PERBANAS SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS

Writing Composition
A Brief Introduction
Edhi Juwono 5/27/1994

Composing writing is like managing. The writer has to prepare something before the writing process--it means he has to make a plan, and along the process of writing he has to compose a draft--in this section he is organizing and directing his ideas in words; finally he revise the draft to have "a controlled writing"--so we could say that he is doing the controlling function. This short article is not proposed to people who begin to write, it is addressed to people who usually express their ideas in written language, and familiar with the management concepts.

Writing Composition, a Short Introduction

Writing Composition
A Brief Introduction

1. Introduction
Some people seem to find writing easy. They sit down to write, they do not stop until they are finished, and their draft is usually so good that it is their last draft (McCrimmon, Trimmer, Sommers 1984: 5). Not everyone can do this thing and sometimes writing can be a hard work. But writing is also opportunity: to express what we have thought, to transfer our knowledge to others that we can not talk to, and perhaps to learn something new. Following parts of this paper will give an overview of writing.

2. What is writing?
At least there are two aspects to writing: task before writing and the writing process itself.

2.1 Some Decisions

Before starting to write, we have to consider the subject, the reader, and the object. So we have to begin with: how do we select the subject of writing, who do we write for, and what is the object of the writer.

by Edhi Juwono

Writing Composition, a Short Introduction

2.1.1 Selecting Subject

Many writers complain that their biggest difficulty is finding a subject (McCrimmon, Trimmer, Sommers 1984: 14). But we cannot start writing without outlining the subject. There are guidelines for selecting the subject proposed by McCrimmon, Trimmer, Sommers (1984: 7--14) which may be useful for us. They give five questions to make it easier for us to select a sub-ject. 1. What do we know about our subject? We are meant to know many aspects about what we will write; at least we have to know the sources of knowledge which will be useful to develop our writing. 2. What is the focus of our subject? It is better for us to restrict our subject. Having a specific one enables us to develop it is greater detail. 3. What is significant about our subject? We have to remember that what we are going to write is some-thing which should be giving insight to our readers. 4. What is interesting about our subject? We also have to consider how far our subject can attract the reader. 5. Is our subject manageable? We have to place our subject between complicated and too simplistic one. But the important thing is that every aspect must be under control.

2.1.2 Analyzing the Reader

by Edhi Juwono

Writing Composition, a Short Introduction

To know who will be the reader or audience is important.

Ideally the writing should be

custom-tailored to fit the reader's needs and concerns. At the same time the writer should try to identify readers other than the individual who assigns it (Iacone 1985: 19). In fact, there may be more, for the concept audience is meaningless unless it refers to a group, and any one reader belongs to several groups. The task of identifying just which audience is ours thus becomes complex and even difficult. Nevertheless, in the name of effectiveness we must restrict our target as much as we can, despite the inevitable overlaps among audience (Easton 1983: 9). An important part of audience background is its education level. Does our audience speak our language? That is, does it share a technical education with us and thus a common vocabulary? If it is so, we have it made. If not, we will have to translate our jargon into plain language and use examples drawn from common experience. Otherwise, the audience will not understand us, and we will fail, no matter how well we know our subject (Dellinger and Deane 1982: 188). At least we can use the five questions of McCrimmon, Trimmer, Sommers (1984: 22) as a path to analyze our readers or audience. 1. Who are the readers that form the primary audience for our writing? This question implies that age, sex, education, economic status, and social position are the aspects to be considered before beginning to write. 2. What do our readers know or think they know about our subject? The probable source of their knowledge--direct experience, observation, reading, rumor--will influence their reaction. They will react positively or negatively toward our subject. 3. Why will our readers read our writing? We should know how far they know the subject, and what kind of expectation they have? Probably they will expect to be entertained, informed, or perhaps persuaded. 4. How can we interest our readers in our subject?

by Edhi Juwono

Writing Composition, a Short Introduction

There are many possibilities. We have to convince them to give our writing a fair reading. We must try to fulfill and enhance their expectations. We have to catch and hold their attention. 5. How can we help our reader to read our writing? In this case we have to guide them in organizational pattern which lead them to see the purpose. We give them guideposts and transitional markers to make it easier for them to follow the pattern. Maybe they need examples and illustration to understand our general statements.

