7 Simple Rules for Writing the Perfect Essay

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7 Simple Rules for Writing the Perfect Essay

• Rules for Essay Composition

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1. Avoid Wordiness

• Long sentences are not necessarily wordy, nor are
  short sentences always concise.
• A sentence is wordy if its meaning could be
  gracefully conveyed in fewer words.
• Wordiness is often caused by
• Redundancy
• Inflated phrases

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Redundancy

• Redundancies are a common source of wordiness.
  There is no need to say the same thing twice.
• Many students will have a wordy paper by
  restating similar ideas
• Wordiness is caused by students saying the same
  thing more than once
• Sometimes students will state ideas twice or even
  three times, creating wordiness

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Redundancy

• Redundancy Examples
• True facts
• Close proximity
• Cooperate together
• Basic essentials
• Slaves were portrayed or stereotyped as lazy even
  though they were the main labor force of the
  south.
• Sylvia very hurriedly scribbled her name and
  phone number on the back of a greasy napkin.

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Inflated Phrases

• Empty or inflated phrases
• An empty word or phrase can be cut with little or
  no loss of meaning. An inflated phrase can be
  reduced to a word or two.

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Inflated Phrases

• Empty or inflated phrases
• Along the lines of like
• At the present time now
• Because of the fact that because
• By means of by
• Due to the fact that because
• For the purpose of for
• For the reason that because
• In order to to

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Inflated Phrases

• Empty or inflated phrases examples
• The town of New Harmony, located in Indiana, was
  founded as a utopian community.
• New Harmony, Indiana was founded as a utopian
  community.
• We will file the appropriate papers in the event
  that we are unable to meet the deadline.
• We will file the appropriate papers if we are
  unable to meet the deadline.

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2. Put yourself and the reader in the background

• State your opinions as a matter of fact
• Do not remind the reader who the author is unless
  you are an expert in the area
• In this paper, I will prove that Greece played a
  more important role in shaping Western
  civilization than the Romans
• If you look at the facts, you will see that Roman
  architecture was better than Greek architecture.

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3. Avoid Overstatement or Overgeneralization

• Overstatements hurt your credibility as an author
• Dont state things in a way that your reader
  could argue against
• Sometimes overstatement makes your point untrue

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Overstatement or Overgeneralization

• Overstatement examples
• Since the Romans used all Greek inventions, the
  Greco-Roman culture began
• In Athens, everyone had full equality with the
  law
• The Greeks obviously impacted modern Western
  civilization more than the Romans, because the
  Romans didnt contribute anything new to impact
  the world we live in today

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4. Find Your Verbal Crutch

• A verbal crutch is a pattern in writing that you
  may be unaware of
• Verbal crutches may distract your reader
• Sometimes, good writing strategies may become a
  detriment if overused
• Sentence patterns
• Word choice

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5. Dont Overdo it

• Do you use the thesaurus to find a bigger word?
• Bigger isnt always better
• Know your audience and write at an appropriate
  level
• Keep it simple

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7. Ask Yourself Clear, Simple Direct?

• Homer made history and gave the Greeks an
  ultimate past
• The arts would be very different, or maybe not
  even exist, if it wasnt for the Greeks
• For the reason that Greek culture was spread
  through the Roman Empire, it is clear that Rome
  was more influential

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Your Papers

• As you can now clearly see, the Romans had a
  great empire
• An excellent but not known example is . . .
• When asked to list what is needed in order to run
  a thriving empire, one thing immediately comes to
  mind a great leader
• After Alexanders death his empire split itself
  into four pieces

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• An empire needs to be tolerant of the people it
  rules
• Everyone believes empires are a thing of the past
• When you think of an empire the first thing that
  comes to mind is conquering
• What is one thing an empire always has? An
  emperor.

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• In India, you have Asoka, who is know as the
  greatest leader in India
• When you think of Alexanders great empire you
  dont think about the roads and school he has
  built but of his great military strategies and
  conquests
• Take the Roman Empire for example. Rome was
  located in the perfect spot.

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• Greece birthed Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle as
  well as the architectural marvels
• The brainchild of Jesus Christ Judaism
• Religion of western civilization evolved
  immensely by first learning by first learning to
  accept Christianity in the early Roman world
  converting large regions and living the Christian
  lifestyle and the blending of Christianity with
  Roman and Germanic cultures

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Examples

• The Muslims were forced to deal with a wide
  variety of negative problems that made it
  difficult to expand and increase their
  advancements in art.

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Examples

• The Muslims experienced various problems which
  hampered artistic achievement.

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Examples

• When you take a really close look at the Middle
  Ages, you will see that at the same time as
  Europe (was in a dark age), the Muslims (were
  having a time of cultural greatness).

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Examples

• An examination of the Middle Ages reveals that
  while Europe experienced a dark age, the Muslim
  world experienced a golden age.

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Examples

• All historians put the label of dark age on the
  Middle Ages but in actual reality they were a
  golden age, but due to the fact that there were
  multitudinous amounts of improvements and
  advancements in culture they should put a
  different label on it, golden age.

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Examples

• Many historians label the Middle Ages a dark age
  but in reality they were a golden age because
  there were many cultural advancements.