Writing as a subject of study may seem alien to an engineer or a doctor who may even see it as a waste of time. In fact, writing is not only of indispensable help to students of English literature but is a necessity even for students of technical subjects, who are trying to boost their career prospects.

“In the Indian context, writing almost exclusively means writing to entertain but writing to inform is the kind of writing that is needed to reach out to a potential audience,” says Meghmala Tarafdar, Fulbright visiting lecturer at Presidency College.

In the city as part of her Fulbright project, Tarafdar’s goal is to create an understanding of writing strategies for expository essays as well as teaching students effective communication.

“It is mandatory for university students in the US to take a course in writing regardless of the subject they may choose to study,” says Tarafdar, illustrating the importance of getting across ideas on paper. “Developing fluency in writing is like developing fluency in speech. The more one uses it, the more one gets proficient in it,” she observes. She adds that writing for professional purposes is essentially writing to convince an audience of your ideas. Tarafdar feels that in India students have a vague idea about essay writing and wrongly believe that they have to have something original to say. “It is important for students here to understand that writing has a purpose that goes beyond the examination,” she stresses.

That purpose could mean writing an essay of purpose, a project proposal or a fundraising appeal. There are several important principles of effective writing which include the generation of a proper claim and revelation of credible evidence.

A persuasively written piece must also have an effective introduction and a thought provoking conclusion to narrow down the focus of writing. “There are five elements of persuasion: attention-getting, confidence-building, desire-stimulating, urgency-stressing and response-seeking,” points out Tarafdar.

Persuasive writing gains importance in essays that are demanded by foreign universities and can play as much of a role as formal academic qualifications.

A student who is able to express his ideas eloquently on paper stands a better chance of acceptance than someone who is shaky in convincing a tutor about a point of view or opinion. “Increasingly, firms are looking for engineers who have technical writing skills and funding proposals are mostly handled by people who have a non-technical background,” observes Tarafdar.

Presentation of proper evidence in an essay helps a student to make the right claim. Tarafdar says that there are several kinds of claims one can make in writing that’s meant to inform.

“The claim of value in writing is about what something is worth while the claim of cause is about why something is the way it is,” explains Tarafdar.

The exact meaning of writing is embodied in the claim of interpretation and the claim of exposition endeavours to describe what the information is.

Persuasive writing is all about helping students to find their own written voice.

For individuals who feel tongue-tied to express their ideas, the workshop has given them an outlet to express their dormant feelings. Indeed in India, even in premier institutes, students find it difficult to express their thoughts coherently.

There are several methods of honing one’s writing skill. One could keep a journal where one can record daily events for reference. One should also have an open mind with regard to topics.

There are usually nine modes of informative writing, says Tarafdar. These are narration, description, explanation, illustration, classification, comparison, cause analysis, definition and argumentation. Familiarity with verbal, written and visually persuasive sources also prepare one well for persuasive writing.

“Debates, campaigns, newspapers, pamphlets, billboards and television are all powerful sources of persuasive messages and one has to constantly polish one’s ability of persuasive writing to be effective,” says Tarafdar.

With practice, students can end up writing poignant pieces on topics which are as diverse as waiting and the life of a grave digger. But that can happen only if they are willing to explore the world around them and imbibe the nuances of life.