What Constitutes a Good Writer

Good writing is a difficult task that asks the writer to understand many concepts before beginning to write. A writer must be well versed and still engage his or her audience. He or she must show authority but still appear understanding. The writer must organize his or her thoughts and responses in a manner that is easy to comprehend for the readers. The problem surrounding writers daily is that they are not always able to understand their audience and write in an accepted fashion. Some writers' works may exceed their readers' knowledge making the works difficult to comprehend, while other writers may belittle their readers' comprehension. Writers must be educated and literate in the correct usage of grammar and synthesis in order to understand their rhetorical situation, persuade their readers to believe their thoughts, and ultimately be accepted into the elite writing community.

To effectively persuade an audience, a literate writer should have the ability to decide which arguments are important and which are not. According to Brittenham and Hoeller, "an academic writer organizes and presents information in ways that will most effectively persuade an audience to understand and possibly share his or her interpretation or position in a debate" (9). For a writer to arrange his or her information accurately, he or she must have valid knowledge of the readers he or she is addressing. They must think critically by composing arguments that pertain to the readers. A writer must do a vast amount of research and sort through which information is necessary to his or her argument. The writers must research "against the grain" meaning that they should "ask questions, to look for limits, and to challenge arguments" (Bartolomae and Petrosky 10). Researching and reading allows writers to gain knowledge and formulate experience to decide which arguments are worthy to persuade their readers about.

In addition, for a writer to be a good rhetorician, he or she must have valid background knowledge on what he or she is writing. He or she must convince the audience "not just of his [or her] intellectual acuity or technical competence but of his [or her] basic decency and fairness and sensitivity to the audience's own hopes and fears" (Wallace 629). This does not mean that the writer must seem pompous and simply tell his or her readers that what he or she says should be accepted as true with no argument. Instead, the writer should engage his or her audience in a thoughtful and relaxed manner allowing the writer to easily persuade the readers. Brittenham and Hoeller agree that a well-educated person is able to "present information in ways that will effectively persuade and audience to...share his or her interpretation" (9). Good writers recognize their specific audiences and effectively communicate based on their level of education.

Moreover, being a good writer entails adapting to the elite society and learning how to properly use the basic set of principles that come with such a class. According to Wallace, "SWE is perceived as the dialect of education and intelligence and power and prestige, and anybody of any race, ethnicity, religion, or gender who wants to succeed in American culture has got to be able to use SWE" (650). SWE is the language of the well educated and in order to speak to all people and be respected in such high-class communities, writers must write in SWE. Brittenham and Hoeller agree that if writers "take advantage of the system by using its rules to communicate well . . . the conventions will help a writer succeed" (93). Being able to adapt to a higher society and learn from their set of guidelines allows a writer to gain experience and become accustomed to their elite way of writing.

Although it is quite important for a writer to be coherent in SWE, he or she must also be fluent in various other dialects allowing him or her to switch through the countless discourse communities. According to Wallace, the dialect of Standard Written English is the one that should always be used when writing, but Wallace does state that "[SWE] is never, or at least hardly ever, anybody's only dialect" (645). Good writing entails being well versed in the dialects the audience is aware of and only relating it to SWE based on the rhetorical situation. Being able to differentiate between the two dialects makes the writer an expert at his subject and allows him to further explore his argument. A respectable writer develops these different dialects through "immersion, reading, paying close attention to the moves other writers make and then trying those moves out for themselves" (Brittenham and Hoeller 91). As the writer learns more about different dialects, he or she is able to relate to different discourse communities making him or her a better writer.

Furthermore, a writer's literacy in grammar is a key factor in good writing, allowing the author to organize and portray his or her thoughts and ideas in an elite fashion. According to Brittenham and Hoeller, "The way one sets up the sentence...will shape and deliver that idea in a particular way, from a particular slant that is as individual as a handprint" (90). Writers should always have control over their ideas as they go through the medium of language; they must be able to analyze each term they use. This helps formulate one's grammar skills to fluently portray an idea and "make their mark" on a text. Bartholomae and Petrosky define making a mark on a text as "casting a work in your terms" (10). Without accurately using grammar, the writer is unable to comprehensively state his or her thoughts and ideas for the audience to understand.

Additionally, being able to clearly state one's thesis allows the writer to easily establish his argument and persuade his or her audience with clear authority. Brittenham and Hoeller state "[the thesis] provides the organizational shape and tracks each shift as the internal argument adjusts to allow for the consideration of fresh evidence" (176). The writer must have a logical, clear