Good+Writing+Is...

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 * [|Part II][| Part III] [|Part IV]**

//Good Writing is...//
//Everyone “writes” in a way; that is, each person has a “story”—a personal narrative —which is constantly being replayed, revised, taken apart, and put together again. The significant points in this narrative change as a person ages—what may have been tragedy at twenty is seen as comedy or nostalgia at forty. All children “write.” (And paint, and sing.) I suppose the real question is why do so many people give it up. Intimidation, I suppose. Fear of not being good. Lack of time.//
 * //[|Margaret Atwood]//**

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//“The highest level of personal writing is a global skill// //that is made up of a handful of component skills.”//
 * [|Jennifer Van Bergen]**


 * SFU Professor [|Carolyn Mamchur] has enjoyed twenty years of teaching writing and developing programs that hone in on the creative process, and reduce [|Don Murray's]’ seven skills to four, which she defines as:**

**1. Discovering Your Subject:**
Finding the topic that you want to explore, the story you need

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to tell, the truth you want to discover and reveal. It is no easy task. It is related to what [|Jean‐Paul Sartre] discovered, that “//when I began writing, I began my birth over again, except that// //this time I took an active part in the outcome, by wresting with// //all the color and shadow in my body and soul – both the dark// //and the light//” ([|Lee, 1994, p. 75]).

**2. Sensing an Audience:**
Taking responsibility for making your subject clear and delivering what it promises with impact and integrity and voice as you create a relationship with your reader through your words.

**3. Searching for specifics**:
Finding those necessary and concrete details that permit the writer to tell her unique story or argument by providing meaningful symbols and metaphors and preventing the work from being vague, abstract, convoluted and without individuality.

**4. Creating a design**:
Putting the various pieces together in such a way that eliminates anything unnecessary, makes clear what is at stake, enhances meaning and leaves the audience satisfied (Mamchur 2001).


 * //Mamchur, C. 2001. Designs for learning writing: Writing. Education 485‐8. Study guide, Burnaby, BC://**
 * //Simon Fraser University, Faculty of Education, Centre for Distance Education.//**