...Essay Writing 2: Planning & Structuring Your Essays Effective Learning Service Essay Writing 2: Planning & Structuring Your Essays University of Bradford, School of Management Essay Writing (2): Planning & Structuring Your Essays ESSAY WRITING (2): PLANNING & STRUCTURING YOUR ESSAYS WHY WRITE ESSAYS? Look for the word ‘essay’ in the dictionary and you will find one meaning listed is ‘to attempt’. An essay is an attempt by you to communicate your arguments or knowledge of a subject to the reader, usually your tutor. The mark awarded is a reflection, not on your intellect generally, but on your ability to communicate your ideas on the subject in question. Many tutors – and students – believe essays help in four ways: Ø They can be a good way to learn. The process of writing will help you clarify your thoughts on a subject or topic Ø They show your tutors that you understand key ideas on any particular subject Ø They are useful as a means of gaining feedback on your academic progress Ø Essays are usually an important part of overall assessment. Essay writing can therefore be viewed in a positive way. However, essays can cause be a source of anxiety to many students, particularly at the start of their academic careers. Many students feel vulnerable when they write and submit essays and feel their intellect generally is subject to official scrutiny. They have plenty of thoughts and ideas inside their heads – but how to get these out in a readable form? This is the challenge...
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...MBA Admissions Essay Powerful Tips for Improving Your Odds of Gaining Admission to the MBA Program of Your Choice Admissions essays are easily the most challenging part of the MBA application process, and it’s no wonder. Most people don’t like to write, and even those of us who do enjoy writing can come up blank when called upon to write about ourselves, especially when so much is at stake. The fact remains: If you want to go to business school, you have to be able to generate one or two thousand carefully chosen words that sum up your background and experience, your career goals, your reasons for seeking the MBA, and why you’ve chosen the program to which you’re applying. Step one: Relax. Writing admissions essays is stressful—it’s supposed to be stressful— but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Everyone who has ever applied to business school has written admissions essays, and so can you. All you have to do is submit essays that are a little bit better than most of the others, and if you follow the advice we’ll cover in the following pages, it will be a lot less painful. How to Write a Successful Most MBA essays are mediocre The good news is that most MBA admissions essays are mediocre at best. If you can at least come up with a marginally compelling narrative, and if you can spell and punctuate everything correctly—or know someone who can—you’ll automatically have an advantage over much of the competition. This guide is designed to help you get started (the hardest...
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...Define the context. If the essay is assigned, certain parameters will usually be defined for you, such as the length of the essay, format of the title page, and the intended audience (e.g. your teacher, an admissions committee, a cheating website) and what length is appropriate. No matter what, if you're given directions, follow them. A brilliant essay might still fail to get its point across if it doesn't follow the rules. Remember, the main point is what you should concentrate on. Stick to the question key words throughout your essay. If the question is given and it asks you to describe for example an important character in a novel, you must always refrain from saying an 'interesting character' or 'admirable character'. Stick to the words of the question. Ads by Google Looking for PhD Programs? Scholarship from Masdar Institute in collaboration with MIT.Apply Now Masdar.ac.ae 2 Choose a topic. Often this will be decided for you, but if not, try to choose something you're interested in or, better yet, passionate about. It will make the essay easier to write. On the other hand you could choose a stand you disagree with because it will allow you to see flaws in your argument more easily. You can also think of your thesis statement at this point, but it shouldn't be set in stone since it may be elaborated or changed as you do your research in the next step. A thesis statement is what your essay is attempting to explain and prove. Make sure your thesis statement explains everything...
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...Write a 1-2 page essay in which you: 1. Address why you decided to go to college at this time in your life. 2. State the reasons behind the decision. Your assignment must: * Be at least 250 words minimum or up to 500 words maximum. * Be typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides. Check with your professor for any additional instructions. * Include a cover page containing the title of the assignment, your name, the professor’s name, the course title, and the date. The cover page is not included in the required page length. The specific course learning outcomes associated with this assignment are: * Write paragraphs and essays, and other assigned work with a clearly defined main idea, introduction, body, and conclusion. * Revise written pieces to improve clarity and organization Consider how the prewriting, writing, and revising processes can help you write the essay. Think about the topic, how to write supporting sentences, and how to organize the essay. 1. Audience, Purpose, and Subject * Each time you write, you should think about the audience, purpose, and subject for your piece of writing (Chapter 1 of Evergreen: A Guide for Writers). * The audience for this writing is your teacher and peers. * The purpose is to explain to your readers your reasons for going to college. * The subject is about your decision to go to college. 2. Prewriting * As noted in Chapter 2 of Evergreen:...
