COM200: Composition

Introduction
 Course contents
• What is a composition? What features make a
good composition?
• Some common genres and rhetorical
organizations
• Language use – accuracy and appropriateness
 References
• Grabe, W. (2009). Reading in a second
language: Moving from theory to practice.
Cambridge University Press: New York.
• University of Essex (2008). How to improve
academic writing.
www.essex.ac.uk/outreach/documents/how-
to-improve-academic-writing.pdf
• Anderson, P. V. (2014). Technical
communication. Delhi: Cengage.
 What is a composition?
• Composition – things arranged in a systematic
order based on some rules and practices
• Composition of a group
• A music composition
• A student’s composition – oral or written
Instead of breaking into a jog too quickly and risking
injury, take a relaxed and slow approach. Before
taking a step, spend at least ten minutes stretching
and warming up, using any exercises you find
comfortable. When you’ve completed your warm-up,
start a brisk pace walking. Increase the distance
between steps gradually, and swinging your arms
briskly and loosely. After you have walked for a
hundred yards, you should feel ready to jog.
Immediately break into a very slow trot. Do not bolt
out like a sprinter! Remember to keep your shoulders
straight and your head up. One final word, do not
forget to enjoy the scenery around – after all, it is
one of the joys of jogging!
Instead of breaking into a jog too quickly and
risking injury, take a relaxed and deliberate Topic sentence
approach.
Before taking a step, spend at least ten minutes
stretching and warming up, using any exercises you
find comfortable. When you’ve completed your
warm-up, set a brisk pace walking. Exaggerate the Details
distance between steps, and swinging your arms
briskly and loosely. After you have walked for a
hundred yards, you should feel ready to jog.
Immediately break into a very slow trot. Do not
bolt out like a sprinter! Remember to keep your
shoulders straight and your head up.
One final word, do not forget to enjoy the scenery
Conclusion
around – after all, it is one of the joys of jogging!

Connectors/
Coherence Cohesive devices
• Ideas, information, details
• With a specific purpose for a specific audience
• Carefully selected and systematically arranged
• Bound together so that it appears as one
whole piece
• Rules of words, grammar, and writing
 Steps in writing a composition
• Understand essay title/requirements
• Assess reading texts – choose most appropriate
• Select relevant areas of texts - Keep record for
references
• Make notes on relevant areas, using paraphrasing &
summarising skills - Combine a variety of
sources where necessary
• Select appropriate structure for essay/plan
• Organise & write - main body, introduction,
conclusion
• Critically read & re-write where necessary
• Final proof-reading
Interpreting the essay topic
• Most written work begins with a title, and we must
be quite clear what question the title is asking
before starting to plan the essay and read around
the topic.
• When preparing to write an essay, it is essential to
identify the main requirements of the title. You must
be clear about what areas you are required to cover.
This will then determine the organisation of the
essay.
• It is essential that you interpret the topic correctly.
This can be achieved by brainstorming to generate
ideas, and then formulating a point of view, even if it
is a very rough one.
• Some people have found that reading around the
topic, by looking up some of the key words on the
Internet or books, is helpful in familiarising
themselves with the question.
• You also need to stay on track – essay writers often
waste words on background or side issues instead of
directing their entire essay to answering the
question.
• There are 3 things you need to look for when
interpreting an essay topic:
Command - tells you what to do
Topic - the general area of discussion
Focus - the specific area of discussion

• Let’s look at an example:

• Universities should not be run like businesses. Discuss.
topic focus topic command
• For this essay topic, the general area of
discussion is universities being run like
businesses. The specific area of discussion is
whether or not it is OK for universities to be
run like businesses.
• The command word “discuss” means that you
are to ‘investigate and present the different
aspects of a problem or subject and come to
some conclusion.’
Match the command words with their
definitions on the right.
• Analyse • Give a clear and simple account
• Make a proposal and support it
• Describe
• Deal with a complex subject by
• Examine giving the main points
• Divide into sections and discuss
• State
each critically
• Suggest • Give a detailed account
• Summarise • Look at various parts and their
relationships
Analyse Look at various parts and their
relationship
Describe Give a detailed account

Examine Divide into sections and discuss each

critically
State Give a clear and simple account

Suggest Make a proposal and support it

Summarise Deal with a complex subject by giving

the main points
 Some more command words
• Account for: To give reasons, explain why something has
happened
• Assess: To judge the value of a subject critically
• Comment on: To discuss, explain, and give your opinion on
the ideas expressed
• Compare: To show the similarities and differences between
two or more subjects
• Criticise: To make your judgement about the views expressed
and support your judgement with evidence
• Define: To give the meaning of a word term, distinguishing it
from closely related subjects, sometimes with examples and
illustrations.
• Discuss: To investigate and present the different
aspects of a problem or subject and come to some
conclusion
• Evaluate: To appraise or estimate the worth of
something, to some extent an explained personal
opinion
• Explain: To account for a subject’s character, causes,
results, implications, etc., by clearly stating and
interpreting the relevant details
• Generate: To propose new ideas or new
interpretations of available subjects
• Illustrate: To explain or clarify a problem using
concrete examples, diagrams, or figures
• Interpret: To explain the meaning of something, to
make it clear and explicit, and to evaluate it in terms
of your own knowledge
• Justify: To provide the reasons for your conclusions
or for the statement made in the question
• Outline: To give the main features or general
principles of a subject leaving out minor details
• Prove: To show the truth of a statement by
argument, experiment, or test
• Relate: To establish the connection between one
thing and another
• Review: To survey and critically examine a subject
 Discover important sources
• Be selective.
• Only read information which is relevant to your
topic.
• You may only need to read a particular section or
part of a chapter from a book. Checking the
contents page and the index of a book will help
you here.
• Assess the importance of what you read. How
reliable is the information? What is the relevance
for your chosen topic?
 Planning the basic organisation
• Almost all essays, reports and articles have the same
basic pattern of organisation:
– Introduction
– Main body
– Conclusion
• The structure of the main body depends on what the
title is asking you to do.
• Let’s look at an example.
Academic qualifications are of little
practical benefit in the real world –
Discuss.
 Introduction: variety of different qualifications;
different methods of assessment
 Why necessary: international standards for
professions, e.g. doctors; qualifications lead to better
salaries and promotion
 Drawbacks: many successful people don’t have
qualifications; many qualified people don’t have jobs
 Conclusion: qualifications are useful but do not
guarantee success
 Steps in planning
• Analyse the question and the keywords. Note the
main topics that you are going to cover.
• Divide any notes and ideas you already have into
separate topics using a separate sheet for each topic
relevant. These separate notes should lead to
different paragraphs of your write-up
• Rearrange your notes. Look at what you have and
group related information and arrange them in a
logical order
• Write an outline plan using the topics you have
arranged. Write your first plan before you have done
any research and that will help you to be more
selective and constructive in taking notes. It will
focus your reading and you can adapt your plan as
you go along.