Details

A general word refers to a group or class such as book or car.  Within those two classes are specific words.  In other words, a specific word is a member of a class.  For example, whereas book is general, novel is specific, and romantic novel is more specific.  Car is general; sports car is specific; Corvette is more specific; red Corvette is even more specific.

Words and their classes may be either general or specific, depending on their contexts.  If we compare book to nonfiction, nonfiction is specific, but if we compare nonfiction to biography, nonfiction is general.  Thus, a word may be general in one context but specific in another context.

One of the most important tasks a writer or speaker has is to capture details.  There are two ways to describe anything: with generalizations and with specifics.  It is impossible to write or speak about anything without making some general observations.  However, you will want to include both types of description.  The specifics may be sensory details and/or explicit objective details such as size, shape and color.  Specific details make one's writing more powerful, grounding the work in particular physical and emotional contexts.  Specific details can come from a writer's or speaker's experiences, memories or imagination.  With respect to experience, memory and imagination, writers and speakers use everyday details of sight, sound, smell, taste and touch, not simply to record the events, places and times in their discourses, but also to make the events, places and times real for their audiences.

Notice the use of objective and sensory details in the following passage by Maya Angelou:
          The amount and variety of foods would have found approval
          on the menu of a Roman epicure.  Pans of fried chicken,
          covered with dishtowels, sat under benches next to a
          mountain of potato salad crammed with hard-boiled eggs.
          Whole rust-red sticks of bologna were clothed in cheese-
          cloth.  Homemade pickles and chow-chow, and baked country
          hams, aromatic with cloves and pineapples, vied for
          prominence.  Our steady customers had ordered cold
          watermelons, so Bailey and I chugged the striped-green fruit
          into the Coca-Cola box and filled all the tubs with ice as well
          as the big black wash pot that Momma used to boil her
          laundry.  Now they too lay sweating in the happy afternoon
          air.  The summer picnic gave ladies a chance to show off their
          baking hands.  On the barbecue pit, chickens and spareribs
          sputtered in their own fat and a sauce whose recipe was
          guarded in the family like a scandalous affair.  However, in
          the ecumenical light of the summer picnic every true baking
          artist could reveal her prize to the delight and criticism of the
          town.  Orange sponge cakes and dark brown mounds dripping
          Hershey's chocolate stood layer to layer with ice-white
          coconuts and light brown caramels.  Pound cakes sagged with
          their buttery weight and small children could no more resist
          licking the icings than their mothers could avoid slapping the
          sticky fingers.*
Maya Angelou easily could have written that the picnic was full of meat, accompaniments, fruit and sweets.  But to make the picnic more real, she includes such details as "a mountain of potato salad" (size), "Whole rust-red sticks of bologna" (shape), "Orange sponge cakes and dark mounds dripping Hershey's chocolate" (color), "the big black wash pot that Momma used to boil her laundry" (sight), "On the barbecue pit, chickens and spareribs sputtered in their own fat" (sound), "baked country hams, aromatic with cloves and pineapples" (smell), "Pound cakes sagged with their buttery weight" (taste), and "cold watermelons" (touch).

In academic and professional discourse, details are known as backing.  Backing is grounds in detail, grounds being reasons and/or evidence.  A thesis is a claim with grounds.  An example: I need to work this summer so that I can buy a new car.  The claim is "I need to work this summer," and the grounds is "so that I can buy a new car."  Let us suppose my parents disagree with me.  To convince them that I indeed need a new car, I must provide backing.  I tell them my car has over 150,000 miles, has been repaired 6 times in the past year, and has no air conditioner.  Such details not only make my argument more complete, but they help make my car more real.  You now know I own a rattletrap.

To create details, writers and speakers ask questions.  The journalistic questions--who, what, when, where, why and how--help writers and speakers generate information.  Such information, however, tends to be general.  To generate specific information, ask questions about the answers: what kinds of meat, accompaniments, fruit and sweets; what kind of rattletrap? 

Exercises 

Make the following categories more specific so that I will know exactly what to purchase when I go to the grocer: meat, dairy product, produce.

When a person is angry, sad or happy, you know he/she is such because his/her body language, facial expressions, diction, tone, et cetera reveal his/her mood.  He/she does not wear a sign that says "I'm angry," "I'm sad," or "I'm happy."  Successful writers do not use such labels because they are abstract in that everyone has a different conception of those emotions.  Everyone reacts differently to anger, sadness and happiness.  When you describe someone's mood, you must reveal his/her body language, facial expressions, diction, tone, et cetera so that the reader can envision the person as a unique individual.  Describe a boyfriend's or girlfriend's reaction when you told him/her that you no longer wanted to be his/her companion.
_______________________________________________________
          *Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (New York: Bantam, 1993) 115-16.

My Critique

This post affords an objective evaluation of an essay. 

Description 

At the end of the semester, you will submit to me this critique and draft along with your final draft of this essay.  If you do not do such, you will receive an F for the incomplete assignment (refer to "Overview of Course"). 

I edited your essay in accordance with "Criteria for Evaluating Essays," using proofreader's marks (refer to "Proofreader's Marks").  As you revise this essay, do not correct only your punctuative, grammatical and mechanical mistakes.  Remember, revision is a process.  You will need to consider your peer's and my comments.  Then, revise your essay according to its purpose, structure and content--checking for unity, checking for coherence, checking for development, creating a thesis.  Next, edit each sentence, and title your essay. 

Because this is a preliminary draft, I did not calculate a grade.  If you want to do such, add the values of the applicable components (1-11, for example) and divide the sum by the amount of components (11, for example). 

Evaluation 

Name of writer:__________________________________________

Title of work:____________________________________________

I rated the following on a scale of 0 (poor) to 5 (excellent).

1. Quality and clarity of working thesis _____
2. Persuasiveness of argument _____
3. Organization of essay _____
4. Style of paragraphs _____
5. Style of sentences _____
6. Amount of punctuative mistakes (none is excellent) _____
7. Amount of grammatical mistakes (none is excellent) _____
8. Amount of mechanical mistakes (none is excellent) _____
9. Quality of diction _____
10. Tone of paper _____
11. Format of essay _____
12. Integration of quotations (if applicable) _____
13. Style of documentation (if applicable) _____
14. Amount of sources (if applicable) _____

A summary of your essay follows.

I compared the essay (or sections of it) to the following.

1. A color:_____________________________________________
2. A flavor:____________________________________________
3. A sound:____________________________________________
4. A motion:___________________________________________
5. An odor:____________________________________________
6. An emotion:_________________________________________

Additional comments:

Peer Critique

I often have used the following worksheet as an in-class activity, for  students learn much about writing from their peers.

