Composition Writing
Composition can mean two things. It can mean a piece of writing, or it can mean the art and
process of writing. Composition isn’t a specific type of writing like an essay or a blog post.
Instead, it’s a broad term that can refer to any written work and how a piece is written. A
composition is not the same as an essay. Here’s one area where the definition of composition
writing can be confusing—an essay is a kind of composition, but the terms aren’t
interchangeable. Every essay is a composition, but not every composition is an essay. A
composition can also be a book report, a presentation or a research paper.
One of the best ways to take possession of knowledge is to write about what you have heard. At
times you listen to a lecture and you think you already know what the writer is saying but by the
time you attempt to write it out using your own words that is when you will discover that you do
not know as much as you think you do. You might have been thinking that you know how to
argue well only to discover when you start writing that you do not know how to put your points
together. That is why it is important to practice writing different kinds of essays so that you can
be proficient in almost all kinds of writing. Composition writing is also designed to test a
candidate’s ability to use English as an effective means of communication in specific situations.
These types of compositions are designed to make you express yourself with clarity and
coherence in a manner appropriate to the audience, purpose, topic and situation. You may come
across situations in life when you may have to argue, describe, narrate an incidence or do some
other things that require some skills in writing. When such situations occur, you are expected to
be able to demonstrate your knowledge and skill by presenting what is logical, acceptable,
convincing and understandable to the audience – readers
Planning is a very important stage in composition writing. In some public exams, some students
get disturbed when they see some other candidates scribbling away almost immediately they
collect their paper. The confusion may be so much for some naïve students such that they too
start writing without planning or thinking much about what they want to write. In a public exam,
you have to take a few minutes off to think about the topic, the points you are going to write
about, how you will arrange your paragraphs, what your introduction will be and what your
conclusion is likely to be.
Essay Writing Strategies
1. Note making
Note taking is an important aspect of writing. Writing down the main points as it occurs to you
while reading is important because it helps you to remember and organize the salient points in
your work. When you have to analyze your topic, you need to write down the points as you hope
to use them to develop the paragraphs as you write. You may even need to research a topic
before you start writing and making notes as you read will help you when you need to
acknowledge the source of your information although it is advised that you need to write in your
own words as much as possible.
2. Organizing your Work
You should have an idea of how you want your work to be organized and you need to work
towards this. If it is an argumentative essay, you should know the side you want to support. Even
, though you have to balance your arguments, much of your submission still has to reflect your
support for whichever side you want to identify with. You should organize it in such a way that
each paragraph has a main point while the other sentences are supporting. Your conclusion
should be such that will summarize in brief the argument you have presented.
3. Analyzing the title of the Essay
When you are given an essay topic, you need to analyze the title and make sure you understand
what the question is trying to say. When you think you understand, you can use this knowledge
to draft your introduction. If you misfire right from the beginning, you may loose your direction
and focus thereby making you to score low marks on the write-up. For example, some students
were asked to write an article sometimes ago on the following topics:
1. Should capital punishment be abolished in the country?
2. Write an article on the need to curb the wave of violence in our country- Nigeria
You may be surprised to know that some students misinterpreted the two essay topics in a very
funny way. Some students mistook the first question on capital punishment to be corporal
punishment and they wrote extensively on that. This made them to loose marks under content,
organization, expression and mechanical accuracy. The other set of students who answered the
question on the need to curb the wave of violence were writing about the waves of the sea at the
bar beach in Lagos. It may sound funny and you may be wondering if anybody could do such a
thing. But it did happen. So, correct interpretation of the question is important. At times an essay
topic may have two or three parts, you must make sure you cover every part of the question
otherwise you would not have done justice to the question. Analyzing means breaking down into
parts and dealing with each part to get a compact whole.
4. Building up your Essay
You need to build up your essay on ideas you have developed yourself. Some of the ideas that
will occur to you may be those you got from books you have read. You should examine those
ideas very well to find out if they go along with your thoughts and if they do and you want to
make use of them the way they are, you need to acknowledge the source so that you will not be
accused of copying or plagiarism. Andrew Roberts notes that you should not allow the notes you
put down on the books you have read to set the pattern of your essay. Your essay should express
your own thoughts and that is why you have been advised to write in your own words.
5. Revision
You should revise your work before you submit or before you even give it to another classmate
or friend of yours to read through for you. It is possible that you skipped some errors while
writing and going over the work for spelling mistakes and grammatical errors will do you a lot of
good and save you from all kinds of embarrassment that such mistakes can cause. After the
revision, you still give it to another friend to go through for you. This is particularly important if
the write up is a long essay and you are all writing on different topics. But if the assignment is
a class essay where you are all expected to compete for marks, it does not make sense giving it to
someone else to read for you because you would have defeated the purpose for which the test or
exam is set.
Errors to avoid while writing
Errors to avoid in writing include the following:
1. Errors in Grammar
The elements of structure of a clause are the same as the elements of structure of a sentence.
