Improve your Writing (Development)

in writing •  7 years ago  (edited)

This will be based on paragraph and essay development. One of this biggest errors we can make in our writing is subject digression. It is so easy to just get lost in your writing when you start writing.

You just keep going and your passion flows out into words, but you take a step back and realise everything is starting to go off topic and loose focus on the subject.


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The Subject

The subject of any writing is your idea, place, thing or person that is acting. Generally your subject is single sentences would look like this:
Example: Tim packed his bag. Tim is the subject as he is doing the actions.
Example: Fast foods, such as KFC and Mcdonalds, are really bad for you. Fast foods is the subject as it is the thing that is acting.


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Subjects in Paragraphs

No matter how long your writing is, a sentence or a long novel, you must always include a subject. When creating your topic sentence for a paragraph make sure to include the subject of that whole paragraph.

As we have seen in the above examples the subject lies at the beginning of the sentence, this should be the same for the paragraph subject (topic sentence).


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Example: Minnows on steemit seen to take really long to become dolphins. When classing a minnow, they are generally very new people on steemit. But there are some who have been here for very long and still fall under this class. Minnows that put in a lot of effort generally advance faster to dolphin status.

The first sentence is the topic sentence and has the paragraph subject in it. Notice how the rest of the sentences are all directly related to the subject stated in the topic sentence.

Subject Digression

Make sure to have every sentence support the subject, if you have some that don't then subject digression is present.


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Example: "When I was growing up, one of the places I enjoyed most was the cherry tree in the back yard. Behind the yard was an alley and then more houses. Every summer when the cherries began to ripen, I used to spend hours high in the tree, picking and eating the sweet, sun-warmed cherries. My mother always worried about my falling out of the tree, but I never did." Link

The sentence highlighted does not fit in with the rest of the paragraph. If this was your topic sentence then you would have to change the whole paragraph to fit this sentence. To fix this paragraph, the easiest thing to do would be to change this sentence or remove it completely.

Essay

There are 4 points that one must concentrate on when developing your essay.

  • Introduction Paragraph(s)
  • Thesis Statement(s)
  • Body paragraph(s)
  • Conclusion(s)

Introduction Paragraph(s)

Subject digression can be a huge problem in essays or other writing. Making sure that the introductory paragraph(s) clearly state the subject and thesis is really important.

Make sure to also include all the necessary basic information that you will be in your writing. Introduce basic information in your writing. Writing this in a list can help to sift out all the information that is not needed, or is irrelevant to your topic.

Thesis Statement(s)

When writing up your thesis statement, make sure it has all the main arguments and information in it. Once you have written the rest of your paper see if your thesis still fits in with your writing. If you have added other, more important information, make sure that you change your thesis to fit it in.

Body paragraph(s)

Whatever you do in these paragraphs make sure they are related to what you are writing about. Often we digress in whole paragraphs in this section of a paper. Remove any that have digressed and change any paragraphs where a sentence or two have digressed.

Each of of there paragraphs have their owe topic sentence and subject, but the have to relate to the main idea of your paper.

Conclusion(s)

Reiterating your thesis. Do not restate your introduction word for word, but rather accompany it or answer it. If you have had to change your thesis or anything else in your paper, because you digressed, you will have to change your conclusion as well.


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Just on a little side note for self improvement. I will be doing pushups, situps and squats for the amount of $$$ (ratio;$2:1) I earn on this post and will give a short feedback every day at the end of each post. This will be split in equally between all 3. Any not done will carry onto the next day.

to just show how it is calculated. As of this second the values is $592.98 this is then divided by 2. Giving about 297. This is then divided by 3. 99 Pushups, situps and squats will be done

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Great post!
As someone who is looking to get better at writing to post some ideas and content this post lays a nice foundation.
Definitely will read multiple times :)

Kaarel

your writings and content gives me goosebumps

Wow never had this comment before.

you slay everytime you write

Thanks . This post is gonna help too much on steemit as well as outside steemit.. keep sharing the good posts.. :)

Thank you @dragonslayer109 for your article. Being new to blogging, this will help tremendously. Cheers

Congratulations @dragonslayer109

You took 42 place in my Top 100 of posts

I always have this problem of going wayyy off topic when I start typing. When I go back to re-read and check for errors I'm always like backspace backspace why did I put that in there... lol

got it very helpfull

well I think that there are many platformes that can teach you how to write properly
google them

Great article. Upvoted and following you now.

Thanks, This article helped me :)

your last statement in your post already made med sweat :P
but 60 votes and already over 500 dollar.. that is some seriuos heavy voters :P
But nice post :D

really some great stuff to learn from :)

-- Peace

Thank you :) hope you have a wonderful day.

these lessons really help me - it is long time since i went to school and i never listened anyway - here i want to learn to write and make a good impression

I am with you on that one. I hated school and I never listened. In most English classes I slept.

very funny - i slept a lot too

Are you sure you highlighted the right sentence in that paragraph? Most of it relates to the subject except "Behind the yard was an alley and then more houses." is a bit pointless and has no bearing on said cherry tree.

