Developing Writing Skills
Ling-hsia Chen
National Taiwan University
Elements of Communication
AUTHOR
AUDIENCE
LANGUAGE
SUBJECT
Goals of Writing
 Expressive writing situations
personal feelings, thoughts (the
writer)
 Referential (expository) writing situations
facts, information (outside subject)
 Persuasive writing situations
argument (the reader’s support, action)
The Writing Process
The Writing Process
Planning
Drafting
The Essay
Revising
The Writing Process
Planning
 thinking about your purpose and
audience
 deciding what to write about
 developing ideas
 gathering details
The Writing Process (cont’d)
Drafting
 connecting ideas
 deciding the order of details
 incorporating new ideas
Revising
 deciding what works and what doesn’t
 changing the draft to improve it
Four Principles
 Start with a clearly stated point.
 Organize and connect your supporting
material
 Provide logical, detailed support for your
point.
 Revise and edit to have error-free and
effective sentences
Basic Shape of Writing
Paragraph Structure
 topic sentence
 supporting sentences
sensory details, facts, statistics,
examples, anecdotes
 concluding sentence
Paragraph
 A paragraph is a group of sentences,
organized to state or support one main idea.
Together, the sentences make the main
idea clear. It usually consists an opening
point called a topic sentence followed by
a series of sentences supporting that
point.
Pre-Writing Activities
 Keeping a writer’s journal
 Free writing
 Brainstorming
 Clustering
 Asking questions
Brainstorming
Topic: Summer job at a convenience store
1. 8 hours a day, 7 days a week
2. Went to work at 6 a.m. got back at 5 p.m.
3. Only had 30 minutes for lunch break
4. A chance to meet different people
5. Convenience stores are booming these
days.
Brainstorming
6. Most customers were there to kill time.
7. Lifted heavy cartons of merchandise
for at least half a day
8. A risky job
9. There are 4 convenience stores in
my neighborhood.
10. No pay for lunch break
11. Didn’t know how to operate a
cash register at the beginning
Brainstorming
12. Could not remember the locations of
different goods
13. Bosses yelled at me sometimes
14.Pay was only NT$79 per hour, $100 for
overtime
15. Have to stand all the time
16. Co-workers were unfriendly
A Scratch Outline
 My experience of working at a
convenient store was bad.
1. Hard work
2. Poor Pay
3. Poor interpersonal relationships
Topic Sentence = Your Viewpoint
How to come up with a topic sentence
 Purpose statement
My purpose is to describe to my
classmates the experience of working
at a convenience store. I will focus on
hard work, poor pay, and poor personal
relationships.
Clustering
Summer Jobs
kitchen
waiter
babysitting
restaurant
manager
a 2-year-old
Convenience store
summer jobs
car washing
factory
computer chips
7-eleven
8 hours per day
Clustering
mean boss
unfriendly
co-workers
bad working
environment
Job at convenience store
NT$79 an hour
hard work
long work
hours
lift heavy
merchandise
poor pay
NT$100 for overtime
stand all the time
Asking Questions
 When did it happen?
 Where did it happen?
 Who was involved?
 What is my opinion of it?
 How did I react?
 Why did I react in this way?
 What can I suggest about it?
Four Bases of Writing
Unity
Every word, phrase, or sentence directly
supports the topic sentence.
Support
Support the point with specific evidence
Coherence
Organize and connect the specific
evidence
Four Bases of Writing (cont’d)
Transitions
 Using Pronouns
 Repetition, Restatement, and Variation
Effective Sentences
Write clear, error-free sentences
 Use parallelism.
 Use a consistent point of view.
 Use concise words.
 Vary your sentences.

Strategies of Development
 Description
 Illustration
 Classification
Process Analysis
Comparison and Contrast
Narration
Cause-and-effect
Definition
 Persuasive Argument
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Evaluating Written Work
 Worthwhile content
Does the writing worth reading?
 Sensible organization
Is the writer’s line of thinking easy to
follow?
 Readable style
Is the style economical and convincing?
CEEC Grading Standard





Rank
Outstanding
Excellent
Good
Poor
Bad
Score
19-20
15-18
10-14
5-9
1-4
大考中心作文評分標準
 級距
分數
 特優
19-20
15-18
10-14
5-9
1-4
 優
 可
 差
 劣
The End