Practice Finding and Supporting Topic Sentences

Because you are so emotionally invested in your own writing, it's often best to practice your flaw-finding skills with the work of others. Not only can you bring the full force of your writing knowledge to bear on the essay without fear of making a mortal enemy of a classmate or coworker, it helps ease any guilt you may feel about criticizing someone else's work when that person is a stranger far-removed from your life. The following piece of writing is so full of errors, it's a perfect vehicle for honing your revision and editing skills.

To be certain no one is distracted from analyzing the writing itself, I will not reveal the name of the author*. I will say that I found this article in a community college newspaper for which there are no online archives. It was published in February 2011 during a time when society was facing the same issues it faces today with school-related shootings. It will become apparent in the writing that it was written by an English composition instructor. I can't adequately describe how disappointed I am in this quality of writing for someone whose profession it is to teach writing to others, but there may have been reasons of which I am unaware for the caliber of this article's writing (Goodness knows I rush to publish some blog posts at the expense of the writing). At any rate, this article demonstrates that no one is perfect, not even writing instructors.

While there are many errors in this short excerpt, I want to focus on its topic sentences. Feel free to try and locate all the errors you can find, though, as it's great practice. I will include a link to a more full commentary of this excerpt's shortcomings at the end of this blog post. Let me know if I've missed any!

The Excerpt

“Texas legislators are poised to pass a law that will allow professors and students to pack heat on college campuses. If this happens, I will leave the classroom. Wisconsin Legislators, stay in hiding. Run for the good of the people you represent. We here in Texas are in the same boat as you.  But Texas is a “right to work” state, which means, no unions. No wait, there are some unions.”

“Now after I have a lot of experience, I’m actually very good at teaching. I’m not just all charisma and passion for writing. I can inspire students to enjoy literature, I can make the MLA citation style relevant, I can deal with plagiarism, but now will I have to figure out how to handle a situation where a student points a gun at another student when they disagree or break up? Is that ten points off the final exam? I will leave the classroom before I have to do that. In the mean time, I’m going to do something about it. Wisconsin Legislators keep running. Do not vote. Texans you should’ve voted. See who your absence at the voting booth has put into office? Well, now you need to do something. Students, you have to vote with your feet and your cell phones. Call your legislators. Say no to guns in the classroom.“

“The irony is that because college professors in Texas do not have a strong union, for all our brains, we have not been taught how to convene 10,000 strong at our capitol to act as one. So it may be just me and some of my colleagues unofficially representing us all.  And if we lose this time, if we don’t stand up now, we will not have one voice to represent our views as policies are haphazardly slapped together to deal with students on college campuses with guns. Caravan to Austin with your neighbors, friends, and concerned parents. Like our brothers and sisters in Wisconsin, we have to practice what we preach. We have to show our students that we did everything we could for them, that we gave a damn. Maybe the pen really is mightier than the sword.”

The Critique

Let's jump right in and start with the article's first paragraph:

“Texas legislators are poised to pass a law that will allow professors and students to pack heat on college campuses. If this happens, I will leave the classroom. Wisconsin Legislators, stay in hiding. Run for the good of the people you represent. We here in Texas are in the same boat as you.  But Texas is a “right to work” state, which means, no unions. No wait, there are some unions.”

If I didn't already know it, I would never have guessed that this paragraph was the introductory paragraph. Traditional introductions usually begin by capturing the reader's attention with some sort of “hook” and include a thesis statement that identifies the essay's overall argument (usually located at the end of the paragraph in order to immediately transition to the supporting main points). The preceding paragraph only resembles an introduction in that its elements are in reverse order.

The first sentence states the overall topic of the essay and so can be considered a thesis statement. However, its placement at the beginning of the paragraph resembles the way topic sentences are placed at the beginning of body paragraphs, and, while not “incorrect” since this article is not an academic essay, fails to engage and lead the reader towards a point of view the way a conventional introduction would. In fact, the first sentence does nothing to direct the focus of the paragraph onto a single point. The remainder of the paragraph is all over the place! It jumps from Texas to Wisconsin with no background information for readers not up-to-date on current events. Then it jumps back to Texas and an awkward contradiction about whether or not unions exist in the state.

