Theory of writing
There are two ways of communication: verbal and written. Both of them are very important for a man’s life since the birth until the death. Early in childhood, a baby expresses their feeling by crying, growing up a little bit, a child utters a single word to transfer their desire to parents or siblings. At the age of 6, they go to school to learn how to pronounce the alphabet, to write it. Learning writing goes along with a student from the primary school to high school, even at university if they study the major of literature. Learning writing does not cease at the graduation of university. In our world of reality, we still improve the skill of writing to know how to write a letter, e-mail, memoir, report effectively and efficiently. Therefore, writing is vital for man in life. Learning writing can’t be ignored or missed even we want be a good writer or not. How to learn writing to acquire a fruitful result. It seems an easy question but it requires a lots of work, patience, persistence of a student.
There are two ways of communication: verbal and written. Both of them are very important for a man’s life since the birth until the death. Early in childhood, a baby expresses their feeling by crying, growing up a little bit, a child utters a single word to transfer their desire to parents or siblings. At the age of 6, they go to school to learn how to pronounce the alphabet, to write it. Learning writing goes along with a student from the primary school to high school, even at university if they study the major of literature. Learning writing does not cease at the graduation of university. In our world of reality, we still improve the skill of writing to know how to write a letter, e-mail, memoir, report effectively and efficiently. Therefore, writing is vital for man in life. Learning writing can’t be ignored or missed even we want be a good writer or not. How to learn writing to acquire a fruitful result. It seems an easy question but it requires a lots of work, patience, persistence of a student.
I am an office staff in a diplomatic mission. My job is related to writing a letter, e-mail, press release, speaking remarks, talking point. In a nutshell, writing is my job. Before taking the course of Eng 101, I used to think writing is a simple way: write what come up in my mind into words to articulate my thoughts, to transfer my goal to the target audience without any prepared plan. I might read it one time again to spot typos, grammatical mistakes. When I wrote a report, I rarely did research to find more information to illustrate my statement, attached links to prove what I had presented. This way of writing might lead misunderstanding, miscommunication, and did not obtain results that I tended. This process had happened for years and I did not realize my wrong path in my writing.
I took a chance to join the course Eng 101 that brings a new horizon me in discovery of the art of writing. That’s amazing. It gives me a wealth of knowledge in training myself to become a writer. I have learned a systematic approach in writing effectively and efficiently. This is a process that requires the persistence, diligence, and determination I have to pursue. It may take a time of life to study if I want to do deep research in this realms.
Rhetorical knowledge:
Rhetorical knowledge is the ability to analyze and act on understandings of audiences, purposes, and contexts in creating and comprehending texts. (Link for reference: http://www.ode.state.or.us/wma/teachlearn/commoncore/developing-rhetorical-knowledge.pdf
To start writing a letter, the first thing I have to do is to define what my purpose to send out this letter. The purpose may include many components, items which should be listed in each bulletin. Their order of priority depends on their degree of importance. It means the most important bulletin is presented first to catch a reader’s eyes. The purpose should be described clearly, concise, precise in order that readers easily comprehend. The shorter, more accurate the more understandable. I also find out the target audience I need to communicate in a letter. This helps me use appropriate salutation, formal or informal template. The last one matters as well is to know their qualification of education, profession, cultural background that might give me an idea to write simple words or buzzwords to make my writing understandable, or something I should avoid referring to in my letter which easily leads to a conflict in terms of politics, religion, culture. These things I used to not think about when I wrote a letter. It really helps attract the favor of audience to read my letter, leading to their increasing interest.
Critical reading and thinking:
According to Student Learning Support Service, Victoria University of Wellington, (http://www.victoria.ac.nz/st_Services/slss/studyhub/PDF/CriticalReadingAndThinking.pdf)
Critical reading and thinking is a key skill because it helps a student explore alternative approaches and evaluate strengths and weaknesses in arguments and ideas. It also develops their own critical skills and helps them learn and understand at a deeper level.
Critical reading is an important process that helps and develop writing. Reading is one of my constant exercises. My practice of reading is when I have a text, I read it out, loudly, ignoring and passing difficult words I don’t understand their meaning yet for the first time. This first reading gives me a certain percentage of understanding. In the second time, I take notes or highlight hard words, then look them up in a dictionary to get their meanings or connotations which I learn their use in different context. My percentage of understanding for the second reading increases. The third time I try to grasp the meaning of each sentence, paragraph, the whole text, if not, I take notes for further reference. This process may take time because it depends my degree of understanding. Sometimes I take a break, drinking a coffee in a shop, walking in a park near my neighborhood, even a day off to stay away from reading if the essay is too hard to master it, to refresh my mind. When I am back to reading, my understanding seems better, more advanced. The more reading, the higher degree of understanding. However, sometimes I don’t understand the whole essay after several readings. The last way I resort to is doing research on the internet, asking for help from my peers, people I think they have higher degree than mine. Reading does not mean comprehending the text but also know how to use these words in my own writing in future. Reading various kinds of topics should be practiced. As a non-native English speaker, I need to enrich my sea of words, their connotation, my knowledge in range of topics that improve my writing in future.