Description 

First, you must provide me with two copies of your essay the day it is due.  I will critique one copy.  I will give the other copy to a classmate and will give you a copy of his/her essay.  Second, read this handout entirely.  Third, read your classmate's essay--editing it in accordance with "Criteria for Evaluating Essays" but using proofreader's marks (refer to "Proofreader's Marks") only in the margins.  Do not attempt to correct any mistakes.  Fourth, write your responses to the essay on this handout, and, finally, articulate your reactions for no more than ten minutes in a brief conversation with the author.  Please give the essay and your critique to the author. 

Evaluation 

Name of evaluator:_______________________________________

Name of writer(s):________________________________________

Title of work:____________________________________________

1. Read the first paragraph.  Then, before you continue to read, write what you expect are the purpose, audience and topic.
2. Continue to read the essay.  Did the author fulfill your expectations?  If not, what do you think the purpose, audience and topic are?
3. Summarize the essay, devoting at least one sentence to each paragraph.
4. What do you think is the central idea, or working thesis, of the essay?
5. Do you agree or disagree with the author's working thesis and why?
6. What kinds of evidence (details, facts, examples, narratives, analogies) does the author use to develop or support his/her central idea?  Is the evidence appropriate?  Is there sufficient evidence?  If not, what kinds of evidence should the writer consider?
7. Does the author consider different points of view about his/her working thesis?  In other words, does the author consider counterarguments?
8. Does the author qualify his/her central idea?
9. Which two features of the essay most need improvement?
10. What do you most like about the essay?

Compare the essay (or sections of it) to the following.

1. A color:_____________________________________________
2. A flavor:____________________________________________
3. A sound:____________________________________________
4. A motion:___________________________________________
5. An odor:____________________________________________
6. An emotion:_________________________________________

Other comments:

Past Comments on Assignment One

The following comments are relative to any academic essay.

Only in a creative writing class will you be able to write consistently about topics of your choice.  You need to move beyond that fact.  In other words, you need to approach each assignment, not as a burden, but as a challenge or, better, as an opportunity to express yourself creatively.  Doing the latter will turn the most mundane assignment into an excitative exercise of creativity, of growth. 

The essay is yours; it is a reflection of you.  Just as you wear anything you want to wear, you can begin an essay any way you want to begin.  It seems many of us have learned to create generic introductions.  There is no one way, no one correct method to begin an essay.  However, there are incorrect ways to begin an essay--one being to make generalizations, which many of us did.  Furthermore, your thesis does not need to be in the first paragraph. 

With respect to your thesis, it is an amalgamation (a combination or blend) of your topical sentences.  Remember, a thesis is not necessarily a--that is, one--statement. 

Toulmin's scheme, which we will discuss soon, forces us to not make generalizations ("all people," for example) because we must provide backing for such statements.  So do not generalize unless you are able to support it with details.  Furthermore, the essay is about you, your relationship with writing, so use I, not you.  Always use the second person point of view carefully.  Who enjoys commands, accusations or categorizations?  Few people do.  Readers instinctively resist works in second person.  To include, rather than to exclude, use the pronoun we. 

With respect to grammar, many of us need to create stronger verbal constructions.  Rather than writing "I would like a job," write "I want a job."  Rather than writing "My goals will be accomplished," write "I will accomplish my goals."  Furthermore, get with the past participle of a transitive verb also creates a passive voice.  Change, for example, "I have gotten better at getting my thoughts on paper" to "I am better at writing my thoughts."  If you are relying too much on the verb get, you need to increase your vocabulary. 

Some of us need to eliminate adverbial noun clauses.  Rather than writing "The reason I dislike writing is because there are too many rules," write "The reason I dislike writing is that there are too many rules." 

Do not use the adverbs really, very, even and so.  They are simply fillers, and they detract from the force of the verbs or adjectives they modify. 

What is the primary difference between that and this or those and these?  That refers to something before it, and this refers to something after it.  I work too much; that is the reason I am grumpy.  This is the reason I am grumpy: I work too much. 

You do not want to be too informal or too formal, so vary your sentential constructions (simple, compound, complex and compound-complex), and use diction appropriate to higher education--eliminating abbreviations, contractions and colloquialisms. 

Conclusions are more than restatements or summaries.  You want to ease the reader out of your essay, your world.  Sometimes a writer will refer to something he/she states in the introduction, making the essay seem whole.  (Think of the introduction and conclusion as the ends of a loaf of bread.) 

The necessity of a five-paragraph essay is a myth.  Certainly there are essays with five paragraphs, but the majority (a guess is 90%) of essays (arguments) are more than five or less than five paragraphs in length.  You want as many paragraphs as necessary to develop completely your argument. 

Finally, for those who naively think they will write little after college, for those who dream that everyone always has communicated and will communicate orally, remember this: if you are able to write well, you are able to speak well and vice versa.  Writing and speaking are two forms of the same thing: verbal communication.

Summary Versus Paraphrase

Summary 

A summary is a short description of a work--a painting, poem, article, story, movie, et cetera--that contains the central idea of the work and enough details to support the central idea.  When you summarize a work, you identify its central idea (thesis), primary points (topical sentences), and secondary information (evidence), omitting minor details.  Writers and speakers have numerous options for the kinds of evidence they can use in an argument: data from personal experience; data from interviews, questionnaires and/or surveys; data from research; statistical data; and hypothetical examples, cases and/or scenarios.  A summary will account for all  parts of a work, but it will not provide an extended argument.  When a work is long, you identify primary points and secondary information in each section, and you assemble them into coherent, cohesive statements about the whole work, summarizing entirely in your own words.

An effective summary begins with sentences that identify the title and author of the work and state the work's central idea.  Those sentences will function as the thesis of the summary.  A description of the organization of the work follows the thesis--revealing the divisions of the work, the primary point of each section, and the order of the sections.  For relatively short works, it is possible to state the central idea and organization in the same sentence.

Regardless of the work's length, a description of each of the sections follows the introduction.  In relatively short works, you emphasize the way multiple sections develop the central idea of the work, but if the work is lengthy, each section may require a separate paragraph.  The organization of the work may help you decide where to break the paragraphs of your summary.  Use only enough secondary information to elaborate the primary points or to relate the way the author develops his/her ideas.

An effective summary ends with a brief statement that relates the central idea of the work to the summary of the work.  In other words, the conclusion brings the reader back to the author's thesis.

Paraphrase

A paraphrase, on the other hand, is a longer description of a work, containing more details than a summary.  When paraphrasing a work, you restate its entire argument, point by point, in your own words.  You will need to paraphrase any sources of information that provide backing (specific evidence) for your argument, backing being necessary information your audience needs to accept or reject your argument.

