Understanding the writing task
Students often do worse than they should in examinations or when writing assignments in English in the UK, not because their writing skills are weak or because their knowledge of the subject matter is insufficient, but because they have not fully understood what they have been asked to do. To score high marks in an examination or an essay, it is important to fully understand what a question means and how it should be answered. In order to understand the question it is useful to analyse the questions and to search for certain components. The following technique is very useful (Swales, 1982).
The components of writing task
Most essay titles or assignments questions contain the following components: 1. Subject matter or topic. What, in the most general terms, is the question about? 2. Aspect or focus. This is the angle or point of view on the subject matter. What aspect of the subject matter is the question about? 3. Instruction or comment. This refers to the instruction word or phrase. These instructions tell the student exactly what to do. Some task also contain the following components: 4. Restriction or expansion of the subject matter. This is the detailed limitation of the topic. What, in specific terms, is the question about? 5. Viewpoint. This refers to the requirement, in the question, that the writer writes from a point of view dictated by the setter of the question.
Analysing the task
To analyse the title, it is useful to follow the following steps: 1. Identify the topic. 2. If the topic has a restriction or expansion, identify it. 3. Search for the aspect. This is the angle or point of view on the subject matter. Often, the aspect is a phrase ending in ‘of’, e.g. ‘the importance of’, ‘the contribution of’. Be sure you are clear about how the aspect relates to the subject matter. It can be an example of it, a stage in its sequence, the cause or effect, one of the solutions to it as a problem etc. 4. Identify the instruction (which often comes at the beginning) and decide what it means and what it requires you to do. 5. Check whether there is a viewpoint and if so, if it the same as your own
Planning doing the task
In planning the answer, the instruction decides the text-type (discussion, explanation, etc.); the topic (with its restriction or expansion if there is one) determines the overall range of the subject matter but the aspect determines the particular content; viewpoint dictates which arguments, for or against, to use. The interaction between instruction and aspect will lead to decisions about the organisation of the essay.
adopted from:
http://www.uefap.com/writing/writfram.htm
