Taiwan's Chinese-language Business Weekly magazine reported that the Chinese writing ability of Taiwanese students from elementary to graduate level is deteriorating. One main reason is that since Taiwan's education reforms, students at all levels do not read as much as their predecessors did. In addition, with TV, MP3 players and cellphones everywhere, it is rare to see someone reading. However, it is apparent that students learn to write primarily by carefully observing what is already written.
The English writing ability of students is also worsening year by year. One conspicuous indication of the disastrous performance is that more than 10 percent of the students who take the university entrance exam received a zero in the composition section of the English test.
Writing plays a pivotal role both in school life and in one's career. One of the most crucial points in education is to learn to communicate clearly and effectively in written language -- either in Chinese as the first language or English as a second or foreign language.
That is why many curriculums include courses that require reading and writing proficiency and which must be completed before graduation. Many jobs require a decent command of writing in different genres such as e-mails, letters, proposals, news reports, essays and papers.
Actually, the inadequate writing ability of the younger generation seems to be a universal phenomenon. It might be partly due to the frequent use of the Internet and informal writing.
Nowadays, many researchers question what the characteristics of an effective writer are. Understanding the common traits that good writers have is helpful for students in learning to write well. Of course, effective writing is a multifaceted and complex phenomenon, and it is impossible to pin down all aspects in a short article.
Thus, this article discusses the common behavior of good writers during their writing process.
First, good writers often spend some time (but not too much time) planning to write. That is, they follow a general organizational plan as they write.
Second, when starting to write, they try to let their original ideas flow freely onto the paper and don't expect the early drafts to be the final work. Furthermore, they usually don't get stuck by surface structures such as grammar, vocabulary, and so on, as these delay editing until the last stage.
In other words, they are concerned about the accuracy of language only after they are satisfied that all their ideas have been put into writing.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, good writers revise their work effectively, patiently making as many revisions as needed. They understand that all drafts are tentative and revising helps them discover what they want to say. People often think that writing needs inspiration. However, good writers don't wait for inspiration: it comes to them as they keep revising their works. It is not a stretch to say that writing is revising.
Donald Murray, a distinguished writing professor in the US, vividly described revision by saying, "All writers write badly -- at first. Nobel Prize winner, Pulitzer Prize winner, writers of blockbuster movies ? all write badly at first. Then they rewrite. Revision is not the end of the writing process but the beginning."
Indeed, studies after studies have shown that all good writers master the craft of revision.
To summarize, the composition process for good writers is not a linear process of planning, drafting, revising and editing. Rather, it is recursive: While composing their works, good writers frequently reread what they have written and come back to any section and rewrite. The entire writing procedure is a thinking and problem-solving process through numerous revisions.
Notice that the recursive composing behavior discussed above is most obvious when good writers deal with complex issues and difficult problems in proposals and academic papers. However, when they handle simple tasks such as short essays and e-mails, there is less need for planning, rereading and revision.
So, what can we learn from good writers? The traditional approach to teaching and learning writing should be reformed. For example, the current approach overemphasizes grammatical, lexical and mechanical correctness, but fails to help student writers see writing as a thinking and evolving process.
Writing teachers should teach and keep reminding students of the core of writing -- revision. By rewriting, student writers come up with new ideas, use writing to solve problems and make themselves smarter.
Kao Shih-fan is an assistant professor at Jinwen University of Science and Technology.
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