Sunday, June 8, 2008
Essay Writing Importance: Breaking Student’s Delusion
Essay writing remains to be one of the hardest and complicated tasks that the marvel of modern technology has yet to make easier for man. Everything nowadays is simply keystrokes away, but the process of assembling thoughts into an engaging written piece still proceeds at an old fashioned pace.
Since the days of paper and pencil, essay writing has never really changed a lot. It still entails tons of hard work, in-depth research, logical organization of thoughts, and sophisticated style of writing. As a lot of students continue to hate this writing activity thinking it’s just a time-consuming worthless activity, there are four good reasons why writing essays is to be considered as more beneficial than burdensome. Here are some important purposes of essay writing:
* knowledge internalization
* intellectual development
* feedback generation
* good practice
Barely listening to a lecture or simply reading is not an assurance of knowledge internalization. Knowledge has been really internalized if it has been taken by someone as his own. Knowledge possession is best achieved through writing. Essay writing is a good way to internalize the facts that has been heard or read. Eventually, writing activity stimulates the intellect and leads to intellectual development. Aside from that, writing essays is a healthy way to improve writing skills. It is a good practice for future written exams.
Essays are essential for development and evaluation of students’ skills - writing and reading skills, analytical and critical thinking skills, research skills, and the ability to write under time pressure. All these skills are assessed in the entire essay writing process.
Therefore, essays are tools to gauge students’ level of knowledge and skills that greatly affect their grades and academic performance.
Essay writing remains to be a big challenge to students and even to the most consummate writers. However, essays affect too many things in a student’s academic life: grades, reputation, admissions, and abilities. Essays produced by students serve as reflection of their thinking skills.
Students find essay writing to be a burdensome activity. There is a great need to let students understand the importance and benefits that the writing essay brings – that it is intrinsically valuable to their academic growth.
As many students think that the essay writing experience is just a waste of time and simply another great means to add burdens in their academic life, appreciating the skills and knowledge it offers breaks this futile delusion.
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Introducing a Great Essay Introduction
First impressions last.
While this may be a bit of an exaggeration for some, it is nevertheless oddly accurate in most cases. In fact, it is an adage that applies not only for people, but also on objects; the written word, for instance. How so? Imagine an individual needing to read up on something, and still trying to choose from two materials. Will the said reader choose the essay with an introduction that is vague, error-filled, convoluted in structure, and boring? Or will the reader pick out the essay with the introduction that is clear, engaging, authority-sounding, and even a little funny? Of course, the reader will choose the latter essay! That is how much wallop a good introduction can contribute to a document.
Whereas the heart of every essay resides in the main body, the introduction serves as the hand that grabs the readers to at least give the material a chance. It is the document section that reels in prospective readers to sample the content, and hopefully, captivate the readers enough to read the entire essay. Indeed, it would be quite unfortunate if materials with supposedly rich content are disregarded outright due to lousy beginnings.
With all these considered, it then doesn't hurt that every writer should take note of a number of strategies for optimizing one's introductory section. One effective technique is to compose the introduction last. This practice may seem strange at first try, but is actually an effective means to craft a captivating introduction. As writing involves a flowing and varying train of thoughts, the writer may not exactly know the essay's strongest argument until the whole content has been established. Only when all details and arguments have been organized together can the writer best prepare a beginning, one that is relative and complimentary to the material's main body.
Another tip for a good introduction is through the use of of attention-grabbing lines. Every writer should keep in mind that for every essay ever written, there is almost always another article that tackles the same theme. And so, for the essay to actually be chosen, it has to stand out from the rest of its counterparts. Being catchy may mean starting out with a provocative example, a thought-provoking question, a captivating quotation, and an intensely graphic anecdote. Simply put, the key goal is to captivate.
The third and last introduction technique is to be straightforward. Nothing turns off readers than a beginning that goes on and on. Keep it short, simple, and direct. In this way, readers will be intrigue as to what other information can be derived from the material.
If these techniques have already been absorbed but there is still a need for actual essay samples, one recommended way to be further familiarized on great introductory writing is to check online sites specializing on custom essays. As it turns out, each custom essay released on reputable sites are mostly with introductions of impeccable structure. This is due to the fact that the writers and editors of these sites are trained to write exceptionally from the beginning till the end. With these custom essays as references, a writer can more effectively absorb various writing techniques and practices.
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Essay Writing Service Boons in Online Business
An essay writing service can provide a student almost anything under the sun, from well researched and originally written research papers, theses and essays to blogs and other academic writing requirements. But this service has evolved into a more dynamic writings provider – serving websites as well.
Except from students suffering from too much work loads, an essay writing service now also serves the growing needs of websites. How?
With the increasing popularity of the World Wide Web, many websites sprout competing for a fair share of the market. And one of the efficient ways of increasing traffic of a website is through article submissions. This is when an essay writing service comes to the picture.
Informative, well constructed, and SEO enriched articles do all the talking for a website. Web content that empower the site equals good conversion rates for an online business. However, many website owners do not have the luxury of time, the resources, or the skill for writing web copies that work. Therefore, since an essay writing service provide everything with regard to writings, a website owner also benefit from it.
