Writing is a process of:
- planning;
- writing; and
Pretty simple, huh? But it is NOT a linear process. If you “plan”, and then “write”, and then “revise”, and then stop — hand it in — the odds are it will be pretty bad. Writing is a non-linear, often circular, process that looks like:
Most people find that “planning” is the best place to start. Most people also “start at the beginning”. If that doesn’t work for you, start somewhere else. [It’s pretty easy to “chop and change” later with a good word processing package.] Thus, if you really can’t seem to get into writing the introduction, “stuff the introduction”, start somewhere in the middle! If you can’t seem to get a good “plan” or “outline” that works, “stuff the plan” and start writing. Very soon, you will start to see what must come before, and what must come after, the bit that you’re writing now. And thus your plan evolves.
Usually it is easier to “start with the plan”, and to “start at the beginning”, but if that isn’t working, try something else. You are judged by the finished product, not how you got there. As you get more experience, and develop more confidence, it all starts to fall into place. Trust me — I survived all the writing horrors I had in high school, and uni, and lived to tell the tale.
REMEMBER: It is not a “once through” linear process! Regardless of where you start, you will probably have to modify your plan, and what you wrote, many times. How many times? Well, that depends a bit on whether you’re writing a 2-page essay, a 10-page report or a 600-page manual. You should keep going until you “get it right” and/or are satisfied with the result. Often, you will stop when it’s time to hand it in, or you fall asleep, or it’s time to work on something else. [Having taught “How to write” courses for many, many years, I’ll still go through at least two — maybe three — drafts in writing this document.]
3.2.1 LOGICAL STRUCTURE
By logical structure is meant the natural unfolding of a story as the reader progresses through the document. This is achieved by going from the general to the specific, with the background material preceding the technical expose, which should lead logically to the conclusions. Consider a good joke. It has the structure as shown in Fig.1:
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Figure 1: Joke structure |
In our case, the punch line is the set of conclusions. Everything should support the conclusions and naturally lead up to them. Remember this when constructing your contents list! A typical technical report has the following progression:
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Figure 2: Report structure |
3.2.2 WRITING IN THIRD PERSON
To write in the third person you must imagine that you are an outsider reporting the events and actions of your subject, rather than writing as though the events are happening to you. You either use people’s names or the third person pronouns. Remember, pronouns are classified as follows: The singular pronouns refer to one person, and the plural pronouns refer to more than one. Within each of these two groups, they’re classified as either first, second, or third person. Here is the classification:
A. Singular Pronouns
1. First Person: I, me, my, mine
2. Second Person: You, your (and the old forms thee, thou, thy, thine)
3. Third Person: He, him, his, he, her, hers, Its
- Plural Pronouns
1. First Person: We, us, our
2. Second Person: You, yours (or “Y’all” in the South, plus the old forms)
3. Third Person: They, them, their, theirs; namesOne way to think of it is “I” come first; “You” come second, and everybody else comes in third.
So when you write in the third person, use the third person pronouns, as above, and don’t use the first or second person. For example, don’t say, “He told me,” but rather “He said.” Instead of “One of the questions I asked him is ‘Why did you decide to be on the football team,’ ” you could write, “When asked why he decided to be on the football team, John replied ….” Hope this helps.
If writing about yourself in a resume or report use a noun such as “The applicant” or “The researcher” rather than a pronoun.
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LEARNING ACTIVITY Rewrite the following in third person I. “I went to the site”. II. “I like the sport, the coach, and my teammates,” said Mfundo III. “We then went to visit the people suffering from Malaria in the nearby village” IV. “I am writing this report to provide solutions to some of the problems that we are encountering in executing the delegated tasks” V. “As a recommendation, i propose the project be stopped pending investigations” |
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