Cut The Topic Down To a Size You Can Manage
One of the biggest obstacles to the success of a short essay is an oversize topic. If you try to write eight hundred words on the free enterprise system, you will probably find that you have room for only common place generalization about it: big business don’t pay their fair share of taxes; company executives are overpaid; workers re underpaid; the whole system takes from the many and gives to the fortunate few. When you fill up a paper with generalizations like these, you leave your self no room to think and discover or to use your own experience. Also you bore your readers by telling them what they have already many times before. If you can define a particular topic in terms of your own experience, you have already begun reducing it to a manageable size. But even as you connect it to your own experience, you should try to isolate and identify a piece of it, to make your topic as precise and specific as possible. Here are some example:
GENERAL
Sport, medical care, computer, working women, elections
SPECIFIC
Hockey, artificial organs, word processing, working mothers, role of TV in election
MORE SPECIFIC
Scoring goals, artificial hearts, spelling-checker program, working mother with small children, role of TV in election of John F. Kennedy
EXERCISE 7
Take any of the topics listed in exercise 6 and make it as specific as possible.
Example
Crime shoplifting punishment of shoplifters
Make an Assigned Topic Your Own
When a topic is assigned, find away to make it your own. Most of the writing you do will be in assigned topic. The way to get started on an assigned topic is to discover its connection with what you already know, with your own interests and experience. Suppose you are asked to write about the free enterprise system. Your first thought may be of huge corporations: Du Pont, IBM, General Motors, Chrysler, AT&T. but big firms like these are far out numbered by small ones such as pizza parlors, taxicab companies, barber shops, hair dressing salons, and drug stores. James is a businessman; but so is the street vendor selling leather belts or costume jewelry at a busy intersection, and so is the ten year old behind a lemonade stand on a hot summer afternoon. If you’ve ever had a job, you have had the chance to see how someone else runs a business. Personal experience, then, can be just what you need to find your way into a topic.
Consider what two different students did with two different topics assigned to them. Asked to write about the free enterprise system, Virginia decided to explain how she and a few other girls organized a summer playgroup when they were only nine-years-old and how their profits rose to nearly three hundred dollars each in the fourth summer of their operation.
EXERCISE 6
Describe a personal experience that you might use to make a point about any one of the following topics.
Families, computers, education, farming, crime, sports, housing, music, and transportation.
Writing on Unassigned Topics
If you are free to choose your own topics, try any one of the following methods of discovery:
1. Write nonstop for twenty minutes.
Write a letter to a friend that begins, “The reason I like/dislike writing (or any other activity) is…….” Write without stopping. Don’t worry about spelling, punctuation, grammar, or even making sense; just write whatever comes to mind. After twenty minutes, read what you have written, and underline you find interesting, even surprising. Now write about this point for ten minutes without stopping. When finished, you may find that you have come upon a topic you want to develop into a full-scale essay.
2. Examine a conflict.
Since the richest moment of experience are often born out of conflict, suppose you recall a time when you were made or asked to do something you did not want to do. When and where did it happen? How did you feel about having to act against your will? How did you feel about the person who asked you to do so? What did you learn for the episode? Raising question like these-and trying to answer them-will help you think more about the experience until you discover the point you want to explore in depth.
3. Spy on people.
Have you noticed the way some people (including you, perhaps) be have at rock concert, at movies, in shopping centers, in department stores, in supermarkets, in classrooms, in restaurants, on side walks, on beaches, at parties? Does anything they do so, say, or wear strike you as funny or strange or irritating? If so why? And if you had the power to change their behavior, what would you do?
4. Choose a topic you want to know more about.
Tap your curiosity. Investigate a subject that interests you. As you learn about it, you will find your self increasingly eager to share your new knowledge with others-especially if the subject is one you have wondered about for some time. Look for unexpected. Surprises ill interest your readers as much as they interest you.
5. Share your expertise.
Help others learn how to do something you do well. You may be an expert photographer, carpenter, guitar player, computer operator, cartoonist, sales clerk, or actor. What advice could you give others who would like to acquire your skill? What should they be prepared to do and sacrifice? What characteristics do they need to have? What obstacles will confront them? What kind of regimen should they follow?
Exercise 1.Writing about your own experience
Follow the instructions given in item 1, but start with these words: “I like writing because ……”or “I dislike writing because…..”
Exercise 2. Exploring a moment of conflict
Recall a time in your live when you felt bullied, cheated, or deceived. When, where and how did it happen? How did you feel about your self? How did you feel about the other person? Write about them for ten minutes without stopping
Exercise 3. Writing about people
After reading item 3 above, write nonstop for
ten minutes about a person or group that amuses or annoys you. Write as fast as you can. Don’t worry about grammar , spelling or punctuation. Just get your thoughts and description down.
Exercise 4. Asking about people
Jot down as many question as you can about a subject you would like to investigate.
Exercise 5. Exploring your favorite subject
Explain what puzzle or fascinates you most about your favorite subject.
LESSON 1
Sometimes the hardest part of writing is getting started. Looking at a sheet of blank white paper is like looking at a-snow covered car on icy winter morning and wondering of the engine will turn over. Inspiration is a mysterious process, and no one can say just when and how it will strike. Sohow do you work for inspiration?
Here my suggestion
Give Yourself Time to Make Discoveries
For most writers, composing is neither all work nor all inspiration. It is a process of moving back and fort from one to the other, from concentration to relaxation, from pushing ideas to playing with them, and then making discoveries. You need time to make the process work well, but time alone will not make your discoveries for you. You have to earn the magic moments of inspiration by periods of conscious and concentrated effort. At the start, therefore, you should think about your work schedule. Few writers can work productively for more than four hours without a break. If you try to exceed your limit, you may find your self slowing down or running down or going around in circles, stuck in the groove because you’re too weary to think straight. The smart way to write a paper is to proceed in stages, to set your self short term goals to be reached in periods of well-focused concentration.
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