How to Write Good Composition in WBCS Exam

[admin]

Composition.
Use These Tips to Improve Your Writing Skills The word 'composition' may mean different things in different circumstances. It could be a personal narrative, a short work of fiction or prose, an essay, a dramatic work or a poem. Each of these works has its own set of rules.
An essay is a literary form based on the character of a person or a thing. It can be a descriptive narration of an event, preferably a historical event too. You can write essays on the imagery in Shakespeare’s works, spring season, on becoming a doctor and the like. On the other hand a composition is any literary piece including an essay. This is the main difference between essay and composition.

Composition is the way in which any given language is used and applied in the formation of a literary piece such as poetry, prose, drama, short story, novel and free verse to mention a few. Each one of the forms mentioned above is a kind of composition. Essay too is a composition. In other words it can be said that essay too can be considered a form of literature or literary form although many critics may not agree with the idea.

A composition is formed by the implementation of rules and regulations needed for the creation of the particular literary form. For example the composition of poetry needs the knowledge of prosody and imagery. Prosody is the knowledge about metrical composition. It deals with the study of various meters employed in poetry. Imagery is rhetorical in nature.
Know your purpose: What type of composition is this going to be? Make sure you understand the expectations. Typically, your teacher will provide you with an explanation and lecture on what you are to write. Read this over carefully. Ask your instructor if you have questions. Choose your topic: Decide what you will write about.
Here are suggestions based on different types of compositions.
• Essay: Practically every essay topic can be approached from multiple perspectives. When writing essays, choose a topic and take a stance; your essay will seek to convince readers of the legitimacy of your stance. Choose something that is important to you. In essay writing, it is easier to write about what you believe in. Write this in 'first person' -- 'I' (like you are talking) to 'second person'-- 'you' (a person you are speaking to).
• Personal narrative: Personal narrative is a story about you. Choose something that made an impression on you, negative or positive. It might be a vacation, a funny experience, a crisis, a death, a dangerous or frightening situation you encountered, etc. When writing papers that are personal narratives, write in first person.
• Short story: This is a form of prose fiction, a creative non-poetic kind of composition. Write this in third person (as if you were a narrator) or first person if you speak as your main character. If first person voice is your choice, then your short story will read much like a narrative, but it is not necessarily something that happened to you. You can base it upon something you have experienced, but you tell it as a general story. Your options are unlimited; you could write about anything that exists in reality, or make up your own world for a short story.
• Poetry: Poetry is focused on sound, syllabication, rhythm patterns and descriptive language. It might be free verse, or instead written in one of many rigid poetic form like sonnets or Haiku (very short Japanese poems).
• Play: Write about what you know. Your play could develop from a personal narrative. But regardless, include things you have some knowledge that is grounded either in personal experience or research, or both. The play is written in dialog with the speaker indicated. Stage directions - defining the elements of set and telling characters how to speak lines or move on stage - are written italicized and in parentheses.
1.-Write your introduction: For every composition except poetry, you will need to introduce either your topic and position (for an essay) or characters, plot and setting (for narrative, short story and play).
2.-Develop the 'body' of your work:
A.-Essay To start off this writing process, brainstorm a list of 10 points you want to make about your topic. Jot down ten details or ideas that will support the point you are making. T
These may be facts, examples, data, statistics, quotes from a source, or just common sense ideas.
• Group the 10 points into three groups. Organize your list of details into three categories based upon similarity. Like the bicycle, these will be the supporting 'spokes' of your topic.
• Label the three groups. The labels will ultimately become the topic sentences for each body paragraph of your essay. The three or four details in each group will be the supporting sentences. Using this outline, you will have the meat of your essay.
• Write your three paragraphs: Write the main points and details into complete sentences. Remember to keep each organized and follow your outline. This will form the body of your essay. If you are required to make your essay 200 words long, you should have more than enough already. If it needs to be longer, make each of the three topics into two paragraphs.
B.-Narrative, short story and play: Weave these details into your composition.
• Character: Describe how your characters look, think and act. Weave these details into the story.
• Setting: Describe time period, area, and where story takes place (house, hospital, etc.).
• Plot: What happens in the story is basically the plot. Plots follow this sequence: Situation: This is what's happening as the story opens. Details of problem: Every story centers around a main problem, in literature called a 'conflict. 3.-Write your conclusion (for all but poetry):
This simply wraps up what you have said in your composition. It can basically restate what you said in your introduction.If your composition is longer, you can sum up your main points. Try to phrase them a little differently so it will not sound repetitive.
