity I could understand where they were coming from, there have been a couple of times when I’ve read the first chapter of a book or maybe even two and still couldn’t figure out the plot or where an author was going with their story. For writing to even be considered good writing, it has to follow the rules of grammar. Also, I agree that for a reader to recognize an author’s beliefs or opinions they need a strong idea and it needs to be organized well. After all, what matters most is how the reader responds to it in my opinion.

The phrase “I know it when I see it” is something I often hear when referring to a tangible item not necessarily something that is viewed. As I read this book chapter it noted on  qualities writing should include. That being, clear, concise, correct, and compelling. From previous writing knowledge correct and clear where two qualities I am familiar with. Qualities new to me where concise and compelling. Concise writing mainly meaning using precise words to make your point while using as few as words possible so there is no room for confusion. I’ve always figured that the more lengthy an explanation is, the better the writing is. Now understanding this is not always the case is key to demonstrating concise writing. Compelling writing is seen as drawing the readers attention and giving them a reason to pay attention. In past writing of mine this could be seen in rare cases right at the beginning of my work. What I took away from this section in the chapter is to not only grab the readers attention but to continuously reach for their attention through the entirety of the writing. Closing on the reading it became clear to me that with those 4 qualities included in any writing it would allow the reader to have the moment of  ” I know it when they see it”.

It was interesting to read that less words makes the writing more concise. I’ve always considered myself a good or at least above average writer but would often get a lot of C’s and low B’s on my essays. It’s because my writing wasn’t concise enough; I thought the more words and information you put in an essay the better. I plan to incorporate that part of writing the most into my future projects.

Good writing can have many terms that describe it. As stated in the chapter, good writing is clear, concise, correct, and compelling. This is similar to what I have heard about writing before, but in past writing classes, I feel that being concise and compelling was not really a focus. Most of the time we focused on making our writing clear and correct. Now after reading this chapter, I can see how being compelling and concise is just as important. Combining all of these skills will help you become a successful writer and expand your knowledge on writing.

Overall, I agree with the four key points of the article. Although correct and factual, reading a list of facts is not very compelling. Being more of a fiction fan, facts are less important than the developing story. I’ve read many great books that contained no facts, were not concise, but the author was very compelling through character development and plot. In contrast, authors can make a seemingly boring historical event very compelling through creative writing. Good writing depends on the opinion of the audience that the writer is trying to appeal to.

I’ve heard the term “I’ll know it when I see it” about many things, but never writing. I find that a lot of people can get sidetracked while writing about a particular topic, myself included. So I would say that I definitely agree that good writing must be concise. After reading the book chapter, I would have to say that in my opinion, good writing does have to be all of the things listed.