A paraphrase requires more systematic work than a summary needs.  An effective paraphrase reflects the organization of the work.  It also reflects the primary points of the author, not your opinions of those ideas.  A specific page or line number accompanies each important fact or direct quotation.  Such secondary information is relevant to the central idea.  The paraphrase is entirely in your own words, excepting clearly marked quotations.

Guidelines for Summarizing

1. Introduce the work and the author.
2. Focus only on the central idea (thesis) of the work.
3. Provide only enough secondary information (evidence) to clearly support the primary points.
4. Omit minor details and insignificant information.
5. Write the summary in your own words, unless a quotation is necessary.
6. Omit any opinions you may have.
7. Follow the same organization as the work itself.
8. Ensure your summary is clear, concise and effective.

Scenario

To make what we have been discussing (the process of writing) less abstract, imagine you enrolled in Physics 201, and the professor wants you to submit an extensive research paper on a topic relative to the discipline.  Being the exceptional student you are, you strive to be both critical--wanting to analyze and evaluate existent information--and creative--wanting to generate your own ideas and information.

You have noticed that at the end of each chapter in your textbook the authors credit sources of information--including the periodicals Scientific American (SA), Astronomy (A), and Physics Today (PT).  You decide to go to the library and to speed-read recent issues of those magazines.  In thirty minutes you decide that your topic will be String Theory.  The reasons you choose it are that there are many articles about it and you know little about the theory.

The next day you tell your professor about your idea.  He approves the topic.  You know your textbook and the three periodicals will be sources of information, but you need other sources.  You return to the library, sit in front of a computer, and search the library's holdings.  There are 20 potential resources.  After you have previewed those sources, you choose The Dynamic Universe (DU); The World Treasury of Physics, Astronomy, and Mathematics (WT); and Relativity: The Special and the General Theory (R) as your primary sources of information.  Your criteria: they are easy to read and understand, are current, and contain lots of information.  Based on your criteria, you determine the primary audience for one of the periodicals, A, is astrophysicists, so you eliminate it as a source of information.

Monitoring your progress as you critically read, you discover that you do not understand completely the information on String Theory, so you choose to focus on Albert Einstein's inability to create a unified theory, which you understand.  You tell your professor, and he encourages your redirection of effort.

You know if you conflate your assumptions with the authors', then you will misread and misinterpret the information.  Furthermore, conflation may lead to reductionism.  For example, String Theory is a scientific explanation of the universe.  You may be a Christian.  You cannot dismiss the theory simply because you believe God created the universe, which is an opinion.  You can state, however, that current technology is unable to verify the theory, which is a fact.

To organize the information you have generated for your research paper, you divide your topic into the strong force, the electromagnetic force, the weak force, and gravitation.  You list the sources and pages with respect to the strong force--P 123, WT 175, R 136--the electromagnetic force--P 148, WT 210, R 183--et cetera.  You begin to infer relationships among your sources and discover all the authors agree (comparison); the textbook, R, provides numerous in-depth examples of both general and special relativity (example); all the sources fully define each of the four forces (definition); and the books explain Einstein's failure, which is the reason the periodicals embrace String Theory as an explanation of the universe (cause and effect).  You know it is important that you personally respond to the information the sources have presented to you, so you decide to critique Einstein's approach with respect to what you know about String Theory.

Because you have organized your material, it is easy to create an outline of your discourse.  You select the primary ideas in your outline to create a working thesis.  You wait until your are comfortable, are alone, and have some time to write a first draft, which you do section by section until you finish.  The next day you revise your discourse--focusing on its unity, coherence and development.  You also revise your working thesis, transforming it into a thesis.  The following day you edit your discourse--focusing on diction, punctuation, grammar and mechanics.  You also ensure it is in the correct format.  Finally, you create a title, basing it on your thesis.  You finish several hours before you need to submit it.  Several days later the professor returns it to you with a large red A on the title page.

The Process of Writing

Introduction 

To complete any task or chore, a person must go through a process, a series of actions that leads to a result.  Think about the process you went through to arrive at school or work this morning: waking, drinking, eating, showering, dressing, driving.  Each of those stages is a process, for there are substages within each stage.  For example, you likely slipped on pants before you stepped into shoes.  Did you struggle to complete the entire process?  There may have been external pressures, but you did not have to contemplate your actions at every stage.  The reason: the more experience you have in successfully completing a task or chore, the more habitual the process is.

Your process was different from mine in some way.  You may have combined some stages--drinking and eating while driving to school, for example--or you may have skipped a stage--bathing before you slept, for example.  Similarly, the process of writing is variable.  A writer does not necessarily begin at the first stage and progress linearly to the last stage.  Advanced writers are able to combine and skip stages without adverse effects, and they return to an earlier stage when they revise their works, which they do many times.  Furthermore, an advanced writer will adapt his process in accordance with the kind of writing he is doing.

With respect to e-mails, my compositional process consists of three stages: writing, revising and editing.  With respect to formal discourse--an essay such as this--my compositional process is more comprehensive.  After I conduct research, I generate information on sheets of paper, pausing only to refer to external information or to discover where my words are leading me.  The initial draft is messy, with proofreader's marks and misspellings everywhere.  After hours, days or weeks away from the draft, I read, evaluate and revise it.  As I type the text into the word processor, I revise it again, focusing on unity, coherence and development.  The next day I edit with respect to tone, punctuation, grammar and mechanics.  If I do not have a title, I create one, which is the final stage of my process.

The following process is even more comprehensive than the aforementioned one.  It is the process I adhered to when I was a freshman in college.  I suggest that intermediate writers adhere to it until they are able to combine or skip stages without adverse effects.

Purpose

Because writing is a social activity, a way to communicate with others, before you begin to write, you need to consider the reason(s) you will be writing.  You will write more effectively if you answer the following question: Are you writing to inform, to persuade, or to entertain?  Sometimes you will have multiple reasons to write.  For example, if you were to review a movie, you would evaluate it and persuade readers to either view it or not, all while entertaining them.  Thinking about your purpose(s) will allow you to identify a topic and will help you to generate and organize ideas.

Audience

Each time you write, you must think carefully about whom your audience is and how they will respond to your information.  Sometimes writers have to appeal to multiple and possibly conflictive audiences: teachers and classmates, men and women, rich and poor, conservatives and liberals.  At other times the identification of a particular audience is difficult, especially when creating a website.  Knowing just a few characteristics of your audience will help you anticipate and satisfy your readers' interests and needs.  Choose content, coverage, examples and tone in accordance with your audience's requirements, asking yourself the questions that follow.  Who likely will read your work?  What are some reasons they will read your work?  What do they know about your subject?  What kinds of information will they need?  What values and beliefs do they hold?  What kinds of examples will elicit positive responses?  How will you convince them to accept your argument?  You will need to continually think about your audience throughout the process of writing.