• Use P-O-W-E-R: This is one of the best writing techniques out there. You have done the P-plan, O-organize and W-write components; now you will finish with E-edit and R-revise. You will do this for every type of writing. Reread your work. Look for spelling, grammar, and content problems. Every good piece of writing goes through two or more revisions. Rewrite your final copy. Never underestimate your writing skills. Writing is 'art in words. Everyone has a composition - or many - locked within. Everyone around you has a story to tell. All you need is to practice the skills to write your composition.
How to write a good composition?
Pre-Write:-
1 Read the assignment closely. It's important to get a clear understanding of what your teacher expects from your composition. Each teacher will have a different set of things they'll be looking for, both for the topic and the style. Keep your assignment sheet with you at all times while you're working on your composition and read it closely. Ask your teacher about anything you feel unsure about. Make sure you have a good sense of the following:
• What is the purpose of the composition?
• What is the topic of the composition?
• What are the length requirements?
• What is the appropriate tone or voice for the composition?
• Is research required?
2 Do a free-write or a journaling exercise to get some ideas on paper. When you're first getting started in trying to figure out the best way to approach a topic you've got to write about, do some free-writing. No one has to see it, so feel free to explore your thoughts and opinions about a given topic and see where it leads.
• Try a timed writing by keeping your pen moving for 10 minutes without stopping. Don't shy away from including your opinions about a particular topic, even if your teacher has warned you from including personal opinions in your paper. This isn't the final draft!
3 Try a cluster or bubble exercise. A web diagram is good to create if you've generated lots of ideas in a free write, but are having trouble knowing where to get started. This will help you go from general to specific, an important part of any composition. Start with a blank piece of paper, or use a chalkboard to draw the outline diagram. Leave lots of room.
• Write the topic in the center of the paper and draw a circle around it. Say your topic is "Romeo & Juliet" or "The Civil War". Write the phrase on your paper and circle it.
• Around the center circle, write your main ideas or interests about the topic. You might be interested in "Juliet's death," "Mercutio's anger," or "family strife." Write as many main ideas as you're interested in.
• Around each main idea, write more specific points or observations about each more specific topic. Start looking for connections. Are you repeating language or ideas?
• Connect the bubbles with lines where you see related connections. A good composition is organized by main ideas, not organized chronologically or by plot. Use these connections to form your main ideas.
4 Consider making a formal outline to organize your thoughts. Once you've got your main concepts, ideas, and arguments about the topic starting to form, you might consider organizing everything into a formal outline to help you get started writing an actual draft of the paper. Use complete sentences to start getting your main points together for your actual composition.
5 Write a thesis statement. Your thesis statement will guide your entire composition, and is maybe the single most important part of writing a good composition. A thesis statement is generally one debatable point that you're trying to prove in the essay.
• Your thesis statement needs to be debatable. "Romeo & Juliet is an interesting play written by Shakespeare in the 1500s" isn't a thesis statement, because that's not a debatable issue. We don't need you to prove that to us. "Romeo & Juliet features Shakespeare's most tragic character in Juliet" is a lot closer to a debatable point.[3]
• Your thesis statement needs to be specific. "Romeo & Juliet is a play about making bad choices" isn't as strong a thesis statement as "Shakespeare makes the argument that the inexperience of teenage love is comic and tragic at the same time" is much stronger.
• A good thesis guides the essay. In your thesis, you can sometimes preview the points you'll make in your paper, guiding yourself and the reader: "Shakespeare uses Juliet's death, Mercutio's rage, and the petty arguments of the two principal families to illustrate that the heart and the head are forever disconnected."
Writing a Rough Draft
1 Think in fives. Some teachers teach the "rule of five" or the "five paragraph format" for writing compositions. This isn't a hard and fast rule, and you don't need to hold yourself to an arbitrary number like "5," but it can be helpful in building your argument and organizing your thoughts to try to aim for at least 3 different supporting points to use to hold up your main argument. but some teachers like their students to come up with:
• Introduction, in which the topic is described, the issue or problem is summarized, and your argument is presented
• Main point paragraph 1, in which you make and support your first supporting argument
• Main point paragraph 2, in which you make and support your second supporting argument
• Main point paragraph 3, in which you make and support your final supporting argument
• Conclusion paragraph, in which you summarize your argument
2 Back up your main points with two kinds of evidence. In a good composition, your thesis is like a tabletop--it needs to be held up with the table-legs of good points and evidence, because it can't just float there all by itself. Each point you're going to make should be held up by two kinds of evidence: logic and proof.
• Proof includes specific quotes from the book you're writing about, or specific facts about the topic. If you want to talk about Mercutio's temperamental character, you'll need to quote from him, set the scene, and describe him in detail. This is proof that you'll also need to unpack with logic.
• Logic refers to your rationale and your reasoning. Why is Mercutio like this? What are we supposed to notice about the way he talks? Explain your proof to the reader by using logic and you'll have a solid argument with strong evidence.


