An Good Example Of An English Essay Essay, Research Paper

English 101

An Example Of Good Writing

Zinsser’s essay on Simplicity is an example of good writing for

many reasons. The main topic in his essay is clutter. Throughout the

essay he not only tells us why this is a problem, but he shows us through

many detailed examples. The essay was written so that anyone who reads

it could understand it. He does not use complex words that often tend to

loose a reader. Zinsser asks questions throughout the essay that cause the

reader to think and feel as though he is a part of the essay. The whole

essay gives the reader a positive outlook on writing.

Clutter is all the unnecessary words that are added to a sentence.

When a sentence becomes cluttered it tends to bore and confuse the

reader. Zinsser points out that the secret of good writing is to strip the

sentence of all unnecessary words. When Zinsser is proving this point in

his essay he uses the example of the president of a major university

writing a very unclear letter to state a problem

the school was experiencing. Zinsser translates the letter to read the

actual message that everyone can understand.

The way Zinsser writes the essay it is easy to understand. He uses

everyday words not dictionary words. No one wants to read an essay that

every other word they have to stop and go look it up because they do not

know the meaning. This causes the reader to become frustrated and they

also tend to loose interest. There are too many other options presented to

people today that already stray them away from reading.

By asking questions in the essay it keeps the readers attention. In

the essay Zinsser asks, “Who is this elusive creature, the reader?” That

question causes the people reading to stop and think, could he be talking

about me? Now he has captured the readers full attention, so they read on

to find the answer.

Throughout Zinsser’s essay he makes many suggestions to the

reader in which he can better his own writing. This makes the reader go

away with a good feeling. Now the reader knows what to do to get rid of

the clutter in his writing. This makes the reader realize that he did not

waste his time by reading the essay, but he actually learned

something.

The style of writing Zinsser has is clear. He walks the reader

through what he is saying by showing them. This is important to a reader

because it shows them that the writer cares. At the end of the essay

Zinsser lets everyone know that writing is hard work but with time and

many revisions it gets better. That makes the essay complete because it

tells everyone there is always hope.