Handout
Handout
1. Technical writing conveys specific information about a technical subject to a specific audience for a
specific purpose.
Examples: user manuals, software installation guide, company documents, annual reports, business letters and
plans, abstracts, brochures, handbooks, articles for technical journals or books, memoranda and proposals.
2. Creative Writing refers to short stories, plays, and novels—different from technical writing. The
writer expresses feelings and emotions instead of just presenting the facts. Any writing that expresses
free thinking falls into the category of creative writing.
3. Expressive writing is a subjective response to a personal experience—journals and diaries—
whereas technical writing might be objective observations of a work-related experience or research.
The writer is the audience himself/herself.
4. Expository Writing “exposes” a topic analytically and objectively, such as news reports. The
paragraph gives information, explaining a subject, gives directions, or show how something happens.
In expository writing, linking words like first, second, then, and finally are used to help readers follow
ideas.
5. Persuasive Writing depends on emotional appeal. Its goal is to change attitudes or motivate to
action.
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Tone Objective Subjective
IMAGERY
Descriptive details (using your five senses) that are necessary to make your writing clear.
Helps generate a specific mood or emotion about people, places, and circumstances.
The use of imagery appeals to how you see, hear, smell, taste, touch, and feel the things that you are
writing about.
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Using your Five Senses
1. Sense of Sight (Visual) - A picture in words; something that is concrete or can be seen.
Example: Broken hulahoops, hollow blocks, and tires are crowded atop a thatched roof.
2. Sense of Hearing (Auditory) - Something that you can hear through your mind’s ears.
Example: The pattering of the rain against the window pane.
The screeching wheels of reckless taxi cabs and vehicles plagued my ears.
3. Sense of Smell (Olfactory)- Something that you can hear through your mind’s nose.
Example: The aroma of the freshly-brewed Colombian coffee wafted into the entire room.
4. Sense of Taste (Gustatory)- Something that you can hear through your mind’s tongue.
Example: Mouth-watering ripe mangoes, tender melons, and luscious cherries are served on a tray.
5. Sense of Touch (Tactile)- Something that you can hear through your mind’s skin.
Example: The soft velvety feel of silk and satin caressed my skin.
Showing vs. Telling
Instead of just telling your readers about something, use sensory words to show them.
Example:
Plain Description: Yesterday morning, while I ate my oatmeal, I can smell the scent of the coffee.
Using Imagery: Yesterday in a drizzling morning, while I slowly ate my warm and banana-flavored oatmeal, I
can smell the scent of the newly brewed coffee from our stainless coffee maker.
Is Imagery Important?
• Your images and feelings for a particular thing are different from anyone else’s images and feelings.
• Some of the images and feelings you have for a particular story are shared with all the readers.
• The shared images make the story universal; the individual images makes the story personal.
DICTION
0 is an author’s choice of words
0 The effective use of words
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Like a good closet of clothes, a skillful author selects the appropriate “verbal wardrobe”:
4. Avoid clichés.
Over-used terms/phrases.
Clichés like “raining cats and dogs” and “so hungry I could eat a horse” are worn-out
expressions that hardly add anything to your work.
They make your statements weak and boring.
5. Avoid redundancy.
Do not use words that merely repeat the ideas already expressed in the sentence.
These words only slow down the narrative because they state what is already obvious.
Examples:
more prettier past history
actual experience repeat again
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difficult problem unexpected surprise
final outcome written down
free gift
6. Avoid wordiness.
Whenever possible, write simple sentences.
Do not make your sentence lengthy and contrived.
Wordy Concise
To reach our goal, we need suggestion that To reach our goal, we need fresh and effective
are fresh and at the same time effective. ideas.
His friend is the adviser, and he is a former His friend is both an adviser and a former president
president of this club. of this club.
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POETRY
“Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in
tranquility.” –William Wordsworth
“Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of
personality, but an escape from personality.” –T.S. Eliot
Poetry as a literary genre has both visual and auditory components. An emotional and imaginative
discourse in metrical form—that is, the representation of experiences or ideas with special reference to their
emotional significance, in language characterized by imagery and rhythmic sound.” –Encyclopedia Americana
Poetry is similar to painting and sculpture because of its use of imagery, symbolism, simile and metaphor,
and other kinds of tropes, which creates in the reader’s mind concrete objects and pictures.