The first paragraph was doomed from its start due to poor construction. Let's see if the second paragraph fares any better:

“Now after I have a lot of experience, I’m actually very good at teaching. I’m not just all charisma and passion for writing. I can inspire students to enjoy literature, I can make the MLA citation style relevant, I can deal with plagiarism, but now will I have to figure out how to handle a situation where a student points a gun at another student when they disagree or break up? Is that ten points off the final exam? I will leave the classroom before I have to do that. In the mean time, I’m going to do something about it. Wisconsin Legislators keep running. Do not vote. Texans you should’ve voted. See who your absence at the voting booth has put into office? Well, now you need to do something. Students, you have to vote with your feet and your cell phones. Call your legislators. Say no to guns in the classroom.“

I'm having a difficult time figuring out which sentence in the preceding paragraph is the topic sentence because it is as all over the place as the first paragraph. The first sentence is certainly not the topic sentence because the majority of the paragraph is focused on politics, not his or her teaching skills. The ending of the second sentence “will I have to figure out how to handle a situation where a student points a gun at another student when they disagree or break up?” could be the topic sentence, but only the third sentence elaborates on this point. The fourth sentence transitions into a vague statement that is never explained: “In the mean time, I’m going to do something about it.” Because the fourth sentence is clearly a transition to a NEW point, the fifth sentence should be the beginning of a new paragraph.

Rather than starting a new paragraph that explains what s/he plans on doing about the situation, the fifth paragraph instead references Wisconsin (again without supplying background information). The author instructs the legislators there not to vote and then berates Texans for the consequences of their failure to vote...without explaining what those consequences were. The remaining sentences are a call to action for students to vote with their “feet” (What does that mean? Is s/he asking for students to stage a campus walk-out?) and their “cell phones.” Calls-to-action belong at the END of essays, where they are more effective. Based on these sentences, I would have thought this paragraph were the concluding paragraph.

Instead, the following paragraph is the conclusion:

“The irony is that because college professors in Texas do not have a strong union, for all our brains, we have not been taught how to convene 10,000 strong at our capitol to act as one. So it may be just me and some of my colleagues unofficially representing us all.  And if we lose this time, if we don’t stand up now, we will not have one voice to represent our views as policies are haphazardly slapped together to deal with students on college campuses with guns. Caravan to Austin with your neighbors, friends, and concerned parents. Like our brothers and sisters in Wisconsin, we have to practice what we preach. We have to show our students that we did everything we could for them, that we gave a damn. Maybe the pen really is mightier than the sword.”

Despite the sudden shift in person and intrusive phrase “for all our brains,” the first sentence in this paragraph actually does act as the topic sentence. While it does have that strength going for it, the rest of the paragraph could use some reorganization and rewording to make it stronger. For example, “Like our brothers and sisters in Wisconsin, we have to practice what we preach” would be more effective if it preceded the call-to-action “Caravan to Austin with your neighbors, friends, and concerned parents.” Speaking of the call-to-action, it should be the concluding sentence in the paragraph, not “Maybe the pen really is mightier than the sword,” which makes no sense as the author has not mentioned writing as a form of voicing her/his concerns (instead, s/he called on people to “use their feet,” place calls to legislators, and drive to the state capitol).

More Practice Finding Writing Errors

Hopefully looking at a stranger's writing with a critical eye has helped you become aware of the kinds of things readers (e.g., teachers and bosses) look for when judging the work in front of them. There are plenty of other writing mistakes beyond how well each paragraph adhered to its topic sentence (if it had one); I've gone ahead and identified all of these errors in a separate document that you can download from Google Docs. I used endnotes to identify errors so that you could have a chance to figure out what each writing error is before scrolling down to the end of the page to see the answer. Feel free to unleash your writing wrath on this article without fear of alienating someone you have to interact with regularly. I certainly won't tell if you don't!

 

*If you are the author of the article from which I excerpted these paragraphs and would like proper attribution for your writing, please e-mail me and let me know. While I am normally religious about making sure people receive recognition for their work, I feel in this particular case the author may not want the recognition.

Photo credit: Jenny Kaczorowski

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Why You Should Work on Your Writing Skills

I’d like to start this new year the way I start new classes, by explaining the value of the lessons I try to impart. It’s difficult to learn something if the desire to learn isn’t there, and the desire won’t form until you know why that something is worth knowing. We live in a world full of opportunities, not to mention distractions, all vying for our attention. Since the number of hours in each day are finite, we need to make smart choices as to how we spend our time. If you're not already committed to becoming the best writer you can be, let me try to convince you that improving your writing is a worthwhile endeavor.

Academic Benefits

Although I find the personal benefits of writing well more rewarding, it's difficult to convince students that there are more important things in life than one's grade in a class. As a current student myself, I completely understand this prioritization. I work myself into emotional knots if I think I'm at risk for making less than an A in a class because so much depends on academic performance. Scholarships, financial aid, and admittance into competitive schools and programs are all jeopardized by subpar grades. Nowadays, keeping grades high necessitates writing well.