Topic

Because there are hundreds of ways to generate a topic, I will discuss only the most successful generative methods I have been using: reading, brainstorming, journal writing, listing, mapping, and freewriting.

Reading can be an excellent stimulus when you are not precisely sure of what your topic will be.  Though you may not depend on outside sources, reading about a tentative topic may help you generate ideas.

Brainstorming is a technique by which you can generate a topic.  Place a subject at the top of a sheet of paper, and list any word or phrase that comes to your mind.  Set a time frame, and list items as quickly as you can.  All items are legitimate for your list, since an allegedly bad idea can lead to a good one.

Journal writing provides you an opportunity to converse with yourself in your own language about what you have been studying.  You can pose questions, develop ideas, reflect on readings, speculate and explore, and try to pinpoint confusions.

Another method for generating a topic is to list the attributes that a subject possesses.  Number the items of your list.  Then, ask what the uses or consequences of each item are.

If you enjoy thinking visually, try mapping your ideas.  Begin by writing the subject as briefly as possible (a single word is best).  Circle the subject and draw three, four or five short spokes from the circle.  At the end of each spoke place one of the journalistic questions--who, what, where, why and how--making a longer branch off the spoke for every answer to a question.

Freewriting is a technique you may want to try when you are asked to write but have no topic.  According to Peter Elbow:

          The idea is simply to write for ten minutes (later on, perhaps
          fifteen or twenty).  Don't stop for anything.  Go quickly
          without rushing.  Never stop to look back, to cross something
          out, to wonder how to spell something, to wonder what word
          or thought to use, or to think about what you are doing.  If
          you can't think of a word or a spelling, just use a squiggle or
          else write, "I can't think of it."  Just put down something.  The
          easiest thing is just to put down whatever is in your mind.  If
          you get stuck [sic] it's fine to write [sic] "I can't think what to
          say, [sic] I can't think what to say [sic]" as many times as you
          want; or repeat the last word you wrote over and over again;
          or anything else.  The only requirement is that you never
          stop.*  

Information

All the aforementioned methods are also useful when you need to generate information, when you need to explore your own thoughts and feelings about a topic.  But in an academic or professional setting, you will be required to include material from outside sources, which means that you must be able to read critically.  The following strategy will help you do such.

Before you read look ahead, previewing the source and asking yourself which part of the source relates to your topic.  While you are reading, be active--underlining relative information, writing notes that summarize passages, writing sectional headings, and highlighting important information.  Monitor your progress while you are reading.  Do you understand the material?  How does the material compare with your predictions?  Do you need to redirect your efforts--that is, to preview another selection or to generate another topic?

After you have enough information to satisfy your audience's interests and needs, you will need to consolidate the information.  Review your notes; highlight important information; organize your notes.  Next, evaluate each source, distinguishing facts (verifiable statements) from opinions (interpretations of facts).  Finally, distinguish your assumptions from those of the author(s).

Assumptions also are known as warrants, core beliefs that shape the way each of us views the world.  There are three categories of assumptions: value, descriptive and definitional.  Value assumptions are beliefs about the way the world ought to be, about the way people ought to behave.  Descriptive assumptions are beliefs about the way the world is, about what is true.  Definitional assumptions are definitions of key terms on which a discourse rests.

I will discuss the importance of assumptions later.  What you need to know about them now is that an author may state his/her assumptions directly or indirectly--that is, they may be explicit or implicit.  Because assumptions provide the bases for decisions and opinions, if you do not distinguish your assumptions from those of the author(s), you more than likely will conflate them, which will lead to misunderstanding.

Organization

When you know you will incorporate information from numerous sources into an essay, you will need to read in a way that enables you to infer relationships among those sources.  To do such you will need to divide the topic into parts and to title each division.  Then, cross-reference each part, listing the specific pages of each source that treats each division.  Next, summarize the information or author's ideas about each part, considering the following inferences as you do such: comparison, contrast, example, definition, cause and effect, and personal response.  Comparison: does one author agree with another?  Contrast: does an author disagree with another author?  Example: does material in one source illustrate a statement in another source?  Definition: is there material in a source that may help you define or redefine a term in another source?  Cause and effect: is there material from one source that may allow you to explain directly the reason certain events occur in other sources?  Personal response: do you agree or disagree with points made in one or more sources?  Develop your response(s) by referring to specific passages.

Not all the information you have will be useful.  Therefore, you must select the most promising ideas and categorize them.  Organize information within categories to clarify your ideas and their relation to each other.  After you recognize patterns of relation within each category, you will be able to recognize patterns of relation across categories.  Identify main, or general, points within each category and the subordinate, or specific, points within a category.  Some examples of subordinate points, also known as backing, are moral principles, testimony of experts, statistical data, and empirical results.  Organizing material within a category is an excellent technique for revealing which of your main points will need further development when you begin to write a first draft.

Most intermediate writers skip the organizational stage, thinking that the creation of a formal or informal outline will consume too much time to be beneficial.  But advanced writers experientially know that organizing information within categories actually conserves time because it allows them to develop completely each main point.  For them the revisionary stage is a stylistic event, not a compositional nightmare.

Working Thesis

All your effort in thinking about your purpose, identifying your audience, selecting a topic, generating information, and organizing that information will lead to a thesis--a general, debatable statement about your topic.  Initially you will create a working thesis: a statement that, based on everything you know about your topic, is a reasonably accurate summary of what you will write.  In the act of writing, you will discover, discard and revise ideas.  Before you write you cannot determine how your draft will evolve and how, subsequently, your thesis will change.

What is a good working thesis?  A strong thesis is clear and concise, regardless of where it appears or how long it is.  A strong thesis focuses on a substantive issue, an issue that readers will want to read.  A strong thesis is debatable, which means reasonable people may disagree with it.  A strong thesis requires backing and will need qualification.

First Draft

Every writer needs a place, some space, and time to write.  Choose a setting that is comfortable, ensure that nobody will distract you, and reserve a significant quantity of time.  Your goal is to create and to finish a version of your discourse.  When you accept the fact that what you write in your first draft will not necessarily be in your final draft, you will be able to continue to write when you reach a troublesome part.  Do not allow your concerns about particular words or sentences block your momentum.  Complete one section of your discourse until you finish.

Revision

After some time has passed, read your first draft.  Reconsider your working thesis and the extent your work addresses it.  Create a thesis, a version of your working thesis that accurately reveals the primary point of your discourse.  Check for unity.  Do the sentences of each paragraph focus on a main idea?  Do the paragraphs of each section focus on a specific part of the thesis?  Do the sections of the discourse develop the thesis?  Check for coherence.  Are the sentences of each paragraph orderly?  Are the paragraphs of each section orderly?  Are the sections of the discourse orderly?  Check for development.  Do the sentences of each paragraph provide details that explain and illustrate each paragraph's main idea?  Do the paragraphs of each section provide details that explain and illustrate a specific part of the thesis?  Do the sections of the discourse provide important details that develop the thesis?

