composition

Definition:

1. The process of putting words and sentences together in conventional patterns.
2. An essay, usually brief and written for training purposes.
3. A college writing course (also called freshman composition), often required of first-year students.

See also:

• Composition: Developing Effective Paragraphs
• Composition: Developing Effective Essays

Etymology:

From the Latin "to put together"

Observations:

• "Nothing goes by luck in composition. It allows of no tricks. The best you can write will be the best you are.”
  (Henry David Thoreau)



• "Giving students specific subjects on which they were to write goes back to the ancient world; but subjects specifically meant for written composition (that would not be delivered orally) first appeared in textbooks only in the early 19th century."
  (Robert J. Connors, Composition-Rhetoric: Backgrounds, Theory, and Pedagogy, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1997)



• "When I refer to composition, I mean the institutionally supported desire to organize and evaluate the writing of unauthorized writers, to control writing in practice, and to define it as an object of professional scrutiny."
  (David Bartholomae, Writing on the Margins: Essays on Composition and Teaching, Macmillan, 2004)



• "The literal meaning of compose is 'to form by putting together.' A composition is a piece of writing formed by putting together the ideas you have on a subject. This suggests two important points about writing a composition. The first is that you must have some ideas on the subject about which you are going to write. The second is that you must be able to put these ideas together in such a way that they will form an effective whole."
  (J. Warriner and F. Griffith, English Grammar and Composition: Complete Course, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977)

Pronunciation: com-pa-ZISH-shun

Also Known As: theme, essay