What is Good Writing?

Within the frame work of good writing you must follow certain guide lines. Have a purpose, “what is your reasoning for writing this piece.” It must catch the interest of the reader. Know whom you are writing too, “your audience.” Then ask questions, what your reasoning for that type of audience is. In what way are the things you are writing about going to affect them. What type of respond are you looking for?

Then place facts first, next your opinions; make sure it flows so that the reader can pause from time to time to consider what they have just read. Give your writing a voice, place yourself within the writing. Read back through to see if your voice is saying what you need for it to say, also organize your thoughts don’t ramble on about something your voice is not saying. If you do start to ramble stop, look at what you have just wrote see if it holds any weight to what you are writing if not take it out, if so tie it in and connect it.

Now go through and do any revising that is necessary, making any changes to grammar, spelling, or punctuation. Rewrite it, let someone else read it. If necessary revise it again. Revise as many times as you need in order for your writing to say what you need it to say. These are the steps in which I consider good writing to fall into.

As far as my own writing, I am still a work in progress. Learning proper punctuation is my area of need. I place too many commas within my text. I need to learn the greater purpose of semicolons, and conjunctions. For the skills I obtain in this journey of writing will be used in future summaries.

Here is an example of “Good writing”, that I choose. It shows where I am at in my own writing, you know with the commas.

Dusty Books

The smell of old, dusty books reminds me of my father. An avid collector, he had many
books, most of which went unread. He owned books on everything from medicine to Vietnam to several sets of encyclopedias. When I enter one of his haunts, such as Powell’s, I am carried back to a time when the two of us were happy. I see him standing by a shelf, thumbing through a medical journal, or opening his wallet to pay for yet another purchase, knowing full well that Mom would lecture him on “wasting money on books you never read anyways!”Strolling past rows and rows of books, I remember how, after the cancer struck, he came less and less and read fewer and fewer books. They became just part of the scenery, collecting only dust and memories.

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