{"id":1167,"date":"2012-12-26T17:55:25","date_gmt":"2012-12-26T17:55:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/?p=1167"},"modified":"2012-12-26T18:04:13","modified_gmt":"2012-12-26T18:04:13","slug":"essay-writing-some-practical-considerations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/essay-writing-some-practical-considerations\/","title":{"rendered":"Essay Writing: Some practical considerations"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tutoring English,\u00a0advice\u00a0can be\u00a0more important than “how-to”.\u00a0 Here, then, are some practical pointers to help your next essay.<\/h1>\n

Talking to my sister\u00a0yesterday, she told me she’s had a flood of essays to mark this semester.\u00a0 When your essay is amongst many others,\u00a0you might have\u00a0extra opportunity\u00a0for reward.<\/p>\n

Like anyone else, English professors possibly get tired of marking so many essays – especially if one after another shows the same tired errors and\u00a0repetitive sentence structure.<\/p>\n

If you can make your essay\u00a0enjoyable to read (while still functioning as a valid essay, of course), your professor might likely be a little\u00a0kinder about any errors you make, and a little happier about what you’ve done right.<\/p>\n

Here are some tips you might find helpful:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Make sure you prove your thesis.\u00a0 This will help you stay on topic and make your essay straightforward reading.<\/li>\n
  2. Proofread your essay for errors.\u00a0 This tip sounds obvious, but many people I’ve talked to say they never proofread their work.\u00a0 Remember:\u00a0 spell checkers don’t catch everything!<\/li>\n
  3. Vary your sentence length and structure.\u00a0 Use some inversions and the odd compound sentence – although complex ones are better.\u00a0 Keep sentence length to two and a half lines or less – most should be less.\u00a0 Short sentences – as little as five words – can be very effective now and then.<\/li>\n
  4. Connecting with the last point, use a variety of punctuation.\u00a0\u00a0Consider a semicolon, colon, or dash where appropriate.<\/li>\n
  5. Vocabulary:\u00a0 use some less common, but more descriptive words where appropriate.<\/li>\n
  6. (Potentially) Controversial:\u00a0 if your essay is finished, but underweight, don’t “pad” it.\u00a0 I think ten percent under the assigned word count is probably acceptable in most cases – as long as the essay follows all the other instructions given.\u00a0 If your word count is less than 90 percent of the assigned length,\u00a0you’ll probably need another\u00a0supporting paragraph in the body to make up the shortfall.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    With\u00a0reference to points 4 and 5:\u00a0 you needn’t do those strategies more than once a paragraph or even every other paragraph.<\/p>\n

    Of course, asking your professor about any of these points might yield some great feedback.\u00a0 Believe it or not, I’ll be commenting on how to ask your professor questions in an upcoming post.<\/p>\n

    Happy Holidays.<\/p>\n

    Jack of Oracle Tutoring by Jack and Diane<\/a>, Campbell River, BC.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Tutoring English,\u00a0advice\u00a0can be\u00a0more important than “how-to”.\u00a0 Here, then, are some practical pointers to help your next essay. Talking to my sister\u00a0yesterday, she told me she’s had a flood of essays to mark this semester.\u00a0 When your essay is amongst many …<\/p>\n

    Essay Writing: Some practical considerations<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1167"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1167\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1185,"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1167\/revisions\/1185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}