Better English Writing - Geddes Grosset Webster’s Word Power 2014

Writing your own non-fiction composition
Writing creatively

We have looked at a number of different types of fiction writing, and what they involve. We’re now going to look at the things you need to keep in mind when you are writing your own non-fiction composition - whether that is a biography, a cookery book, a travel article or a computer manual.

Research

Research is essential in non-fiction. You need to know your subject or topic thoroughly before you write about it, and that means that you need good research skills. Here are some points to help you.

What information are you looking for?

Think back to Chapter 3 and the advice given on writing for learning. It sounds obvious, but it’s worth saying again: you need to know what you’re looking for before you start looking for it. What is your subject or topic? Who is the person you are writing a biography about? Which phone are you writing a manual for? Which aspects does your travel article have to cover? Once you know this, you can start looking for appropriate research material.

Where can you find that information?

There are many different types and source of information, but the main ones for non-fiction writing are:

✵ primary sources - such as people, interview transcripts, diaries, letters, original artefacts, data and photographs

✵ secondary sources - such as the reference materials listed above, books, journals and the internet

Looking for information can be daunting, so use all the help you can get.

When you are researching and using primary sources, make sure you do the following:

✵ Check that they are authentic.

✵ Ensure that you have permission to use them - is Mrs Brown happy for you to use her grandmother’s shortbread recipe in your charity cookery book?

✵ Check that you have all the information you need from your interview before you leave - you probably won’t be able to go back and ask further questions.

When you are looking for secondary sources try the following:

✵ Look through the contents page and index of reference material - this will tell you quickly whether the information you are looking for is there.

✵ Ask the librarian for help if you are having problems using the library cataloguing system.

✵ Stay focussed! Don’t go wandering off onto websites that have nothing to do with your project.

✵ Stick to two or three sources on the internet at one time. You can come back for more.

✵ Don’t go past the first page of your search engine.

✵ Don’t believe everything you read on the internet - stick to reputable sites. If in doubt, ask around.

And remember, you can’t beat first-hand experience as a form of research. If you are writing about a place to spend the night, then you won’t get the information you need from the internet - you have to go there yourself and check it out.

Accuracy

Accuracy is also essential in non-fiction writing. You can let your imagination run riot when you are writing fiction, but you must get your facts straight if you are writing a recipe or telling somebody how to assemble a television stand. Your reader won’t be very happy if they burn their food because you told them it was 60 minutes at 120 degrees, rather than 120 minutes at 60 degrees!

And if there is a health and safety aspect to what you are writing, you must be particularly careful about accuracy because people’s safety could be put at risk.

For example, if you have to prepare an instruction leaflet about how to set up and connect a television or DVD and your instructions are wrong, you could potentially cause a very dangerous situation.

If in doubt, ask somebody else to check what you’ve written and actually try it out.

Organising your information

Now that you have researched your information, don’t let it overwhelm you. Organise it and you’ll be able to use it effectively:

✵ Keep going back to your subject or topic. What information are you looking for?

✵ Plan your writing, so you know what your structure is going to be.

✵ Ignore any information that is too detailed or not relevant.

✵ Remember to write down the author, title, place of publication, publisher, date of publication, page numbers and web addresses for articles from books, journals, periodicals, encyclopedias. Make sure that web links are current at the time of writing, and convert them to working hyperlinks. This way, you will build a bibliography as you go along.

Acknowledging sources/copyright

This last point is very important. You must identify all the material in your biography, article, manual, instruction leaflet or scientific paper that is not your own - no matter where it comes from or what it is. If you copy text, diagrams, photographs, art, music or web pages without acknowledging their source, then you are infringing copyright law, and could be prosecuted.

Copyright stays with the originator during his or her lifetime, and with the heirs to their estate for 70 years after their death.

References

Because of the copyright issue, you should make a list of all the references to books, journals, periodicals and websites you have used in your work. You should also acknowledge primary sources that you have used, and actually make sure that you are allowed to use them.

Refer back to Chapter 3 for more detailed information about how to present references. This will only really apply if you are doing a piece of traditional technical writing.

Beware cut and paste and plagiarism!

