I need essay writing help

[kikiandlala]

I'm getting killed by my essay writing skills (or lack of them). I've been back at school for a year now but I was away for over 6 years. Writing no longer comes naturally and now there are a lot of new rules, in order to deal with on-line cheating and quoting material off of wikipedia and ilk. Unfortunately it'll be a number of months before an essay-writing workshop opens up and I'm pretty close to finishing these courses.

Unfortunately in one course, I did so poorly on the essay assignments that all I could do for damage control was pull out and accept a Withdrawal that doesn't affect my GPA. Otherwise there was no way of passing.

Does anyone have any pointers, hints, etc and whatnot? I'm trying to reread my old grammar material, but it's almost in one ear and out the other. All help will be much appreciated. Thanks

[maogirl]

hah, i taught essay-writing courses to native english speakers (the irony). okay, what you really need to do before you start writing anything is to create a fucking good outline. if you can organize your thoughts properly, you'll already 60% there.

an outline should more or less follow this simple version:

paragraph 1: introduction and thesis statement
p2: 2nd-strongest supporting argument, explanation and example
p3: weakest supporting argument, explanation and example
p1: strongest supporting argument, explanation and example
conclusion: must briefly summarize thesis and relate back to introduction somehow

you should make sure that you have proper transitions and link the arguments together.

[jaehwan]

Good points, mg.

Also, read "The Elements of Style." (aka "Strunk and White.") It's a classic, and it'll help you improve your sentence structure and word usage. Even though the subject is grammar and writing, it's remarkably entertaining, and I think you'll have no problem with the material going "in one ear and out the other." Best of luck.

[nightshade]

Oh, man. I'm such a nerd that I have two copies of Element & Style.

maogirl's formula is tried and true. We called it the cookbook formula for essay writing at my school.

Anyhow, if you're looking to improve on writing overall, you should try keeping a journal and get someone to give you feedback on your sentence structure and flow. After a while it gets a lot easier to write and get your thoughts down quickly. You can always take time after a first draft to edit and shape.

If your school has a writing center, you might want to go there for free advice--take an old paper and see what they say. Or take in a draft of a current essay to get feedback.

[Dirac]

It's hard if you're in a limited time situation, but constantly reading over what you've already written at a natural speed helps you judge the smoothness and flow of your words.

Do you read a lot? I think the more you read, whether newspapers, magazines, or literature, the more fine-tuned your ear becomes.

How about practising writing more often in everyday life? Perhaps keeping a diary, or writing people letters - i.e. do some writing for enjoyment and hopefully your essay writing will improve as a result!

Bearing in mind I am giving writing tips I hope nobody parses this message for grammatical errors or style ^__^

[maogirl]

hah, i have "elements" in book form AND at least 2 photocopies floating around. i'm not sure why. but i blame that book and the new yorker for brainwashing me into spelling "focused" as "focussed." damn you, eustace tilly!

i agree with what dirac suggested...try to read magazines like the economist and the new yorker for good samples of essays. i also find the "best american essays" anthology series very good for a wide variety of essay styles.

[kikiandlala]

Thanks alot everybody. Man, it's hard to believe what being away for 6 years does to you. To top it off, the courses are on-line correspondence so it's difficult to get in contact with the TAs. Hopefully I'll be able to shake off the rust enough and apply the peeps' advice here to get through.

Much obliged y'all, thanks

BTW maogirl, how was the job teaching native English speakers writing skills?

[t-tocs]

In college, I used "The Bedford Handbook for Writers".

[maogirl]

Thanks alot everybody. Man, it's hard to believe what being away for 6 years does to you. To top it off, the courses are on-line correspondence so it's difficult to get in contact with the TAs. Hopefully I'll be able to shake off the rust enough and apply the peeps' advice here to get through.

Much obliged y'all, thanks

BTW maogirl, how was the job teaching native English speakers writing skills?

you're welcome, it also helps to find someone who'll edit your stuff. fresh pair of eyes and all that.

as for the job, the course was geared towards teenagers who are mostly white expat kids or asians from north america/australia/uk. there were a couple of really adorable kids who made me laugh, but seriously, none of us wanted to be in the class. otherwise, everyone has internalized the colonial system here so well that no one questioned me anyway. everyone just assumed that i was a product of an international or private school and a western university, which is correct. it's so funny how things are so much like england here. you can tell someone's social class and background just from listening to their accent.

the most fucked up thing about the job was this chinese canadian teacher who wore these creepy violet contacts and dyed her hair blond -- she should've used that money to pay for braces 'cause she had some major bottle opener teeth.

i was kind of pissed when a parent complained about my tattoos when i personally think she was a lot freakier looking than i ever will be.

