Six Rules for Writing

Seven Rules for Writing Essays

1. LIMIT YOUR SUBJECT.

The best way to limit your subject is to formulate a clear thesis. This is the main point of the essay and should be statable in a single sentence. Remember that it should be a complete sentence, not just a word or phrase. "College education," for example, is not a sentence or a possible thesis (though it could be a title). "A college education helps prepare you for life" could be a thesis--but not a good one, because it is too vague and general, as well as trite. The more specific your thesis, the more likely that it will be something that interests you (how can you expect your reader to be interested if you aren't?) and something that you can develop effectively in a short essay (ca. 500 words). "The most important part of a college education is not learning things, but learning how to find things out" is more specific, and a more promising thesis.

Once you have taken the time and effort to formulate a good thesis, writing the essay will be easier, because you will have had many ideas running through your head which you can choose from to develop your central idea, and more rewarding, because your goal is clear from the beginning.

2. STICK TO THE POINT.

Once you have a thesis, make sure that everything you say has a clear relationship to it. Each paragraph should make a point that supports the thesis, and each sentence within the paragraph should support the main point of the paragraph. You might think of the paragraphs as rooms in a house, and of the sentences as furniture in the rooms. The visitor in this house (the reader) should have the feeling that the furniture belongs in the room where he finds it, and that the rooms belong in the a house. (It would be confusing to walk out of a bedroom into a dentist's waiting room, for example!)

This principle of composition is called unity (from Latin unus 'one'). For example, if your thesis is "The most important part of a college education is not learning things, but learning how to find things out," the fact that you learned a lot in Prof. Smith's American History class would not support your thesis. Instead, you might want to say something about learning to use the library.

3. MAKE IT EASY FOR THE READER.

Unless the author is an expert writing on a technical subject, or an acknowledged genius, an essay which is difficult to read is a bad essay. It is your job, as writer, to make things as easy for your reader as possible. That doesn't mean you should be condescending or simplistic; you can be profound and creative without being difficult. Obviously, some thoughts are more difficult to express than others, but it is your task to make your thoughts clear.

Coherence refers to how clearly connected the parts of your essay are. Does each sentence relate clearly to the sentences that precede and follow it? Does each paragraph relate clearly to those that precede and follow? Can the reader follow you easily from one sentence and one paragraph to the next? To return to the house metaphor, even if you have all the furniture in the right rooms (unity), it has to be arranged sensibly (coherence). You would not want the dining-room table on one side of the room and the chairs on the other, or the rug on top of the chairs. All the rooms may belong in the house (unity), but you have to be able to get from one to the other easily (coherence). You would not want the kitchen in the basement and the dining room on the third floor.

The principles of unity and coherence contribute to the clarity of sentences, paragraphs, and the essay as a whole. It can be difficult or impossible to explain why a particular piece of writing lacks clarity. Here the house metaphor breaks down. It is easy to explain why rugs belong on floors and dining rooms next to kitchens, but we (as readers) cannot say how the author of an essay should arrange his thoughts. What we can say is whether the author has arranged and presented his thoughts clearly. The test for that is simple: Is the essay easy to read and understand?

4. MAKE IT INTERESTING.

Clarity is essential, but it isn't everything. A good essay is also interesting. Creating interest is a matter of both ideas and language. Once you have your thesis and supporting points, you need to develop each point. If I want to make the point that "My cat got sick and cost me a lot of money to get well," for example, I might add some details:

She developed female troubles and had to have an emergency operation, requiring anesthetic and antibotics. The penicillin shots alone came to $15.48. Since she is a finicky Persian and would not tolerate being in a room with other cats, she convalesced in a private room at Happy Valley Cat Hospital, where she devoured $13.98 worth of cat food in four days. By the time she felt well enough to come home, she had cost me so much that I had to live on baked beans for the rest of the month.

The simplest way to develop a point is to give examples (as I have just done with the example of the cat).

Creating interest through language is also a question of style. This involves not only avoiding errors but choosing words and structures that are appropriate and effective. For example, in general it is better to be concrete and specific rather than abstract and general, better to use the active rather than the passive voice, better to use nouns and verbs rather than adjectives and adverbs, better to express things positively than negatively, better to write as you would speak rather than as you imagine a professor would write, and, most of all, better to use fewer words rather than more to say the same thing.

5. WRITE IN PARAGRAPHS.

A 500-word essay will normally have 3 to 5 paragraphs The simplest form would be: a short introductory paragraph ending with the thesis (main point) of the essay as a whole, followed by 2-4 supporting points, each in separate paragraphs. A summary or conclusion is possible, but not necessary in such a short essay. As soon as you have made your last supporting point, the essay is complete.

6. USE A SENTENCE OUTLINE.

It is always better to plan ahead. A sentence outline of a 500-word essay might consist of 3 to 5 complete sentences (not just words or phrases). The first sentence is your overall main point, the thesis. The other sentences are supporting points--again, complete sentences expressing complete thoughts--each of which is clearly related to the thesis and support it.

If the 3-5 sentences in the outline are easily understandable, that is, the sentences themselves and their relationship to each other, then you can most likely produce a unified and coherent essay just by following the outline.

The simplest way to do this, as I said, is to make the thesis the last sentence in your first paragraph, and each of the supporting statements the first sentence in each of the following paragraphs (though of course you might need more than one paragraph for one point).

7. REWRITE.

A sentence outline can be particularly useful in an exam situation, where your time for rewriting is limited, but otherwise, you should always write several drafts of what you write before asking anyone to read it. Proofreading for typographical, spelling, punctuation, and careless mistakes is the very least you should do, but this is not rewriting. Rewriting means changing what you have written--throwing some things out and adding or changing other things.