Since I'm an English teacher, let's look at those classes first. Every student, regardless of intended major, MUST take English classes through college. Composition I and II are required core classes in every US university, and passing them with a good grade is essential for undergraduates. No problem! Right? Well, not if you have a professor like the one from whom's syllabus the following excerpts come. (There's are two errors in the first paragraph that always amuse me every time I see them. See if you can find them.)

 

These excerpts from actual syllabi should help you understand why many students barely squeak by composition classes with a passing grade (if they haven't dropped it to duck a failing grade first). To be honest, I'd be pretty frightened myself if I saw the above paragraph on one of my classes' syllabi...and I TEACH writing! It's very easy to accidentally let a typo slip by when proof-reading a paper for the umpteenth time. Tutors at writing centers are trained not to point out every single error for students, making the life of a non-native English-speaking student enrolled in a class like this a nightmare. As bleak as it may appear, students who put forth the effort and time to remediate their writing skills do pass; students who don't have the time or aren't interested in pushing themselves, don't do as well.

Non-English classes require writing components as well now that the entire educational system has shifted towards writing across the curriculum. This shift has spread past high-school into university classes. While math and science classes may not be full of essay assignments, many other core classes are writing intensive (e.g., history, philosophy, anthropology, government, etc.). Going further? Graduate school, regardless of the subject matter, is writing intensive. Every class includes essays and research papers, and the comprehensive exams at the end are in essay format (let's not forget the thesis and/or dissertation). It's preparation for professional writing responsibilities. Writing is a fact of life in school now. Getting good grades means learning to write well.

Professional Benefits

I want more for my students than struggling to make ends meet with a minimum-wage job. While I accept that not everyone wants to become an author, many people fail to realize just how many other jobs include writing as a job requirement. Engineers, nurses, police officers, teachers...pretty much every occupation we consider a career has some writing component comprising it. While jobs a little lower on the totem pole don't necessitate as many reports, they still have their fair share of writing. When I was a teenager working as a receptionist at veterinarian's office, the vet techs and I wrote the visit details in each animal's file (I still remember having to write “diarrhea” 500 times after misspelling it in one file!). Dental hygienists, administrative assistants, even a/c technicians write!

While your writing ability isn't indicative of how well you can do your job (unless you're a writer, of course), it's often the only aspect of your work that gets seen by those in a position to promote you. Writing may not be your specialty, but since it's aspect of yourself seen first, you need to make it shine to draw attention to you, and subsequently your other talents. It's important to remember that more writing responsibilities usually accompany promotions. Let's not forget how important it is to impress your customers; misspelling something on their receipt isn't the way to garner confidence in your workmanship.

Personal Benefits

I won't spend too much time on this point because this blog post is long enough as it is without me trying to describe something that's best experienced, not just read about. While I can't effectively convey to you the sense of inner peace sitting down and writing gives me when I'm at school surrounded by bustling, noisy crowds, I can list some ways your life can be improved by working on how well you write.

Writing is an orderly task. There are rules for proper word placement on the sentence level and for proper sentence placement on the paragraph level. Making sense of and organizing a jumble of ideas gets easier with practice, and hopefully this skill will leak into the rest of your life, helping you to be a more objective, rational human being. Formulating coherent, substantiated arguments improves your critical thinking abilities as well as your ability to persuade.

I believe improving your writing ability is an exercise in improving your life.

No One Is Perfect

Notice that nowhere in this post have I said that learning to write well is easy or fast. Some people are better at it than others, of course, but excellent writing takes effort and time, regardless of talent. In order to show you that we all have to start somewhere, I present the grade and feedback I received on one of my undergraduate essay assignments. It is the only one I've managed to save over all these years, so you'll have to take my word that I have received much worse.

I don't care how aloof you are or pretend to be, it hurts when someone criticizes your writing. I still remember when I first read the comments for my paper. I was livid! I recall thinking something along the lines of “Illogical?! I'll show YOU illogical! You're mother's illogical! How about that?!” It makes me laugh looking back on it now, but I remember being really angry.

For all the B's (and even some low C's!) I received on essays in school, I survived the heartache, learned from it, and I think I'm doing pretty well for myself now. Earning a bad grade on a written assignment is not the end of life as you know it, and it most likely will not keep you from pursuing your dream career. Keep your chin up, keep plodding along, and keep learning. It's worth suffering some discomfort now to become a competent (even excellent!) writer.

 

Photo credit: Kaleb Fulgham

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