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How to become a good student essay
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How to become a good student essay
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I never really considered myself an "acceptable" writer. I always would panic after realizing I have to write a paper because I never feel prepared or ready. After my semester of English 1102, I realized that I can spot good points for my argument, but I had difficulty analyzing them in terms of my thesis. My thesis and topic sentences were not my strong suits because I either don't dig deep enough, or I panic and add so much to my thesis/topic sentence that the syntax and diction is awkward and confusing. I would spend hours trying to fix these errors because of writer's block and anxiety; however, as the semester kept going, I found it to be easier to fix the errors in my paragraph by asking myself how to improve my paper and asking my peers …show more content…
The basic properties of a thesis statement is the subject, focus, claim, and the "So What?" factor. While I could pinpoint my subject and claim, I had a hard time with making my focus clear and understandable. In Paper 1, my starting thesis statement was "In Battle Royal, the narrator's status as an educated black man serves as a form of wealth; as a result, his wealth is sparking a need for more segregation and silence of the black man in an unequal and racist economy." This thesis statement was not a strong statement because it did not explain and elaborate why the narrator was truly "wealthy", which makes my focus unclear. To address this issue, I had to ask myself why my thesis sentence important to begin with and what did I want my thesis sentence to argue. To improve my thesis, I explained why his wealth was significant and added why my thesis statement was important to the audience. My final thesis statement was, "In Battle Royal, the narrator's status as an educated black man serves as a form of wealth because his education is an advantage he can use to advance in an unjust society; as a result, his wealth is sparking a need for more segregation and silence of the black man in an unequal and racist economy". This thesis statement is better because it pinpoints clearly why his wealth is even significant. Also, the second independent clause made my "So What?" claim clear because I could further elaborate on the broader significance of the
College has always been a process that introduces students to academic challenges that are not present during high school. So when my professor assigned Gerald Graff's essay, "Hidden Intellectualism", I thought this was his thesis. “Missing the opportunity to tap into such street smarts and channel them into good academic work." (Graff 142) I thought that this was his thesis because it explains the main idea of the essay but I assumed its purpose because of where it’s placed. I am so used to reading an essay in high school where the thesis is located right in the first paragraph. So naturally that is where I look for it. However, with more reading I knew that the following is the thesis, not only because it discusses the main topic, but because it clearly shows what the author was making his argument about. "But [students] would be more prone to take on intellectual identities if we encouraged them to do so at first on subjects that interest them rather than the ones that interest us". (Graff 199) Your thesis is one of the major aspects of a good college paper because it shows exactly what the main claim of the entire paper is going to be about. Three main points to take out of a thesis is, is it your main claim or big idea that directly answers a question about the assignment of the paper. Is it written with the reader in mind with a road map they could follow along easily and lastly when you do go back through revising and reflecting does it makes your thesis clearer.
3. Your thesis statement should state exactly what you are discussing in your paper. If you spend a paragraph on stubbornness, a paragraph on shortsightedness, etc, the each of those points should be listed in the thesis statement. Both being unwilling to change, they both seal each other’s fate with their stubbornness, shortsightedness, extreme beliefs and their hubris.
Superstition, astrology, and magic defined medical knowledge in the early middle ages. Hygiene was poor and diets lacked nutrients needed to maintain good health. Ideas that stars controlled one’s health or that four humors had influence over health were common. Many saw illness as God’s punishment for an individual’s sins. Diseases and infections were constant threats to medieval society, and they did not understand the real causes of the maladies. Battlefield and Civil medicine more or less overlapped because the battlefield was a sort of proving ground for medieval medicine. War injuries and diseases common to soldiers generated advancements in medical knowledge, techniques, and technology in the Middle Ages.
A working thesis statement should include a rough idea of your topic and the important point you want to make about that topic. Writing this statement at the top of a rough draft or outline and looking at it often can help you remain focused throughout the essay. However, the thesis statement that you begin with is not set in stone. If you find that your essay shifts topic slightly, you can change your thesis in later drafts so that it matches your new focus.
In my first draft for “Death Constant Beyond love”, my points were vague and seemed to be repeated in different parts of the paper which seemed that I had multiple statements. However, I did a deep analysis through my paper and located the key points of my ideas to create an outline that will drive the reader to only one conclusion, my thesis statement. In this essay I found my weakness but with hard work and multiple writing assignments I improved in a way that now I can focus in only one idea. For instance my thesis statement in this essay was contrasting as I wrote:
When I read “Proficiency” by Shannon Nichols I really felt for her. I understood and resonated with her story perfectly, especially when she stated “After I failed the test the first time, I began to hate writing and I started to doubt myself. I doubted my ability and the ideas I wrote about.” (83). After I failed my writing assignment I was so embarrassed and didn’t want to write again but obviously, I had to. I always doubt the things I am going to say or which order I am going to organize the essay in. I try so hard to make sure all my sentences are cohesive and all my ideas connect to each other and the main concept but sometimes it just seems that when I keep messing with one little sentence or paragraph I just makes things worse.