2.1.3 Determining the Purpose or Objectives

If we do not know what we are trying to achieve in our writing, we will never be able to tell whether we have achieved it. Our readers will not be able to see why they should read. Our writing will lack direction, and effectiveness (Easton 1983: 4). Often it is useful to ask the following question: "Why are we writing it?" The answer will help us to understand the demands, scope, and objectives of our writing (Iacone 1985: 16). For exam-ple, if our motive is to complete the assignment with a good grade, then we will define our purpose in terms of the requirements of our teacher's assignment. If our motive is to publish our writing, then we will have to define our purpose in terms of the editor's assumptions about the publication's subject, audience, and purpose. Purpose direct and controls all the decisions writers make through-out the writing process. Writing is both a procedure for demonstrating what we know and procedure for discovering what we know (McCrimmon, Trimmer, Sommers 1984: 23). Furthermore McCrimmon, Timmer, Sommer (1984: 28) give us guide-lines for determining our purpose. 1. What are the requirements of our writing project? Certainly we can distinguish the purpose to fulfill the assignment from the purpose to publish our writing.

by Edhi Juwono

Writing Composition, a Short Introduction

2. As we proceed in this project, what do we need to know? Purpose is also related to the mastery of subject and consideration of readers. 3. What hypothesis can we use as our purpose? Beside determining the purpose, we'd better have a working purpose. Talking about working purpose, we deal with hypotheses we can formulate about our subject. Our task is choosing one of them which seem to direct and control our information in the most effective manner. 4. What purpose have we discovered for this writing project? Perhaps our purpose changed after we have learned more about our subject and reader. The important thing is discovering something through the hypotheses or hypothesis, and defining what we want to do in our writing. 5. What is my thesis? To control our writing we have to state our main idea about the subject in a thesis sentence. The thesis limits the scope of our writing, and focuses our writing on one specific assertion.

2.2 The Writing Process

A writer is like a manager. Four functions that every manager must carry out to be successful: planning, organizing, directing, con-trolling (Reitz and Jewell (1985: 46). So writer must also get starting with planning before organizing and directing his writing by drafting. To show that his writing is under control, he has to make revisions.

2.2.1 Planning
At the first stage in the writing process, planning helps us to uncover, explore, and evaluate a topic. At least planning helps to direct how much information we can produce about our topic, and how we can use this information to create an interesting piece of writing (McCrimmon, Trimmer, Sommers

by Edhi Juwono

Writing Composition, a Short Introduction

1984: 37). After allocating our time, collecting our ideas, clarifying our objectives, gathering information, we plan our writing by preparing an outline. Although some people write first drafts without an outline and plan on organizing the material during the revision stage, an outline is an invaluable guide to write our draft. First we have to list our ideas and notes. Go over this list and test each item for relevance, repetition, and completeness. We do not have to worry if our outline seems sketchy. The smaller details can always be filled in later, so long as the main division is blocked out (Dellinger and Deane 1982: 224--7). After finishing with outlining, we go on to write a first draft.

2.2.2 Drafting
There are two factors that often inhibit the writing process. One is the fear of criticism and failure. The other is uncertainty about the kind of writing that will make the best impression. One way the writer can overcome this fear is to accept the fact that there is no such thing as perfect writing. Even if there were, someone would find fault with it (Iacone 1985: 115). Drafting is a procedure for determining whether the information we discovered during planning can be shaped into a successful piece of writing. In this part we are transforming the topics into sen-tences and paragraphs of a complete composition (McCrimmon, Trimmer, Sommers 1984: 85).

2.2.3 Revising
The more time we can allow between the first draft and revision, the more objectivity we will have

by Edhi Juwono

Writing Composition, a Short Introduction

when we come to the task of revision. Before we revise, check to see if we have stated our main point clearly; if we have included enough supporting facts, details, and examples to convince the reader; and we have arranged our material in a way that leads the reader from one point to another easily and logically. Checking for these will enable us to discover errors of omission (Dellinger and Deane 1982: 228). In other words revising is the process of seeing again, of dis-covering a new vision for the writing we produced during planning and drafting. In a sense, we have been revising from the moment we began the writing. Revision is a two-stage process. During the first stage, we employ various reading strategies to help us rethink, reorder, and often rewrite substantial portions of what we have already written. When we are satisfied with this "global revision," we focus our attention on the second stage of the process--"local revision": fixing sentence, phrases, and words--polishing the essay (McCrimmon, Trimmer, Sommers 1984: 120).

3. Conclusion
There are two stages in process of writing. At the first stage we determine our subject, reader or audience, and purpose. These pre-decision help us to "enter" the writing itself. The second stage is divided into three phases: planning, shaping by drafting, and dressing by revising.

by Edhi Juwono

Writing Composition, a Short Introduction

Bibliography
Delliger, Susan and Barbara Deane 1982. Communicating Effectively: a Complete Guide for Better Managing. Radnor: Chilton Book Company. Easton, Thomas A. 1983. How to Write a Readable Business Report. Homewood: Dow Jones-Irwin. Iacone, Salvatore J. 1985. Modern Business Report Writing. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company. McCrimmon, James M, Joseph F. Trimmer, Nancy I. Sommers 1984. Writing with a Purpose. Eight edition. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. Reitz, H. Joseph and Linda N. Jewell 1985. Managing. Glenview: Scott, Foresman and Company.

Edhi Juwono1

He is a lecturer of Indonesian writing compostion di STIE Perbanas who continue his study to University of Indonesia Graduate Program to take a master degree in Linguistic.

by Edhi Juwono