Since poetry is basically a verbal speech, every poem has an assumed speaker who is the source of
the spoken word.
This speaker is the persona who voice the reader hears in his or her inner ear.
The persona who speaks in the poem and the poet who wrote it are not necessarily the same person,
since a poet can choose to wear different masks to match each and every occasion.
Tone
The intellectual and emotional attitudes of the poet towards his or her intended audience.
The writer’s attitude towards the subject of the piece, the audience, and self.
The way feelings are expressed.
Conveyed through the use of:
-diction (the author’s choice of words)
-point of view (the author’s view and how it affects his/her writing)
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-syntax (the arrangement of words to create sentences)
-author’s level of formality (how formal or informal the piece is)
Important Tone Words
1. Accusatory: charging the wrong doing
2. Bitter: exhibiting strong animosity as a result of pain or grief
3. Critical: finding fault
4. Earnest: intense, a sincere state of mind
5. Intimate: very familiar
6. Matter-of-Fact: Accepting of conditions; not fanciful or emotional
7. Optimistic: hopeful; cheerful
8. Reverent: treating a subject with honor and respect
9. Reflective: illustrating innermost thoughts and emotions
10. Sarcastic: sneering, caustic
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11. Sincere: Without deceit or pretense; genuine
12. Solemn: deeply earnest, tending toward sad reflection
Examples:
“I’d rather stay here and wait, than go into that dark room.”
“I called my friend at their house, her brother said she’s not home, but I heard her voice in the
background.”
Mood
Emotion evoked by a text
Writers use many devices to create mood in a text:
o Dialogue (language between the characters)
o Setting (where and when the story takes place, who the characters are)
o Plot (the rise and fall of actions and events throughout the piece)
The feeling created for the reader by a text
You can recognize the mood by the words and details an author includes.
The following are examples of moods that a text can cause the reader to feel:
o Suspense, lonely, happy, angry, anxious, tense, suspicious, excited, depressed, scared,
disgusted
Examples:
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The over-all feelings or emotions experienced by the readers or audience.
The purpose of establishing atmosphere is to create an emotional effect.
It is the feeling of an environment, as constructed by a writer’s description of the environment and
objects within that setting.
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Rhymes and Rhyme Schemes
Rhyme refers to the repetitive occurrence of identical or similar sounding words usually found at the
end of lines in poems or songs.
Based on the position of the rhyming words in the lines, there are three types of rhymes:
A. End Rhyme
occurs between words at the end of lines and is the most common type of rhyme in classical
and traditional poetry
basis of rhyme schemes in fixed forms of poetry like the sonnet or the villanelle
Example:
B. Internal Rhyme
Occurs at some place after the beginning but before the end of each line, or within a line
between a middle word and its end word, or even between middle words in different lines
More common in modern and contemporary poetry
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I do.
-from Ralph Semino Galan’s “Baguio, the Return”
C. Beginning Rhyme occurs in the first syllable or first few syllables of several lines; extremely rare so
only a few examples are to be found in serious literature.
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Other Types of Rhymes
1. Slant Rhyme
Also known as imperfect rhyme, near rhyme, oblique rhyme, off-rhyme or pararhyme.
Usually occurs when assonance or consonance are deployed instead of true rhyme.
Example:
If love is like a bridge,
or maybe like a grudge,
and time is like a river
that kills us with a shiver,
then what have all these mornings meant
but aging into love?
-from George Wolff’s “To My Wife”
2. Eye Rhyme
Also known as visual rhyme or printer’s rhyme
Occurs when words appear to rhyme on the printed page because of the similarity of their
terminal letters, but do not sound the same at all when read aloud.
Rhyme Schemes
Refers to the way a poet deliberately arranges the syllables of certain stanzas or entire
poems to form a set of pattern
Essential in the shaping of a traditional poem, especially in fixed forms
Deployed to establish balance and relieve poetic tension, manage the rhythmic flow, as
well as to emphasize important ideas.
1. Alternate Rhyme
Also known as open rhyme or cross rhyming
Most common rhyme scheme in English poetry
Consists in the repeated alternation of two different rhymes in a series of four or more lines that
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can be schematically diagrammed as abab
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That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.
