Do you ever wonder about the process of writing, and if there are things you can do as a writer to make it better? There are definitely some tips and tricks that can help you become a better writer, but what if you are writing something controversial?
Whether you are writing an article for a school newspaper or an op-ed for a major newspaper, being able to express your side of the argument and defend your viewpoints openly is an essential skill for any writer.
So how does one go about doing this, especially if they are writing something for a popular audience? One way is by writing a series of letters to the editor. These letters will become the basis for your debate, which will later be polished into an opening statement and a closing position.
Let’s examine the steps that can improve your writing process while debating:
Create A Plan
One of the things that make good writers good is that they are always planning. When you begin to write a piece that you plan on publishing in a newspaper or magazine, you should always have a plan. This plan should include everything from the opening to the closing of the article. Even if you are writing something that you know is going to be controversial, it is still important to have a plan. For example, if you are writing about school reform and someone attacks you with a personal insult, you can say, “Well, I was actually going to write about how terrible the schools in your area are, but since you brought up an offensive point about my culture, I will make you the subject of my next piece.” You can then go back to your original plan and continue writing about the schools.
Throwing away your plan once you have begun writing is a mistake. This is especially important if you are writing something that is quite lengthy. It is usually best to write something that is between 500 and 1,000 words, as anything longer and you will end up sacrificing readability for a more word count. Also, always make sure that your topic is something that you have considered and that it is not simply a copy/paste job from somewhere else.
Research
Depending on how much time you have and how much you want to spend on your topic, you will need to decide how much research you are going to do. There are three basic types of research that you will need to do when writing a paper:
- Cultural background: This includes looking into the history of your cultural group and how it has influenced your worldview. For example, the Irish diaspora is heavily influenced by both their culture and their religious beliefs, which can impact how they experience the world around them. Understanding this will make you a better writer regardless of your opinion on the matter. You should do your research on the topic and try to find at least two or three sources for your information. Ideally, you will want to write about something that you know a little bit about and that is relevant to your life. Your life experiences will give you a perspective that is unique to you, and this is what makes your writing more interesting. If you want to write about an experience that you had when you were younger, but you are not particularly familiar with the topic, you may want to do some research to find the names of some of the more prominent people and how they are connected to the topic.
- Historical background: This is quite similar to cultural background, but instead of looking at how your group has influenced you, you will be educating the reader on the history of your topic.
- Economics background: This is quite similar to cultural background, but instead of looking at how your group has influenced you as a writer, you will be educating the reader on the economics behind the topic. For example, if you are writing about minimum wage laws and how they affect the retail industry, you will want to make sure that you have learned about the theory of supply and demand and how this affects the price of items.
When you begin to research your topic, take your time and be thorough. There are lots of interesting stories and viewpoints out there, and you do not want to hit the reader with a quick Google search and an unfinished article.
Organize Your Material
It is quite easy for a writer to get distracted by all the interesting material and end up losing focus on what they are actually writing about. To prevent this from happening, you should create some sort of organizational chart and keep the various topics and arguments in their proper places. For example, if you are writing an opinion piece for a newspaper, it would be a good idea to create a chart with the various viewpoints that you will be expressing. If you are writing an argumentative essay for a school paper, you can use the letters you have written to the editor to form a loose structure of topics and arguments. This will help you keep track of what has been discussed and what needs to be said next.
Revise
After you have written your plan and started to research your topic, it is time to revise. This is quite simply putting your paper through a second edit. Even if you wrote the piece perfectly the first time around, you will find things that can be improved upon. The best writers know how to take a perfectly acceptable piece of writing and make it even better. So, take some time and look at your paper from a new perspective. You may find things that you can remove or that can be reworded to make the arguments more concise and clear.
Of course, there will be some errors that you will discover during this stage. Sometimes the initial rush of inspiration results in typos and grammatical errors that you will want to fix. However, you should not be too concerned with these things as long as you are not making any major changes. If your friends and family members are finding it hard to understand your opinion on a certain issue, then you may want to rethink writing the paper. While you want to be able to express your opinions and have the reader understand your side of the argument, you should not write something that is so convoluted that you do not expect anyone to be able to follow your line of reasoning. The best writers are quite skilled at presenting complicated ideas in a manner that is easy to follow and understand.
Punctuate
Finally, you will want to take the time to punctuate. Very few people are good at spelling and grammar all the time, so you will want to make sure that your works are free of spelling errors and that the correct grammar has been used. To assist you in this process, there are services like Revise.com that can help you find grammatical errors and correct them. In addition, if you have had some training in journalism, you will learn how to use commas and semicolons effectively, and you can check your work for these as well. You should also take the time to look at how you have used the passive voice in the past and decide whether you want to keep using this style or not. In general, the less you use these constructions, the better. They make your writing seem more like an automatic translation and are quite easy to identify once you have begun to notice them. Once you begin to see this pattern, you will want to try to eliminate it throughout your paper. Sometimes a little bit of passive voice can be effective in certain circumstances, but you should not use it whenever you can avoid it.
To recap the steps needed to become a better writer while debating, create a plan, research the topic, organize your material, and then revise. Finally, punctuate and check your work. These steps will assist you in becoming a productive writer regardless of whether you are writing something controversial or not. So go ahead and begin that persuasive essay or opinion piece, and remember to use your cultural and historical background, along with your life experiences, to make your arguments as effective as possible.