Become familiar with the basic principles of organization and focus as they apply to writing argumentative essays.

• Learn to organize an essay around a clear point.
• Learn the general rules for writing and revising.
• Learn which kinds of essays to avoid.

Understand the importance of clarity to good writing.

• Differentiate among stipulative, explanatory, précising, and persuasive definitions.
• Be familiar with the following structures of definitions: definition by example, definition by synonym, and definition by analysis.
• Recognize the many meanings that "meaning" can have.

Understand how ambiguity can threaten clarity.

• Differentiate among semantic ambiguity, syntactical ambiguity, and kinds of grouping ambiguities.
• Learn to identify fallacies of composition and division as species of grouping ambiguities.
• Understand how to avoid ambiguity in writing.

Understand the various manifestations of vagueness.

• Differentiate between vagueness and ambiguity.
• Understand the problems inherent in vague comparisons and the criteria for evaluating such comparisons.
• Learn the differences among the terms "mean," "mode," and "median."

Recognize the potential for good writing to avoid reinforcing biases about race and gender.

• Become familiar with the methods for achieving gender-neutral writing.