Harvard University Expository Writing Program

On April 12, 1966, the Faculty voted to adopt the recommendations of the Committee on General Education to abandon of the old freshman writing program, General Education A, in favor of an expanded program in Expository Writing. All first-year students at Harvard and Radcliffe, including those who receive advanced standing and enter as sophomores, are required to take a half year course in Expository Writing. The Expository Writing Program rests on the premise that writing and thinking are inseparably related and that good thinking requires good writing if we are to avoid the vagueness, the contradictions, and the inaccuracies of minds unable to arrange their ideas.