2. Enclosed Rhyme
Also known as enclosing rhyme
Rhyme scheme of abba, where the first and fourth lines of the quatrain rhyme, as well as the
second and third lines
3. Chain Rhyme
Also known as interlocking rhyme or chain verse
The poet uses the last rhyme of the previous stanza and repeats it as the first rhyme of the next
stanza
Rhyme scheme of abab, bcbc, cdcd, dede, ff.
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My verse your vertues rare shall eternize,
And in the heavens write your glorious name:
Where whenas death shall all the world subdue,
Our love shall live, and later life renew."
4. Monorhyme
A rhyme scheme in which all the lines of the poem have an identical rhyme.
Also the rhyme scheme of the traditional Tagalog fixed poetic form known as the diona
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Example: The Hardship of Accounting (Robert Frost)
6. Triplet
A tercet in which all three lines follow the same rhyme that can be schematically diagrammed as
aaa, bbb, ccc, and so on.
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Three Broad Categories/Genres of Poem
1. Narrative Poetry intends to tell a story through verses.
Can tell a very short chronicle like in a ballad
Moderately lengthy
Extremely stretched out yarn like in an epic.
A. Folk Ballads: earliest form, no known author, transmitted orally, subject matter concerns everyday
life of common people
B. Literary Ballads: imitates style of folk ballad, has a single author
Epic: long, dignified narrative story about the adventures of a national hero using elevated language,
speech, and actions.
2. Dramatic Poetry
Its original context is drama written in verse that is meant to be spoken or chanted
Exploitation of a dramatic situation
Drama in Western civilization has had two parallel beginnings, both related to religious
celebration: the first in Ancient Greece and the second in medieval church plays.
3. Lyrical Poetry
Conveys the extremely personal emotions, powerful feelings or nostalgic sentiments of the
persona, typically expressed from the first-person point of view.
In Ancient Greece, lyrical poetry referred to poems were meant to be recited to the
accompaniment of the lyre, a chordophone or stringed musical instrument.
Characterized by its brevity, intensity, and musicality.
Most popular of Western lyrical poetic forms are the sonnet, ode, the elegy, and the
villanelle.
Lyric poets rely on personal experience, close relationships, and description of feelings as
their material.
The central content of lyric poems is not the story or the interaction between characters;
instead it is about the poet's feelings and personal views.
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Western Poetic Forms: Sonnet, Ode, Elegy,
Villanelle
1. The Sonnet
rigid fourteen-line lyric poem,
expresses single theme or idea;
Two types:
A. Petrarchan: Italian; Made up of octave (8 lines) and sestet/sextet (6 lines)
Rhyme scheme [abba abba] [cdecde]
o Octave presents problem; sestet resolves it.
B. Elizabethan: Shakespearean; 3 quatrains and a couplet
o rhyming scheme of abab cdcd efef gg,
o Each quatrain presents separate development of central idea or problem. Couplet is
climax or solution. 1
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Example: Sonnet 116 (William Shakespeare)
Let me not to the marriage of true minds (a)
Admit impediments. Love is not love (b)
Which alters when it alteration finds, (a)
Or bends with the remover to remove: (b)
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark (c)
That looks on tempests and is never shaken; (d)
It is the star to every wandering bark, (c)
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken (d)
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks (e)
Within his bending sickle’s compass come: (f)
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, (e)
But bears it out even to the edge of doom. (f)
If this be error and upon me proved, (g)
I never writ, nor no man ever loved. (g)
2. The Ode
Lyrical form of poetry that is exalted both in terms of tone and subject matter.
Characterized by solemnity, dignity and gallantry
More on emotional intensity, powerful imagination and vivid imagery.
Intention is to lift its subject matter, whether it be a person, an object, or an event.
Can also give emphasis to a human quality or trait (like bravery, beauty, kindness, loyalty
or truth.)
There is no set form for an ode.
I
O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,
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Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed
3. The Elegy
Type of lyric poem of mourning, usually over death of individual;
May also be a lament over passing of life or beauty or meditation over nature of death.
Formal in language, solemn or melancholy in tone.
