Writing Feedback / An essay about how to write a good paragraph [3]

Every college student has to write many essays during their college years. However, writing essay seems to be a tough task to many students. In order to overcome the hardship of writing, in my opinion, it is really important to know how to write a good paragraph first, because an essay is a collection of paragraphs. There are three elements of a paragraph which are topic sentence, supporting paragraph, and concluding sentence. Mastering each of them will lead to a well-written paragraph.

First, topic sentence is the one that gives readers what a paragraph is about. Topic sentences is always the first sentence of the paragraph which includes a main subject and a supporting idea. Main subject is what the writer tries to make clear to the reader by giving reasons, explaining, and giving examples, while supporting idea gives the reader a specific area of the main subject which the writer focuses on. For example, in the sentence "Internet gives valuable education opportunities to kids in poor countries", the main subject is Internet, but Internet is huge topic which can range from history of Internet to threats to individual privacy, so the writer only choose a specific area of the topic for his writing which is education for kids in poor countries. Moreover, a good topic sentence should be specific, but not too specific because there is no more to write about if the topic sentence is too specific. In addition, a good topic sentence should not be a well-known fact. For instance, "Asians have black or dark brown hair", almost everyone knows the fact; therefore, they are not interested in it, and there is no more to discuss about the topic.In sum, a topic sentence gives readers the whole idea of the paragraph.

Second, supporting paragraphs give reasons, explain, describe, or give examples for the topic sentence. The supporting paragraph answers the question of what, why, when, where, how about the topic of the paragraph. For example, for the above topic sentence of "Internet gives valuable education to kids in poor countries", supporting sentences can be "Many parents in poor countries can not afford to gives their kids education at school, but Internet gives them very easy access to education" which gives reasons to the topic sentence, or "For example, over the past 5 years, many kids in rural Vietnam areas know how to write thanks to a literacy education website" which give an example for the topic sentence. A good supporting sentence is the one which make the topic clear so that the readers can have better understanding of the topic. Indeed, supporting sentences are the ones which make the topic sentence clear by giving reasons, explaining, giving examples, or describing.

Third, concluding sentence gives the reader a sign that the paragraph ends and restates the topic sentence. Concluding sentence is always the last sentence of a paragraph which tell the reader what the paragraph is about. Concluding sentence also includes a summary of all ideas discussed in the paragraph or the writer's opinion, or prediction. For example, for the above topic sentence of "Internet gives valuable education opportunities to kids in poor countries", the concluding sentence can be "Internet creates for the kids in poor countries precious education opportunities" which restates the topic sentence. Furthermore, some transitions can be used as a sign for the concluding sentence including: indeed, in sum, in conclusion, clearly, certainly, hence, thus, as a result, and so on.

In conclusion, mastering each element of a paragraph which are topic sentence, supporting sentences, and concluding sentence can lead to a well-written paragraph.

Writing Feedback / Essay about Four elements of good writing [2]

Four elements of good writing
In a class, some students get high grades for writing, while others do not, so what makes good writing. In fact, an essay which is clear and to the point is usually marked high score. In my opinion, there are four things students should always keep in mind in order to write a well-written essay, those are purposes, audience, clarity, and coherence.

First, a writer should understand the purpose of his writing or reason why he writes it. Some common purposes of writing are to inform, persuade, or entertain the readers. For instance, for the topic of "the happiest day in my life", the writer possibly have the purpose of his writing as "to inform the reader about the happiest day in his life", so the essay is likely to describe that day and his emotion or feelings at that moment. However, a problem of forgetting the purpose when writing really matters to the writer, especially for long papers. One way to solve the problem is to write a purpose statement, and always review it when writing. A purpose statement of "to describe his wedding day" for the above topic can be an example. Clearly, keeping the purpose of writing in mind when writing is necessary for every writer.

Second, in order to inform, persuade, or entertain readers successfully, it is important for the writer to know who the readers are. For each topic of writing, the readers are different. Children are the major readers for fairy tales or books for kids, so easy to understand language and colorful pictures are distinctive features of this book type. In contrast, economics books for undergraduate students are full of specialised words or complicated graphs. Moreover, choice of audience type also affects pronoun usage and formality of writing. Certainly, choice of audience type has a great effect on writing, so the writer should always keep it in mind when writing.

Third, in order to help readers understand clearly ideas of what the writer tries to say, clarity is necessary. Concise language usage is one factor of clarity of writing. The writer should use words which describe exactly what he means. For example, "dark brown short hair"could give a more detailed picture of hair to the readers, or "he is a world-class magician" is more meaningful than "he is a great magician". Moreover, precise pronoun usage is important to keep the writing clear and avoid misunderstanding for the readers. Pronouns of "the government" can be "it" or "they", each has different meanings. To "it", it describes the government as a whole, a group. By comparison, "they" means a collection of individuals. Thus, clarity is an important factor of writing which the writer should always remember.

Fourth, coherence is completely important to bring all sentences in a writing together and keep them clear. Good writing is one that is well organised and has logical connections among sentences and paragraphs. Transition words are one factor of coherence. Those words act as signals for the reader. Namely, "for example" is a signal for giving an example, or "In addition" is for adding information. Moreover, they also help connect sentences in a paragraph or paragraphs in an essay. In addition, repetition of keywords plays an important role in making writing more coherent. For an essay about "Internet", the word "Internet" should be repeated through the writing. However, if the keywords are repeated over and over again, the writing can be bored. Therefore, one way to solve the problem is to use pronouns. For example, using "it" for "Internet". Surely, coherence makes writing more clear and focused, the writer should pay attention to it when he writes.

In conclusion, writers should always remember those four things which are purposes, audience, clarity, and coherence in order to write a well-written essay or paper.