Developing an effective essay

1
Developing an effective essay

• Tips and techniques

2
Ways to develop your topic

• Guidelines for a good paper

• To generate ideas, you can use several methods
• Keeping a journal
• Observing your surroundings
• Freewriting
• Lists (Brainstorming)
• Clustering
• Journalists questions
• Who? Why? What? When? Where? How?
• Use expository techniques

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Expository Techniques

• Narration Telling a story in chronological
  order
• Description Sensory details smell, taste,
  texture, sound, appearance
• Description by examples Use of specific examples
• Definition Dictionary or other
• Classification Discussing a large group of
  items or concepts by analyzing its components

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Expository Techniques, continued

• Analysis Separating a subject into its elements
  and examining the relations between elements
• Comparison and contrast Explain similarities and
  differences between ideas, objects, people,
  places, etc.
• Analogy Comparison of different subjects to
  explain unfamiliar topics
• Cause/effect analysis Why something occurred and
  the potential consequences
• Process analysis How-to, step-by-step

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The Thesis Statement

• Helpful checklist

• Does your thesis statement
• Narrow your topic to one central idea that you
  want the reader to grasp?
• State something specific and significant?
• Provide a view of how you will cover the topic?

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The Thesis Statement

• Helpful checklist

• Checklist for revising your thesis sentence
• Does it make an assertion about your topic?
• Is the assertion limited to only one idea?
• Is the assertion specific?
• Does the sentence convey your purpose?
• Write more than one thesis sentence for the same
  essay to focus and improve your paper

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Outlines

• Helpful hints

• Aspects of a formal outline
• Labels and indents designate order and importance
• Sections and subsections flow logically
• Equally important points are placed in parallel
  headings
• Each subsection has at least two parts
• Headings are in the same grammatical structure
• The thesis statement should appear above the
  first heading as a single sentence

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Organizing the essay

• Choose a structure for your essay

• Introduction Body (a.k.a. Development)
  Conclusion
• Spatial organization Front to back, top to
  bottom, geographical progress, etc.
• Chronological order of events First, second,
  third, etc.
• Deduction or Induction General to specific or
  specific to general
• Problem/solution Description of issue followed
  by solution
• Development of topic Setting out ideas from
  least to most important
• Most familiar ideas (to readers) to least familiar

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Drafting

• Using the outline as a guide,
• Rewrite your introduction and thesis statement
• Write out sentences for each main point in the
  outline, and add supporting information, facts,
  data, reference to readings, etc., for each point
• Begin a new paragraph with each new point, then
  add conclusions and transition to next paragraph
  or subtopic
• Put the draft aside for a few hours or overnight
• Rewrite the draft, changing each sentence for
  better clarity and accuracy

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Editing

• Not proofreading

• Revise for
• Content
• Style
• Mechanics
• Format
• Proofread for typos
• Ask someone to review