do’s and don’ts of academic essays
Here are some things I noticed after reading your first one-draft essays. Consider these some do’s and don’ts of essay writing.
Organization
- Have an introduction that incorporates all of your essays ideas, but don’t just restate the prompt.
- 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 your essay.
Usage
Learn the difference between commonly confused words:
- Loose/lose, choose/chose
- Affect/effect
- who/whom
Spelling issues
- Spell composition-specific words correctly (e.g. persuade, writer/writing/written, narrator, argument, opinion)
- Spell out all words (abbreviations and codes are okay in text messaging but not in the academic essay)
- Write legibly. If your handwriting can’t be read, how can it be assessed?
- 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. For example, to illustrate means that an author specifically states a point and then uses examples to illustrate that point.
- 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.
