The Importance of Effective Writing for an 8th Grade Language Arts Portfolio

One of the most important questions in writing is what is effective writing? Well, the definition of effective writing is how well the writing impacted someone, i.e. the reader. You can write whatever you want to, but if it isn’t effective then it is almost pointless. In order to change someone’s opinion or in order to prove them wrong you need to make a large impact with what you are writing. There are six steps in order to make a piece of writing effective. These steps include convincing the reader, making the information comprehensible, making it easy to read, making the whole paper interesting, exhibit a clear and confident voice, and try to impact the reader emotionally. First off, included in the convincing the reader step is using the active voice instead of using the passive voice. For example use baseball player play baseball instead of baseball is played by baseball players. For the second criteria, comprehensible, eliminate words that are not essential to the meaning or mood. For example do not use very, really, terribly, and awfully. For the third criteria, easy to read, combine short sentences to consolidate ideas, but don’t ramble, be effective. For example use the effective sentence when I dropped a boiled egg, it landed on my dog without breaking. Rather than the ineffective sentence I dropped an egg and it landed on my dog. The egg was boiled and it did not crack open. For the fourth criteria, making the whole paper interesting, vary the structure of you sentences. For example try using something interesting like I like to play baseball. I own seven baseballs and 2 baseball bats. Instead of using something boring like I own seven baseballs. I also own 2 baseball bats. I like to play baseball. For the fifth criteria, exhibit a clear and confident voice, reword redundant and words phrases. Ex. Use It is hot. Instead of it is a hot one. Finally, for the sixth criteria, try to impact the reader emotionally, consider having a target audience. By having a target audience you can impact the reader whom it is most important to you very easily. For example if you are trying to excite an environmentalist about a paper product then emphasize that it is recyclable, instead of its annual consumption. In order of importance these traits are ranked 1.) Comprehendible- if the reader can not understand what you are saying, then they have no reason to read it.