Exercise 1
Outline the process that you or other students use when normally writing an essay.
I would like to divide my usual essay-writing process into such stages:
Making up an outline;
Developing the main idea of an essay ( commonly I write this main thesis in the middle of the paper sheet and then fill in free space with some notes or commentaries);
Distinguishing several separate thoughts from the main thesis;
Providing evidence and argumentation in order to support my thoughts;
Writing a draft in order to be able to correct some mistakes or add pieces of new information;
Revising an essay;
Preparing a final variant of an essay.
How does your process compare to the six-step process outlined in the Chapter 2?
To begin with, it is important to mention that the pre-writing stage, which includes such actions as limiting a subject and determining purpose and tone of an essay, is much more important than lots of students consider it to be. Actually, sometimes this stage is even omitted and, as a result, an essay is not written properly because of the wrong style or exact outline absence. What about identifying the main thesis, to my mind, it is one of the most significant stages of an essay writing process, since success of an essay depends on a neat main idea and relevant evidence. According to an outline of an essay, a controlling idea should be divided into separate statements. All of those statements are to be supported with accurate and representative evidence. Quantity of paragraphs is equal to quantity of statements plus introduction and conclusions. Another thing is to fill in an essay with transitions and bringing sentences in order to write a connected text.
In general, my process is quite similar to the six-step process. After carefully reading Chapter 2, I have made a decision to pay special attention to my argumentation and evidence relevance as an essay is considered to be written improperly without relevant evidence to support ideas, expressed in an essay.
What suggestions for writing improvement would you make to an entering college student?
I would like to following suggestions:
use more quotations and aphorisms (this may help you to look well-educated and smart);
use evidence from different life spheres: literature examples, your own experience, history, legislation, etc. depending on a topic of an essay;
write an epigraph that will be relevant to the theme chosen;
be objective while writing an essay: in some cases you will need to explore both positive and negative features of some events or phenomena;
pay special attention to introduction and conclusions: these are parts of an essay where you should, firstly, interest a person in reading your essay and, secondly, to consolidate your main thesis with future predictions and your own opinion.
Exercise 2
Prewriting is the first stage of the writing process. Describe and give an example of the prewriting activity that works best for you.
For example, I have to write an essay on the special features of the UK legislation. To start with, I decide the tone of my essay: it will be a scientific essay, …