This document provides an introduction to WRI 203 Expressive Writing. It discusses general ideas about writing, including that the writer's job is communication and making meaning extraction simple for the reader. It also notes challenges with teaching writing in an academic setting due to bad models and low standards. The document advocates avoiding the "hamburger paragraph" structure and instead using a structure dependent on the writer's purpose. It emphasizes that writing involves connecting the self to others by expressing ideas, concerns, history and more. Finally, it outlines four principles of good prose: economy, directness, detail, and voice.

1. WRI 203:
Expressive Writing
An Introduction
R.Sethi

2. General Ideas About Writing
Communication is the job of the writer,
not the reader.
● The reader is the one that extracts the meaning.
● The writer is meant to make this extraction of
meaning as simple, and engaging as possible.

3. Difficulty of teaching writing in an
academic setting:
● There are many bad academic models,
● Many low standards for prose in this setting.
Example: The hamburger style.
General Ideas About Writing

4. Three sentences
per paragraph,
three arguments
per essay.
General Ideas About Writing

5. HP, is a poor example of structure;
though a necessary starting point.
● Hamburger style rarely exists in contemporary essay writing.
Essays often have more than 3 arguments, and some don’t have
conclusions at all.
● Structure should be dependent on, and only on what the writer
is trying to accomplish.
Try translating a textbook into the HP structure.
General Ideas About Writing

6. This is what you
would get…
...A heart attack!

7. Writing is human psychology:
We make a connection from self to other. We express
our ideas, our concerns, our history, our awareness,
our story, with another.
Question: What do you think we require most to make
this connection fruitful?
General Ideas About Writing

8. We must earn the trust of the reader.
●We must keep them interested.
● We must keep them engaged.
Question: So, how do we create and maintain
credibility? How do we keep the reader interested,
engaged? How do we make and sustain the connection?
Credibility

9. 1. Economy
2. Directness
3. Detail
4. Voice
Remember these…always.
The Four Principles of Good Prose

10. 1. Economy - Return on reader’s time invested.
2. Directness - A contract of trust with the reader,
by foregoing the unnecessary and getting to the
point.
3. Detail - Making words into pictures.
4. Voice - The writer’s personality, experience,
culture (often the last to surface in a writer).
The Four Principles of Good Prose