The Whole Composition

1. Format (格式）
Writing is an activity of creation guided by rules and principles. As far as format is concerned, rules governing arrangement should be strictly ovserved so as to furnish your writing with a clear and neat appearance. When writing a composition, pay attention to the following three guide lines.

:cb09 You may use whatever kind of paper at hand for the first draft of your composition. But for the finished form, regular office paper (size B5 or A4) is usually required.

:cb09 Set the margin before you start writing the first line. Leave about two and a half centimeters for the top, bottom and the left margins. The right-side margin, however, should be a little larger, about five centimeters, so that adequate space will be reserved for the instructor to write comments, corrections and notes.

:cb09 The title is always put in the middle of the first line. Remember to captalize the first letter of each word except articles, short prepositions (preposition under four letters), and coordinating conjunctions such as and, or, but, nor, for, and the to in infinitives. The first word in the title, of course, is always capitalized. Please study the following examples of titles:

My Best Friend
Christmas in the Morning
A Room Without Windows
Walt Whitman and His Leaves of Grass
The Man That I Have to Put up With
What Will the Twenty-first Century Be Like?
"I Can Work Like Any Guy"

:cb31 You may have noticed that a title can be followed by a question mark if it is a question, and quotation marks are used to enclose a direct speech, but no period is needed at the end of a title. Quotation marks are also expected for titles of articles, but for titles of books, they should appear in italics. Before starting your composition, remember these points:

:cb46 Always remember to indent the first line of each paragraph, leaving a space of four or five letters. ( If you use computers to process your paper, you can auto-indent about one third of an inch or two thirds of a centimeter.)

:cb46 Please write on every other line, leaving enough space for correction. ( If you use computers to process your paper, set your line space to 25 pounds. )

:cb46 Leave one space after any punctuation mark: a comma, a period, a question mark, and an exclaimation mark, etc.

II. Outline
Outline writing is more a systematic project that needs sufficient preparation than a job of merely putting down what jumps into your mind at the time of writing. This step is of particular importance to self-taught students though some students often overlook it and are accustomed to starting writing hastily. In that case, they often end up changing their mind as they find it hard to carry the decided topic through, and they have to write either in another way or on a different topic owing to the lack of sufficient preparation. Outline writing concerns the development of a good habit which will prove helpful and efficient in the long run.

A.Deciding on a topic
Fixing the topic is the first step for an outline. Only on the basis of a topic can a thesis be worked out, and only with a good thesis can you organize your ideas properly for your composition. A topic can be anyting that interests you: The Job I Like Most
My Good Father
The Most Unforgettable Experience in My childhood
Inflation and Economic Boom in China Today
Education in the 21st Century
However, when you decide your own topics, try to avoid settling down on broad subjects such as "Inflation", "Jobs". The following questions and their answers may help you reach the goal:
What is it?
What are its characteristics?
What are its limits?
What caused it?
What does it cause?
What are its effects?
How did it happen?
How is it like other things?
How is it different from other things?

B. Formulating a thesis
Once you have decided on a topic, the next step is to formulate a thesis. A thesis is a single declarative sentence that contains the main points, or controlling ideas, of what you are to write. It govens the development of a whole composition just as a topic sentence governs the organization of a paragraph. It can never be a phrase, or a dependent clause, or a question. A good thesis should be clear and specific. It must show clearly what you want to tell your readers; it must be on a particular aspect of the topic. Besides, it must reveal your attitude toward the topic. Suppose you decide to write on "My Good Father", the possible theses that can be formulated are:
1. My father is the kindest man.
2. My father is the bravest man.
3. My father is my closest friend.
4. My father is the most important peron in my life.

That are all very clear and specific. However, if they are too specific and contain little idea to be developed, you arrive at the other extreme.

C. Collecting details
After the thesis comes the third step of collecting details. You should think out as many relevant details as possible to support the thesis. Suppose you want to write on the first thesis, then you may find the following details useful:
1. Father usually gives in to Mom on domestic matters.
2. He helps Mon alot in housework.
3. He never beats us children; he resons with us when we do things wrong.
4. He helped our neighbours out of trouble.
5. He never refuses to help the beggars.
6. He donated money and clothes to people in flood-stricken areas.

Now you can start writing the outline in either of the following ways:
Topic: My Good Father
Thesis: My father is the kindest man.
Outline:
I. Father loves mother most kindly.
A. he never hurts Mon with harsh words.
B. he tries his best to help Mom with the housework.
II. Father reasons with us children when we do things wrong.
A. he reasoned with me when I took his favorite collection to show off and damaged it.
B. he reasoned with my friend when we quarreled.
III. ...
A. ...
1. ...
2. ...
B. ...
1. ...
2. ...
3. ...

...