There are a lot of essay writing services that create all kinds of customized contents for web sites nowadays. Based on a certain website’s needs and requirements, hired professional writers create a SEO centric web content that is reader friendly as well.
Most web based essay writing companies employ graduates and post graduates who are experts in their respective fields. These essay writing firms not only provide well researched and original write ups but also well written articles on almost any topic.
Good and reputable essay writing services employ people who have graduated in their respective subjects. So whether the website’s topic focused on technology, psychology or economic, equivalent professionals handle the job. A writer having a degree in Philosophy never handles web contents for a medical based website.
After every article has been written, a quality essay writing service normally let the work to be proofread by another expert. Through this, a website owner avoids headaches brought by misspelled words, incorrect grammar, and improper punctuations. This benefit is necessary because web contents that have errors diminish in value.
Essay writing service also scans the written web contents through a number of anti-plagiarism software. This eliminates the chances of getting an article that is just copied from somewhere else. Plagiarized web contents ruin the credibility of a website regardless how skillful their SEOs are.
Moreover, web based essay writing services adhere strictly to beating the deadlines. A reputable essay writing service delivers the work on the agreed date or, refuses to take payment in the event that the delivery is later than the specified date.
In addition, due to the increase of professional online essay writing services almost anybody can afford to get articles written catering specific online business needs and requirements. Although some professional writing companies charge higher than the others, web copy’s quality is never compromised.
An essay writing service has been known in providing students their academic writing needs. But nowadays, this kind of service also serves online businesses with their marketing promotions through providing competitive, reader-magnet, high conversion rate copies.
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Custom Term Papers: Ways to Proper Source Documentation
Custom term papersare commonly associated with plagiarism. Plagiarism is defined as the unauthorized use of one’s words and thoughts and making them as one's own. And the most efficient way to avoid plagiarism issues is only through proper reference or citation.
Whether in custom term papers or not, avoiding plagiarism is done best by documenting sources appropriately. How? By using footnotes, endnotes, parenthetical references, and having bibliographies or works cited page at the end of the term paper.
In writing custom term papers or self-written academic pieces, it is very important to take into account the preferred documentation type of the professor. Most word processors usually have superscript, footnote and endnote capabilities. If required to use footnotes and endnotes, it is a rewarding effort to master this feature of the computer.
Of the various ways to document sources, a parenthetical reference is the simplest. It is also referred to as parenthetical documentation or parenthetical citations.
In using parenthetical references, only short reference enclosed in parentheses after is needed. The author's last name and the page number/s are placed in parentheses in the corresponding text to give credit to the sources.
In using footnote references, one must have numerically superscripted footnote references at the bottom of the same page where the citations are located. Footnotes and endnotes are common in custom term papers, and are used to give credit to sources of any material borrowed, paraphrased and summarized.
The main difference between footnotes and endnotes is that footnotes are placed numerically at the bottom of the very same page where direct references are made, while Endnotes are placed numerically at the end of the term paper on a separate page titled Endnotes or Notes. They are intended to refer readers to the exact pages in the Works Cited Page, References, or Bibliography section.
Aside from endnotes, footnotes and parenthetical reference, custom term papers and the likes need to have works cited pages and bibliographies to prevent plagiarism issues. Works cited page is sometimes referred as references. The terms are quite have the same meaning. Each is an alphabetical list works to which the paper has made reference.
Custom term papers depend on the prescribed writing style in choosing what documentation type to employ. Works Cited is commonly used in citing sources using MLA (Modern Language Association) style, while references is used in citing sources via APA (American Psychological Association) style.
However, works cited page and bibliography are not equally the same. In works cited, it is only a list that the paper actually cited while in bibliography, it is a list all of the materials that have been consulted in preparing the entire term paper whether or not it is actually cited the work.
Facing plagiarism problems in custom term papers and even in self-written papers is quite easy to resolve when proper source documentation is employed. There is absolutely no excuse in failing to cite sources because there are various methods to choose from.
Related posts
Custom Term Papers: Ways to Proper Source Documentation
Custom term papers are commonly associated with plagiarism. Plagiarism is defined as the unauthorized use of one’s words and thoughts and making them as one's own. And the most efficient way to avoid plagiarism issues is only through proper reference or citation.
Whether in custom term papers or not, avoiding plagiarism is done best by documenting sources appropriately. How? By using footnotes, endnotes, parenthetical references, and having bibliographies or works cited page at the end of the term paper.
In writing custom term papers or self-written academic pieces, it is very important to take into account the preferred documentation type of the professor. Most word processors usually have superscript, footnote and endnote capabilities. If required to use footnotes and endnotes, it is a rewarding effort to master this feature of the computer.
Of the various ways to document sources, a parenthetical reference is the simplest. It is also referred to as parenthetical documentation or parenthetical citations.
In using parenthetical references, only short reference enclosed in parentheses after is needed. The author's last name and the page number/s are placed in parentheses in the corresponding text to give credit to the sources.
