Getting Started

WRITING AS A THINKING PROCESS: GETTING STARTED
Make a list of all the words you can think of that have to do with the subject of your paper: for example, if your subject is hydrology (the study of the effects of water on the earth’s surface), you might list hydrology,water, earth, erosion, rock, soil, aquifer, etc. Be open to new ideas. Be inventive. Let your mind run freely.

Look up the words in the dictionary. Study the definitions. The formula for writing a definition is “term + category + differentia,” that is to say, the term itself, put into a particular category (group) of terms, then differentiated (distinguished) from all of the other terms in that category.

Write a formal definition of each term: for example, “Hydrology [term] is the scientific study [category] of the effects of water on the earth’s surface [differentia].”

Review the basic sentence patterns (noun + verb, noun + verb + object, noun + verb + predicate adjective, etc.) and types (simple, compound, complex, compound/complex). Use each term in a simple sentence: for example, “The effects of water on the earth’s surface are very important to millions of people everywhere.”

effects (simple subject) + are (linking verb) + important (predicate adjective)

It is important at this stage in the process that you write in simple sentences, eliminating all complexity of thought and boiling every idea down to its most basic elements.

Combine these sentences in various ways in order to determine which ideas are of the same importance (coordinate) and which of secondary (subordinate) importance. Be open and inventive. Let your mind run freely.

Coordination (compound sentence): “John went to the store, and he bought a loaf of bread.” The proper noun John is the subject if the first clause and went to the store the predicate (past tense verb followed by a prepositional phrase). The pronoun he is the subject of the second clause and bought a loaf of bread the predicate (past tense verb followed by direct object modified by a prepositional phrase).

Subordination (complex sentence): “When John went to the store, he bought a loaf of bread.” Having determined that the act of buying the bread is somehow more important than the act of going to the store, the writer subordinates the clause John went to the store to the clause he bought a loaf of bread. He does this by inserting the subordinate clause signal then at the beginning of the clause John went to the store.

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