Today's Prompt: The Qualities of Good Writing

Please read through writer and educator Donald Murray's criteria for "The Qualities of Good Writing":

  1. Meaning
    There must be content in an effective piece of writing. It must add up to something. This is the most important element in good writing, but although it must be listed first it is often discovered last through the process of writing.
  2. Authority
    Good writing is filled with specific, accurate, honest information. The reader is persuaded through authoritative information that the writer knows the subject.
  3. Voice
    Good writing is marked by individual voice. The writer's voice may be the most significant element in distinguishing memorable writing from good writing.
  4. Development
    The writer satisfies the reader's hunger for information. The beginning writer almost always overestimates the reader's hunger for language and underestimates the reader's hunger for information.
  5. Design
    A good piece of writing is elegant in the mathematical sense. It has form, structure, order, focus, coherence. It gives the reader a sense of completeness.
  6. Clarity
    Good writing is marked by a simplicity which is appropriate to the subject. The writer has searched for and found the right word, the effective verb, the clarifying phrase. The writer has removed writer so that the reader sees through the writer's style to the subject, which is clarified and simplified.

Once you have familiarized yourself with these criteria, please read the The Green Fields of the Mind, an essay by A. Bartlett Giamatti that is an acknowledged all-time classic sports essay. Many people over a long period of time have attested to it being an example of "good writing"--hopefully you will agree.

Next, re-read the Murrary criterion that corresponds to your group number from the beginning of the year. Re-read the essay looking for that particular quality in the essay. Take notes on how you think the essay fulfills or doesn't fulfill the criterion, identifying specific quotes from the essay that would support your analysis.

Groups will be meeting to compare notes on their assigned criterion, and then they will be reporting back to class on their findings.

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