Focus on Writing
What this module asks
Focus on Writing develops your control of written expression for both analytical and creative tasks. You need to understand: audience, purpose and context and how they determine register; structure (thesis, topic sentences, transitions, conclusion); cohesion and coherence through referencing and connectives; sentence variety (simple, compound, complex) and its effect on pace; nominalisation and modality for precision and hedging; lexical choice and connotation; editing for accuracy in spelling, punctuation and syntax; and reflection on your own composing choices, which the syllabus explicitly values.
Traps in questions
- Ignoring the stipulated form. If asked for a feature article, letter, speech or reflection, use its conventions: headline, salutation, direct address, sign-off, first person.
- Overwriting. Dense nominalisation and thesaurus-heavy vocabulary often obscure meaning. Clarity is rewarded.
- Uncontrolled modality. 'This proves' is too absolute for literary analysis; 'this suggests' or 'this positions the reader to' is more defensible.
- Weak paragraph logic. A topic sentence that names a technique rather than an idea weakens the whole paragraph.
- Neglecting proofreading. Comma splices, tense shifts and run-on sentences are common and easily fixed.
Rule of thumb
For any writing task, spend two minutes on APC: Audience, Purpose, Context. Decide who reads it, what you want them to think or feel, and what form suits that. Then write a one-sentence thesis and make every paragraph advance it.
Worked example
Weak topic sentence: The composer uses metaphors and similes. Strong topic sentence: The composer represents grief as a failure of language, and the text's broken syntax enacts that failure for the reader. The strong version states an idea and previews the evidence, giving the paragraph a direction.