Critical thinking trains me the ability of thinking clearly and rationally to solve problems systematically. When I define a goal of the letter, I think how to write the content of letter properly, what information I should do research to add or insert links to enable readers to feel satisfied. I consider what kind of the audience will be my receivers of the letter: business, office staff, workers, or the public. From this consideration, I determine what format of writing, digital tools (letter, e-mail, FaceBook, Twitter...) to use to convey the message. In the content, I pay attention to the use of language, cohesion of sentences, paragraph. This approach requires questions with what, when, where, which and how to enrich my ideas, arise creativity in writing. For me, critical thinking is a way where I always raise questions about my writing, then I myself respond them to train myself with experience in writing.
Processes:
This is a process that takes lots of time in writing. First of all, I write a draft. It means I write what I have in my mind without looking back at it to verify my mistakes. I don’t care systematical orders of ideas, sentences, and paragraphs. Once the drafting is done, I read it again. The process may give me some fresh ideas to supplement current ideas. After that, I rewrite the essay to put ideas in order. Rereading, revising are the next steps to follow up. It helps me identify typos, mistakes in syntax, grammar. A text with such mistakes will discourage the reading of the audience because they think it isn’t worth spending time. This approach requires many times. I can take a break after several repetition of this approach to refresh our mind before keeping doing. I can have some peers to help me by rereading it and giving their feedback. This is why I need much time for this method. The more time I spend the better the writing is.
Knowledge of convention:
There are many ways to transfer to the target audience: letter, e-mail… It depends on readers, context , I decide to use format, etiquette, languages to convey my purpose, ideas appropriately that attracts my readers’ attention at first sight of message. It helps encourage the reader to keep pursue my message till the end.
Habits of mind:
As I mention writing is a whole-life process of learning. I am always open to the newness that releases in the knowledge economy. Every day, a sea of information comes up that I have to update to keep up with the age of information technology. I am curious to learn new things in various fields to provide my knowledge which enhance my skill of writing different topics.
I took a chance to join the course Eng 101 that brings a new horizon me in discovery of the art of writing. That’s amazing. It gives me a wealth of knowledge in training myself to become a writer. I have learned a systematic approach in writing effectively and efficiently. This is a process that requires the persistence, diligence, and determination I have to pursue. It may take a time of life to study if I want to do deep research in this realms.
Rhetorical knowledge:
Rhetorical knowledge is the ability to analyze and act on understandings of audiences, purposes, and contexts in creating and comprehending texts. (Link for reference: http://www.ode.state.or.us/wma/teachlearn/commoncore/developing-rhetorical-knowledge.pdf
To start writing a letter, the first thing I have to do is to define what my purpose to send out this letter. The purpose may include many components, items which should be listed in each bulletin. Their order of priority depends on their degree of importance. It means the most important bulletin is presented first to catch a reader’s eyes. The purpose should be described clearly, concise, precise in order that readers easily comprehend. The shorter, more accurate the more understandable. I also find out the target audience I need to communicate in a letter. This helps me use appropriate salutation, formal or informal template. The last one matters as well is to know their qualification of education, profession, cultural background that might give me an idea to write simple words or buzzwords to make my writing understandable, or something I should avoid referring to in my letter which easily leads to a conflict in terms of politics, religion, culture. These things I used to not think about when I wrote a letter. It really helps attract the favor of audience to read my letter, leading to their increasing interest.
Critical reading and thinking:
According to Student Learning Support Service, Victoria University of Wellington, (http://www.victoria.ac.nz/st_Services/slss/studyhub/PDF/CriticalReadingAndThinking.pdf)
Critical reading and thinking is a key skill because it helps a student explore alternative approaches and evaluate strengths and weaknesses in arguments and ideas. It also develops their own critical skills and helps them learn and understand at a deeper level.
