Welcome to the tutorial on the Art of Composition. This tutorial is designed to help a student organize information and translate it to the page in a way that flows well and holds the reader’s interest.
Writing papers numbers among the most stressful experiences in university and graduate education. Typically a large percentage of your class grade relies on an ability to communicate effectively through writing. “Paper anxiety” is frequently due to a difficulty in getting your mind around what’s involved in actually writing a good paper. The tutorials in this CD suite correspond to the “four layers” of good writing: style, mechanics, organization, and content. Style refers to the format and presentation of the paper; mechanics include essential skills of spelling, grammar, and punctuation; organization is about the structure and flow of thought in the paper; and content is another name for the substance of your writing, as well as the methods used to gather your information.
In this tutorial on the Art of Composition we will discuss four essential components: the basic structure of a paper, how to prepare an outline, utilizing information acquired through research, and making the finishing touches to a paper.
The basic structure of a paper consists of three major sections: an introduction, the main body, and a conclusion. The introduction should make a clear and succinct statement of your paper’s theme, topic, or thesis. The body, proportionately the largest section by far, is where you elaborate and support your thesis. The conclusion is a re-statement of your main idea, but now in light of your work in the middle section of the paper.
The introduction of your paper is like the set-up to a good story or joke: Its purpose is simply to capture your reader’s interest and set the stage for what’s coming. One question that students often have with regard to the introduction of their papers is how to make it succinct enough that it doesn’t “give away the punch-line” too early.
Your introduction should accomplish three things: First, it needs to introduce the problem, topic, or idea. Next, it should give a brief sketch of current and recent developments in the field, or the broader themes in the background of your topic. Finally, the introduction should lay out the path you’ll be taking in your paper. Let’s look at each of these a bit more closely.
Introducing the problem can sound complicated. It might be a proposition that you’ll be critiquing or an hypothesis you’ll be testing, and the implications of what you expect to find. In brief, this will be a clear statement of what your paper is about.
Developing the background involves a quick review of current trends and the published work of others, along with the general direction things are going in the area of concern relative to your paper’s main topic. All of this can be summed up in the simple question of how your topic is relevant. Why should the reader be interested in reading your paper?
Stating the purpose and rationale is a matter of identifying your particular approach to the topic, what goals you’ll be pursuing through the course of your paper, and how you’ll measure progress in getting there. In other words, you should be answering the question of where you are going in your paper.
Just as the human body combines anatomy and physiology, so the body of your paper provides the structure and flow that together give integrity to what you write. Organization does not have to be rigid and boring; in fact, better papers are typically rewarded high grades because of the elegant and interesting way in which they hold together and carry along the reader.
With that said, the importance of what are called “symmetry” and “rhythm” in writing cannot be overemphasized. As we have seen in the other tutorials included on this CD suite, the use of an outline and headings within your text is for the purpose of making your paper something that is enjoyable both to read and to write.
Illustrated on the left and right sides of this slide are two common ways of organizing the flow of thought in your paper – particularly when two or more things are being discussed or compared. The sequence on the left advances through one element or idea at a time, showing how “A” and then “B” stand with respect to that point; it next moves on to a second point, making a similar comparison; and so on.
The sequence on the right takes “A” and “B” separately, completely discussing all the elements of one before moving on to the other.
As you can tell, the rhythm on the left has a faster tempo than the one on the right. Coming back to our analogy of the body, it would be like listening to the heart versus listening to the lungs. Which one to use will be largely a matter of personal preference. But beware: a paper with no rhythm is as good as dead!
The conclusion of your paper should not introduce new material or additional points to your main argument. In the same way that students frequently have trouble containing the introduction, they commonly fail to appreciate the distinctive purpose of the conclusion.
Perhaps it will be easier to begin by saying what the conclusion is not. Your paper’s conclusion is not the place for further development of the main idea, nor should it be merely a string of excerpts from preceding paragraphs.
Recall that in the introduction you laid out the blueprint for your paper, and in the body you elaborated, investigated, demonstrated, and critiqued the key points using a clear approach with explicit goals in mind. When you reach the conclusion, you should be able to restate the main idea in light of your argument, against the background of current research, or with the benefit of careful reflection on personal experience.
Having just discussed the basic structure of a paper and how the three main sections fit and flow together, it may seem like we’re going backward to talk now about making an outline. Doesn’t an outline come before the paper? Of course it does.
The reason for taking things in this order is very simple. As we said in the tutorial on APA Basics, a well-developed outline is essential to a well-written paper. Now that you are familiar with the “anatomy and physiology” of a good paper – what we called its structure and rhythm – a carefully designed outline will be as easy to create as it is obvious in value.
A simple outline design consists of your thesis statement, bulleted points of key moves that will constitute the body of your paper, and a finishing statement of your thesis underneath.
Finally, a word of advice: Don’t make the mistake of building your paper on citations from other works. Instead use citations to introduce, illustrate, and reinforce your main idea.
Some easy yet effective things you can do in the finishing phase of your paper are:
Now that you have completed this tutorial on Composition, you may be interested in the other writing tutorials available. Simply close this presentation and open a new tutorial from the Resources page.
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