{"id":285,"date":"2019-08-28T01:18:11","date_gmt":"2019-08-28T01:18:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-eng-101-college-writing-i\/chapter\/outcome-logic-and-structure-1-7\/"},"modified":"2019-08-28T01:18:11","modified_gmt":"2019-08-28T01:18:11","slug":"outcome-logic-and-structure-1-7","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-eng-101-college-writing-i-lynch\/chapter\/outcome-logic-and-structure-1-7\/","title":{"raw":"Logic and Structure","rendered":"Logic and Structure"},"content":{"raw":"\n

Analyze use of logic and structure in texts<\/h2>\nThe synopsis of \"good writing\" below is written from the perspective of a University Writing Center speaking to student writers. Consider their advice also from the perspective of a reader.  Do the definitions of \"good writing\" here apply to what you've been reading in college so far?  Can they help you analyze the text that you're reading, in order to understand it better now?\n
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What Is Good Writing?<\/h2>\n

At the Writing Center, we\u2019re often asked \u201cWhat makes good writing?\u201d or \u201cWhat makes someone a good writer?\u201d Instructors wonder whether anyone can really be taught to write and why their students don\u2019t know how to write by now. To begin to understand what makes writing, and writers, \u201cgood,\u201d we need to ask the larger question \u201cWhat is writing?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to agree on the definition of writing if we limit it to something like \u201cputting pen to paper\u201d or \u201ctyping ideas into a computer.\u201d But if we look more closely at the elements of the act of writing, the definition comes to life. The following paragraphs might prompt your thinking about how writing happens for your students and for you.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

Writing is a response<\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n

We write because we are reacting to someone or something. While writing can feel like an isolating, individual act\u2014just you and the computer or pad of paper\u2014it is really a social act, a way in which we respond to the people and world around us. Writing happens in specific, often prescribed contexts. We are not just writing\u2014we are always writing to an audience(s) for some particular purpose. When we write, we do so because we want, need, or have been required to create a fixed space for someone to receive and react to our ideas. Understanding this social or rhetorical context\u2014who our readers may be, why they want to read our ideas, when and where they will be reading, how they might view us as writers\u2014governs some of the choices we make. The writing context requires writers to have a sense of the reader\u2019s expectations and an awareness of conventions for a particular piece of writing. The context of the piece further determines the appropriate tone, level of vocabulary, kind and placement of evidence, genre, and sometimes even punctuation.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

Writing is linear<\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n

In order to communicate effectively, we need to order our words and ideas on the page in ways that make sense to a reader. We name this requirement in various ways: \u201cgrammar,\u201d \u201clogic,\u201d or \u201cflow.\u201d While we would all agree that organization is important, the process of lining up ideas is far from simple and is not always recognized as \u201cwriting.\u201d We assume that if a person has ideas, putting them on the page is a simple matter of recording them, when in fact the process is usually more complicated. As we\u2019ve all experienced, our ideas do not necessarily arise in a linear form. We may have a scattering of related ideas, a hunch that something feels true, or some other sense that an idea is \u201cright\u201d before we have worked out the details. It is often through the act of writing that we begin to create the logical relationships that develop the idea into something that someone else may receive and perhaps find interesting. The process of putting ideas into words and arranging them for a reader helps us to see, create, and explore new connections. So not only does a writer need to \u201chave\u201d ideas, but the writer also has to put them in linear form, to \u201cwrite\u201d them for a reader, in order for those ideas to be meaningful. As a result, when we are writing, we often try to immediately fit our choices into linear structures (which may or may not suit our habits of mind).<\/span><\/p>\n\n

Writing is recursive<\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n

As we write, we constantly rewrite. Sometimes we do this unconsciously, as we juggle words, then choose, delete, and choose again. Sometimes we do this rewriting very consciously and conscientiously as we reread a paragraph or page for clarity, coherence, or simply to see what we\u2019ve just said and decide whether we like it. Having read, we rewrite the same phrases or ideas to make a closer match to our intentions or to refine our discoveries through language. The process of writing and then reviewing, changing, and rewriting is a natural and important part of shaping expression for an anticipated audience. So while we are trying to put our words and ideas into a logical line, we are also circling round and back and over again.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

Writing is both subject and object<\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n

We value writing because it reveals the personal choices a writer has made and thereby reveals something of her habits of mind, her ability to connect and shape ideas, and her ability to transform or change us as readers. We take writing as evidence of a subject or subjective position. Especially in an academic environment, we read written language as individual expression (whether or not multiple voices have informed the one voice we privilege on the page), as a volley from one individual mind to another. That said, writing also serves as an object for us, a \u201cpiece\u201d or a \u201cpaper\u201d whose shape, size, and function are determined by genre and conventions. While we don\u2019t think of writing as technology, it is also that; it allows us to remove a person\u2019s ideas from the confines of her head and fix those ideas in another place, a place where they will be evaluated according to standards, objectively. Here is where our sense of what counts as \u201cgood\u201d writing develops. We have created objective (although highly contextualized) ideals for writing that include measures of appropriate voice, vocabulary, evidence, and arrangement. So while writing is very personal, or subjective, it creates an objective space, a place apart from the individual, and we measure it against objective standards derived from the context. It creates space both for the individual (the subject) and the idea (the object) to coexist so that we can both judge the merits of the individual voicing the idea and contend with the idea on the page.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

Writing is decision making<\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n

It may seem obvious, but in order to get something on the page, a writer chooses the words, the order of the words in the sentence, the grouping of sentences into paragraphs, and the order of the paragraphs within a piece. While there is an ordinariness about this\u2014we make choices or decisions almost unconsciously about many things all day long\u2014with writing, as we have all experienced, such decision-making can be a complex process, full of discovery, despair, determination, and deadlines. Making decisions about words and ideas can be a messy, fascinating, perplexing experience that often results in something mysterious, something the writer may not be sure \u201cworks\u201d until she has auditioned it for a real reader.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

Writing is a process<\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n

Contending with the decision-making, linearity, social context, subjectivity, and objectivity that constitute writing is a process that takes place over time and through language. When producing a piece of writing for an audience, experienced writers use systems they have developed. Each writer has an idiosyncratic combination of thinking, planning, drafting, and revising that, for him, means \u201cwriting\u201d something. No matter how an individual describes his process (e.g., \u201cFirst I think about my idea then dump thoughts onto the computer,\u201d or \u201cI make an outline then work out topic sentences\u201d), each person (usually unconsciously) negotiates the series of choices required in his individual context and produces a draft that begins to capture a representation of his ideas. For most people, this negotiation includes trial and error (this word or that?), false starts (beginning with an example that later proves misleading), contradictions (I can\u2019t say X because it may throw Y into question), sorting (how much do I need to say about this?), doubt about how the idea will be received, and satisfaction when they think they have cleared these hurdles successfully. For most people, this process happens through language. In other words, we use words to discover what, how, and why we believe. Research supports the adage \u201cI don\u2019t know what I think until I read what I\u2019ve said.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Altogether these elements make writing both an interesting and challenging act\u2014one that is rich, complex, and valuable. What else is writing for you? Think about what the definitions discussed here miss and how you might complete the sentence \u201cWriting is like\u2026\u201d From your experience as a writer, what else about writing seems essential? How is that connected to what you value about the process of writing and the final pieces that you produce?<\/span><\/p>\n

For more information about student writing or to talk with someone about your writing assignments, contact Kimberly Abels kabels@email.unc.edu<\/span><\/a> at the Writing Center.<\/span><\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n

What You Will Learn to Do<\/h2>\n