...Health Science major, I did not realize how big of a role reading, writing and communicating plays in the health sciences field until I start taking my degree specific classes. All of the writing thus far has helped me realize how important being a good writer is, and helped me to see some of my strengths and weaknesses. I have never truly liked writing especially in the academic setting, but I know how important it is. Writing is a good way of expressing yourself and reflecting and analyzing your thoughts. I have never been confident in my writing skills, but I have seen major improvement over the year and hope to continue to grow as a reader and a writer. Improvements in My Writing I have saw...
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...Compare and Contrast: Sister Flowers versus I Want a Wife Lisa Jackson ENG 121: English Composition I Instructor: Alicia Giffin December 9, 2013 When given the task of comparing two different essays, I read through the list before deciding on Sister Flowers by Maya Angelou and I Want a Wife by Judy Brady. I found both essays to be well-written and each touched me on an emotional level. However, I found the essay Sister Flowers to be the better essay because of the descriptive nature and that it has a deeper meaning by showing how the kindness of one person can make one feel liked and respected, while the essay I Want a Wife was written more for entertainment by showing how little men do and how much women take care of. The essay Sister Flowers is about a little girl named Marguerite who, in the beginning of the essay, compared herself to “an old biscuit, dirty and inedible” (Angelou, M.) until she met Mrs. Bertha Flowers. Marguerite looked up to Mrs. Flowers whom she referred to as graceful, and one of the few gentlewomen she had known. Marguerite states “She was our side’s answer to the richest white woman in town” (Angelou, M.). Marguerite’s reverence of Mrs. Flowers made her ashamed of how uneducated her grandmother appeared. One day Mrs. Flowers invited Marguerite into her house so she could have a talk with her. The fact that she cared enough to invite Marguerite into her house, make cookies for her, and then give her a book to read made Marguerite feel liked and respected...
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...English Composition I Professor Beth Riley October 23, 2013 Homelessness is More Appealing Many of us will never be homeless, and not everyone understands the benefit of having a wife, but after reading the essays’, Homeless (Quindlen, A. n.d.) and I Want a Wife (Brady, J. 1971), one can gain a better understanding of both. I am a wife. Therefore, I can certainly connect with the narrator’s story of I Want a Wife. This is a narrative essay, in which the narrator reflects on why she too would like to have a wife after a visit with a recently divorced male friend, who is looking for a new wife. The narrator gives a list of duties and activities she will and will not do if she had a wife, and she can visualize the benefits a wife could afford her with less responsibilities and more time for school or friends. My other essay of choice is quite different in theme, but it is still relatable. Anne Quindlen’s essay, Homeless (n.d.) is a short descriptive essay with the narrator retelling of an account when she met a woman, who she believes is homeless, at the bus terminal. It is during the encounter that the narrator reflects on homeless people in general, the homeless individual and about herself. Both of these essays’ are well written, however, I feel that Homeless (Quindlen, A. n.d.), is a more appealing essay than I Want a Wife (Brady, J. 1971), as it allows the reader to become more engaged in the descriptions and reflect on the details of the story. Whenever I first start reading...
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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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...stereotypes, negative peer pressure and other obstacles he must overcome. He also wants kids growing up in a similar situation to succeed and not be another statistic. This essay really stood out to me because Alexie must conquer problems that are greater than himself. In order to not be stuck and labeled as another reservation Indian he must fight against what is expected of him. Sherman Alexie is able to overcome and persevere which speaks to me because I have had to overcome lots in my life. Through the use of analogies, anecdote and repetition Alexie is able to relay the story in a way that leaves a lasting...
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...When I wrote my essay Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God I had some good parts and bad parts of the essay. I believe everyone can improve their writing in a certain way. No one is a “perfect” writer, and no one “never” makes mistakes. I could improve in two areas I noticed are my thesis in this essay and my visual pictures. Two things I did well on are the usage of rhetorical devices and introductory sentences. Pros and cons are what most people have in their essays or poems. My cons with my Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God are my thesis and my visual pictures. In my thesis I could improve them by just getting to the point in my essay and always referring back to it. The three main things that I need to work on to make a perfect thesis may be clearly identifies the subject of the paper, makes an assertion about that subject, one that allows for a range of discussion; and predicts the logical order you will follow in your discussion. With my visual pictures I need to create more enthusiasm and descriptive words. Or when giving quotes from the story I need to tie it back to the thesis or how they create visuals throughout the story. For my pros in my essay it was rhetorical devices and introductory sentences. For my rhetorical devices I scored high in this essay because I tied them into the story or back to the story really good. Also I identified them good; I can easily spot these rhetorical devices in a poem. My introductory sentences are also very good I believe, they...
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...Professor Baker English 1301 9/13/13 Our Generation on Reading, Writing, and Critical Thinking Reading and writing are things that I am very well at. The difference is, I’m stronger in my writing skills than my reading skills. The reason for this is that when I’m writing I get so into my words and imagination to where my hand with the magical pencil does the talking. My skills in reading only depend on one thing, if it catches my attention or not. Stories have to get me involved with the story somehow in order for me to get interest. If it’s not catching my attention, I’m not reading it. But most importantly, critical thinking is what ties reading and writing together. I am very picky about the books and articles I read. Stories for me have to have a mystery or even sometimes a sappy love story. Of course I’m going to love romantic books because I’m a girl, right? Yet again, some love stories bore the living hell out of me because it’s a “typical” love story. Reading books just all depends on how the author grabs his reader’s attention and how he plays the story throughout the book. When I find a book that I’m interested in, I will read the entire novel. Or even something that is scary will keep hooked on the story. Scary stories are my favorites because the story just keeps my suspense in play. Celebrity gossip is definitely something that I get into reading. There is always something new with these celebrities. Since these celebrities are well known, their lives are somehow...
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...HOW TO WRITE GREAT ESSAYS HOW TO WRITE GREAT ESSAYS Lauren Starkey ® NEW YORK Copyright © 2004 LearningExpress All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Learning Express, LLC, New York. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: Starkey, Lauren B., 1962– How to write great essays / Lauren Starkey. —1st ed. p. cm. ISBN 1-57685-521-X 1. English language—Rhetoric—Problems, exercises, etc. 2. Essay—Authorship—Problems, exercises, etc. 3. Report writing—Problems, exercises, etc. I. Title. PE1471.S83 2004 808'.042—dc22 2004003384 Printed in the United States of America 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 First Edition ISBN 1-57685-521-X For more information or to place an order, contact LearningExpress at: 55 Broadway 8th Floor New York, NY 10006 Or visit us at: www.learnatest.com Contents Introduction 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 vii Organization 1 Clarity 11 Word Choice 21 Mechanics 39 Revising, Editing, and Proofreading 55 Untimed Essay Writing Strategies 67 Timed Essay Writing Strategies 85 Sample Essay Prompts and Essays 97 Resources 111 CONTENTS HOW TO WRITE GREAT ESSAYS v Introduction n your preparations for college, you may find yourself facing a handful of high-stakes essays. Your college application requires at least one, and the SAT requires another. Depending upon the high school...
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...what my tutors say about my essays. I’m not really sure what they mean.” “I thought I had written a really good assignment this time. I did so much reading and preparation for it, but my tutor’s feedback is ‘not enough argument.’ I’m not sure what to do now. I mean, I’m not an argumentative person - and I don’t really want to be.” One of the most important skills you will need to learn as a student, whatever your discipline is the ability to think critically and objectively about an issue and to present a well-constructed argument. Critical and analytical-thinking skills such as these will be essential to most aspects of your study, whether you are listening to lectures, contributing to seminars, or reading about your subject. Here, we will be focusing mainly on critical analysis for written work, as nothing gains or loses marks more for most student assignments than the quality of your written argument. Argument here doesn’t mean disagreement or unpleasantness. It simply means presenting a strong case to support a point of view. You don’t have to be an argumentative person to do this: on the contrary, good critical writing means using reasons and evidence to support your stand point. The first rule is: Identify the focus of the assignment Good critical analysis isn’t simply about writing. Before you start any assignment, you need to be clear about your focus. At university, this usually means thinking critically about the requirements of the essay, report, or of the seminar...
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...Fast Food. That's what I think of when I try to draw an analogy with the process of reading application essays. The bad. Ninety percent of the applications I read contain what I call McEssays - usually five-paragraph essays that consist primarily of abstractions and unsupported generalization. They are technically correct in that they are organized and have the correct sentence structure and spelling, but they are boring. Sort of like a Big Mac. I have nothing against Big Macs, but the one I eat in Charlottesville is not going to be fundamentally different from the one I eat in Paris, Peoria or Palm Springs. I am not going to rave about the quality of a particular Big Mac. The same can be said about the generic essay. If an essay starts out: "I have been a member of the band and it has taught me leadership, perseverance and hard work," I can almost recite the rest of the essay without reading it. Each of the three middle paragraphs gives a bit of support to an abstraction, and the final paragraph restates what has already been said. A McEssay is not wrong, but it is not going to be a positive factor in the admission decision. It will not allow a student to stand out. A student who uses vague abstractions poured into a preset form will end up being interpreted as a vague series of abstractions. A student who uses cliché becomes, in effect, a cliché. If we are what we eat, we are also what we write. Not only does a preset form lead to a generic essay, so does a generic approach...