Does not follow any required set pattern or rhyme scheme
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that will flourish, this time, in the shade.
Let the beheaded tulips glisten with rain.
4. The Villanelle
A closed poetic form of 19 lines, composed of five triplets (tercet/three lines) and a
quatrain.
The first line of the first stanza is repeated as the last line of the second and fourth stanzas
while the third line of the first stanza is repeated as the last line of the third and fifth
stanzas.
Rhyme scheme of aba aba aba aba aba aba abaa
Example: Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night
By Dylan Thomas
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Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Activity 3 [Choose only ONE among the choices given.]
If you intend to compose an English sonnet, you can start finding rhyming words in a creative manner. You
may write your personal experience of love or you can dedicate it to your dearly beloved.
If you intend to write a villanelle, you can start by composing the first and third lines which serve as the refrain
and are the most important lines in a villanelle.
If you intend to compose an ode, start by selecting a human quality or trait (like bravery, beauty, kindness,
loyalty, etc.) that you absolutely admire. Find a central image or controlling metaphor that will embody your
selected quality trait.
If you intend to write an elegy, you can either compose one about the phenomenon of death in general or one
specific death that has affected you a lot. You can also concentrate on the good qualities of the dead person you
are lamenting on, and why his or her death is worth mourning for.
One whole sheet of paper, check the details of your chosen poetic form in this hand out, make your own title
and write your name below it. WORK ON YOUR OWN. MAKE SURE YOUR PIECE WAS WRITTEN 1
ORIGINALLY BY YOURSELF. 😊
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Eastern Poetic Forms: Haiku and Tanka
(Japanese Poetry)
Examples:
Examples:
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Beautiful sunset Our dreams started here
Ablaze with colors in gold Star struck lovers believing
Giving hope beyond Nothing could go wrong—
Life’s eternal flame and bliss Now that you have gone, my life
Great is Your love my Lord God Is as empty as our bench
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Tagalog Poetry
TANAGA, DALIT, DIONA
(Poetry of the Philippines)
TANAGA
isang katutubong anyo ng tula na binubuo ng pitong pantig kada taludtod, apat na taludtod kada
saknong na may isahang tugmaan.
Fixed poetic form:
A quatrain (4 lines) or 2 couplets
7 syllables (hepstasyllabic line)
Rhyme scheme: AABB
Example:
Sa gubat na madawag
Tala’y mababanaag.
Iyon ang tanging hangad,
Buhay ma’y igagawad.
-Bannie Pearl Mas
DALIT
isang katutubong anyo ng tula na binubuo ng walong pantig kada taludtod, apat na taludtod kada
saknong at may isahang tugmaan.
Fixed poetic form:
A quatrain (4 lines)
8 syllables (octosyllabic line)
Monorhyme (AAAA) or it could be ABAB
Examples:
Nag-aaral siyang pilit
Nang karangala’y makamit.
Buong buhay s’yang nagtiis.
Makapagtapos ang nais.
DIONA
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isang katutubong anyo ng tula na binubuo ng pitong pantig kada taludtod, tatlong taludtod kada
saknong at may isahang tugmaan.
Labeled as the Pinoy haiku
Fixed poetic form:
3 lines (tercet)
7 syllables (hepstasyllabic line)
Monorhyme (AAA)
Examples:
FREE VERSE
A direct translation of the French phrase vers libre, which describes a specific movement in French
poetry in the late 1800s.
The main objective is to release poetry from the bondage of the strict conventions of rhythm and
rhyme.
Characteristics: enjambment, lineation, silhouette
Enjambment: a term derived from the French which means “to step over or put legs across”
-the refusal to follow the usual rules of lineation
-the lines of the enjambment do not typically have a punctuation mark (comma, a colon,
a semicolon, an ellipsis, a question mark, a period or an exclamation point)
-allows the poet to let his/her ideas flow freely and more rhythmically throughout the
poem
Lineation: denotes the length of the poetic lines in relation to the line breaks
Silhouette: shape of the poem
PROSE POETRY
A variation of free verse
Embodies the contemporary poet’s yearning for a more flexible medium of expression
Utilizes elements and attributes that are associated with both prose and poetry
Shares with prose the characteristics of being written in sentences and paragraphs, rather than in
verse or lines and stanzas
No fixed meters and rhyme schemes
Focusing more on imagery and emotional intensity, rather than on narrative and character
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development
Example:
The stillborn calf lies near the fence where its mother licked the damp body, then
left it. All afternoon she has stood beside a large, white rock in the middle of the
pasture. She nuzzles it with her heavy neck and will not be lured away. This must
be her purest intelligence, to accept what she expected, something sure, intractable, the
whole focus of the afternoon’s pale light.
