Compositions are important for a student. You must be able to compose various types of works. These works include, but are not limited to research papers, essays, personal and business letters, interviews, stories, and etc. Here you will be taken through the writing process and will explore some types of compositions.

The writing process is the series of steps a good author should go through to compose a literary work. The writing process follows the same steps no matter what type of work you are composing. There are six steps in the writing process. These steps are prewriting, first draft, evaluating, revising, proofreading, and final draft.

Recognizing your purpose and picking your subject is prewriting. During this part of the process, you will have to think critically; choose an audience, subject, and tone; and gather, classify, and arrange your information.

• Critical thinking is separating a subject into its smaller parts and seeing how they are linked.
• The audience is the group of people for whom you are writing the literary work.
• Choosing and Limiting a Subject –
  • Make sure your subject is suitable for your desired audience.
  • A subject is a broad, general area of knowledge such as cars.
  • Limit this subject by picking a topic such as the history of the Camaro.
• The tone is the expression of your thoughts on the topic.
• Gathering information is the process of getting the details on your topic that you may want to include in your literary work. You can gather information by the following:
  • observing the topic directly or indirectly
  • keeping a writer’s journal
  • brainstorming and concept maps (clustering)
  • asking questions: Who? What? When? Where? Why? How?
  • asking point of view questions: What is a Camaro? How has the Camaro changed over the years? What is the most important feature of the Camaro?
• Classifying information is when the author organizes the ideas and details that you want to include in your literary work.
• Arranging information is when you place your ideas and details in a specific order depending on the type of paper you are writing.
• The first draft is the first sentences and paragraphs you have written in order to express your ideas.
• Evaluating is when you use your judgment on the organization, form, and theme of your first draft.
• Revising is your refinement of the organization, form, and theme of your first draft.
• Proofreading is when you look over your work to check for errors in grammar, usage, and mechanics.
• Your final draft is your completed work after all of the necessary changes have been made.

In order to compose a successful piece of literary work, you must do well with writing paragraphs. The development of a paragraph includes a main idea, sentences that support the main idea, and a clincher sentence.

• You may want to use the writing process above for the development of your paragraph.
• Each paragraph must have a main idea, which is your thesis or topic sentence. This sentence tells what your paragraph is about.
• Supporting sentences are sentences that give information and facts that support your main idea.
• The clincher sentence is the sentence that closes the paragraph. The clincher sentence does so by any of the following: restating the main idea, summarizing the main points, revealing insight, or suggesting action.

You may want to write an interview or paper consisting of a series of interviews.

• Preparation is the most important step in your interview process. In order for your interview to be successful, you must be well prepared. You should have questions thought out and organized beforehand.
• While interviewing your subject, try to stay focused on your questions. Your subject may go off the main idea, but be sure to bring the interviewee back to the main idea. Make sure the subject is comfortable with the questions as well as his surroundings. If the interviewee asks to stop, this is the time to either close the interview, or set it up for continuation at a later time. Record the interview on either a tape or digital recorder.
• Transcription is the process of transferring your interview from your recorder to paper. Transcribing depends upon the type of interview you are interested in doing. If you are doing an interview that stands on its own, you must include all of the um’s and uh’s in the interview. Along with these, you must include every cough, sniffle, and bit of laughter. This is not necessary if the interview is just a small part of a larger project such as an article or research paper.

Persuasive compositions are compositions in which you try to persuade or convince the reader that you are right on a debatable subject.

• Researching is investigating and compiling facts and details for a particular topic.
• Citation is very important in any paper. You must give credit to the source from which the information came from. This includes a quote or paraphrase. If you leave the thoughts as your own then you have plagiarized. Plagiarism is stealing someone else’s work or ideas and passing them off as your own work or ideas. You can document your research in two ways: a works cited page, or a bibliography. Citation is when you give credit to the original author either by a footnote, or parenthesis. Your cited section must be in quotations. There are two general accepted forms of citing: MLA and APA.
• A works cited page is where you put all of the research you cited in your paper.

• MLA is the Modern Language Association guidelines for documenting citations.
• APA is the American Psychological Association guidelines for documenting citations.

• Bibliographies can also be used to document sources for a paper.

• Annotated bibliographies are set up like a regular bibliography with only two major differences. The annotated bibliography includes a small paragraph on what the source used is about. This paragraph is placed after the publication information. The annotated bibliography is where you include all of the works you looked at for the development of the paper. Whether you cited these sources or not, they are all included in your annotated bibliography.

Letter writing is one of the most important skills that anyone can acquire. In order to write an effective letter, you must follow the writing process. Letters can be either personal or business oriented.

Effective diction is when the author decides how he will use words to form his ideas into a successful paper.

• Idioms are sayings used in a particular culture that cannot be taken seriously. An example of an idiom is: You are what you eat.
• Metaphors are the comparison of two dissimilar items by using is or are. An example of a metaphor is: She is the sky, bright, but blue.
• Similes are the comparison of two dissimilar items by using like or as. An example of a simile is: Love is like a snake. It pierces deep inside you, and poisons the heart.
• When describing anything in your writing, make sure you use specific words.

• Try to avoid using weak words. You should try to put strong words in the place of weak words, or omit any weak word. A thesaurus will be helpful in developing this skill.
• Try to use vivid words. You should use your words to paint a picture for your audience. You should be descriptive with your writing.
• Try to avoid using colloquialisms. Colloquialisms are words or expressions that may be accepted in spoken English, but not accepted in written English.
• Try to avoid using slang when writing. Slang is the use of new words such as phat, or giving new meaning to old words such as cool.
  • The car is phat. Meaning: The car is nice.
  • The car is cool. Meaning: The car is nice.
• Try to avoid using clichés in your composition. Clichés are overused words or phrases, such as “thinks outside of the box.” The overuse of this phase has made it out of date.
• Try not to use jargon in your work. Jargon is terminology that only one specific group may know.

Imaginative and expressive writing, also known as creative writing, is writing that has a specific purpose of entertaining. Imaginative and expressive writing is the writing that comes from the imagination of the author. Imaginative and expressive writing can be narratives, stories, poetry, or plays. is a personal form of composition.

Expository compositions are compositions that give facts, ideas, and details. Most expository compositions are not personal.

• Explanatory expositions are expositions that give directions.
• Informative expositions are expositions that give the reader details and facts.
• Informal (personal) essays are more personal than other expositions because they give the author’s point-of-view which is proved by fact.
• Essays of literary analysis are an author’s evaluation and organization of a piece of literature.
• Essays of definition are essays when the main idea is defined by answering the question: What is it?