The question was to write a 4 page in which you discuss the impact a on-literacy text has on your reading of “The Lottery,” “Sonny’s Blues,” OR “Hills Like White Elephants.” I chose the story “Sonny’s Blues” because I Understood this story better than others. First of all, since I did not get good grades, I thought I should put more effort on these papers in order to do better in this course. So, I tried to use some higher level words so that my paper may look like a higher writer’s paper. Same as the 1st paper, my thesis statement still was not clear because the way I put the thesis, it seems like my opinion, however, If I try I can make it look like a better thesis statement. For example, “I think you can work on your thesis. Your thesis is like generalized about the story but professor want something that changed or confirmed your view. Definitely, you can work on thesis to make clear idea what this essay is about.” (Peer Review 2- Islam) In other words, as I said, my thesis is more look like a sentence that summarizes the story where in this paper, it should look like a change that after reading a secondary source have made. This was my thesis, “A non literary text impact various way depending on how an individual analyzes the piece.” (Paper 2-page 1). After the peer review, I have changed my thesis statement into something like this “Reading
There are times when I have trouble writing and that is why I have goals to fix all the things that are bad about my writing. With the advice from the authors I will be able to achieve some of my goals by putting some of it to use in my writing by either getting rid of sentences I don’t need, writing something on a subject that I would be interested in, or lastly keep thinking and rewriting till I get it right. All of those will help make me better at writing because it would probably fix things that I need help on when I write. In the future I would probably need to to work on more things to improve but if I work hard on it I would probably be able to fix my mistakes as I continue
...ragraphs that support the argument. The easiest part of this component was actually inserting it in my essay after I understood the purpose for it, because at the beginning I was confused on the whole thesis concept. The thesis was the most challenging because I kept asking myself "Can I really argue this for five to six pages?" and also "Is this even considered a thesis statement?" I noticed that I can speak and write more effectively when I'm thinking critically and intellectually. My sentence structure has always been strong and I feel it has grown because of the practice we have had in class with finding thesis statements in our readings. My overall issue with this component of the writing process is using a justifiable argument and remembering to support my argument with claims and trying not to put unnecessary points in my paper while maintaining my ethos.
Writing correctly is something that many people find hard to do! I know this, because I use to feel the same way. I have had many English classes in my time, where teachers would sit next to me, and correct my errors sentence by sentence as I went along. All the while asking me if I understood what why what I did was wrong. I remember saying that I understood, but I really didn't. That was something that I didn't like at the time, but I am now very appreciative of the fact that someone was there. With today's kids, most teachers don't take that needed time and help them to get on track with their writing. Because of this, I find that both Strunk and White, The Elements of Style, and Williams, Style: Toward Clarity and Grace to be very helpful. After reading them, I know that they can both be used as "handy" reference tools for today's writers.
In my writing I have realized my strengths are that I always view my paper as a work in progress. I may have weaknesses in my writing but my writing strength lies in my ability to work past the problems and fix them. Struggles I possess in writing is properly wording my sentences to make them flow together and not be choppy. When I type out a paper it seems to make sense from my perspective but when others read some of my longer papers I lose the reader. With your help I would like to work on making my papers easier to read and the subjects in them to come across to the reader the way they were meant
Throughout the semester, I have developed many skills and have greatly improved on my writing. At the beginning of the year, I had no clue how to format a paper in APA. I had only used MLA format before this year, so I was clueless. Also, I never knew how to correctly write an introduction. I did not know that an introduction needed to include a hook. I knew that it needed a thesis statement but I was never writing my thesis correctly, until this year. Finally, I never knew how to correctly include transitions.
The first part of any great argumentative essay is a great thesis. When you are writing the thesis you have to make sure it’s clear and argumentative. Your main purpose of this writing is to offer the reader another point of view and not necessarily to persuade him to change his opinion. For example, if you wanted someone to do something for you, you wouldn't start arguing with them instead you would use a more persuasive approach. Similarly, when you write the thesis think more about stating a clear but argumentative statement rather than a persuasive because if you are to persuasive then it becomes a persuasive essay. An example of a unfocused thesis statement would be “Oregon should provide money for companies to provide paid internships to teach people trade skills. Instead Oregon gives money to people to go to college.” As you can see this
My fiction writing when I first came into the program was described many times by people as instructional. This can be linked to what I said earlier about the lack of constructive criticism that I received back during my high school writing days. I went back over several first drafts of my stories and saw what they were talking about. I did a lot of ‘then this happened’ type of sentences and overall it read very choppy and didn’t flow too well. I try to write out the main points of stories and then try to make it flow together. There have been some instances of my first drafts of fiction today still being that way, but it doesn’t appear throughout the entire story. I also had a lot of grammar and punctuation problems, mostly that is a time management issue that I had. I would make so I almost never had the time to proofread my works. That caused me to get chewed to bits more than once in workshop. I have since then made sure that I’ve had time to proofread my
Throughout the first few months in my college English class, I have written several papers on technology. I have always tried my best on each assignment, but I do know that I am not the best writer out there. I make many mistakes in my writing, but still find myself getting better at share my own true thoughts. I struggle with my transitions from topic to topic and my narrow vocabulary, however I find myself being more open to sharing my own opinions.