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CONCRETE POETRY
A form of poetry that deploys visual and typographical effects, like shape of the words, letters or
symbols as they appear on the page as an image, in addition to or instead of the usual conventions
(like rhyme, meter, stanza division, etc.)
The poet deploys the spacing of words, the length of lines, page orientation, and other physical
elements of writing (typography) to reflect on the poem’s subject matter or theme
Also known as shaped verse, visual poetry or pattern poetry
Examples:
PERFORMANCE POETRY
A post-modern art form, a hybrid genre that combines literary and dramatic elements
The performance poet utilizes the theatrical stage as if it were the printed stage
Has the original role of the poet as the spokesperson who delivered in verse to the people news of
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important public events and social developments, as well as the sharing of personal observations and
insights.
Performance poetry has the actual face-to-face encounter between the poet-performer and his/her
audience, the reactions evoked by their direct encounter with one another, and the resulting
immediate community-building, which does not occur in traditional print-based poetry.
Also known as spoken word or poetry slam
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Point of View
Refers to the narrator in the story.
Every story has a narrator, the teller of the story from whose eyes we look through as we read.
First person
Second Person
Third Person
It is the most common point of view and uses the pronouns—he, she, and they.
It employs a nonparticipant narrator who usually move from place to place to describe action and
report dialogue.
The author takes on the role of the narrator.
The pronouns: I, you and me only appear in dialogues.
PLOT
Plot or plot structure is a sequence of events that “has beginning, a middle and an end.”
It is a pattern of actions, events, and situations.
It involves the sequence of events in a story, showing how time moves, and is linked by patterns of
cause and effect that lead to certain developments which eventually bring out the resolution.
Plot structure gives shape to the different parts of a story just like the framing of a house or the
skeleton of the body.
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Exposition: The writer introduces the characters, situation, and usually, the time and place of the narrative.
Rising Action: Conflict is an event, situation or circumstance that shakes up a stable situation; it is a
struggle between two opposing forces. It propels the events of the story and raises the issues that must be
resolved.
The body of a story contains the conflict, where the rising action is built to introduce complications that are
exrternal or internal.
Man against nature: an external struggle which positions the protagonist against animal or force of
nature
Man against man: involves stories where characters are pitted against each other
Man against society: involves stories where man stands against a man-made institution, such as the
family, the church, universities, the government and the mass media.
Man against self: a struggle that involves the character trying to overcome his or her own nature or
make a choice between two or more paths.
Climax and Falling Action: The central moment of crisis in a plot is the climax. The point of greatest
tension which initiates the falling action of the story.
Denouement is a French term which refers to the untying of the knot. It makes the characters return to a
stable situation. It is a moment of insight, discovery, or revelation by which a character’s life or view of life is
greatly altered.
A closed denouement ties p everything neatly and explains all unanswered questions the reader
might have, just like in many mystery or detective stories.
An open denouement leaves the readers with a few thought-provoking loose ends. It is favored by
many contemporary writers who perhaps wish to show that modern life lacks the usual closures of
conventional stories.
Some stories are simple and contain a single plot. However, there are also complex ones which
involve longer periods of time. These plots are called modular or episodic plots.
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Setting refers to the place and the time where and when an event happens. Where a story takes place is
also called a locale.
Atmosphere is created or conveyed by the words used to describe the setting; it can also be reflected by
the way the characters speak.
Theme refers to the central idea, the message a story conveys, or a generalization or an abstraction from it.
Symbol: A thing that suggests more than its literal meaning. It is a concrete thing that represents something
in abstract form.
Writers usually want to send an important message to readers but they do not tell outright what it is.
They use objects to signify another level of meaning. This is what we know as symbol.
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