Five Qualities of Good Writing — Hunter College (2024)

FAQs

Five Qualities of Good Writing — Hunter College? ›

The following is a brief description of five qualities of good writing: focus, development, unity, coherence, and correctness. The qualities described here are especially important for academic and expository writing. An essay should have a single clear central idea.

Ideas in the paragraph are made emphatic through (1) position in the paragraph, (2) proportion in discussion, (3) the use of parallel grammatical structures, (4) the repetition of key ideas, and (5) the arrangement of ideas in a climate order.

Well-structured paragraphs and clear topic sentences enable a reader to follow your line of thinking without difficulty. Your language should be concise, formal, and express precisely what you want it to mean.

This research reveals that all “good” writing has six key ingredients—ideas, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, and conventions.

Effective writing is clear, complete, concise, and correct. Good writing is clear. You need to express your thoughts in a way in which a reader will understand what you are trying to say, the point. Clear writing is specific.

But no writer can keep every single ingredient in mind all at once. Instead, it's easier to consider three key qualities: structure, ideas, and correctness. All writing—from paragraphs to essays to reports, stories, and so on—should exhibit these qualities.

TL;DR: A good writer needs to have a strong understanding of their audience. When you know what readers want, you can write exactly what they want and need. You can gain audience understanding by doing in-depth research.

The seven elements of literature are character, setting, perspective, plot, conflict, theme, and voice. These elements are the building blocks of good stories because if any are missing, the story will feel incomplete and unsatisfying. Applying these elements is critical to crafting an effective story.

What are the 5 principles of paragraph writing? ›

To sum up, the essentials of a good paragraph are (1) unity, (2) a good key-sentence, (3) coherence for logical arrangement of sentences), (4) variety, (5) a full and rounded final sentence in conclusion.

diction (word choice) • sentence structure and syntax • nature of figurative language • rhythm and component sounds • rhetorical patterns (e.g. narration, description, comparison-contrast, etc.)

Good writing reveals a structure or organization that is logical and effective. The order of ideas and the way the writer moves from one idea to the next is felt natural. The sentence fluency of good writing feels natural, smooth and expressive. The sentences are easy to understand and fun to read.

To introduce you to this world of academic writing, in this chapter I suggest that you should focus on five hierarchical characteristics of good writing, or the “5 Cs” of good academic writing, which include Clarity, Cogency, Conventionality, Completeness, and Concision.

The 7 Cs of Communication help you to communicate more effectively. The 7 Cs stand for: clear, concise, concrete, correct, coherent, complete, and courteous. Though there are a few variations. You can use the 7 Cs as a checklist in your written and spoken messages.

The four main types of academic writing are descriptive, analytical, persuasive and critical. Each of these types of writing has specific language features and purposes. In many academic texts you will need to use more than one type.

there are only five main kinds of writing: expository, descriptive, persuasive, narrative, and journal or letter writing. Each writing genre has its own unique purpose and requires different skills.

Children working at level 5 show their ability to select words, sentences and styles for different types of writing. They use a mix of sentence types and vocabulary, including imaginative structures, and using a full range of punctuation.