 Dear learners, I, Chanika Roy, along with my colleagues from the Department of English, Krishnakanta Handik State Open University, welcome you to this audiovisual session provided by our university. You must be aware of the four basic skills of communication, namely listening, speaking, reading and writing. As students pursuing English language and literature, you need to be aware of the various facets of written communication. In this video, I shall lay emphasis on the skill of writing that all of you must develop to communicate your messages meticulously. You might be required to write a report or a letter, an application or a press release or you may think of communicating your ideas online via a blog or write articles. All this require expression of ideas through written communication that further depends on use of vocabulary, awareness of sentence structure and knowledge of grammar. Indeed, from a practical point of view, good writing skills are essential for effective communication. Let us look at the following points that are crucial for developing writing skill. At a basic level, the skill of writing involves an ability to use appropriate words, idioms and structures. That is, you should have the ability to make your writing more meaningful, readable and acceptable. In your writing, you should be able to distinguish between American spelling system and British spelling system. For example, your computer may show you words like traveler, labor, meter, color, weller, theater, etc. as correct. They are definitely not incorrect but we use traveler, labor, meter, color, weller, theater, etc. Also, a distinction between formal and informal words is necessary. You should know that though a sentence like, I reside in Guwahati is grammatically correct, it would be appropriate to say, I live in Guwahati. Reside is a formal word. Next, use various sentences to suit the context or the situation. There are certain idioms which, because of their overuse, have become rather stall. Avoid expressions, which you know are overused and hence have lost their sparkle. Then, use capital letters and marks of punctuation appropriately. The following are the chief marks of punctuation, full stop, comma, semicolon, cologne, ellipses, question marks, exclamation marks, quotation marks, inverted commas, apostrophe, hyphen and so on. And also, you must have the ability to present only relevant facts and ideas and make appropriate use of cohesive devices. Remember, a composition is merely assembly of words and sentences. A number of disjointed sentences do not form a piece of composition or a text. There should be unity among words and sentences. All good writings have one quality in common, cohesion or unity. To achieve unity, you must ensure that the composition deals with a single subject, the composition has a sense of direction, the composition shows that the writer has a clear mind, the ideas are grouped in a logical manner, each paragraph contributes to strengthening the main idea, the composition is interesting, informative and satisfying. The next point to be considered is to present ideas logically, so as to make the writing coherent. Coherence refers to a smooth flow of ideas in a piece of composition. There are two significant parts in common expression, that is, words and phrases. But they give the impression that they belong to a whole. Coherence shows a relationship between the elements and the construction. It shows how the elements are connected. It is related to cohesion but at the same time quite distinct from it. When cohesion is concerned with singleness, that is with the main idea, coherence is concerned with relatedness, that is how the words and the sentences are related. Next point to be considered is avoid unnecessary repetition and organize ideas, facts, etc. into a paragraph. Coming to the paragraph, the paragraph is the unit that is larger than the sentence. It consists of a group of sentences that are organized in a cohesive structure to make a point. A good paragraph has three qualities that are a central controlling idea, adequate development of the idea and coherent connections between the parts of the paragraph. In order to write a paragraph, a writer has to go through several steps. Each step bring him closure to a finished paragraph. All these steps taken together constitute the writing process for paragraphs. The following steps can be helpful. Number one, pre-write. Before pre-writing, you would like to ask yourself the following two questions. What do I want to say? Who will read these? You must think about the topic you want to write and decide what exactly you want to say. You are most likely to have something interesting to say if you already know something about the topic. Focus on a single idea that you can cover in a paragraph. Number two, writing your topic sentence. The main part of your paragraph is the main idea you want to get across about your topic. A main point is one that interests you, one that you can show, explain or prove and one that is limited to one idea. Number three, support your main point with details or facts that show, explain or prove your main point. They usually follow the topic sentence and make up the body of the paragraph. Number four, arranging ideas in a logical order. Order means the sequence in which you present your ideas. What comes first, what comes next and so on. If you do not put your points in a logical order, the paragraph will not be coherent. Number five, revising the paragraph. Revising and editing are two different ways to improve your writing. Revising is changing the ideas in your writing to make it cleaner, stronger and more convincing. When revising, you may add, delete or modify whole sentences. Writing is finding and correcting problems with grammar, style, usage and punctuation. While editing, you usually add, cut or change words and phrases to ensure cohesion of the passage and any other feature of writing that needs to be stressed. Then introduce a subject, develop it and end it well. You must also have the ability to reflect your imagination in writing and follow techniques of different forms and formats of written expression. For example, when you are specifically writing a report, it comes under the category of journalistic writing. The characteristic features of this type of writing are concise style, short paragraphs, getting to the point in a moment, using action words etc. I hope the points shared in this video will help you to develop your writing skill Wish you all the very best for your future. Thank you