Paul Roberts, a seasoned English professor and linguist, authored the article "How to say nothing in 500 words", an excellent manual on how to cope with writing assignments that are often, if not always, depressing to students who lack the necessary requisites to produce successful or satisfying essays. By using an approach that is both humorous and practical at the same time, with viewpoints extracted from the vast experiences of a college instructor and frequent reader of student essays, Paul presents the 9 core characteristics that would cause a reader to find interest in examining an essay, or frown upon it. It is highly unlikely that a person who reads this work of Paul Roberts would be able to tell it is not a paper published recently, …show more content…
Throughout my years of learning, both English and Vietnamese, I rarely found myself too horrified by a writing task, thanks to my ability to unnecessarily lengthen the essay by employing numerous synonyms and sentences that are actually repeating themselves. That is, to say virtually nothing in long passages. Now, this nefarious technique may go pass indifferent readers or teachers with ease, but it can never slip through the watchful and adroit eyes of adept audiences unnoticed. Why? Because beyond the seemingly elaborate cover of the essay, there is little weight and depth of the content to be found. Adding desperately long sentences will only dilute the content of the essay, thus discrediting the writer's …show more content…
As he began to engage his assignment in a perhaps jaded mood after a series of weekend activities, at the very last hours before the due date, the writing started and developed slowly. Eventually the essay reached the level where it was eligible to be awarded a "D". A common reward for a trivial product of a typical student. This image of the student can be very much realistic, considering the fact that a plurality (if not a majority) of students nowadays does not possess the adequate skill set required to accomplish a writing task. But let's also not forget that, there are always a number of students who have mastered the art of writing in their own rights, whose essays would possibly feature the advice Paul Roberts provided in his
“Unteaching the Five Paragraph Essay” by Marie Foley demonstrates how a five paragraph essay formula disturbs the thought process of the students and limits what they can write. A five paragraph essay is an introduction with the main idea, with three supporting topics showing the relationship to the main idea, and a conclusion summarizing the entire essay. Foley argues that this formula forces students to fill in the blank and meet a certain a word limit. She noted that this formula was intended for teachers in the education system to teach an overcrowded class how to write. While it is beneficial for the first-time students learning how to write. In the long run, this standard destroys any free style writing, new connections between a topic,
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 Patricia Limerick’s article “Dancing with Professors”, she argues the problems that college students must face in the present regarding writing. Essays are daunting to most college students, and given the typical lengths of college papers, students are not motivated to write the assigned essays. One of the major arguments in Limerick’s article is how “It is, in truth, difficult to persuade students to write well when they find so few good examples in their assigned reading.” To college students, this argument is true with most of their ...
Thomas Osborne opens the narrative with a description of himself up very late at night trying to write a paper. Sadly, he’s been at it for four days, and unfortunately he seems to have writer’s block. Osborne’s personal experience with a first draft that he deems “failed” due to the writer’s block. Also, his realization of his personal writing style and how he uses it to his advantage versus conforming to a more normal style of writing occurs later in the selection. Looking through the lens of a reflective analysis perspective, it’s easy for me to find similarities to Osborne through my writing style, personal experiences, and through analysis I better understood
In our modern society, we have forgotten the art of writing. When we write, we think to ourselves, the longer the sentence, the more intelligent I will sound. Many may say it is by writing long sentences. But is it all that true? In this piece of writing I would like to focus on an essay written by Verlyn Klinkenborg, Several Short Sentences About Writing. In this essay he explains how and why when we write, we should keep our sentences short. he also explains why students should be assigned essays that are not determinate on other sources as evidence. I will also be comparing this to a piece written by Sarah Manguso, Ongoingness. I will be comparing these two pieces on their writing style, and their essayistic ideas. My belief is that we need
One might compare this to the grueling, tiresome and back-breaking efforts of writing a good essay. Many of us have been writing essays for a long time now. Some of them are A papers, and well some them not as good as we thought they were. Throughout the years, teachers have shown us the proper technique and several examples of papers,
My form and structure are not always the best. In one of our more challenging essays, the Rhetorical Analysis Essay my form and structure weren’t as strong as they should be. As stated before, I made the mistake of not staying focused on the rhetorical elements of my topic and venturing my own personal opinion in the essay, which crowded and weakened my form and structure. Continuing with Murray’s path, the development of my essays is based on the rubric. I always seek to include information that the rubric is essentially telling me to include, but sometimes I fall short of developing my thoughts enough. The dimension of my essays also has inconsistencies. I tend to have a problem of expanding into great detail on one point of my essay leaving another point barely expanded upon leaving my essay disproportionate. Finally, the last thing writer’s look for in their essay is their own voice. Thomas Osborne in Late Nights, Last Rites, and the Rain-Slick Road to Self Destruction states “I strive for a good grade, and will work as hard as possible to achieve one, but there is a voice in the back of my head that is effectively scoffing at the ridiculousness of some assignments and expectations that I have had to complete and live up to.” My voice sometimes gets lost in assigned essays when I try to fulfill certain standards that are put upon me. Thomas and I both struggle with writing what we need to write in order to achieve the grade
Proper skills for writing an essay is an important aspect a student, and even employees of the work force should be aware of. An essay is required for receiving grades in class, but they are also required for many other purposes. If an applicant is seeking for effective writing in their academic courses and for future aspirations, then The First Year Writing Program is perfect for effectively teaching the required material. The First Year Writing Program will give confidence to all successors passing the required English courses. Candidates can be aware of proper English and become well educated, by giving The First Year Writing Program the opportunity to turn them into successful English writers.
