Friday, October 26, 2012

The Strategic Use of Essay Writing Examples

If you're ever stuck trying to write an essay, one of the best tricks you can use is to find essay writing examples. The old chestnut "the best way to learn how to write is to read" didn't gain its cliche status for nothing; reading reorients you to the perspective of reader, making you a more mindful writer.

Your essay writing samples can be friends' essays, essays published in books, or just essays you find online. It is important to make sure that any essay writing examples you use are from quality sources, otherwise they might serve as poor examples on which to base your own work.

Once you have your hands on one or many samples, you can use them to give yourself a crash-course in essay writing. Look at your essay writing samples. How are they formatted? Notice the structure of the writing sample. Does it have an identifiable beginning, middle, and end?

Also try and pay attention to the way the author has organized his or her ideas into a cohesive argument. If the essay involves an emotional appeal, identify what strategies the author used to get a reaction out of you. Think about what kind of language is being used and the effect it has on you, as a reader, and how you might manipulate language to your benefit when you are writing your own essay.

Finally, decide whether or not you think the essay is any good. Is the essay's point well made? Are there things you would change? If so, what? It's important to remember that you're using essay writing examples as just that-examples. Copying someone else's work without their permission and passing it off as your own is never a good idea, but if used responsibly essay writing samples can help a great deal if you are having a rough time with your essay.

Friday, October 19, 2012

Developing Outline For Essay Writing

A strong outline makes a meaningful original essay. Developing outline for essay writing makes a student write his essay faster and efficiently. It is the major part of the prewriting process of an essay. The time you spend to develop an outline for essay writing can be saved when you actually write the essay. An essay outline is a list of all required information that you plan to include in your essay and it doesn't necessarily rule out any points that you feel unnecessary at the time of preparing your outline for an essay. Preparing an outline helps you order your information to support the thesis statement most effectively.

Since writing an outline can sometimes be tedious job because this is where you actually start thinking about your essay seriously. Following some basic guideline can be of help here. Your essay combines three major parts, the introduction, the body and the conclusion. Let's look how you can prepare an outline for your introduction, you need to state the thesis statement and two to three major points. When preparing outline for introduction get the most important points to be included here so that you can generate the curiosity in the reader and get his attention. When you develop outline for the body of your essay, it should have points specified depending on the length and requirements of your essay. You should identify points that support the thesis statement of your essay. Each point should then be noted to explain when you actually write your essay. You should also find suitable examples that clearly explain your point. You can find more than one example for each point as you can choose the most suitable ones when you are finally writing it. Other than examples you should also collect facts and quotations that prove your major supporting points. You should also plan and outline how to show the point is relevant to your thesis statement. Depending on the requirement of your essay there should be points ranging from three to unlimited and each point should be given all the above mentioned supporting factors like examples and relevance proving statements. The conclusion should also be included in the prewriting process. You conclusion should tie points together to prove your thesis statement and it important not to include any new ideas in the conclusion. Another major pre-writing requirement is the formation of transition statements from one point to another. When you outline your essay, you should spend time to develop transition phrases and it helps to keep your essay in order and well organized.

There are some students who don't bother to spend time on developing an outline for essays and start writing right away. Here are few benefits of writing an outline for your essays. The most important benefit is that an outline helps you organize your thoughts and develop the essay from it, rather than start writing out of the blue. Once you develop an outline for your essay, you will be able to identify gaps in your research and supporting points and you get enough time to fix them. By developing a strong outline you are actually taking the stress away because you know what you are doing when sit to write the essay. It would always be beneficial to present your outline to professors so that they can make sure you are in the right track and can suggest you changes which would make your essays outstanding.

Often students find it difficult to start the outline writing process. You can start by gathering all the information you have collected on the essay through your research and sort the information you find beneficial. Next step could be a working thesis statement and selecting points that support it. Make sure you have covered all the major parts of the essay in your outline as introduction, body and conclusion before you actually start writing the essay.

Friday, October 12, 2012

Creative Writing Prompts - The Secret To Transforming Your Creative Writing

Is there a magic formula that enables anyone to instantly write the most wonderful writing of their life, some tiny technique you can read about then transform your writing overnight?

Well, not exactly. But the good news is, although each of us are unique in who we are, what we write and how we write it, there are certain key techniques that all of us can use to improve our writing, and to make it easier for us to reach our creative potential more consistently, more often.

One of the ways of becoming a better writer is to use creative writing prompts.

A writing prompt is simply a few words or a phrase that give you a starting place to write from, a springboard to dive into the deep pool of writing talent that lays within you.

Writing prompts don't tell you how to write, which words you should use, how long your sentences should be and so on. That's all up to your own creative expression. The prompt just provides an entry point to unlocking your imagination, and this can be invaluable, especially during times when you're feeling particularly blocked or short of inspiration.

Another benefit of using writing prompts is that they gradually make themselves redundant.

The more you use writing prompts, the more easily you'll be able to come up with the starting point yourself.

This works because your creativity is something that can be trained and developed. When you use prompts often, your creative mind learns to pre-empt what the writing prompt might have been, and it loves to fill in the gaps.

So instead of thinking "I'm really stuck, I think I'll use a writing prompt to get my creative juices flowing", you start to think: "I'm really stuck. What kind of writing prompt would work to get my creative juices flowing?". And then you come up with it!

This sounds too simple and obvious to work, but it does. In effect your saying "I don't think I know the answer to this question. But if I DID know the answer, here's what I think it would be..."

Because you're putting faith in your creativity to come up with something, it will, it loves the challenge. You've just got to present it with the challenge in the right way.

And this is how creative writing prompts can help, by training your creativity to come up with new ideas, new perspectives and different outlooks in the way you write.

Start using some creative writing prompts today and trust that your creativity is as deep a pool as you need it to be. You'll be amazed at how resourceful and creative you can be in hardly any time at all.