Editing

If you think your revision meets the interests and needs of your audience, you are ready to edit.  To edit is to rewrite at the level of the sentence.  You will need to focus on more than punctuation, grammar and mechanics.  Ensure your diction is concrete (perceptible by the senses) and specific (refers to particular people, places and things).  Remember, appropriate language suits your writing situation--your purpose, audience and topic.  Standard English is always appropriate.  Regionalisms, slang, colloquialisms, neologisms, technical jargon, and euphemisms are sometimes appropriate.  But nonstandard dialects; double talk; pretentious writing; stereotypes; and sexist, racist and ethnocentric language are rarely or never appropriate.  Ensure you are succinct--that is, you have avoided wordy verbal phrases (changing, for example, would like to work to want to work), redundancies (changing first began to began, for example), and strings of prepositional phrases (changing for the people in America to for the Americans).  You also need to analyze your transitions (words and phrases that connect sentences, paragraphs and sections), ensuring the discourse is seamless.  What you do not want to do is solely rely on your computer to edit your work, for it cannot assess context, and context determines, for example, whether a colloquialism is appropriate.

Title

You might have created a title before you began to write your first draft, and doing such probably helped you focus.  But your discourse may have evolved differently than you had planned.  Thus, your title is a working title.  You always need to ensure your title accurately reflects the content of your discourse.  On the basis of your thesis, devise a title for your discourse.  Readers like titles that help them anticipate what they will be reading.  Furthermore, titles contain keywords necessary for electronic searches.

Conclusion

The process of writing consists of many stages, and each stage has substages.  The more comprehensive your process is, the more likely you will achieve success.  If you are an intermediate writer, I suggest you engage in every stage, regardless the kind of writing, until you are able to modify the process without adverse effects.  There are four forms of writing that will recur throughout your academic career: summary, evaluation, analysis and synthesis.  Each requires more engagement in the process than the one that precedes it.

A summary is a brief, neutral restatement of a source.  A summary answers: what are the main points of the author's discourse?  To summarize a source, restate, in your own words, the author's thesis (central idea).  If the selection is short (one to ten pages), write several sentences about each section.  If the selection is long, try to identify divisions and write several sentences about each section.  Join your paragraphical or sectional summaries with your summary of the thesis.

An evaluation is a review of a source.  An evaluation answers: how effective is the author's discourse?  Introduce the author and topic in your first paragraph.  A sentence in the introductory paragraph may hint at your general impression of the source.  Summarize the source.  Introduce the author's main points, and discuss each point thoroughly.  Assess the source, explicitly stating your criteria for evaluation.

An analysis  is an investigation of a source that requires the use of a specific set of principles.  An analysis answers many questions, including: how does the discourse work, and what does it mean?  Determine what the main points of the thesis are.  Summarize each of the points.  Convert each summary into a specific question, and use each question as a basis to investigate the source.

A synthesis (a proper academic essay) is a compendium of material from several sources.  A synthesis also answers many questions, including: what are my views on the topic, and what are other views on the topic?  Do not be tentative about expressing your own thoughts and emotions, for they are just as important as the other views on the topic.  To synthesize information fully engage in the process I delineated.  It initially may seem overwhelming.  But if you habituate yourself to the process, you may--gasp--begin to enjoy writing.

Please refer to "Scenario" if the aforementioned process seems abstract.

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          *Peter Elbow, Writing without Teachers, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford UP, 1998) 1.

Assignment One

Purpose 

The purposes of this assignment are multifold.  First, it will engage you in the act of writing.  Writing is a process, a series of various activities that lead to a complete product.  You will generate, organize, create, compose, revise, edit and title--seven stages in the process of writing.  Second, it will situate you in this class, for you will discover your strengths and weaknesses with respect to writing.  Third, it will become an evaluative tool by which we (you and I) will measure your progress. 

Content 

Your essay must address your past, present and future relationships with writing.  Specifically, you must answer all the following questions.

1. Who first taught you how to write?
2. What was the first piece that you wrote?
3. Did you enjoy the courses in composition in high school?  Describe those courses.
4. What are your strengths and weaknesses with respect to writing?
5. Do you like or dislike writing, or are you ambivalent toward writing?
6. How frequently will you write after your schooling?
7. Describe the goals (at least five) you will accomplish during the course of this course.

I encourage you to address other aspects of your relationship, but the essay must not exceed 100,000 words or 400 pages.  Format your essay in accordance with the conventions established by the Modern Language Association (MLA). 

Process 

I have determined your purpose for writing, which is to inform; I have defined your audience, which is the class.  I also have provided you a topic, which is your past, present and future relationships with writing.  The next stage is to generate information.  We will discuss reading, brainstorming, journal writing, listing, and mapping--activities you may want to do rather than freewriting and focused freewriting.  However, for this essay you will freely write for ten minutes, generating as much information on the topic as you can.  According to Peter Elbow:

     The idea is simply to write for ten minutes (later on, perhaps
     fifteen or twenty).  Don't stop for anything.  Go quickly without
     rushing.  Never stop to look back, to cross something out, to
     wonder how to spell something, to wonder what word or thought
     to use, or to think about what you are doing.  If you can't think of
     a word or a spelling, just use a squiggle or else write, "I can't
     think of it."  Just put down something.  The easiest thing is just to
     put down whatever is in your mind.  If you get stuck [sic] it's fine
     to write [sic] "I can't think what to say, [sic] I can't think what to
     say [sic]" as many times as you want; or repeat the last word you
     wrote over and over again; or anything else.  The only
     requirement is that you never stop.* 

Focused freewriting provides the benefits of freewriting but with regard to specific information.  First, read what you wrote and mark any words, phrases or sentences that seem important or useful.  Second, freely write for ten more minutes--focusing on the words, phrases or sentences that you marked.  To generate more specific information, you will need to repeat the technique. 

Particulars 

You do not need to organize the information in the temporal (from past to present to future) or the sequential (from 1 to 2 to 3 ...) manners I stated.  We will discuss and you will engage in the entire process of writing: organizing your information, creating a working thesis, writing a first draft, revising your discourse, editing your discourse, and titling your essay.  Near the end of the semester, on the day of your final exam, you will submit in a portfolio your freewrite, focused freewrite, outline, first draft, and final draft.

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     *Peter Elbow, Writing without Teachers, 2nd ed.  (New York: Oxford UP, 1998) 1.