[minbo]

I have a few copies of elements of style floating around also. For academic papers, you should also look to get something like Diana Hacker's pocket style manual. It goes over punctuation like when to use semi-colons, how to quote, footnote, endnote materials in various styles, like Chicago or MLA.

http://www.amazon.com/Pocket-Manual-Working-Sources-Reference/dp/0312436645/ref=pd_bbs_sr_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1200511919&sr=8-4

This is the Bedford Manual, also by Hacker, but it's almost 1k pages, and as mentioned goes over essay structure, grammar, etc.

http://www.amazon.com/Bedford-Handbook-Diana-Hacker/dp/0312419333/ref=pd_bbs_8?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1200511919&sr=8-8

Hacker also has an extensive online website which is useful for reference purposes.

http://www.dianahacker.com/resdoc/p04_c08_s2.html

Lastly, if you are having trouble making bibliographies, I would recomend that you look at refworks and endnote if your school has a site license, otherwise use easybib.

http://www.easybib.com/

Good luck.

[valleydude]

Hi -- BA in English here (UCLA), class of 98.

Academically, there's a pretty easy formula in pretty much all classes to get a decent grade on an essay. I talk from experience, as pretty much every English or Lit class I had was all essay.

5 paragraphs -

Intro

Point 1

Point 2

Point 3

Conclusion

That's it. Lead sentence of every paragraph is your topic sentence, which encapsulates the basic idea of the rest of the paragraph. You then explain that sentence with your paragraph. Intro should mention the ideas for the topic sentences, conclusion should quickly recap and then pose a new question or a definitive proof of an idea. If it ends up sounding like smarmy BS, that's the nature of the beast, and to be expected.

Finally, when you write, fight the urge to do a bunch of single sentences. It's lazy, not well-thought out, and very tiring to read. Commas exist for a reason, to string sentences together.

Example of Bad Writing:

"IBM is a computer company. IBM makes $xxx billion in sales a year. IBM has good business prospects for next year."

See how boring that is? It's like a car that keeps stopping in front of you in traffic every other second.

Good writing:

"IBM is a computer company with $xxx billion sales, XXXXX employees, and good prospects for next year. Experts say.... blah blah blah"

See how much better that is, how it flows? I write this because I was always amazed, even at UCLA, how stolid and unimaginative the writing from even my fellow liberal arts majors could be.

Btw, the above also works for business writing, but should be abbreviated in terms of explanations, as people will not read long e-mails or reports.

[Synthetic]

Hi -- BA in English here (UCLA), class of 98.

Academically, there's a pretty easy formula in pretty much all classes to get a decent grade on an essay. I talk from experience, as pretty much every English or Lit class I had was all essay.

5 paragraphs -

Intro

Point 1

Point 2

Point 3

Conclusion

That's it. Lead sentence of every paragraph is your topic sentence, which encapsulates the basic idea of the rest of the paragraph. You then explain that sentence with your paragraph. Intro should mention the ideas for the topic sentences, conclusion should quickly recap and then pose a new question or a definitive proof of an idea. If it ends up sounding like smarmy BS, that's the nature of the beast, and to be expected.

Finally, when you write, fight the urge to do a bunch of single sentences. It's lazy, not well-thought out, and very tiring to read. Commas exist for a reason, to string sentences together.

Example of Bad Writing:

"IBM is a computer company. IBM makes $xxx billion in sales a year. IBM has good business prospects for next year."

See how boring that is? It's like a car that keeps stopping in front of you in traffic every other second.

Good writing:

"IBM is a computer company with $xxx billion sales, XXXXX employees, and good prospects for next year. Experts say.... blah blah blah"

See how much better that is, how it flows? I write this because I was always amazed, even at UCLA, how stolid and unimaginative the writing from even my fellow liberal arts majors could be.

Btw, the above also works for business writing, but should be abbreviated in terms of explanations, as people will not read long e-mails or reports.

english major, eh?

i was in college, too. one thing to also remember is to write from the heart and shoot from your own hip. professors don't wanna hear you write the same thing everyone else is writing. don't just write for the grade, write because you truly have an opinion on your subject.

look at it from the professor/teacher's point of view. if you assign a topic, do you really just want a student to look something up and paraphrase a book/other source? or do you want them to put some creative time and effort into it? i've gotten A's on several papers in which my stance opposed that of the teacher's and they gave me an A simply because I was able to stand behind my own point of view. all professors got their ph.d because they brought something "new to the table"...they didn't just use someone else's ideas...and that's how you should approach all of your papers, too.

...also, don't have a huge introduction; no one wants to spend 4 minutes reading a huge buildup to a single thesis statement. *yawn*...

[valleydude]

Depends on the Prof. --

I agree with most of what you said, except shooting from the hip, but maybe I am misinterpreting that. Early on they drilled what I wrote above into us, and penalized heavily for deviating from that. Once you get outside of academia (or maybe deeper into it for grad studies in a particularly speculative topic), you can deviate from it, but many profs will spank you hard for writing something that is rambling, ambling, or unstructured.

You are also right that 99% of teachers do not want pure regurgitation of facts and lectures. I did however once have a prof. who wanted exactly that, and who gave me my only D in college on a test for not doing that, but rather expanding my own analysis on his points -- he was probably a moron, but I never made that mistake in that class again.

Intro paragraph -- usually 4 sentences. Get in, mention the topic, BS a little, then get your thesis statement going.