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Consider these some do’s and don’ts of essay writing. Violation of these essay pointers from now on results in lower scores for your writing.

Organization

• Have an introduction that incorporates all of your essays ideas.
• Title your essay; it serves the purpose of having another thesis statement.
• Make sure your introduction and thesis statement address all parts of the essay prompt
• Don’t try to do address too much in your thesis and introduction. You only have 40 minutes. It’s better to go into plenty of detail about a few points rather than glossing over too many points generally. This is a case of “less is more.”

• Use paragraphs. Have a topic sentence for each paragraph.
• Avoid arrows, scratch outs, notes in the margin of you essay.

Usage

• Learn the difference between these commonly confused words:
• Loose/lose, choose/chose
• Affect/effect

Spelling issues

• Spell composition-specific words correctly (Persuade, writer/writing/written, argument)
• Spell out all words (abbreviations and codes are okay in text messaging but not in the academic essay)

• Write legibly. If I can’t read your handwriting, how can evaluate it?
• As mentioned in the opening day handout, write all one-draft in-class essays in pen.
• Underline (or italicize) titles of longer works like books, movies, CDs; put shorter works like short stories, poems, and songs in quotation marks.
• Use terms correctly. To illustrate means that an author specifically states a point and then uses examples to illustrate.
• Always use specific examples, incorporating direct quotes from the text into your discussion seamlessly. Don’t say “my earlier examples also support…” State at least an abbreviated excerpt the example again if that’s the case.