3 Think of questions that need to be answered. A common complaint from student writers is that they can't think of anything else to say about a particular topic. Learn to ask yourself questions that the reader might ask to give yourself more material by answering those questions in your draft.
• Ask how. How is Juliet's death presented to us? How do the other characters react? How is the reader supposed to feel?
• Ask why. Why does Shakespeare kill her? Why not let her live? Why does she have to die? Why would the story not work without her death?

4 Don't worry about "sounding smart." One mistake that lots of student writers make is spending too much time using the Microsoft Word thesaurus function to upgrade their vocabulary with cheap substitutes. You're not going to trick your teacher by throwing a $40 word into the first sentence if the argument is thin as the paper it's written on. Making a strong argument has much less to do with your wording and your vocabulary and more to do with the construction of your argument and with supporting your thesis with main points.
Revising
1 Get some feedback on your rough draft. It can be tempting to want to call it quits as soon as you get the page count or the word count finished, but you'll be much better off if you let the paper sit for a while and return to it with fresh eyes and be willing to make changes and get the draft revised into a finished product.
• Try writing a rough draft the weekend before it's due, and giving it to your teacher for comments several days before the due date. Take the feedback into consideration and make the necessary changes.

2 Be willing to make big cuts and big changes. Good writing happens in revision. Break down the word: revision literally means "to look again" (re-vision). Many students think that revising is about fixing spelling errors and typos, and while that's certainly a part of proofreading, it's important to know that NO writer writes a perfect argument with flawless organization and construction on their first run-through. You've got more work to do. Try:
• Moving paragraphs around to get the best possible organization of points, the best "flow"
• Delete whole sentences that are repetitive or that don't work
• Removing any points that don't support your argument
3 Go from general to specific. One of the best ways you can improve a draft in revision is by picking on your points that are too general and making them much more specific. This might involve adding more supporting evidence in the form of quotations or logic, it might involve rethinking the point entirely and shifting the focus, and it might involve looking for entirely new points and new evidence that supports your thesis.
• Think of each main point you're making like a mountain in a mountain range that you're flying over in a helicopter. You can stay above them and fly over them quickly, pointing out their features from far away and giving us a quick flyover tour, or you can drop us down in between them and show us up close, so we see the mountain goats and the rocks and the waterfalls. Which would be a better tour?

4 Read over your draft out loud. One of the best ways to pick on yourself and see if your writing holds up is to sit with your paper in front of you and read it aloud. Does it sound "right"? Circle anything that needs to be more specific, anything that needs to be reworded or needs to be more clear. When you're through, go right back through and make the additions you need to make to get the best possible draft.
5 Proofread as the last step of the process. Don't worry about commas and apostrophes until you're almost ready to turn the draft in. Sentence-level issues, spelling, and typos are called "late concerns," meaning that you should only worry about them when the more important parts of your composition--your thesis, your main points, and the organization of your argument--are already as good as they can be.