how to practice writing essays
Time4Writing.com provides parents and educators with valuable tools to help children become better writers. There are many free writing resources on writing an essay as well as related writing topics that are the building blocks of essays, such as sentence writing and writing paragraphs. Specific topics include dialogues in narrative essays, sentence fluency and variety, and the ubiquitous compare and contrast essay. The articles provide information and guidance, while the activities encourage students to practice their skills using video lessons, standardized test prep materials, printable worksheets and quizzes, and interactive games. For more in-depth practice, a selection of eight-week essay writing courses are available for students in elementary, middle, and high school.
Compare & Contrast
The comparative essay allows a writer to compare and contrast the features of two subjects (two people, two things, two places, two ideas, two results, etc.). Once the similarities and differences between the two subjects are researched and noted, the topic almost suggests itself, and the facts are at the writer’s fingertips. So the key to writing a compare and contrast essay is learning to do the research and organizing the information. … Read More »
In the process of writing an academic essay, you should always have your main argument in mind. While it might be tempting to go off on a tangent about some interesting side note to your topic, doing so can make your writing less concise. Always question any evidence you include in your essay; ask yourself, “Does this directly support my thesis?” If the answer is “no,” then that evidence should probably be excluded. When you are evaluating evidence, be critical and thorough. You want to use the strongest research to back up your thesis. Everything you include should have a clear connection to your topic and your argument.
One of the most overlooked areas of academic essay writing is the conclusion. Your conclusion is what ties all your research together to prove your thesis. It should not be a restatement of your introduction or a copy-and-paste of your thesis itself. A proper conclusion quickly outlines the key evidence discussed in the body of an essay and directly ties it to the thesis to show how this evidence proves or disproves the main argument of one’s research. There have been countless great essays written, only to be derailed by vague, weakly worded conclusions. Don’t let your next essay be one of those.
Regardless of the topics you are studying, you will be frequently asked to submit academic essays. A lot of hardworking students dread having to write academic essays even when they know a lot about the topic or subject.
Good websites offer several guarantees that ensure that you will receive a perfect task. They will always deliver your task on time, review it before submission and make sure that it is written to follow all your requirements. Some academic writing services also offer free revisions. This means that even if you are not satisfied with your assignment, you can have it edited until you are 100% sure that it is what you need.
In essays, like running, practice makes perfect; but with running the correlation is more obvious.
It might feel like the world’s greatest faff, but taking good notes from your sources will save you a huge amount of time when you come to plan and write your essay:
– Type out notes as you read, rather than simply underlining or highlighting – thus you’ll have a summary of the most important chunks of essays ready to use when you plan, rather than having to trawl through whole documents again looking for quotations.
– For this reason, if you think you might want to quote something, copy it out in the exact wording of the writer.
– Type notes in a different colour for each new source you read. In order to engage intelligently with what you’ve read, you’ve got to remember who said what, what they meant by it, who they were fighting against and whether you agreed with them or not. Colours are a really helpful visual aid to doing this.
– At the end of each new essay or article, write a few lines summarising the author’s main points, and whether or not you agree with them.
N.B. Your critical engagement with the scholars and authors whose work you’ve read will count for a huge chunk of marks. This does not mean listing a load of names and rehearsing their arguments; nor does it mean disagreeing with everyone for the sake of it. Instead, think about whether or not what they’re arguing holds true in your experience – or compare them to each other.
Hopefully this example not only provides another example of an effective body paragraph but also illustrates how transitional phrases can be used to distinguish between them.
This should be the fourth or fifth time you have repeated your thesis so while you should use a variety of word choice in the body paragraphs it is a acceptable idea to use some (but not all) of the original language you used in the introduction. This echoing effect not only reinforces your argument but also ties it nicely to the second key element of the conclusion: a brief (two or three words is enough) review of the three main points from the body of the paper.
References:
http://www.scribendi.com/advice/academic_essay_writing_skills.en.html
http://jcme.ca/blog/how-to-practice-writing-essays/
http://www.jcme.ca/articles/write-essay-hate-writing-essays/
http://www.internationalstudent.com/essay_writing/essay_tips/
http://www.thebalancecareers.com/best-resume-writing-services-4582137