How to write a kickass paper/essay
Because sooner or later, you will have to do it. You wonât get through high school and/or college without doing it. Hereâs how to get a good grade on the first try.
1. This isnât the same thing as writing a story. In fiction writing, bending grammar rules and stuffy writing conventions is okay. In academic writing, itâs not. Get the facts across first and worry about character later. Academic writing is kind of boring, I know. Act like you know what youâre talking about. Donât abuse the thesaurus until you sound like a post from r/iamverysmart, but try to sound educated.
2. Pick a specific topic. One of my essays from high school was a comparison of youth activism against violence, in the 1960s versus the 2010s. Ridiculously specific? Not ridiculously. If you pick a topic thatâs too broad, youâll end up pulling your brain every which way and overwhelming yourself. You might have some hits and misses with this, but itâs an important part of writing. Going over the word limit is just as annoying to your teacher as going under.
3. MELELEC. My 11th-grade English teacher taught me this little trick and I use it as a mainstay for writing. Itâs helped me ace assignments and win scholarships. MELELEC is a paragraph structure that helps you write paragraphs that are not only thicc and will eat up page space, but also are packed with meaningful content. The format is Main Point - Explain - Link - Explain - Link - Explain - Conclusion. You introduce the idea of the paragraph, add some extra information, link a related point or piece of information, explain that, link another point, explain that, and then conclude the idea expressed in the paragraph. It works, I swear. Teachers and professors love it.
4. Absolutely NO second-person. Thatâs when you directly address the audience as âyou.â Yeah, donât do that if you want to sound professional. Iâm doing it right now and sounding hypocritical af because I donât need to sound professional. Itâs Tumblr. Enough said. Anyway, second-person statements tend to have a defensive effect on the audience, which makes them automatically more hostile to whatever youâre trying to say. (âNuh-uh. I donât think that. I would do that. Thatâs not how it works for me.â) And given that the whole point of your essay is to convince your audience that youâre right, thatâs counterintuitive. The only time the word âyouâ should appear in academic writing is when itâs in the context of a quotation.
5. Avoid first-person, too. In some cases, you might need to write an essay in the first person, like when a college prof asks you to write about a personal experience. Yeah, good luck writing about your life without actually mentioning yourself. But in more impersonal writing, like informative or persuasive essays, it looks unprofessional. Sorry, but the audience doesnât want to hear your take on stuff; they want to know the facts. (Well, if you want to be really specific, they want to hear your take on stuff when itâs expressed as fact and backed up with, ya know, actual facts.) Which leads me into my next pointâŚ
6. State opinions as facts. Donât do this in real life, as it makes you look like a pompous asshole, but do it in academic writing. In other words, never soften a sentence with âI thinkâ or âIn my opinion.â Everyone already knows itâs your opinion, anyway. Instead of softening the the blow to lessen the chance of it offending someone, cite some evidence or make another point to back up your claim. Thatâs substance, which is what your teachers and profs are looking for.
7. The thesis. Itâs all about the thesis. The thesis is the TL;DR of your paper. Itâs the answer to the question âWhatâs the doodly-darn point of this essay?â The traditional spot for the thesis statement is the last sentence of the first paragraph â itâs punchy and to the point there. Take time to have a good thesisÂ
8. Donât ask rhetorical questions. Youâre the one who should be answering the questions that your audience has. So predict what they might ask about your topic or the points that you make, and answer them. Itâs not the audienceâs job to answer your questions, for the love of all things good. You can make them leave thinking about what you wrote without being so anvilicious.
9. Three is the magic number. In high school, the typical format youâll have for an essay is the five-paragraph format. Now you might be going âWhut? I thought you said that three was the magic number, Saybyebus.â Well, yes, I did say that, but two of the five essays are the introduction and the conclusion. So that leaves you with three paragraphs to really get into the meat of your essay and dish out the important information. So one of the best ways to work with this is to make your thesis three-pronged, and use each of the three paragraphs to address a point of your thesis. Boom-shacka-lacka. I just laid out the structure of your essay. Does that mean you have to cite me as credit? IDK, actually. But that does remind me of my next pointâŚ
10. DONâT PLAGIARIZE! Bruh, donât do it. Whenever you learn something from someone elseâs work and add that information to your essay, you have to cite them, even if you paraphrase them. If you donât do that, itâs plagiarism. In high school, itâll get you a big-ass downgrade, and you will probably get yelled at by your teacher. In college, it could get you SUSPENDED or EXPELLED. They take that shit seriously. So you should too.
dailybridgerton
vaporwave
andulkaphoto
pixelskylines
baratheonpilled
dededos
2087
