Commentary on Style (Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace by Williams)

Writing is another weakness of second language learners (let say for Thais and others in general). When it comes to writing, we seem to find ways or excuses to escape or run away for miles. It's difficult for those native ones, so I can tell (as L2 learners myself)that it's ten times harder and scarier!

My students here don't know exactly how to write a good paper/essay. One of my assumptions is that they were not taught properly what a good writing structure is in there native tongue. Often times, my students don't under certain concepts of Thai words, so they would have difficulties referring the Thai concept to the English one.

I once made a comment on Williams' Clarity to Coherence in Style (the book he wrote), which I thought very interesting.

Epilogue From Clarity to Coherence: "In this epilogue, I look at four elements that help readers see that larger sense of coherence, particularly how you use the introduction to what you write to motivate readers to read the vest purposefully and attentively." (p.209)

Having an effective introduction is very vital. I totally agree with Williams about this. From my experience as a reader, I was always captivated by an article or a text that had an interesting and mysterious introduction, and had an explicit thesis statement,so I know what I was going to find next, here thesis statement is like a heart to a paper. I, moreover, admired the writer who wrote the piece. However, when it came to me to be a writer, I always had a hard time (and still have) in opening my sentence, especially finding a thesis statement without making it seem too general.

As a non-native writer, I am more conscious about what I write. I most focus on sentence structure and rules in order to have less red marks on my paper when I get it back from my professor. This is a good thing when I follow rules; however, I realized that they did not really help my paper to be considered as a well-written piece of work. Because my paper did not have a concrete idea or thesis statement, so the paper was not coherent, then the reader did not really pay attention to it.By lacking coherence, it can draw away the reader's attention and makes many papers less value.

After finished reading this whole book, I found that my writing is getting better, compared to my papers I wrote in my first semester at Arcadia U. I now realized that whenever I write a paper I have to focus on three important features: clarity, coherence and cohesion.

In my Speech Communication class, currently I teach my students to prepare their speeches by using mind mapping and outline. I have them come up with topic, narrowed topic and a good thesis statement. After doing so, my students understand better on how important it is to organize their thoughts well, and how every important the introduction part is in both writing and giving a speech.