Lesson 1

• Characteristics of a well-written text

  • Organization
  • Coherence and cohesion
  • Appropriate language use
  • Proper mechanics
• As a reader or a writer, you inevitably get involved with texts.
• Understanding the nature of text is essential part of learning how to read and write effectively.
• Using an outline can help in organizing a text.
• With an outline, you can easily arrange your ideas in a hierarchy.
• With an outline, your readers can also clearly differentiate the general idea from the specific or subordinating ideas.
• It is the unifying element of good writing. 


  Coherence
• It is affected by a writer’s choice of words, which in turn, determines his or her voice.


  Tone
• Writers of literary pieces, on the other hand, use less formal but more creative writing style
• Conventions of writing including capitalization, punctuation, spelling, numerals, abbreviations, acronyms, and contractions


  Proper Mechanics
• Connection of ideas at the sentence level or the grammatical aspects of writing. 


  Cohesion
• Questions to ask before writing


  • What do I want to write about?
  • Why should I write about it?
  • What do I want to achieve in writing it?
• Acceptable writing style including word choice, sentence structure, and paragraph structure for a particular form of a text.


  Appropriate Language Use
• A group of ideas put together to convey one main point or central idea to the reader.


  Text
• Attitude of the writer towards their work.


  Tone
• Refers to the arrangement of ideas in a text.


  Organization
• An expression of ideas using spoken and written language in a social context.


  Discourse
• Unity of ideas, sentences, and paragraphs in a text.


  Coherence
• Level of formality of the personality that the writer is trying to assume in writing a text.


  Voice
• 2 Types of Voice

  • Academic / Professional (Formal)
  • Personal (Informal)
• 3 Tones of Formal Voice

  • Objective
  • Authoritative
  • Courteous
• 2 Tones of Informal Voice

  • Subjective
  • Conversational (e.g. friendly, satirical)
• Words in Formal Voice

  • Few personal pronouns
  • Without contractions
  • Technical terms
  • Nominalizations
• the use of nouns from verbs


  Nominalization
• Words in Informal Voice

  • First-person pronouns
  • With contractions
  • Familiar expressions
• These are connected discourses or as a large unit of a written language that expresses or imparts one central idea, rather than a mere collection of words, phrases, and sentences.


  Text
• When you understand that text is a connected discourse, you become conscious that sentences in your writing must relate to one another.
• Having the awareness about it, it will encourage you to observe and apply the properties of well-written text, for you to be able to have an organized, coherent write-up with appropriate language use and proper mechanics.