作者：唐滟
　　Introduction
　　Language is not knowledge， but a set of valuable skills. Unlike talking， it is not a natural skill. We must remember that humanity existed for centuries in highly communicative and linguistically sophisticated societies that were largely illiterate. Writing is social inventions that have to be taught and learned， practiced and mastered.
　　However，， writing does seem the most challenging skill to teach. Many of my colleagues who are very fine and caring teachers have told me that they have simply given up on writing. They said they have to rewrite nearly everything in students’ writing.
　　Writing can be said to be the act of forming graphic symbols： making marks on a flat surface of some kind. But writing is clearly more than the production of graphic symbols， just as speech is more than the production of sounds. As we know， those symbols have to be arranged to form words， according to certain situations， and words have to be arranged to form sentences， though we can be said to be “writing” if we are just making lists of words such as shopping lists.
　　However， we do not write just one sentence or a number of sentences which are unrelated. We need to produce a sequence of sentences arranged in a particular order and linked together in certain ways， and they form a coherent whole， which we may call a “text”.
　　Differences between speech and writing
　　It is very clear that writing is a very different activity from speaking， and a comparison between them may help us to understand some of the difficulties involved in writing.
　　First， speech usually takes place in certain situation and at least some of the language we use when speaking relates to that situation. So when we speak， it is not necessary to be quite so explicit as we have to be in writing： many references are clear within the situation.
　　Secondly， the listener is normally present—even on the phone， we are still in direct contact. So there is continuous interaction and feedback.
　　Writing， on the other hand， is the whole of the relevant activity and we need to create the context as we write. The person， unlike in speech， is not present， so there can be no interaction between writer and reader. Then we have to try to stay in contact with our reader through words. So we have the necessary task of organising our sentences carefully because we do not have the help of feedback from our reader.
　　Difficulties
　　Why writing is difficult for most people？ Let’s take a look at the three problems caused by writing.