In using footnote references, one must have numerically superscripted footnote references at the bottom of the same page where the citations are located. Footnotes and endnotes are common in custom term papers, and are used to give credit to sources of any material borrowed, paraphrased and summarized.
The main difference between footnotes and endnotes is that footnotes are placed numerically at the bottom of the very same page where direct references are made, while Endnotes are placed numerically at the end of the term paper on a separate page titled Endnotes or Notes. They are intended to refer readers to the exact pages in the Works Cited Page, References, or Bibliography section.
Aside from endnotes, footnotes and parenthetical reference, custom term papers and the likes need to have works cited pages and bibliographies to prevent plagiarism issues. Works cited page is sometimes referred as references. The terms are quite have the same meaning. Each is an alphabetical list works to which the paper has made reference.
Custom term papers depend on the prescribed writing style in choosing what documentation type to employ. Works Cited is commonly used in citing sources using MLA (Modern Language Association) style, while references is used in citing sources via APA (American Psychological Association) style.
However, works cited page and bibliography are not equally the same. In works cited, it is only a list that the paper actually cited while in bibliography, it is a list all of the materials that have been consulted in preparing the entire term paper whether or not it is actually cited the work.
Facing plagiarism problems in custom term papers and even in self-written papers is quite easy to resolve when proper source documentation is employed. There is absolutely no excuse in failing to cite sources because there are various methods to choose from.
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Writers: Master the Art of Brevity and Satisfy Readers
Time is precious, and readers need a reason to keep reading—it’s a fact of life these days when information is available almost instantaneously. Especially in the Internet, you must get to the point right away, as studies have shown that on average yo...
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Top tips for writers
Think of the reader
With internal communications, staff newsletters and team briefs, you don't have to prove you can write like a best-selling author or gain prizes for intellectual ability. Your job is to communicate effectively. That means brevity, accuracy, simplicity. It means knowing your audience and thinking of the reader from the word go. Put your points in a logical sequence - give the facts in a descending order of importance.
Brevity rules OK
Keep stories to a maximum of 250-300 words. Line after line of text unrelieved by paragraph breaks is boring. Keep sentences to 25-30 words – at the 50-word mark you are being long-winded. Insert a paragraph break after a change of thought or tack. Aim to keep paragraphs to three or four sentences. Only let paragraphs run longer for a detailed or technical explanation. Keep quotes short too.
Plain is best
Plain, simple, English gets your message over best. Go for the short word rather than the long. Don't use flowery descriptions, particularly in news items - stick to the facts.
Write tight
Avoid repetition. Check for synonyms. Don't insert words that add little or nothing to sense or meaning. Don't put i.e., e.g. or etc. Don't start two sentences the same way. Use bullet points for long lists or put them under separate headings. Don't use an ampersand in text. Study newspapers to see how journalists condense a mass of facts.
Get the grammar right
Keep to the rules of grammar. But don't be pedantic. Don't be afraid to introduce journalistic licence for internal communications.
Punctuation essentials
Use commas sparingly: three in a sentence may be one too many. Get the apostrophe (if one is needed) in the right place. Use a colon to introduce a quote, not a comma. Don't overuse brackets . Don't use a hyphen for a dash which is twice as long. An exclamation mark is hardly ever necessary.
Make it readable
If your words are hard to read you've wasted your time. Headlines, bullet-points, sub-headings and captions all help to liven the page. Make reading as effortless as possible. A tired eye means a lost reader. For good.
Accuracy first
Be extra careful with names, figures and with unfamiliar or technical words. Check that days of the week coincide with dates. If you say a certain number of points follow, ensure there are that number.
Avoid flabby prose
Needless words and phrases obscure the point of your writing. For example, look at the difference between:
Banish the weak expletive
Starting a sentence with the weak expletive There is or There are wastes reading time and puts the reader on hold until the sentence topic finally appears. Compare:
Don’t be dated
Never start a story with a date – it is unlikely to be the most important fact and using the date upfront will make your story read like the contents of a policeman’s notebook and bore your reader rigid.
Out with clichés
Learn to recognise the cliché. Don't acknowledge you have written one by putting it in quotes. Out go having said that, of the fact that, and hundreds of other awkward, worn words and catch phrases. As soon as you realise you have used an expression you have read many times before think of something shorter and original instead.
Kill the gobbledygook
Much the same goes for jargon, the language of a trade, business or profession. Write with words and expressions your readers will understand: what makes sense to a particular group may be gibberish to others. Information for a wide readership must be clear to all audiences.
Slang is out too
Much slang comes from jargon. You can get away with it in speech, say at a conference, but not in print. Some comes from advertising and is accepted as part of modern culture, but is often criticised. The best place for slang is the sales leaflet.
Avoid awkward syntax
Although they maybe (strictly speaking) grammatically correct, words such as ‘amongst’ and ‘whom’ sound pompous and old-fashioned in any publication and you won’t find them in a newspaper.
More at Writing for Internal Communications.
© Adrian Ruck MCIPR is a journalist and corporate communications specialist with more than 20 years' experience in public relations and media relations. He is editor of Writing for Internal Communications.
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