Managing the Complexity of Writing

Introduction

Before an advanced writer begins to write a sentence, he has nearly a million ways of writing what he wants to communicate.  But with each word he writes, the field of choices narrows.  The sentence seems to take the initiative, moving in the direction that Standard English allows.  The advanced writer responds to such constraints almost unconsciously, providing the words and structures that different contexts allow.  He may struggle sometimes to write himself out of an ill-formed sentence, but the sense of what he can and cannot do within the limits of the rules that govern formal writing is certain.  He struggles for clarity, conciseness and effectiveness, not merely correctness.  In other words, for him the formation of sentences is primarily a concern of style, of affecting his readers' eyes, mouths and ears.

Intermediate writers seldom enjoy such ease with writing.  Their concern is not with making sentences better, but with making sentences right.  Their concern is with correctness, for they lack familiarity with Standard English.  Much of their uneasiness can be blamed on the writing process itself, which, because it is different from the speaking process (refer to "Punctuation"), creates a rule-consciousness that can prevent a writer from communicating as clearly, concisely and effectively as she can in a speech situation.  

Men and women who have been speaking in sentences for years cannot be ignorant of sentences.  But when they write formally, which they rarely do except in academic situations, they often mismanage complexity.  There are three reasons for such mismanagement.  The first explanation will center on what the students have not learned about Standard English, the second on their attitudes toward themselves as students, and the third on their unfamiliarity with the process of writing.  Each of the explanations suggests a method of instruction: one that focuses on diction, one that stresses the value of writing, and one that focuses on process.

Diction 

First, an intermediate writer is not likely to have the diction to create the consolidations necessary in writing.  If writing forces one to be more explicit then one would be when speaking and if such explicitness requires various types of consolidations (refer to "Punctuation"), the student who has read and written infrequently may not be able to use some or many of the patterns that consolidate information.  There are at least three situations in which a lack of vocabulary negatively affects the formation of sentences.  A student may not know the word that would enable her to consolidate sentences; she may not know the grammatically appropriate form of a word for a sentence; she may not know a word's appropriate contexts.

Unfortunately vocabulary grows slowly, with the inclusion of a word's acceptable contexts acquired from reading.  Word-class distinctions--learned via exercises that increase students' awareness of suffixes--are also gradually incorporated into the sentences students write themselves.  Finally, students learn the allowable contexts of individual words usually by making mistakes, not by memorizing rules.

Value

Many intermediate writers have learned that words must be correct with respect to grammar, spelling and punctuation.  Because they fear the rules, intermediate writers are not able to use their language as effectively as advanced writers.  That leads us to the second reason for their mismanagement of complexity: first-year college students often lack confidence in themselves and are afraid that writing will expose their weaknesses.  Considering that writing is an act of confidence, an exhibition of one's experiences, emotions and thoughts, a feeling of inadequacy inhibits self-expression, hinders exploration and growth.  Furthermore, many of the assignments--and I am including those I struggled to complete as a freshman--are unmotivational and stipulatory.  Restricted to a particular topic (not her own), to an unfamiliar style (academic), and to an impersonal point of view (usually her professor's), an intermediate writer will not begin sentences with actual subjects, will use passive verbal constructions, will be obscure, and will be verbose.

Process

But even advanced writers initially have such problems.  What primarily separates intermediate writers from advanced writers--and this is the third reason for intermediate writers' mismanagement of complexity--is that advanced writers write through their problems and return to them after they have written a draft, often several drafts.  In other words, intermediate writers have an incomplete process of writing.  Attempting to manage everything at once, they disrupt the flow of their thoughts and attend to problems as they arise.  Writing, intermediate writers think, is about adhering to the rules, and spelling, punctuation, sentential structure, coherence, et cetera must be correct the first time.  But if an intermediate writer does not concern herself with the task of being correct, if she realizes she will be able to perfect her essay later, she will be able to concentrate on what she is communicating, not how she is communicating.  The gap between intention and execution is closed with additions, subtractions, substitutions and inversions--activities that require words to be on a sheet of paper or a screen.

Conclusion

The subject of the privacy and mess of writing--of how advanced writers work, of how and where they get their information, of how they shape it into form--such information is beneficial to intermediate writers.  Because most academic assignments--indeed most writing assignments throughout life--are stipulatory, an intermediate writer more than likely has developed a problematic strategy for writing that makes it difficult for her to judge the fit between her intention and her execution.  She thinks of purpose as what someone else wants of her.  She has learned that she must understand and capture the sense of what someone else wrote.  As a result, she discards what she needs most to be able to write well: her own responses, her own thoughts.  Teachers must inculcate upon their students the importance of noticing their responses to things and to value those responses as possible content for academic essays.

Punctuation

Introduction 

The punctuative errors that commonly appear in intermediate writers' essays reflect the students' inexperience with formal writing and therefore with the punctuative code that serves to signal meanings readers would otherwise miss.  Although the code includes more than a dozen marks, intermediate writers use only the most common: the capital, the comma, the period, the question mark, the exclamation mark, and the quotation mark.  Semicolons appear infrequently; parentheses, hyphens and dashes appear less often; and ellipses, brackets and italics appear almost never.  That means intermediate writers express little through punctuation, whereas advanced writers with knowledge of such slight notations add both flexibility and meaning to their sentences.  Parentheses and dashes, for example, help writers overcome the linearity of sentences, and colons are an economical way to present series.  From a reader's point of view, punctuation provides guidance for one who must otherwise proceed intermittently through a writer's thoughts. 

Speaking and Writing 

Limited mainly to periods and commas, an inexperienced writer is further restricted by her uncertain use of such marks: commas appear at odd junctures within sentences, and both commas and periods signal sentential terminations, or what appear to be terminations, for the writer frequently mistakes a fragment for a whole sentence or joins two sentences with a comma (comma splice) or with no punctuation at all (run-on).  The difficulty with signifying the boundaries of sentences has led some to complain that students nowadays "don't know what an English sentence is."  That is, of course, not true.  They intuitively understand the structure of sentences; they have been speaking in sentences since childhood.  What they have not been doing, however, is stopping to consider whether their speech contains, among other things, a subject and predicate or has a dependent clause.  In other words they have been creating diverse sentences without knowing the nomenclature for the constructions they have been producing. 

One reason writing sentences is difficult stems from the differences between speech and writing.  Oral communication is economical, progressing without complex syntax.  Gestures, facial expressions, and alternate responses advance a conversation.  Those who formally write as they talk--and/or message--are not accustomed to using their entire syntactic repertoire.  Writing sentences requires punctuative marks that have few equivalents in speech.  Although we temporally pause in oral conversations, we indicate such pauses in written communication with an array of symbols, each mark having a slightly different function and effect. 