(Subject, Predicator, Complement, Adverbial or Subject, Verb, Object, Complement). These
Composition can mean two things. It can mean a piece of writing, or it can mean the art and
process of writing. Composition isn’t a specific type of writing like an essay or a blog post.
Instead, it’s a broad term that can refer to any written work and how a piece is written. A
composition is not the same as an essay. Here’s one area where the definition of composition
writing can be confusing—an essay is a kind of composition, but the terms aren’t
interchangeable. Every essay is a composition, but not every composition is an essay. A
composition can also be a book report, a presentation or a research paper.
One of the best ways to take possession of knowledge is to write about what you have heard. At
times you listen to a lecture and you think you already know what the writer is saying but by the
time you attempt to write it out using your own words that is when you will discover that you do
not know as much as you think you do. You might have been thinking that you know how to
argue well only to discover when you start writing that you do not know how to put your points
together. That is why it is important to practice writing different kinds of essays so that you can
be proficient in almost all kinds of writing. Composition writing is also designed to test a
candidate’s ability to use English as an effective means of communication in specific situations.
These types of compositions are designed to make you express yourself with clarity and
coherence in a manner appropriate to the audience, purpose, topic and situation. You may come
across situations in life when you may have to argue, describe, narrate an incidence or do some
other things that require some skills in writing. When such situations occur, you are expected to
be able to demonstrate your knowledge and skill by presenting what is logical, acceptable,
convincing and understandable to the audience – readers
Planning is a very important stage in composition writing. In some public exams, some students
get disturbed when they see some other candidates scribbling away almost immediately they
collect their paper. The confusion may be so much for some naïve students such that they too
start writing without planning or thinking much about what they want to write. In a public exam,
you have to take a few minutes off to think about the topic, the points you are going to write
about, how you will arrange your paragraphs, what your introduction will be and what your
conclusion is likely to be.
Essay Writing Strategies
1. Note making
Note taking is an important aspect of writing. Writing down the main points as it occurs to you
while reading is important because it helps you to remember and organize the salient points in
your work. When you have to analyze your topic, you need to write down the points as you hope
to use them to develop the paragraphs as you write. You may even need to research a topic
before you start writing and making notes as you read will help you when you need to
acknowledge the source of your information although it is advised that you need to write in your
own words as much as possible.
2. Organizing your Work
You should have an idea of how you want your work to be organized and you need to work
towards this. If it is an argumentative essay, you should know the side you want to support. Even
, though you have to balance your arguments, much of your submission still has to reflect your
support for whichever side you want to identify with. You should organize it in such a way that
each paragraph has a main point while the other sentences are supporting. Your conclusion
should be such that will summarize in brief the argument you have presented.
3. Analyzing the title of the Essay
When you are given an essay topic, you need to analyze the title and make sure you understand
what the question is trying to say. When you think you understand, you can use this knowledge
to draft your introduction. If you misfire right from the beginning, you may loose your direction
and focus thereby making you to score low marks on the write-up. For example, some students
were asked to write an article sometimes ago on the following topics:
1. Should capital punishment be abolished in the country?
2. Write an article on the need to curb the wave of violence in our country- Nigeria
You may be surprised to know that some students misinterpreted the two essay topics in a very
funny way. Some students mistook the first question on capital punishment to be corporal
punishment and they wrote extensively on that. This made them to loose marks under content,
organization, expression and mechanical accuracy. The other set of students who answered the
question on the need to curb the wave of violence were writing about the waves of the sea at the
bar beach in Lagos. It may sound funny and you may be wondering if anybody could do such a
thing. But it did happen. So, correct interpretation of the question is important. At times an essay
topic may have two or three parts, you must make sure you cover every part of the question
otherwise you would not have done justice to the question. Analyzing means breaking down into
parts and dealing with each part to get a compact whole.
4. Building up your Essay
You need to build up your essay on ideas you have developed yourself. Some of the ideas that
will occur to you may be those you got from books you have read. You should examine those
ideas very well to find out if they go along with your thoughts and if they do and you want to
make use of them the way they are, you need to acknowledge the source so that you will not be
accused of copying or plagiarism. Andrew Roberts notes that you should not allow the notes you
put down on the books you have read to set the pattern of your essay. Your essay should express
your own thoughts and that is why you have been advised to write in your own words.
5. Revision
You should revise your work before you submit or before you even give it to another classmate
or friend of yours to read through for you. It is possible that you skipped some errors while
writing and going over the work for spelling mistakes and grammatical errors will do you a lot of
good and save you from all kinds of embarrassment that such mistakes can cause. After the
revision, you still give it to another friend to go through for you. This is particularly important if
the write up is a long essay and you are all writing on different topics. But if the assignment is
a class essay where you are all expected to compete for marks, it does not make sense giving it to
someone else to read for you because you would have defeated the purpose for which the test or
exam is set.
Errors to avoid while writing
Errors to avoid in writing include the following:
1. Errors in Grammar
The elements of structure of a clause are the same as the elements of structure of a sentence.
(Subject, Predicator, Complement, Adverbial or Subject, Verb, Object, Complement). These
