Efficient Writing
“Two fish, blue fish”, this is a phrase that takes me back to my days of kindergarten; my readings were simple and my writings were simpler. I can even remember when I first learned to make a paragraph in the 3rd grade. Every one of them was five sentences exactly so I could indent and take up more space. The days of huge fonts and 1.5 spaced sentences are long past, however. Now a freshman in college my writings are far different than before. After three months of college I have met many students and by getting to know them, I have gotten to see how much writing changes from major to major. This raises the question, why?
“In your first paragraph, you need an engaging intro with three supporting sentences followed by a thesis”. As many students can tell you, this is one of the first lines one hears when they learn of the “five paragraph essay” format. I myself find it hard to not think of that line when I began to write. But a friend of mine named Kathleen cannot think this way. She has recently declared her major in political science and her writing is far different than my own. In one of her political science classes, she was instructed specifically to avoid the “five paragraph essay” style. Kathleen also showed me her syllabus where the professor expresses his disdain for this style in questionable words such as “don’t give me that B.S…if you want to use [the five paragraph essay], then take an English class.” Because of this her papers are structured differently.
For example, she has had to write a paper where she read an article and analyzed it. Rather than using the intro, supporting sentences, thesis style, she simply summarizes the articles and uses no more than one sentence for her thesis. The rest of the paper supports the argument. Something like this would not hold up in any of my previous classes. However, this type of writing seems to work best for political science which deals with arguments. Perhaps this is why changes in writings can be seen in different majors. Another colleague of mine, Peter, has also declared his major in business management. As his major differs, so does his writing.
One of the classes he takes it management 250. In this class, he sometimes must analyze court cases; usually corporate. In his assignments he must pick a side and support it. In this sense, his writing is very similar to Kathleen’s. However, his writing includes many other topics as well. He also must write about things such as what are your goals in ten years or what makes you unique. These types of writing are much more relevant to management which requires goals and understanding one’s own skills. His style of writing is also different. His writing is more detailed rather than straight to the point.
Though we are all college students, our writing varies in our majors. This is because certain types and topics of writing are more efficient for some majors than others. By analyzing the writings of other students it is possible to gain a lot of insight into their major’s values.
Comments