Comprehensive essay writing for junior students

Introduction The purpose of this PowerPoint is to assist students in developing and refining their essay writing skills. Many students find essay writing to be the most difficult aspect of their preparation for exams.

What is an essay Essays are short written works, usually in prose in which a particular issue is addressed and assessed. An essay is normally a testing or weighing of a proposition, therefore it nearly always has a structure of an argument. If you are writing an essay on a simple topic such as, ‘a day at the beach’, you would probably bring certain evidence ( such as the condition of the waves, the mood of the crowd ) to your account to justify an evaluation of the experience based on these elements. The day at the beach would be evaluated, not only described. In English courses we are asked to write essays about texts, assessing the accuracy and adequacy of statements made about them. The development of a good essay style is vital in conveying our knowledge and responding adequately to its testing.

The challenge Writing essays under exam conditions in fact has a number of advantages, which should be exploited: Psychological and intellectual concentration, millions of students have sat for exams have not only survived but actually did justice to themselves.

the 10 essential points:

1. Keep essays short and to the point, and legible.

2. Make sure that spelling and grammar are correct and write in lucid, full sentences and paragraphs of proper length.

3. Focus on answering the question, not just regurgitating prepared material.

4. In writing essays on literary text, concentrate on HOW the writer writes, not only on WHAT the writer says.

5. In describing a writers style, use the appropriate and conventional technical terms

6. When closely analysing a text, do not go through it laboriously, line by line, stanza by stanza, chapter by chapter, but concentrate on its main features relevant to the question

7. Make sure that the names of writers and the titles of texts and any quotations from texts are spelt and punctuated correctly and are word perfect, near enough is not good enough.

8. Learn some key phrases from the text you are studying, which are central to the themes, ideas and / or prose for use in an essay.

9. In your essay, try to show the breadth as well as the depth of your reading.

10. Remember that you don’t need to agree with a proposition in an essay question, nor do you need to praise a writer or topic you are studying unreservedly.

Essay structure

1. Read the topic at least twice, slowly and carefully underlining key points and key phrases

2. Scrutinize key words which require special attention in discussions.

3. The topic requires a class discussion, we need to think about the kind of essay styles we will be using to fulfill this requirements.

4. We must think about structure of the essay, in terms of what it must contain and the sequence in which we deal with these components.

5. Variation of terminology

6. Introduce your particular angle on the topic

7. An innovative approach, to stimulate examiners interest

8. Demonstrating breadth of reading while remaining focused on the topic.

9. The concluding paragraph

10. Review the essay

Preface (optional) __________________________________________________________________ Introduction __________________________________________________________________ Thesis Statement __________________________________________________________________ 1st Major Point 1.____________________________________________________________ 2.____________________________________________________________ 3.____________________________________________________________ Conclusion & Lead-In ____________________________________________ 2nd Major Point 1.____________________________________________________________ 2.____________________________________________________________ 3.____________________________________________________________ Conclusion & Lead-In ____________________________________________ 3rd Major Point 1.____________________________________________________________ 2.____________________________________________________________ 3.____________________________________________________________ Conclusion _____________________________________________________ Conclusion __________________________________________________________________ Postscript (optional) __________________________________________________________________ Essay template: