I. Academic Core Vocabulary
1. Sentences- sentences are set of words that combine a subject (which tells us what the sentence is about or the topic sentence) and a predicate (which tells us something about the subject) (Anonymous, What is a sentence?, 2014).
2. Paragraphs- a group of sentences that forms a unit which is usually 5 sentences or half a page long. The group of sentences within the paragraph should support one main idea (Anonymous, The Writing Center, Paragraphs, 2014).
3. Essay- is a piece of writing which is focused and directed on analyzing and evaluating a certain topic or issue (Anonymous, What is an essay?, 2014).
4. Persuasive/Argumentative Essay- is the type of writing in which we try to convince an audience or make them considerate adopting our way of thinking by using facts or sharing our values. It needs to include facts to support our point of view, clarify values that are relevant with our opinion, a sequence of facts and values that create the argument, well formed and stated conclusions, and concentrate it on persuading the audience (Ryder, 2014).
5.
…show more content…
Narrative Essay- is a piece of writing in form of a story which recreates a personal experience. It needs to involve the reader (interesting), have the sequence of time and space (actual times and actual places), present changes, contrasts, conflicts, or tensions, include detailed observations about people, places, or events (sights, sounds, smells, tastes, feelings, etc.), be told from our point of view, be focused on connecting the past event, people, or place with how relevant would it be today or in the future, and allow readers to make an assumption of why we still have memory of this experience (Desoto,
The five-paragraph essay is perhaps the only kind of essay many students hear about. Argumentative essays, research papers, and even book reports have a tendency to fall into that formula strictly and allow for little flexibility. This can be a tedious and boring process, as John Warner’s fervent argument insists. However, Kerri Smith demonstrates a stronger argument with her defense of the five-paragraph essay by emphasizing throughout that it is simply a building block for more elaborate essays and by using credible influencers that prove her point effectively.
In a persuasive essay, these are excellent forms of appealing to the audience and guiding them to follow the line of thinking Worthen has. She begins with an anecdote to introduce her struggle as a professor, drawing the readers from the very beginning. With the readers reeled in, Worthen is able to explain how professors understand lecturing to truly be. She emphasizes how they have the best intentions for their students, wanting to push them harder and further than they could imagine. Worthen tied her evidence with every argument that she posed to her reader. Her use of expert opinions stand out due to her frequent use of them. She interviewed an array of professors, along with a student to help emphasis how lecturing has really expanded their horizons of teaching and learning, respectively. Although the evidence may seem a bit faulty due to it strictly coming from her opinions, she does an excellent job tying it with the expert onions she has gathered from different professors. Worthen also gives a student input to help validate all these ideas from the perspective of a former
Use transitions and make connections not only between paragraphs, but among sentences, too. Play with different types of sentence structures (some long, some short, etc.) and more vivid, descriptive word choice to make the essay engaging to the reader.
My portfolio absolutely reflects my understanding of persuasive writing. Persuasive writing focuses on the ability to formulate an essay that takes an argumentative stance, but takes the opposition into consideration as well. My portfolio also represents the goals and objectives of persuasive writing. The essays I have written for this course demonstrate that I have certainly developed my critical thinking skills, and developed, or better yet, mastered my communication and personal responsibility skills; but, because of my occasional lack of analysis and issues with word choice, my writing process is not perfected.
After looking back on previous paragraphs I have determined that one of the stronger areas of my writing is the topic sentences. My topic sentences are clear and argumentative while setting up the main idea of the paragraph. In the fifth paragraph assigned this term the topic sentence,“In the novel True Grit by Charles Portis…Rooster Cogburn is at heart a man of stronger character than his...acquaintance, Labeouf.” is a topic sentence that sets up the main topic and the foundation of the argumentative paragraph.
I will start with the definition of phrases. According to Whitesmoke (2002) Phrases is the group of words that have no both subject and predicate; it also couldn’t stand alone as a clause or a sentence. It means that they must have more than 1 word to be phrase, they also have their own meaning but they can’t stand alone (lack of subject or verb or the passive) as a sentence because of their lack of full meaning. For example: some black cats (lack of subject)/ the girl that I love (noun phrase). However, there is an argument that only a single word can also be phrase too. TutorMax (2011) explains that only a single word can also be phrase. For example: They/ Jack/ I (can also be noun phrase). In my opinion, I agree with TutorMax because a single word also has its own meaning and can be phrase too.
According to newspaper style, paragraphs should be one or two sentences long, with each paragraph including a complete statement or thought. This allows the reader to move from point-to-point quickly, without becoming bored and losing interest in the story. Information in newspaper articles must always be attributed.
There is very little mystery to writing the personal narrative essay. There is no proper topic for such an essay. An essay can be about a variety of personal experiences. You, the writer, have the right to say what you want about your personal experience. You can write about anything -- Aunt Sally, the funky necklace you bought at a garage sale, the harrowing experience of being stuck in an elevator, the best Christmas you ever had, the worst day of your life. No topic or subject is off-limits; therefore there are endless opportunities to write an essay about your personal, point-of-view of what happened. Often the reason behind wanting to write a personal essay is unclear. Once the writing begins and the events are recorded and recounted it becomes clear that the writer is searching to find the meaning, the universal truth, the lesson learned from the experience. When writing, rewriting and good editing coalesce, a personal narrative essay becomes a beautiful thing. It shows how the past or a memory’s significance affects the present or even the future.
What is an essay? Webster’s New Twentieth Century Dictionary (2nd ed.) defines an essay as “a short literary composition dealing with a single subject, usually from a personal point of view and without attempting completion.”
Supporting details – these sentences do just that, they “support” the main idea. These sentences are directly related to the main idea. A general rule of thumb is to have around three or a few more supporting details. This would put the sentence total for the paragraph in the five to seven sentence range. Purdue OWL Engagement (Online Writing Lab) cautions against trusting paragraphs containing just two or three sentences total. A paragraph this short may not contain enough information.
“An independent clause followed by a series of subordinate constructions (phrases or clauses) that gather details about a person, place, event, or idea.”
The topic of informative essay writing can either make or break the backbone of it, so think thousands of times before going for a topic, there are two things that one should keep in mind while deciding the topic of an informative essay.
A sentence fragment is a sentence which is grammatically incomplete. It is incomplete because it either lacks a subject or a verb. It can also lack both.
When people begin to write a paper, whether it is for a college assignment or just personal writing, there always seems to be a type of stylistic choice or way of going about writing that they prefer to do. Each different essay has its merit depending on what you intend to write about, and each essay has several differences found when writing them. This essay has the purpose of defining narrative and descriptive essay. It also will compare and contrast each, as well as describing, comparing, and contrasting one narrative and one descriptive essay from our previous reading addressing the structural components found in each, and finally telling which type of essay I personally find superior.
In the first paragraph the writers briefly described academic language, explained its importance to students and expressed the critical need for it in the thesis statement: ‘Proficiency in these skills otherwise known as academic language, is critical for reading comprehension and overall academic success.’ This was noted as a successful opening paragraph as it highlighted the thesis statement. However the two subsequent paragraphs seemed to link with the opening paragraph to form an introduction. This was perceived, as the writers provided the purpose and audience in these supplementary