Writing Handbook

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Commonly-Assigned Forms of Writing

This section contains information to help students with six commonly-assigned forms of writing:

College Essay: This essay is your opportunity to expose an aspect of yourself or character that is not already displayed in other parts of your application. Be sure you are responding to your college or university's specific prompt!

Personal Essay: This essay challenges students to write with a purpose about experiences both significant and trivial, and to discover personal meaning through writing. Through this task, students typically develop narrative skills and hone their personal writing styles.

Literature-Based Thesis Essay: In this essay, students are challenged to conduct an inquiry into a book, short story or poem, to develop a critical perspective on the work, and to develop an argument using textual evidence.

Non-fiction Thesis Essay: In this essay, students demonstrate their knowledge and analytical skills according to the given tasks. This may be part of a research assignment or an expository Social Studies essay.

Creative writing: This is a broad category, but all creative writing uses the imagination. By experimenting with form and language, the writer finds new ways to express ideas, thoughts and emotions.

Lab Report: Lab reports are written to describe and analyze a laboratory experiment that explores a scientific concept. A good lab report allows you to evaluate your findings objectively and methodically.