Critical reading is an important process that helps and develop writing. Reading is one of my constant exercises. My practice of reading is when I have a text, I read it out, loudly, ignoring and passing difficult words I don’t understand their meaning yet for the first time. This first reading gives me a certain percentage of understanding. In the second time, I take notes or highlight hard words, then look them up in a dictionary to get their meanings or connotations which I learn their use in different context. My percentage of understanding for the second reading increases. The third time I try to grasp the meaning of each sentence, paragraph, the whole text, if not, I take notes for further reference. This process may take time because it depends my degree of understanding. Sometimes I take a break, drinking a coffee in a shop, walking in a park near my neighborhood, even a day off to stay away from reading if the essay is too hard to master it, to refresh my mind. When I am back to reading, my understanding seems better, more advanced. The more reading, the higher degree of understanding. However, sometimes I don’t understand the whole essay after several readings. The last way I resort to is doing research on the internet, asking for help from my peers, people I think they have higher degree than mine. Reading does not mean comprehending the text but also know how to use these words in my own writing in future. Reading various kinds of topics should be practiced. As a non-native English speaker, I need to enrich my sea of words, their connotation, my knowledge in range of topics that improve my writing in future.
Critical thinking trains me the ability of thinking clearly and rationally to solve problems systematically. When I define a goal of the letter, I think how to write the content of letter properly, what information I should do research to add or insert links to enable readers to feel satisfied. I consider what kind of the audience will be my receivers of the letter: business, office staff, workers, or the public. From this consideration, I determine what format of writing, digital tools (letter, e-mail, FaceBook, Twitter...) to use to convey the message. In the content, I pay attention to the use of language, cohesion of sentences, paragraph. This approach requires questions with what, when, where, which and how to enrich my ideas, arise creativity in writing. For me, critical thinking is a way where I always raise questions about my writing, then I myself respond them to train myself with experience in writing.
Processes:
This is a process that takes lots of time in writing. First of all, I write a draft. It means I write what I have in my mind without looking back at it to verify my mistakes. I don’t care systematical orders of ideas, sentences, and paragraphs. Once the drafting is done, I read it again. The process may give me some fresh ideas to supplement current ideas. After that, I rewrite the essay to put ideas in order. Rereading, revising are the next steps to follow up. It helps me identify typos, mistakes in syntax, grammar. A text with such mistakes will discourage the reading of the audience because they think it isn’t worth spending time. This approach requires many times. I can take a break after several repetition of this approach to refresh our mind before keeping doing. I can have some peers to help me by rereading it and giving their feedback. This is why I need much time for this method. The more time I spend the better the writing is.
Knowledge of convention:
There are many ways to transfer to the target audience: letter, e-mail… It depends on readers, context , I decide to use format, etiquette, languages to convey my purpose, ideas appropriately that attracts my readers’ attention at first sight of message. It helps encourage the reader to keep pursue my message till the end.
Habits of mind:
As I mention writing is a whole-life process of learning. I am always open to the newness that releases in the knowledge economy. Every day, a sea of information comes up that I have to update to keep up with the age of information technology. I am curious to learn new things in various fields to provide my knowledge which enhance my skill of writing different topics.
In the autoethnography, I used learning outcomes to create a cultural picture on a traditional festival of Vietnamese on the lunar new year. I presented customs, rites, habits, superstition to my target audience. I also expressed my thoughts, feeling on the advantage and disadvantage on this festival.
In the ethnography, I described activities in an event of charity. Foreign communities who are living and working in Vietnam want to raise funds for charity project in order to help people in need. The description came from the prepared stage to finish stage, a long process which took a lot of time, effort, money to realize noble deeds.
In conclusion, Writing an essay, thesis, report, article includes three stages: planning, writing and publishing. In planning, I have to define goal, audience, context, do research on internet to obtain information, do observation to have sharp insights. In writing, it includes drafting, rereading, reviewing, revising. In publishing, it should consider format, template I use to transfer a message. To acquire the aforesaid approaches: rhetoric knowledge, critical reading and thinking, processes, knowledge of convention, and habits of mind, I think I have to spend lots of time to practice. It is really helpful to my daily work.
In the ethnography, I described activities in an event of charity. Foreign communities who are living and working in Vietnam want to raise funds for charity project in order to help people in need. The description came from the prepared stage to finish stage, a long process which took a lot of time, effort, money to realize noble deeds.
In conclusion, Writing an essay, thesis, report, article includes three stages: planning, writing and publishing. In planning, I have to define goal, audience, context, do research on internet to obtain information, do observation to have sharp insights. In writing, it includes drafting, rereading, reviewing, revising. In publishing, it should consider format, template I use to transfer a message. To acquire the aforesaid approaches: rhetoric knowledge, critical reading and thinking, processes, knowledge of convention, and habits of mind, I think I have to spend lots of time to practice. It is really helpful to my daily work.