Without some convention for showing the groupings and relationships of words, for suggesting pace and intonation, the written sentence becomes a puzzle to reader.  Readers expect sentences to contain conventional punctuation; readers also expect the most important information to be at the beginnings and ends of sentences.  The beginning of a sentence reveals the subject and either establishes a context for new information or links the sentence to the preceding one by providing transitional information.  The end of the sentence reveals new information.  Whatever is in the middle receives the least attention from the reader.  An inexperienced writer must learn to place information in the correct area--helping her readers move fluidly from sentence to sentence, paragraph to paragraph, section to section. 

In order to do such, she must be certain about where written sentences end.  The fact that she produces sentences in speech does not mean she understands periods in writing.  Frequently an inexperienced writer perceives periods as signals for major pauses and commas as signals for minor pauses, but she is not aware of the role that grammatical structure plays in determining which of the many pauses produced in speech need marks and which do not need marks.  Speech is, again, an intermixture of sounds and silences.  Half of spontaneous speech is nonspeech--with pauses marking rates of respiration, isolating certain words for emphasis, facilitating phonological maneuvers, regulating the rhythms of thought and articulation, and suggesting grammatical structure.  In contrast punctuation provides a sense of structure in a sentence--first by indicating its boundaries and second by showing relationships among certain words, phrases and clauses within the sentence.  To state it simply, punctuation helps a reader predict how a sentence is leading him. 

Leading a reader is difficult for a writer to do without an analytical grasp of the sentence.  Grammatically dependent structures at the ends of sentences may seem independent, adverbial clauses at the beginnings of sentences may seem like sentences, the second part of a compound structure may seem like a sentence, or a string of sentences may feel like a single sentence.  A haphazard approach to punctuation thwarts one of the primary purposes of punctuation, which is to help the reader see in advance how the part he is about to read relates to what he has just read.  If he sees a period, he prepares himself for a new subject; if he sees a comma, he withholds closure.  But when such marks are interchanged, transposed or omitted, the code no longer works. 

We can blame some of the inconsistencies, inventions and omissions on carelessness.  The small marks do not look very important.  They do not seem to mean much either, at least nothing that the writer does not know already through her writer's ear, which guides her in both the writing and reading of her own sentences.  But aural competency does not necessarily correlate to physical reality, an ability to manage the structures that writers depend upon to overcome the redundancy, fragmentation and loose sequences that are natural in speech--adverbial clauses, participial phrases, relative clauses, appositional constructions, and logical connectives such as therefore and however. 

What one senses through puctuative errors is a caution about losing control of the sentence by allowing it to become too long--that is, too full of embedded structures.  Combined with the effort to simplify individual sentences grammatically by separating them into smaller segments is another effort to link sentences rhetorically by using commas as conjunctions; by overusing words like and, but, that or because; or by ignoring terminal punctuation.  Both strategies--fragmenting information and linking information--reveal larger problems in composition. 

Fragmenting Information 

The urge to fragment information reflects a need to practice with the recognition and creation of simple subjective and predicative phrases, with the embedding of clauses within sentences (focusing on who, which, that, when and if forms), with the embedding of appositional forms, and with the embedding of -ing phrases.  Writer's handbooks--such as The Scott, Foresman Handbook for Writers and The Little, Brown Handbook--contain exercises that both help intermediate writers gain experience with embedding and give them a basic vocabulary of words that signal embedding, particularly those words that seem to lead to most fragments: wh-words, that, although, though, even though, unless, if, because, since, so that, et cetera.  Because those words have meanings that can blur or merge with the meanings of linking words that do not embed (for examples, when and then, even though and nevertheless, because and thus), students will need to remember them in other ways.  It may help to know that embedding words are not moveable, whereas logical connectives like then, nevertheless or thus do not need to be at the beginnings of sentences. 

Linking Information 

The urge to link information--the second compositional problem--reflects a need to learn the different ways in which sentences can rhetorically transcend their punctuative boundaries.  A speaker stops when she ends a unit of thought, which is often short of a complete sentence.  For many inexperienced writers, the need to mark sentences inhibits the progress of their thoughts.  In speech they can produce sentences as unconsciously as they can walk; in writing they must stop to deliberate over what is and what is not a sentence.  In the process they break the rhythm of their thoughts.  As a result such writers seem to use commas to continue the thought between sentences.  Similar to a comma, and prolongs sentences.  Although and frees the writer from the work of making her sentences reflect the different levels of generalizations that her thoughts imply, it imposes upon the reader the work of trying to determine what the relationships are. 

Excepting most writing teachers, readers will not expend the energy to discover the relationships.  Thus, the writer must learn to use the two forms that substitute for the period: a comma before a coordinating conjunction (and, but, for, or and so) and a semicolon. 

Comma 

The rules intermediate writers have learned for punctuating and are unreliable.  Some students use no punctuation; other insert a comma before all ands.  Most students have never begun a sentence with and (or but).  Where the focus on punctuation is on sentential boundaries, the student needs to realize that a comma before an and has the significance of a period--that is, it signals the end of one sentence and the beginning of another.  Without it the two sentences would collide, forcing the reader to retrace his steps.  Thus, the sentence "She likes her dog and other dogs like her" may be read initially as "She likes her dog and other dogs" until the reader discovers that he has beheaded the second sentence by mistaking the function of and as a coordinator of two direct objects rather than two sentences.  With a comma the writer had a chance to prepare the reader for a new sentence.  As for beginning, rather than joining, sentences with and (and but), the student may have learned incorrectly to view it as an error.  But usage clearly permits it. 

Semicolon 

Like a period and a comma before a coordinating conjunction, a semicolon announces the beginning of another sentence.  But intermediate writers rarely use it, probably because students must learn a vocabulary of logical connectives if they want to reduce the pressure on commas and coordinators.  Although the full vocabulary is extensive, most of the words signal roughly one of six types of logical relationships: furthermore, however, therefore, for example, that is, and then. 

Learning to use such connectives is a matter not of learning to be logical as of learning to signal the logic that usually is implicit in what students are communicating.  Intermediate writers need to be aware of the options they have in placing and punctuating such connectives.  Whereas periods, coordinators and semicolons are not moveable forms because they signify grammatical boundaries, logical connectives are moveable--their most common locations being at the beginning of a sentence when a preceding sentence is terminated by a semicolon and at various points after a subject when a preceding sentence is terminated by a period. 

Conclusion 

Rather than teaching sentences via rhetorical classifications (loose, balanced and periodic) or grammatical categories (simple, compound, complex and compound-complex), sentence-combining and sentence-decombining exercises will increase the complexity of intermediate writers' sentences.  Such exercises, which are in many writers' handbooks, reveal ways to construct sentences without resorting to terminology, and they allow discussions of rhetorical choices, differences in emphasis that work more effectively in some contexts than in others.

