Confused about essay ?

inNeedOfPencils
Mon, 01 Aug 2011 09:53:37 +0000

Books will give you the formulaic, rather boring way of writing an essay that melds in with the rest of the slush pile. This is what I did–

Sit down one day at your computer and don’t get up until you’ve cranked out the required number of words for the essay. It doesn’t matter if it’s perfect or not–just get out your ideas, your emotions, whatever. Get it out on paper. It can go over the word limit. Just don’t be under. Save it, and walk away. Don’t think about the essay for the rest of the day. The next day, open up the file and read it over. Figure out a general shape of where your essay’s going, what you were thinking. Start cutting out unnecessary stuff and fleshing out the points you want to emphasize. If you think about a story/comment/cool phrase that you want to use later on, put them on a separate page and go back to them later. Do after you’ve done this for a while, make sure (once again) that your actual essay part is over/at the word limit, save and walk away. Repeat. After several days, you should simply be working on wording and cutting out unnecessary words so that you fit comfortably within the word limit. I’d recommend having your english teacher look at it once you’re there, just for some final touches (and to see if you made any horrible mistakes you didn’t notice).

But don’t use a book. Just don’t. Be yourself.