Writing and Composition
Domain 3: Writing and Composition
Writing and Composition tests your command of the writing process: establishing a controlling idea, organizing and developing an argument or exposition, selecting evidence, addressing an audience, and revising for clarity and coherence. Items may ask you to choose the best thesis, reorder sentences, select a transition, evaluate evidence, or improve a paragraph's focus.
Core rules and concepts
- Thesis: specific, arguable, and predictive of structure. A fact ("The novel was published in 1899") is not a thesis; a preference ("I liked it") is not one either.
- Organization: chronological, spatial, cause–effect, comparison–contrast, problem–solution, or order of importance. Topic sentences announce the paragraph's job; transitions name the logical relationship, not mere sequence.
- Development: evidence plus commentary. Explain why the evidence supports the claim; a dropped quotation with no follow-up is underdeveloped.
- Audience and purpose: adjust diction, sentence length, and background. Formal academic argument avoids slang, contractions, and second-person address.
- Persuasion: logos (reason), ethos (credibility), pathos (emotion). Acknowledge a counterclaim and rebut it rather than ignoring it.
- Revision vs. editing: revision reconsiders ideas, order, and evidence; editing fixes grammar, usage, and mechanics. Revise first.
Worked example
Weak thesis: "Social media is bad for people."
Stronger thesis: "Because it rewards outrage over accuracy, social media weakens local reporting more than it informs voters."
Reasoning: The revision names a mechanism (incentives), a specific domain (local reporting), and a comparative claim (weakens more than informs), which previews a cause–effect body. "Bad for people" is vague and practically unarguable.
Traps that cost marks
- Confusing revision with proofreading.
- Choosing a transition that signals the wrong relationship, such as "therefore" for a contrast.
- Piling up evidence without commentary.
- Letting a paragraph drift from its topic sentence.
- Overusing rhetorical questions and "in today's society" openings.