Paradigm Online Writing Assistant - Paradigm Online Writing Assistant

Start Writing

There is no single best way to begin a writing project. What's best is what gets you going and builds momentum for the journey ahead. You may want to start right in on a draft or do some pre-planning.

Often, simply Choosing a Subject can be a challenge. You could start Freewriting to locate your subject and generate ideas. Or you might prefer to first gather information from Outside Sources, or to brainstorm using The Journalists' Questions.

Whether you're writing an informal essay, a technical report, or the next great American novel, the suggestions in Discovering What to Write will help you get going.

Write Strong Sentences

Effective sentences are vital to your writing. They are fundamental carriers and shapers of meaning—the pulse of style. If you want to work on your sentences, try the following Paradigm sections: Basic Sentence Concepts, Expanding the Basic Pattern, Six Problem Areas, Designing Effective Sentences.

For help with punctuation, try Basic Punctuation.

The Whole and Its Parts

Effective organization requires you to see your subject as a whole and as a system of interrelated parts. As you move from a broad overview to a look at an individual detail, you need to see, and let your reader see, how the two levels are related. Consider, for instance, a deck of playing cards. Fresh out of the box and wrapped in cellophane, it seems to be one single thing. Strewn randomly about the floor, each card is individual, complete, yet part of a larger system. And of course each card has parts—a front and a back, markings for suit and number.

Grammar for Writing

It's helpful to think of grammar and mechanics as matters of convention or mutual agreement among language users. Such agreement is necessary for language to work. To communicate with even the simplest words, for example, we must agree on their meaning. Conventions of grammar come partly from tradition and partly from a need to be clear and accurate. And like other conventions, rules of grammar change continually.Â Â

Creating Emphasis

If writing is like making a movie, emphasis could be compared to a photographer's zoom lens, moving in for a close-up one moment and back for a wide-angle shot the next. Emphasis allows you to create similar special effects by magnifying, reducing, or even eliminating certain details. By controlling emphasis, you can focus your readers' attention on what is most important.

Creative Rambling

As writers, we're often advised to "stick to the topic" and "get to the point." This is usually good advice, but not always. Sometimes it leads to writing that's shallow and one-dimensional, as though the writer had prematurely closed down the process of inquiry, just to produce something neat and tidy with no madwoman in the attic.

Trying Out Ideas

By now, your project should be well underway. You've got a subject that genuinely interests you, and you've found a focus to guide your explorations. Now you need to begin systematically probing and exploring.

Stating your Proposition

Sensing your argument's overall scope and direction, you can consider stating your main point. As you do, however, remember that your writing process has barely begun. You don't yet need a final proposition statement for your finished paper, but one to point you forward and help focus your efforts.

Occasions for Thesis/Support Essays

Thesis/support essays convey a central idea clearly and succinctly. Because thesis/support essays open up and expand upon a single main point, they're suited to short reports, position papers, and critical analyses. Because they can, with practice, be written quickly, they're also handy for essay exams and letters of application or recommendation. As you become familiar with them, you'll no doubt see other uses.