The Wonders of Webster's

A writer, momentarily idle in her art, reaches for her most essential tool.  No, it is not a pen or a mouse; rather, it is her Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary.*  Named after Noah Webster, it is a published list, in alphabetical order, of the words of the English language--explaining and defining them and providing, among other things, etymologies, illustrations and synonyms.  Her dictionary is, of course, only one of many that have been published throughout the world.  Dictionaries were produced in Chinese, Greek, Islamic, and other advanced, early cultures.  The first modern lexicographer in the West was Nathan Bailey who published the Universal Etymological English Dictionary in 1721 and the Dictionarium Britannicum in 1730, to which Samuel Johnson referred as he prepared his Dictionary of the English Language in the mid-eighteenth century.  Noah Webster (1758--1843) was the first American lexicographer.  A graduate of Yale, he fought in the American Revolution and, after the war, practiced law in Hartford, Connecticut--his birthplace.  Webster was considered the chief American authority on the English language after he had published Grammatical Institute of the English Language, which became a national bestseller.  Webster's Compendious Dictionary was published in 1806, and it was followed by his greatest work, The American Dictionary of the English Language.  It was published in 1828, revised by Webster before his death, and continues to be revised and abridged. 

Webster's legacy lasts with the adoption of his name by various publishing companies.  One such company, Merriam-Webster, is the publisher of Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary.  The literary tool is much more than  a list of the words of the English language.  It begins with a section of explanatory notes for understanding the style, form and symbols used throughout the lexicon.  There are sections on signs and symbols, on style (that is, correct forms of punctuation), on the documentation of sources, and on forms of address.  Also in this particular edition are a guide to pronunciation, an explanation of the symbols regarding pronunciation, and a list of the abbreviations in the dictionary.  Although frequently overlooked the section on biographical names is an invaluable reference tool.  It contains the names of persons both living and deceased who made notable contributions to human society.  Each entry begins with the name or title by which the person is known, and the person's last name, personal name, birth and death dates, nationality, and occupation or status follow respectively.  The section on geographical places includes limited information on all the countries and their most important regions, cities, and geographical features.  The publishers provide the spelling and pronunciation of the name, the nature of the feature, its location, and, in some cases, statistical data.  The ninth edition also holds a list of the colleges and universities in both the United States and Canada.  Each entry includes the name of the institution, its location, and the date of its founding. 

The most important section is, of course, the lexicon.  For an inexperienced etymologist, searching for a word and interpreting its history, sense and usage may be a daunting task.  Indeed there is an incredible amount of information in a small space, and the way the editors present the information may confuse some.  Thus, it is imperative that the inquisitive writer refers to the explanatory sections when she comes to an entry that contains bewildering material.  For example, on pages 164 and 165 of Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, two words are at the top of each page.  Why are they there?  After referring to the explanatory notes, the writer knows they are guidewords, and the entries fall alphabetically between them.  In this case board is the first entry on page 164, and bolero is the last entry on page 165. 

The main entries are in boldface and are flush with the left margin of each column, of which there are two on each page.  The entries follow one another in alphabetical order.  When the word also follows a main entry, such as "Bogomil also Bogomile," the variant spelling after also occurs less frequently than the first and is not preferable.  (165)  But when the word or follows an entry, such as "bodhisattva or boddhisattva," either variant is acceptable.  (164)  Following a main entry, the pronunciation key is between a pair of reversed slashes (\\).  A high-set mark (') indicates the strongest accent, and a low-set mark indicates a medium stress.  For example, the pronunciation key for bock is "\'bak\" (164).  Variances in pronunciation of a word may appear.  An italic label indicating a part of speech follows the pronunciation.  The eight traditional parts of speech and their abbreviations are noun (n), pronoun (pron), adjective (adj), verb (vb), adverb (adv), preposition (prep), conjunction (conj), and interjection (interj).  The abbreviations vt (transitive verb) and vi (intransitive verb) may occur in place of the abbreviation vb.  The etymology is the historical material in square brackets ([]) that precede a definition.  The pre-English source is abbreviated.  OE (Old English), ME (Middle English), E (modern English), F (French), G (German), L (Latin), Gk (Greek), and Scand  (Scandinavian) are the most common abbreviations.  Words of unknown origin are labeled as such.  The date of the earliest use in English of a word is in parentheses and immediately prefaces a definition. 

A boldface colon introduces a definition.  Lowercase letters in boldface separate the subsenses of a word, and numerals in parentheses indicate a further division.  The order of the senses is in a historical hierarchy.  That does not mean the first sense gave rise to the second meaning and so forth.  The entries of plants and animals include both their genera (singular nouns in capital letters) and species.  A verbal illustration after a definition may employ the word in a specific context.  Angle brackets enclose the illustration, and the editor replaces the word with a lightface swung dash (~).  Usage notes that provide supplementary information about a word follow some definitions.  Also, brief paragraphs with synonyms and statements that clarify their senses may come after a definition. 

Comprehensive examples of everything I have been discussing are the entries of boast:
     1boast \'bost\ n [ME boost] (14c)  1: the act or instance of
      boasting: BRAG  2: a cause for pride  - boast-ful \'bost-f l\ adj 
      - boast-ful-ly \-f-le\ adv  - boast-ful-ness n
     2boast vi (14c)  1: to puff oneself up in speech : speak vain
      gloriously  2:archaic: GLORY, EXULT ~  vt  1: to speak of or
      assert with excessive pride
      2 a: to possess and often call attention to (something that is a
      source of pride)  ~s a new sports car  b: HAVE, CONTAIN  a
      room ~ing no more than a desk and a chair - boast-er n
      syn BOAST, BRAG, VAUNT, CROW mean to express pride in
      oneself or one's accomplishments.  BOAST often suggests
      ostentation and exaggeration  ready to boast of every trivial
      success but it may imply a claiming with proper and justifiable
      pride  the town boasts one of the best hospitals in the area
      BRAG suggests crudity and artlessness in glorifying oneself
      boys bragging to each other  VAUNT usu. connotes more pomp
      and bombast than BOAST and less crudity or naivete than
      BRAG  charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up - 1Cor
      13:4(AV)  CROW usu. implies exultant boasting or bragging
      loved to ~ about his ancestors
     3boast vt [origin unknown] (1823): to shape (stone) roughly with
      a broad chisel in sculpture and stonecutting as a preliminary to
      finer work  (164)

Those examples provide only a sampling of the information in the ninth edition.  Lexicography is a comprehensive and involved science.  Some entries in a lexicon may include material I did not discuss, and the information I delineated may be in a different format.  I suggest that as a writer you analyze the various sections that explain the intricacies of your dictionary.  Only then will the wonders of Webster's easily unfold before your eyes.
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     *Frederick C. Mish, ed., Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary (Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster Inc., 1991).