I’m teaching at a university this year. Of the two essays they the students have been assigned, they have completed the first, and I am currently marking them – well, between wasting time on FB and posting to this blog for the first time in over a month!
Okay, so we know that writing for university is not like writing a blog, right? Right. Unlike the relatively forgiving medium of a blog, which allows for an elastic acceptance of writing style, when writing an essay, it’s important to use a more formal language, and to ensure your impressions can be clearly understood by the reader. This requires good sentence structure and grammar, and proof-reading. These are just a few things that are essential to writing a good essay.
If you’re a student and you find yourself wondering how to write an essay, then I would like to direct you to the following two links: The Online writing lab at Purdue University, and its grammar blog .
Please, do your instructor a favour by submitting a fabulous essay that he or she can enjoy, and read with ease. I’m waiting for that one essay where I don’t have to work so damned hard to pierce through the white noise of bad grammar to get to the content.
Maybe your essay will be The One?
Ingrid
Mired in a puddle of muddled phrases.
Poor You. Been there, read those. I stopped giving long papers after the first year, I didn’t feel they were worth the time it took to read them. Sadly, no matter how low I set the bar, they never fail to disappoint me. Susann’s tactic is simply scare hers into working hard.
What are you teaching? I hope you are having fun.
I’m teaching an intro to stagecraft at SFU. Mostly non-techs are taking the course – actors & others. It’s a requirement for graduation from the acting program and an elective across departments. So… economics, communications, film, etc students are taking the course. The papers I’ve asked for them to hand in are short, 500 – 750 words, but most of them are horrid. I’m almost done reading them and will have very high expectations the next time around. No doubt Susann is scaring them into doing well! She’s a task-master, she is!
And yes, I’m having fun. It’s good, and will be better next term. This term was rehearsal!