Bartholomew Roberts, a famous pirate in the eighteenth century, once described the piratical lifestyle as “a merry life and a short one” . This quote exemplifies the often romanticized view of pirates often seen today. Images of savvy swashbucklers who honor the code of the seas and drink copious amounts of rum while counting pieces of eight prevail the modern understanding of pirates. However, this image does a disservice not only to the reality of the lifestyle, but to the very real danger that pirates presented in the Atlantic World. Piracy had a profound impact on multiple aspects of the Atlantic World including commerce, trade, slavery, and culture all the while maintaining its own unique attributes.
Dan Melzer (2003) presents the results of a study in which he aims to provide a broad view of college academic writing through a survey of writing assignments in different disciplines. Melzer’s research compares to James Britton team’s study of essays from British secondary schools and Arthur Applebee’s studies of essays from 200 American high schools (87). Melzer examines students in various academic disciplines who are asked to conduct research for a variety of purposes including informative, persuasive, expressive, exploratory, and poetic (91). Using both “quantitative and qualitative discourse analysis of the rhetorical features and contexts of the assignments” Melzer explores four main research questions in his essay the purpose of academic writing, the sources they use, the
Every English 111 textbook should consist of three main things: the proper way to write an academic essay, review of proper grammar, mechanics word usage and a short transition chapter of the difference between writing in high school and college writing. Successful College Writing by Kathleen T. McWhorter has many of the essentials but noticed it lacked examples of a noble essay. All throughout class students critiqued essays but never actually saw an example of a good, noteworthy complete essay. Having examples of what a person shouldn’t do in an essay is always beneficial but should be followed by a precise academic essay. How are the student supposed to improve their academic writing skills if they have nothing to go by? Just because the book lacks a few of the basic essentials doesn’t mean the book itself will not be beneficial in any way. The book as a whole is pleasing but still has room for revisions.
Technology has changed drastically from the the time period in which Ray Bradbury alludes to and the modern era which we live in today. However, the debate on whether technology is detrimental to our well being and society has been very controversial for as long as time. Technology is like a game of pick your posion. For example we have social media, we can either nitpick the issues wit Fahrenheit 451, a dystopian look into a horrific possibility of our future, highlights the idea that technology should compliment people and not over shadow them.
I have learned many things throughout the course of the term, including such things as: how to write an essay and how to improve on essays that I have already written, how to locate and composite better research through the use of numerous resources found at the campus library, the internet, and the “Common Sense” textbook, how to cite research, examples, and quotations properly within the contents of my research paper as well as document it accurately according to MLA standards. Through the exploration of the “Subjects and Strategies” textbook, I have learned nine different methods used when writing an effective essay and how the different writing styles affect the overall theme and tone of the essay when used properly. This past semester, I have encountered many difficulties when trying to write these essays, but through the use of the textbooks, the aide of the instructor, and once I was able to classify the different types of essays and styles, I found them possible to overcome.
This class has been significantly more difficult than any other English class I have taken all throughout high school. This semester, I have been introduced to different styles of writing that I have never been exposed to before. This class has been stressful, but also fun. With using all of the resources I have been given throughout the semester, I have been able to do my best to further my writing abilities and hopefully only continue to grow them as I finish my later years in college. Throughout this essay, I will discuss my failures, my successes, my overall performance in the class, and my skill development skills.
Over the period of time that I was in this course, I thought it would be a very simple and easy to finish class. But as time went on, I found myself to be demanded more of what I think, what I feel, what must be relied on my ability to understand the concepts and conventions of not only the essays, but of what goes on in the writers mind when writing.