Most student papers follow one of three themes: personal experience, opinion or information. Often, the themes will overlap a little, but the main focus of the paper should be identified as one of these three. In other words, most essays will contain elements of all three themes, but usually one of these themes will dominate your paper.
Themes based on personal experience concentrate on presenting biographical events or remembrances of the author. Examples of a personal experience theme might include topics like “My First Day At College” which would be an autobiographical story or “My Mother and Father’s Wedding Day” which would be a biography of someone else’s experience as told by the author.
Themes based on opinions are based on the author’s personal beliefs. We all have our own ideas and views, and the opinion paper focuses on the author’s personal insights. Examples of an opinion paper might be “Basketball Is The Best Sport In The World” or “Western Culture Is Destroying Traditional Filipino Values”.
Themes based in information
will focus primarily on providing facts and details which the reader can use to
make their own decisions or which will inform them on the facts and issues
related to the topic. Examples of
information papers might include topics like “The History Of Shipping In The
Philippines” or “The Church’s Position On Abortion”.
This may seem like an unnecessary step at first to the inexperienced writer, but it is important to identify the theme because that decision will determine the treatment of the theme.
THE TREATMENT
The traditional
method of classifying prose writing is based of four specific treatments: exposition,
argument, narrative and description.
Exposition is called
explanatory writing, and it provides the reader with information, explanations,
facts, and objective analysis. This
type of theme uses explanations and facts to support the views you are
presenting. Examples of topics that
would lend themselves to expository treatment would be “Qualities Of a Good
Teacher”, Providing Educational Opportunities To The Poor”, “Cultivating
Good Study Habits” and “The Growing Problem of Drugs In Out Cities”.
Argument attempts to persuade
the reader to accept the views of the writer.
To do this, you must use a logical presentation based on specific facts
and logical reasoning. Try to avoid
generalizations and emotional appeals, and stay with the issues that can be
supported by factual data. Occasionally,
you may use emotion, but only as a secondary presentation, such as
“nationalism” to reinforce your position. Examples of topics that would lend themselves to
argumentative treatment would be “The Death Penalty Is State Sanctioned
Murder” and “American Culture Is Destroying Our Filipino Culture”.
Narrative tells the story of a
series of events, usually in chronological order.
Most themes based on personal experience fall into this category.
Examples of topics that would lend themselves to narrative treatment
might include “A Short History Of My Barangay” or “How I Overcame My Fear
Of Water And Became A Champion Swimmer.
Description is the kind of writing hat paints word pictures with sharp details and imagery describing colors, shapes, sounds, smells and depictions that speak to the senses. All writing uses description to various degrees, but examples that might lend themselves to descriptive writing would be “A Day At The Beach”, “The View From My Bedroom Window” or “My Visit To Malacanang Palace”.
Your writing will not necessarily be bound to only one of these
classifications. Longer themes will
often use two or even three modes of treatment, such as in a character analysis
that explores a person's physical, psychological and moral traits through
exposition, description and narration. However,
short themes will generally be more successful if the writer focuses on one
treatment type, developing it fully. Short or poorly planed themes that mix several treatments
usually end up appearing unfocused and ambiguous to the reader.
Tone is an important aspect of treatment. You can think of tone as the mood or atmosphere through which the writer presents the viewpoint of the narrative. Tone is determined both by the subject and the writer’s attitude towards the subject or topic. Most student writing will fall into one of five general categories: Formal, Informal, Humorous, Serious, Nostalgic. A formal tone will generally follow a logical progression of organization that is highly structured in its approach. An informal tone will generally allow the freer use of the imagination with a more relaxed and casual approach to the writing. . Humorous tone seeks to appeal to the reader through comic or witty descriptions that attempt to amuse the reader while serious tone will present the issue it terms of its gravity. Often, the serious and formal tones are used together such as in presenting a serious subject to a formal audience. A nostalgic tone will often recount events by presenting a bittersweet longing for things, persons or situations from the past.
The experienced writer may use several tonal qualities in the same
narrative, but doing this successfully takes a lot of experience and practice.
The formal and serious tones quite often go together well as a group, and
the informal, humorous and nostalgic tones often complement each other as a
group. However, avoid mixing the
tonal qualities of the two groups unless you are an experience and accomplished
writer who is sure of his strategy.