VI. Conclusion: Father would be among the God's chosen few, if there were Heaven.

It is called "sentence outline". That is to say, it is made up of complete sentences. There also exists "topic outline", which is namely an outline of topics.
For example,
Outline:
I. Kindness to Mom
A. Warm language
B. Help with housework
...
An outline can be simple or complicated, short or long. It is all decided by the topic and thesis that you are working on.

When organizing an outline, you should realize:
1) there should be at least three layers of development: the thesis, the main ideas, and the sub-ideas.
2) when you have an idea marked "I", there should be at least another on marked "II" to go side by side with it.
3) the subheads of the same rank should be of equal importance and arranged logically.
4) do not mix a topic outline with a sentence outline. A diagram may help you see more clearly: :cb34

Thesis

Main Idea I Main Idea II Main Idea III

[SubIdea A+SubIdea B] [SubIdea A+SubIdea B] [SubIdea A+SubIdea B]

Detail(1+2) Detail(1+2) Detail(1+2) Detail(1+2) Detail(1+2) Detail(1+2)

When the outline is ready, you can start writing your composition. You should follow the steps in the outline, but do not worry about any changes. Check and revision are always necessary. Many people find it a good way to put away the first draft and do the revision two or three days later as they will be more objective, like a reader. First, compare your draft with the outline and see if you have clearly illustrated what you have intended to write. Second, check the draft to see if the sentences are coherent with one another. Third, see if you have used some wrong or improper words. Your final copy should be clean, neat and tidy.

III. Types of writing

There are many types of writing we learn at school, but for a teach-yourself student at college level, the most useful are narration, description, exposition and argumentation.

A. Narration

It simply means storytelling, is a basic pattern of organizing our thoughts which we use almost daily. If we are grandparents, we may tell youngsters stories of "the old days". If we are reporters, we may tell the public about a daring rescue we witnessed. If we are scientists, we may write about the explosion that ocurred when two substances were mixed accidentally. So narration, in a broad sense, could include stories, news items, biographies and even narrative poems.

When composing a piece of narration, the student writer should pay a great attention to the organization of the story, the details of the story and the pace of the story.

Generally speaking, events in story are told in a chronological order, an order in which the events take place. To make it easy for the reader to follow your narration, the time and place of the events are usually given at the beginning. If the narration is well composed and the order is clear, there is no need to labor on a superfluous conclusion.

In regard to details, the student writer should be able to tell what details are relevant and what are not so that only things that are "useful" are included in the narrative. Also he should make sure that there are enough details for the reader to understand what happened, but not too many details to confuse or bore the reader. Too much detail-account will slow down the pace of the story and will make the reader lose interest.

Guidelines for effective narration

When planning and writing a narrative, keep in mind the following five guidelines for effective narration.

1. Present the events of your narration in a logical and coherent order.

The time sequence in narration is usually chronological. You may want to use an occasional "flashback," that is, inserting an event from past in the midst of a chronological flow. However, this technique should be used sparingly. Events should be linked by smooth transitions.

2. Select details carefully. Narrate only those events that are necessary to bring the reader to the climax.

3. Show as well as tell.

Your narration will always be more interesting if you use events and dialogue to illustrate themes in addition to telling about the nature of an event. For example, it would be effective to show a man throwing a child's toy against a wall than only to tell us that "This man was a nasty person."

4. Choose a point of view and perspective for your topic and audience. Narrative point of view may either be first or third person. A first-person narrative is suitable for stories about yourself but the scope is limited. A third-person narrative may seem more objective but a good order is hard to maintain. The narrative perspective you use depends upon your audience and purpose. Obviously, you would use a different perspective and tone in narrating an experiment than you would in narrating a soccer match.

5. Focus your narration on your main climax and limit the scope of the event narrated.

Let us call it today.

The following are some practices.

A. The paragraph is taken from a narrative. Although it consists of quite a few sentences, we find only "four" actions that indicate the chronological development. Please write down the four actions.

It came into his mind that he could shoot it and end its pain; and he raised the gun. Then he lowered it again. The buck could no longer feel; its fighting was a mechanical protest of the nerves. But it was not that which made him put down the gun. It was a swelling feeling of rage and misery and protest that expressed itself in the thought: If I had not come it would have died like this, so why should I interfere? All over the bush things like this happen; they happen all the time; this how life goes on, by living things dying in anguish. I can't stop it. I can't stop it. There is nother I can do.

B. Choose one from the topics and write a narrative.

1. You were alone in the house one night when it was struck by lightning. Write an account of what happened.

2. The moment of glory.

3. An account of a time when you were either very lucky or very unlucky.

4. The best day of my life.

5. My first day at school.

6. Write about an incident in your life that involved a moral decision. Indicate how you feel today about the decision you made.

来源：IT管理专家