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...College Essay Most college scholarships ask you to write a 500+ word essay, which isn’t that bad, but what is the reason behind it? Do most people that require an essay ever read them? Seriously, who has time to read a 1000+ word essay and chose from the best. Personally, that doesn’t seem to be fair because most people have trouble writing a paragraph, and then we are expected to write a huge essay telling about something in our life or respond to a weird question with a topic that most people won’t even think about. With topics such as, “Explain how your life changed with a death of a parent,”or “How would college affect your career,” or even “Why I deserve this scholarship.” Well, I’m going to explain everything I possibly can. The death of any parent would make anyone change, because no one is the same; we are all unique. With my dad’s death I didn’t know how to act for the longest time, and I still don’t; I say this because the day my father died, the doctor called all of my family back where he lay, hooked up to life support, lifeless. Just looking at his body, I didn't feel anything; however, I looked at the situation as is he wasn’t really dead because I was 12 and didn’t know...
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...“Are you guys ready for junior year?”, was the question our teachers asked us before ending our sophomore year. A question in which some of us may have said, “Yes, I am” and others, “ No, not yet”. I was one of the ones that said yes. Perhaps it was the idea that I was entering my third year of high school and that one year later I would be graduating, but I was wrong. Personally, I would not know how I felt the first day of school; probably because of the fact that I did not show up the first week of school. I know, I know I started my junior not so well. The first day I stepped in Godinez High School as a junior, the second week of school had begun. For me, it was not difficult fitting in the first month of school, socially;I had friends...
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...I was pretty nervous being a fairly new college student going into my second semester of college and taking my second English class. I had many different thoughts going through my mind of what to expect. I was apprehensive, but I was ready to take on the challenge. I knew that I needed to strengthen my English skills, and was hoping this class would help. It is okay if you are feeling nervous and scared, it’s normal. College is a very scary thing, especially if you feel you are not prepared for the courses. I feel as if English is one of my worst subjects because I have trouble comprehending and writing grammatically correct. I feel as if my high school English classes may have not prepared me enough for college. College English classes are not extremely hard if you stay on top of your work at all times. I did not have trouble writing my essays; however, I did have trouble when it came to proofreading my work. Now that I have successfully completed English 101 and 102 I feel that I have learned how to improve my writing skills, research skills, and I feel confident in any future writings....
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...What Does a Good Essay Need? • An academic essay aims to persuade readers of an idea based on evidence. • An academic essay should answer a question or task. • It should have an argument. • It should try to present or discuss something: develop a ‘thesis’ or a set of closely related points - by reasoning and evidence. • An academic essay should include relevant examples, supporting evidence and information from academic texts or credible sources. 1. Starting Your Essay Although there are some basic steps to writing an assignment, essay writing is not a linear process. You might work through the different stages a number of times in the course of writing an essay. For example, you may go back to the reading and notetaking stage if you find another useful text, or perhaps to reread to locate specific information. Start work early You can’t write a successful essay unless you give yourself enough time to read, research, think and write. Don’t procrastinate or leave it until the last minute; start as early as possible. Define the question and analyse the task Writing down everything you know about a topic is not enough to make a good academic essay. Analysing, then answering the essay’s question or task is central. • Be sure that you understand exactly what the question requires you to do. • Identify the key words (like discuss or analyse) and clarify the approach you are required to take. See The Learning Centre guide ‘Answering Assignment Questions’ 2. Researching...
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...quote this early in the essay? Explain (1)I feel that Emerson’s quote “Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to its own string,” Is implying, whatever you set your mind too you can accomplish. “Every heart vibrates to its own Iron string,” Is implying that everyone is different; we go about doing things in different ways, but it doesn’t mean that it’s wrong. (2) I feel he placed this quote so early in the essay because; he wanted to attract the reader’s attention with such a unique passage. He tried grabbing their attention, early in the passage. 2. In paragraph 4, Emerson says, “it is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own” (as cited in Langan, 2014). What does he mean by this quote? What is his purpose in making this statement? Explain. (1) “It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion”, basically it’s saying that it is easy for other people to justify your life, doing what’s good in the eyes of society. Letting what other people think, affect the way you live your life. “It’s is easy in solitude to live after our own,” Is saying to live in solitude, you can easily live, doing the things that you want to do. (2) To shed light on the situation, of people caring, what other people think. Live by your own path; don’t let people influence what you do. It would be easy living in both situation, but living for your own self-interest, would be easier. 4. At the end of the essay, Gregory shifts his focus...