Copying and pasting text into your own work without using quotation marks or citing it appropriately is a form of plagiarism.

Plagiarism is when you take somebody else’s ideas or writing and present them as your own. If you do this, you will probably fail your essay or thesis.

When you are taking notes, decide what information you need from your source, and then write or summarise it in your own words. That way, you won’t be tempted - consciously or subconsciously - to copy the source, word for word.

Don’t cut and paste from the internet. You can easily forget that you have taken somebody else’s work and put it into your own - especially if you change the font to the one you are using.

Remember that plagiarism is cheating.

Style and tone

The style and tone of your writing will very much depend on what it is and what its purpose is. For example, a travel article will be informal and chatty, while a scientific paper will be objective and factual.

Planning your composition

Once you have researched and gathered your information for your non-fiction composition, you will need to plan it.

Here are some tips to help you do this:

✵ Get a piece of paper and write down all your ideas. Don’t worry about perfect writing at this point - just get the content down.

✵ Get a clean piece of paper. Put the topic box in the middle of the page.

✵ Now think about your main ideas - what are they?

✵ Draw lines from the topic box to these main ideas.

✵ Now add information where you think it sits within these main ideas.

✵ Make links between the main ideas.

Structuring your composition

Once you’ve got your plan worked out, it’s time to structure your composition. Again, this will vary according to what you are writing. Have a look at the suggestions on the next two pages.

Biography

The structure of a biography might look like this:

✵ Contents

✵ Prologue

✵ The early years and influences

✵ The middle years

✵ The later years

✵ Bibliography

✵ List of illustrations

✵ Index

Recipe collection

The structure of a recipe collection or cookery book might look like this:

✵ Foreword

✵ Acknowledgements

✵ Introduction

✵ Starters

✵ Main courses

✵ Salads and vegetables

✵ Desserts

✵ Equipment

✵ Index

Operating instructions for a communication camera

The structure for operating instructions might look like this:

✵ Safety precautions

✵ Handling precautions

✵ Installation

✵ Connection

✵ Using the camera

✵ Maintenance

✵ Specifications

✵ Warranty

Staying relevant, objective and factual

Structuring your non-fiction composition will help you to stay relevant, objective and factual.

If you wander off subject, your reader will lose interest and give up cooking the recipe, looking for a decent restaurant to eat in or putting the chest of drawers together. And just because you don’t like the owner of the hotel or restaurant doesn’t mean to say that he provides bad food or service.

We’ve already covered the need for accuracy and facts - but it’s worth saying again that you need to get your facts right!

The writing process - non-fiction

Like all types of writing, there is a process for writing non-fiction. Aspects of this process will vary slightly, depending on the genre, or type of non-fiction you are writing. But it will help you to focus your thoughts and give you somewhere to start on your biography, manual, recipe book, travel article, scientific paper - or whatever!

Here’s the suggested process:

✵ Define the purpose of this piece of writing. Why are you writing it and who are your readers? If you are writing a short biography, who is it about and who wants to know about them? If you are writing a manual, who will be using it? If you are writing an engineering paper, who and what is it for?

✵ Research the information you need. This will obviously depend on what you are writing. You might need to interview people, use the internet or look in an archive or museum to get the information you need. If you are compiling a recipe book, you will probably have to get into the kitchen and try some of the recipes out yourself.

✵ Plan and structure. Again, this will depend on what you are writing. The str uctur e of a biography will be based on the sequence of events in a person’s life. A recipe book will probably be divided into categories like starters, main courses and desserts. An instruction leaflet to set up a DVD will go through a strict sequential process from opening up the box to pressing the ’on’ button. Whatever the subject or topic, a clear plan and structure will help you to make sense of all the information you have gathered, and this will help you to produce an organised, clear and concise piece of writing.

✵ Write your first draft. Do a rough draft - don’t worry too much about how it looks at this stage - just get the information down on paper.

✵ Revise and edit. Refer back to Chapter 2 for advice.

✵ Identify any missing information. Revising and editing your writing usually reveals any gaps that need to be filled.

✵ Cut out what you don’t need. The editing process also reveals what you don’t need!

✵ Write the final draft. Give it to a ’critical friend’ to look over.