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Essay: "to try" (French). Your essay should have a speculative quality about it; it is not expected to be the last word on the topic, but it should be informed enough to encourage the reader to think more. It demonstrates what you know and how well you know it, sometimes through other sources, which you must document properly. It reflects how well you write clearly, precisely, correctly, and it also reveals your style.
Practice writing or revising your essay along with the 12 steps outlined below. If you are registered in a Harvard Extension School course and still experience problems or would like to discuss your writing concerns in depth, call for an appointment with a tutor at the Writing Center at (617) 495-4163 during the academic year (October through May).
- Identify the assignment. Key words to look for include:
- Compare = Emphasize similarities but also differences.
- Discuss = Give reasons (pro and con) with details.
- Interpret = State the meaning in simpler terms using your judgment.
- Prove = Give evidence and reasons
- Show = List your evidence in order of time, logic, etc.
- Summarize = Organize and bring together only the main points.
- Come up with a topic. Make it as specific as possible.
- Not specific: Funeral Customs of the Middle Ages
- Specific: Royal Funeral Customs in Medieval Portugal
- Read and do research. Use the library to help you modify your search for a topic. Choose a topic that has ample references.
- Remember: If you must use sources to help support your arguments, you must make sure to document those sources properly within the text and in the bibliography.
Analyze your findings. That is, identify what singular ideas make up a whole concept and then look closely at those ideas and identify the reasoning behind them. Then take it one step further: synthesize your findings to create a new idea. Basically, after taking apart a concept, put it back together in a new form.
- Come up with a thesis statement. This will take a few attempts. Thesis statements include:
- The essay's subject
- The essay's purpose
- A focus that conveys the writer's point of view
- A general statement which leads to a set of main ideas and supporting details
- Specific language
- The major subdivisions of the topic
Determine what your reader needs to know about your topic. This is called "supporting detail." Use facts and logic, not vague impressions or feelings.
Group supporting details into similar topics, called "subtopics."
- Choose an order in which to present your subtopics:
- Chronology: Past to present, first event to last
- Simple to Complex: Easiest part to hardest
- General to Specific: Large concept to specific example
- Conclusion to Evidence: Results to facts
- Emphasis: Least important to most important
- Cause to Effect: Origin to outcome
- The reverse order of all of the above
Make an outline of your paper based on the organizing order you choose. Then write a draft of your paper based on your outline. Don't edit as you write; it is more important to get your thoughts down on paper. Overwrite and edit later.
- Get feedback on your draft. Use a Writing Center tutor or ask a peer. Feedback questions include:
- Is the essay topic suitable and sufficiently narrow? Does it address the assignment?
- Does the thesis statement communicate topic, focus, and purpose?
- Is the essay organized effectively?
- Is there any material that goes off the topic? If so, cut it.
- Does your introduction relate to the rest of your essay?
- Do the body paragraphs express main ideas in topic sentences as needed?
- Are the main ideas clearly related to your thesis statement?
- Do the body paragraphs contain specific, concrete support for each main idea?
- Do the paragraphs maintain coherence using transitions?
- Does the conclusion provide a sense of completion?
Revise your essay to include feedback and corrections.
- Proofread your essay--twice.
Basic Essay Recipe
An introductory paragraph does one of the following:
- Provides relevant background information
- Relates a brief, interesting story or anecdote
- Gives a pertinent statistic
- Asks a provocative question
- Uses an appropriate quotation
- Makes an analogy
- Defines a term used throughout the essay
- Identifies the situation
- Avoids obvious statements that refer to what the essay is about ("This is an explanation of Roe versus Wade and its effect on the Woman's Movement.")
- Avoids apologies ("I may not be an expert, but...")
- Avoids clichˇs ("Absence does indeed make the heart grow fonder as I found out...")
Body paragraphs contain the following:
- Unity: All sentences relate clearly to a main idea and to each other. Usually the first sentence of each paragraph, the topic sentence, contains the main idea of the paragraph, focusing and controlling what the paragraph includes.
- Development: Specific, logical details, such as reasons, examples, names, and numbers, which support the main idea.
- Coherence: Sentences relate to each other in content, grammatical structure, and word choice. Use transition words to connect sentences and paragraphs. Transition words express the following ideas: addition ("furthermore"), comparison ("in the same way"), concession ("naturally"), contrast ("nevertheless"), emphasis ("certainly"), example ("for instance"), result ("therefore"), summary ("finally"), time sequence ("eventually").
For a concluding paragraph, do the following:
- Use any of the introductory paragraph methods, but not the one you used in the introductory paragraph.
- Summarize the main points of the essay but only if the essay is more than three pages long.
- Ask for awareness, action, or similar resolution from readers
- Look ahead to the future
- Avoid introducing new ideas and saving your best idea for last
- Avoid rewording your introductory paragraph
- Avoid announcing what you've done ("I hope I have proved that ...")
- Avoid making absolute claims ("All Americans must therefore...")
- Avoid apologizing
For more information: See the CARC reference library for study skills books and information sheets. Also attend CARC's free, 2-hour Academic Workshops (refer the Extension School catalogue for dates and times).
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