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...point average. It’s a calculated average of the grades that you earn in school. You receive a GPA at the end of each semester based on the grades that you earned. You receive a good GPA by keeping good grades because a GPA is based off of how good your grades are, or how bad they are. The highest GPA you can get is a 4.0 and the lowest is a 0. You actually can get higher than a 4.0 but that’s really hard to get because you have to have extra credit in all of your classes. The highest GPA is a 4.0 but sometimes it can be higher depending on what school you go to. The lowest your GPA can be is a 0, which is really bad, and means that you absolutely no work. If you do no work or anything...
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...You’ve been assigned an essay in class, try as you might, you don’t even know where to begin because of how utterly uninteresting the topic is to you. Why should I care? This is a question I have asked myself multiple times when forced to write about a something I simply cannot relate to. You cannot expect someone to write an extravagant essay with a subject that is completely irrelevant to him or her. Assigning essays to students without a choice on the subject matter is demanding; students should be given a choice. These class-assigned essays, filled with strict guidelines, restrict a student’s academic literacy. Most teachers would argue that there is a purpose to assigning a constrained writing assignment, but are they holding back students full potential? Not one person is the same; this puts those at a disadvantage if the topic has no connection to him or her. Teachers should consider alternatives at which they can stay in the academic guidelines, while giving the unique individual options. For example, assigning a much broader topic with sub-subjects to pick from. This gives the students room to stay absorbed in what they’re writing about, while also remaining within the teacher’s...
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...With every passing school year the quality of my writing skills improve immensely over the course of the school year, and this year does not differ (4). As always, jumping back into the school year after the summer requires an adjustment period. Due to readjusting to school and the acquirement of higher level writing techniques over the year, the overall quality of my writing increased throughout the school year. Over the course of the school year, I have learned many new and valuable ways that help improve my writing skills (3). One of these skills I learned was the ability to now identify passive voice, which I have learned most consider as poor writing because it allows the verb to become the subject of the sentence. Being able to identify passive voice allows makes me monitor how I am writing my sentences, and be able to correct passive sentences when editing my papers (4). Another extremely important skill I picked up this year was the knowledge of “to be” verbs and how to eradicate them from my writing/ learn to write...
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...birthday is Valentine’s Day. I grew up in Sterling Heights, Michigan. I was adopted at the age of ten. By two of the most loving and caring parents, anyone could ask for. Their names are Rick and Vicki Sabaugh. I went to Cousino High School located in Warren, Michigan. I was on a swim team for twelve years, mastering the butterfly. My first year of high school, I made most valuable player on the team. Swimming was and is my passion. I made some outstanding school records. While I was at a swimming meet, competing, I blew out my knee and shoulder. All of my doctors told me...
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...that I am an expert at college survival, but I am not. I walked into this experience with a countless amount of questions and three months into it they seem only to have multiplied. This first quarter of college has been a learning experience in the form of a brutal awakening. The revelation of truth behind college relationships, studies, and growth has ignited a change that I hope will benefit me in years to come. A significant part of the reason for my picking Walla Walla University was that I already had a stable friend group on campus. I knew that I was social enough to make friends regardless of the college I attended, but only Walla Walla could offer me a backup plan. I had...
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...most part can be a pretty tedious task, never the less it is part of my daily living. Most of my current writing is done for school essays or work purposes. Having to write detailed professional field reports for supervisors and managers to read. I think the hardest part for me when composing essays has always been the initial development and getting started. Making sense of what is in my thoughts and translating those ideas clearly on paper. Often times, I think really hard into it and just coming up with that opening sentence to catch my reader’s attention can truly frustrate me. Once I get started there is nothing stopping me at that point. I just let the flow of thoughts and ideas smoothly translate into my essay while still making sense and sticking to my main objective, which is sticking to central idea and not getting off topic. As I been told many times over, the main purpose of composing is to send a direct clear message across to the reader. Once I have reached the conclusion of my essay, I feel a sense of true accomplishment and pride in my essay. I have successfully pass the initial hurdle. Then comes the easy part which is the revision of the first draft. The revising process is piece of cake and where all the fun starts. Going back proofreading and making all necessary adjustments in order to have a solid and well polish essay is the goal. One of my greatest accomplishments for me personally, was to be given the opportunity to serve my country honorably...
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