Mmm yes you are right, the example they gave was wrong

I thought it was strange? Keep it up though. I look forward to more of your stuff.

Helpful post. Thank you. How long have you been writing?

Definitely better post than mine on the same topic. Loved it :)

I am sure yours was still good.

https://steemit.com/foodforthought/@dwehji/is-it-though check my post out :) follow my page if you like my content <3

Absolutely excellent post, some really good points that I am going to take on board and use.

I think by the end of this year everyone who starts posting now will be professional authors

That is possible :)

Awesome post, Many thanks for sharing and hopfully this will help me out a little. Cheers :)

Reading your post gave me flashbacks of English writing lessons during middle and high school :) Thanks for the refresher!

A video of your pushups, sit-ups, and squats would be very entertaining :))

Hahaha yes there will be such on later.

Woots! Looking forward to that video. :)

Create another article explaining the thesis statement more in depth.

I have one previously on the thesis statement.

Hey @dragonslayer. I want to tell you that I learn a lot from your posts. Thanks for that. I've worked out a daily-Quiz and made a blog about it yesterday. I'm struggeling to get the word out and to give it the attention it needs. I would love to bring this to the community because we can all have fun and benefit. Can u please read it? It's my last blog @ernstjan . Please give me a reply I even want to pay you if you would like that. I just don't know how to spread the word enough! I'll be doing 50 pushup right now to and 50 if you will only read the post. This will help me a lot. Thnx in advance

Cheers,

Ernst

Hahaha I will check your post no worries :)

Thanks a lot for that. I've got to do the promo ;) don't want to be irritating by asking for stuff, I would just really enjoy working on this concept.

Thnx again.

Your first comment in the post by iggyg85 is an issue you will need to work around :)

I know. I am working on that one. One thing I can say already is that I will have a zero tolerance policy. I'll be making screenshots myself. If you get caught you will get some negative attention and you will be banned for life. I want to give everybody a opportunity to grow their accounts and I think this one is a lot of fun. And not a lot of work;). Do you mind me adding me on facebook so we can have a little chat?

Cheers,

Ernst

Climb onto steemit.chat when it is back online

I've been there. We're getting there but i would love some more attention;)

Have you joined the minnowsupport project on discord. Its very easy to getvrecognition this way as the entire community is here to look at your wotk and provide feedbacks.

Thanks for your reply. Do u mean on steemspeak? If not, please explain what I have to do. Reaching a whole community at once would be great.

Cheers,

Ernst

No , the Palnet chat group on discord created by the minnowsupport project. Click here , its one of my blog post. Under it you will find a comment by the minowsupport community. Follow instructions to join.

thank you. Does is matter which one I join? I see a couple different ones

This one has more support! Furthermore; you can submit your post for feedbacks in #peer-review section.

Great tips @dragonslayer109
... You have always been helpful.

thanks man

Great post as usual man. Keep up the good work. ;)

I'm doing a kinda similar series, but focusing more on the craft of writing. For anyone interested.

Cheers!

Wow thanks for posting this! This is really going to help me with my year 12 studies. Some of the things you speak about are really insightful

I haven't written anything in years. I would like to use this platform to learn how to write articles that people want to read. Your tips will come in handy. I especially like the essay structure bit. I remember learning it but, definitely needed the refresher. Thanks!

This good. Writing hard.

The Crossfit army has arrived!

Excellent advice. A lot of programs, like Microsoft Word, have an outline feature that allows you to isolate things like headings or the first sentences of paragraphs so that you can get a quick look at whether the order of your content flows or needs to be edited. It can be really helpful, particularly when working with lengthy documents.

I need to use your tips more. Like reading it again ;), there are several very clear errors, like in the second sentence:

One of this biggest errors

hahaha great find. I leave these in there for people to find like this one, but yes sometimes there are some unintentional errors

You can have it editted! Just click edit.

I'm a minnow and I have slowly been trying to get back to my early high school or college days of writing. I have definitely Improved over the last week.

Reading this made so much sense
I'm just slowly learning to go back over everything I write and remove sentences and stick to the subject.:)
Thankyou and mental notes have been taken.

Great article

Subject Digression!!!!!

I have always been terrible about that both conversationally and with my own writing. I think it is the way my brain just works. My wife calls me "the hummingbird" for this very reason.

Keep up these tutorials, they are helping everyone around here!

Hahaha my mind often wonders to and it is never a good thin for me, especially in a conversation.

Thanks for the great post! I think you might like my work as well so feel free to take a look sometime.

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Great gain some knowledge from this post thank you

Thanks for teach

fighting! i must practice wrriting moree and moree!!

Great advice. Thanks

Wooww ... @dragonslayer109 can i to be like you ...