ESSAY TIPS

"So what?", "Who cares?", "How do you know?". If you want to write a good essay, ask these questions. If you can't answer them, your reader will go to Honolulu at your first sentence.

"So what?"

What's your point? What's your thesis? What's your opinion about all this?

• Be aware of your thesis the whole time you're writing. Write a one-sentence thesis on a paper. Paste this sentence above your desk. Check every half hour. Make sure you're on track.

• Be curious, questioning and open minded about your subject. Fall in love with your thesis....at least a little in love.

• Limit your subject. Love one thought at a time

• Be relevant. Make sure everything you write advances your thesis. Brutally elimanate irrelevant material.

"Who cares?"

Who is your audience? What person (besides your English teacher) would you like to read this? Are you trying to entertain, inform or convince?

• Tell the truth. One of the worst things about faking it is that you immediately become a bore. I promise you; tell the truth and you'll be interesting.

• Be straightforward. This means use the smallest, most accurate word or phrase you can to tell the truth.

• Figure out the appropriate language for the reader you mean to reach.

• Think about the reader's personality and biases. Imagine your reader. Talk to your reader in your mind about your ideas. Argue with your reader.

"How do you know?"

• Give concrete, detailed evidence for anything you say.

• Be accurate. Check your facts. Go back and look. Ask somebody. Get all the details and facts.

• Assume nothing .

• Be thorough. Keep going until you convince. Don't stop too early.

GUIDELINES

There's no substitute for work and attention. Read your essay aloud. Have someone read it aloud to you. Read it sentence by sentence from the end to the the beginning. Care works! As you proofread, check the following carefully.

• State your thesis clearly in the first paragraph.

• Make paragraphs the unit of the composition. Make each paragraph a little essay, one that could stand by itself. Read each paragraph alone. Make sure it works by itself.

• Use topic sentences to focus each paragraph and to move your point. Read just your thesis and your topic sentences. Does your essay still make some sense? Good.

• Use transitions between paragraphs. Read the transitions. Make sure they are varied.

• Give a clear order to your information, maybe from least important to most important.

• Use clear and correct sentence structure. Especially check your predication. Watch the logic. Make sure modifiers are clear.

• Be meticulous about pronoun reference. Change most of your pronouns to nouns.

• Avoid non-committal language. Make every word concrete.

• Use the active voice whenever possible. In fact, use active verbs whenever you can . Try to change the "to be" verbs to action verbs.

• Use simple tenses whenever possible.

• Word sentences positively. Avoid "it is not unlike" sentences.

• Document your sources clearly.

• Make the final message absolutely neat.

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