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...General Writing resources and Requirements NOTE: Please use this as reference for each writing assignment! Your grade may be adversely affected if you do not follow all of these requirements. Email or call your instructor if you have questions. The required literary essays for this course demand careful planning, drafting, revising/editing, and correct documentation. The following resources and requirements provide instruction on writing, research, and avoiding plagiarism. Carefully review them before writing your literary essays. Plagiarism Plagiarism encompasses more than the use of printed sources without giving proper credit. It means handing in writing in the name of one person that another person has composed, revised, edited, or proofread without the instructor's approval. Accordingly, the following guidelines are set down, and you must study and understand them from the outset. The instructor will assume, since this issue is clearly discussed, that you will be responsible for understanding and applying it. Any fact that is not common knowledge, any idea, phrase, or paraphrase that is taken from a printed source, from a lecture, sermon, or radio broadcast must be documented. Any work submitted in English 102 will be understood to be the work of the student submitting it and his work alone. Taking credit for someone else's proofreading ability, suggestions, ideas, or words is plagiarism. An exception to this definition is group work assigned and directed...
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...Project 1 – Academic writing Personal Essay If there's one thing you've had a lot of experience with at this point in your life, it's our class topic—education and personal development. You've been through at least twelve years of formal schooling working towards your development, and you've probably had plenty of other life experiences that could be considered educational with development as an end. This first piece is informal. Think of it as a chance to reflect on one of those experiences by writing about it. The key question you'll answer is "How has this experience affected the way I think/feel about school education or learning and how it contribute to your development of abilities?" You're answering the key question for an audience you identify. You might write to your classmates, in which case you could think of this piece as your contribution to our conversation on the topic of education and personal development. You might write to friends who are still in the high school you graduated from recently, in which case you'll need to remember that they haven't been reading and talking about the ideas we have in this class. You might write to a relative or close friend elsewhere, perhaps someone who shared the experience with you. Keep in mind the kinds of things your readers/classmates will understand already and what you'll need to explain and/or describe in greater detail. Please note your target audience at the top of each draft as you revise. Your goals as a writer...
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...Lyle Caballes Ms. Kim Sale English 1101 J 1 April 2013 I am writing to college students who have to write essays. Don't you hate essays with extreme passion? All through school, teachers make their students write essays, essays, and more essays. They expect their students to have an opinion on whether a story fits the ironic vision or not, or something like that, but the student probably doesn't even care. People should just stop writing essays. First of all, essays are so formal. We have an exact formula on how an essay should be written. If you were writing an essay right now, first, you would do your intro, with their thesis at the end of it, then they have their three paragraphs of proof, and finally, after two hours of writing, they have their conclusion. Come on people, live a little! We are in college! Be wild! Do what you want to do! Put your thesis at the very end of the essay, or better yet, leave your thesis out of the essay. Then, we have extra little rules, within the formula, that we have to follow. For example, while writing some types of essays, we have a rule about not saying "I." What am "I," chopped liver? Do I have to become this nameless, faceless, mystery person, only to get people to listen to me? Also, what about using "you?" I mean, it's "you" that's reading my essay, isn't it? Who else would it be? Am I talking to myself? We all have a tendency to use "you" and/or "I" in our essays because it is in our daily communications with each other. So, if we are...
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...Descriptive vs. Narrative Essays Camille Hall English 121 Instructor James Welch March 17, 2013 Descriptive vs. Narrative Essays Descriptive essays are much more detailed and expressive than narrative essays and are more apt to hold the reader’s attention by ejecting more emotion. The narrative essay uses detail to advance the story, while the descriptive uses to detail to describe an unfamiliar subject. The ability to describe something convincingly is always important to both the writer and their audience. Both descriptive and narrative essays use detail but for different purposes. In this essay I will compare and contrast two essays; “I Want A Wife” and “Caged Bird” in order to give insight into each type of essay. The aim of a narrative essay is to describe a course of events from a subjective point, is usually told in chronological order, and is usually written in first person. Narrative essays are used to tell a story in a way so that the reader learns a lesson or gains insight, much of this is done through lots of detail about the subject that is being written about. The best narrative essays are those inducing images in the reader’s minds about what's happening by using concrete, specific verbs and nouns rather than a lot of adverbs and adjectives. To write a narrative essay you will need to tell a story (usually about something that has happened to you) or it could be fiction. The purpose is for your reader to learn a lesson or gain insight of...
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...Douglass in his essay “How to Read” and Gloria Anzaldua’s essay “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” both express themselves through publicly released literature, and these two essays have successfully achieved to have common similarities and unique differences. For example, both authors have the same interpretation for literacy, and literacy to them means to overcome negativity and prevail from hate from another individual that shows them injustice. For differences, Franklin’s essay was to learn how to read (and also write), while Gloria’s essay was about having to speaking English and suppressing her various styles of the Spanish language. After reading this fabulous essay, you will understand why the authors chose their topics, their relation to each other, and why they are different. Douglass was raised a black male slave in the 1840’s. For slaves, reading and writing was not acceptable because the man did not want black people to have any sense of resisting slavery. Although that rule was in effect, Douglass found a way to get around that law. He would sneak magazines and newspapers to read, and he was taught how to read and write by his mistress and some “little white boys”, who he’d convert into teachers. Most thought that “...education and slavery were incompatible with each other” (347), but Douglas proved them wrong, thus the definition of literacy to him is to overcome the hate that African Americans had (in that time) and show that he’s more than just slave material. I thought this...
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