Writing
The purpose of language, spoken or written, is primarily to transfer experiences — ideas, impressions, feelings – from one person to another.
When we speak directly to other persons or in any situation in which we can be seen, we add to our voice meaning the meanings of facial expressions, body movements, the special quality of visual personality, and the significance the actual situation holds.
But when we write, many of our ways of transferring meanings change. We lose the help the voice adds to meaning. We lose the help of facial expressions, body movement, the total visual personality.
When we seek to transfer meaning by writing, we must rely once and once only on the words we choose, the way we put them together, various additional graphic signs such as punctuation, paragraph indentions, titles and other headings, and the total appearance of the writing on the page.
Types of written work
A written work must be presented neatly and students are expected to do it in accordance with certain basic standards:
Draw a margin on the left-hand side of each page (about 1-3 cm wide). The margin is left free for a teacher’s marginal comments.
Write the date in the top right-hand corner: 5 October, 2012 or Friday, 3rd. April
Write the title (if necessary) in the middle of the page. All the words of a heading except articles and prepositions should be written with a capital letter.
e.g. How to Bridge the Generation Gap
Paragraph
One way of looking at a paragraph is to see it as part of a longer piece of writing. You can also see a paragraph as a group of sentences, all of which focus on a single subject. The main idea of the paragraph often appears in a topic sentence, usually located at or near the beginning of the sentence.
Each sentence contributes to the central idea. The topic sentence introduces the general idea, and each succeeding sentence offers specific, equal instances or illustrations of that idea. Each sentence may be subordinate to the one immediately preceding it. Every sentence must relate somehow, directly or indirectly, to the sentences that surround it.
When you write a paragraph, you have a purpose. The details you choose should help to achieve your purpose. They should help explain, describe, or persuade.
Model
(The topic sentence is underlined.)
The old house on the hill looked gloomy and empty. The paint on the door was almost peeled away. We must have knocked for about five minutes before an old butler opened the door. Inside the house, everything was dusty. Cobwebs covered some of the doors.
A typical paragraph:
presents one main idea;
conveys thoughts that are connected both by logical association and by word signals;
often reveals its main idea in a prominent statement, usually but not always toward the start;
usually supports or illustrates that idea;
may also deal with objections and limitations to that idea, but without allowing the objections to assume greater importance than the idea itself;
may begin or end more generally, taking an expanded view of the addressed topic.
In one sense nothing could be easier than to form paragraphs; you simply indent the first word of a sentence by five spaces (The writer can control the length of his paragraph merely by indenting a line). But those indentions must match real divisions in your developing thought it you are to keep your reader’s respectful attention.
A new paragraph signals a shift: a new subject, a new idea, а сканце in the level of generality. By observing such natural breaks and by signaling in one paragraph how it logically follows from the preceding one, you can turn the paragraph into a powerful means of communication.
As a rule, every paragraph has a leading idea to which all other idea, in the paragraph arc logically related. A reader should be able to tell, in any paragraph, which is the main sentence (the topic sentence) - the sentence containing that one central point to be supported or otherwise developed in the rest of the paragraph.
A main sentence can occur anywhere in a paragraph if the other sentences are properly subordinate to it. More often than not, however, the main sentence comes at or near the beginning.
To be effective and easily understood, a paragraph should focus on a single idea and develop it.
In stating the main idea of your paragraph, your topic sentence acts as a constant reminder of your main idea. It makes your intention clear to yourself and your readers. Our advice to you as beginning writers is to lead off your paragraphs with strong topic sentences. Using your topic sentence as a guide, you can make sure that all the sentences in your paragraphs connect to your central idea.
A good paragraph is not a collection of sentences consisting of a "topic sentence" and a list of examples but it is an integrated unit of meaning.
A good writer unfolds his idea sentence by sentence in a sequence. Within the paragraph there may be sentences that summarise and sentences that particularise.