Essays:
Topic Sentences,
Concluding Sentences and
Transitions.
My purpose this time was to check that you had topic sentences, concluding sentences and transitions between paragraphs.
Basically I discovered that most students were not even using multiple paragraphs, let alone introductions or conclusions.
Introductions:
Introductions should:
Many students provided no proper introduction. In Fact, if you look in the Textbox on the right hand side about 'context' you will see that many just started writing, without any real indication as to what the essay was about.
The introduction may be just a sentence or a small paragraph.
If you wrote a heading/statement as the Topic name, then you could just read that and it would act as the Introduction.
Sentence Structure.
There are different types of Sentences - so use them all.
It is obvious from the Essays that students are not spending the time to think about the construction of more complicated sentences.
If you had planned an outline of the Essay, then you would already know what points would be included in each paragraph, and you could have worked on them just like you did in your introductions, and could have created many more 'Compound-Complex Sentences'
Read again about Outlines HERE.
Paragraphs have Purpose:
Each paragraph is like a new topic. It has a purpose! If you do an outline of your essay, you would know what the purpose of each paragraph will be.
Many students are just writing and writing without seperating the essay into paragraphs. Be aware of the core idea of the paragraph and create a new paragraph when the transition occurs from one core idea to a different core idea. [I will provide some examples later in the right hand column.]
Within each paragraph there is a solid core of ideas. We should make up a list of what things we are going to put into that paragraph.
Categorize things. P. 181 of your book.
This is saying that when you know your topic, you have to make out a list of things that you want to write about and then put them into some sort of order. We have covered this.
Another way to say this is, that you must have an outline of what you want to write.
Very few students are preparing an outline. See page 132 of your book.
Whether you are writing a whole essay or just a paragraph, you need to have categorized what you will put in it, and where within it you put those things.
Take nothing for granted! Explain Carefully your ideas!
Imagining: [P. 167 of your book.]
Don't presume anything when it comes to writing. In the right hand column there is a section about introductions that lacked context. If I had had another teacher read and correct your essays, that teacher would have had no idea what articles, newspapers and texts you were referring to.
Paragraphs are not Isolated from each other.
Common Problems.
No clear introduction
No clear concluding sentence
No paragraphing
Mixing of Verbal Tenses
Bad Spelling
The biggest problem is that students are not doing an outline. As a result, the thoughts expressed on paper are all jumbled up.
Do an outline:
Work out what points go together and in which paragraph they will go.
When you have finished your essay, go back and work on your sentence structure.
Check that there is logical order in what you have written
Check to see that it makes sense.
This link will take you to the article on 10,000 word essay which is all about OUTLINES.
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