How to Write a High School Essay

Writing is a Process

• The three steps in the process of writing are:

• prewriting: the process of coming up with writing topics, researching topics, focusing topics, and/or organizing a writing topic.

• writing: the process of writing several drafts of an essay. The main goal of this step is to get your ideas on paper in an organized fashion that makes sense to you.

• revision: the process of rethinking and rewriting an essay as well as correcting grammatical, spelling, structural, and stylistic errors. In other words, you are making your composition worthy of being printed, published, or passed (as in a passing grade).

Prewriting• freewriting: nonstop writing within time or spatial

parameters. For example, writing for ten minutes or writing one page. This is NOT part of your essay.

• discussion: talking to another person or group of people about relevant texts, themes, and/or issues.

• brainstorming: making a list of possible topic ideas. • webbing: connecting topic ideas. • THE LAZY OUTLINE: This is the most important type

of prewriting in my opinion. In a lazy outline you briefly plan what points will be made in each paragraph or section of an essay. This type of outline will take the following type of form:

•

• Thesis Statement (One sentence stating what your entire essay will be about)– Topic Sentence (What your first body paragraph will be

about.)– Topic Sentence (What your 2nd body paragraph will be

about.)

• Conclusion paragraph

Introduction Paragraph• An introduction is the first paragraph of your essay. It

includes:•

• ATTENTION GRABBER:• An attention grabber is exactly what it sounds like: it is

supposed to grab the instructor’s attention in such a personal, cute, interesting, or creative way, that I want to give you a good grade.

•

• TRANSITION:• After your attention grabber, you will probably need to

transition from talking about yourself to talking about the academic essay topic so that your intro paragraph makes sense. You can’t change topics like that without easing into it a bit. The key with transitions is that the shorter they are the better. You may not even need one, but if you do, keep it to a word, a phrase, or a short sentence or two.

•

• THESIS STATEMENT:• A thesis statement is usually the last sentence of your

introduction paragraph and it states what your entire essay will be about.

Body Paragraphs• Body paragraphs present the reasons and the evidence that your thesis

statement is correct. Each body paragraph must include:

•

• TOPIC SENTENCE: This sentence is usually the first sentence in a body paragraph. It states a reason your thesis is correct.

•

• 4-STEP EXAMPLES/EVIDENCE: 4-step examples are the quotations from the assigned readings you need to integrate into your argument. You can use quotations you agree or disagree with, stating your reasons afterwards. The quotes you pick also need to go with your topic sentence.

• Body paragraphs usually have one or two quotes, but you don’t want your body paragraph to be more quotation than your opinion.

• Don’t end or begin a paragraph with a quote in it.

• Avoid presenting one example right after another (piggy back) with no arguments in between.

•

• ARGUMENTS: The arguments make up most of the content of a body paragraph.

• Arguments show your unique and interesting thoughts.. College instructors are primarily interested in what your arguments say. They are not made up of any plot, facts, or summary from texts. They are your opinions about the thesis, topic sentence, and quotes.

• Arguments should present and fully explain 2 or 3 reasons your topic sentence is correct. Make a convincing argument that makes the reader/teacher want to agree with what you are saying in your paragraph.

How to Put Quotations into Your Body Paragraphs: 4-Step Examples

• There is a certain tradition you must follow to properly integrate the evidence into your essay. When you come to a place in your body paragraph where you want to put a quote, do these four steps:

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• 1. LEAD-IN: Lead-in to a quote by providing information about where the quote is from . You can tell me the article title, the author’s full name, or the author’s credentials.

• 2. PARAPHRASE: Write a short, more generalized summary of the quotation in your own words. After the paraphrase, put a comma and start the next step.

• 3. QUOTATION: In quotation marks, copy the words exactly as they appear in the text. In other words, any words that are not your own, you put in quotation marks so that you will not get in trouble for plagiarizing.

• 4. CITATION: Provide the necessary information according to the MLA citation style. Unless you are quoting a web site, a page number is always needed. Sometimes the author ‘s last name is also required.

• After the 4-step example explain why you agree or disagree with the quote and how it fits in with what you are trying to argue in your body paragraph.

•

• Example of a 4-step example: “Parents and Homework” reported that homework is increasing for those in elementary school, “1997: students 6 to 8 years old do twice as much homework as in 1981” (Clemmit 587).

Conclusion Paragraph• A conclusion paragraph is

misnamed. Do not share any of your conclusions in the conclusion paragraph. Conclusions belong in your body paragraphs. Instead, a conclusion paragraph is REALLY an ending paragraph only.

• Restate your thesis as a statement of success.

• Summarize your main points.

• Finish any personal story from your attention grabber that needs an ending.

• Do not contradict yourself.

The Proofreading Brain

• Count the “Fs” in the following text but do not count them more than once:

• FINISHED FILES ARE THE RESULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIFIC STUDENT COMBINED WITH THE EXPERIENCE OF YEARS.

• How many did you find?

Strategies for Proofreading

• Write down 3 news ones to try!1. Give yourself plenty of time.

Proofreading takes a lot of time, but it works! You will find and correct a lot of errors, if you give yourself a chance to do it.

2. Proofread more than once.3. Trust your instinct. If you read

carefully and get confused or feel something does not sound right, there is probably something wrong with the sentence. Reword things so that you feel better about them.

4. Know your typical mistakes.5. Proofread for 1 or 2 errors at a

time.

6. Use reference books: grammar book, MLA, the textbook.

7. Read your essay out loud.8. Read backwards. If you have difficulty

seeing your errors, you may be focusing too much on the meaning, what you meant to write, instead of what is actually there. To distance yourself, begin with the last sentence, read it out loud., then proceed to the second to last sentence, and continue until you reach the beginning.

9. Ask for help. Proofread yourself several times first and then you can have a friend, tutor, or teacher look over what you’ve written. Don’t expect them to fix all your mistakes. They should only be pointing out your biggest mistakes that you then fix yourself.

10. Use the resources your computer offers. Use your spell check. Grammar check works best if you set it to look for one or two types of mistakes only.

Poetry: What do you think about your computer now?

• The Ma Sheen is Awl Weighs Write

• Eye halve a spelling chequer

• It came with my peas see

• It plainly marcs four my revue

• Miss steaks I kin knot sea

• Eye strike a key and type a word

• And weight four it two say

• Weather eye am write or wrong

• It shows me strait aweigh

• As soon as a miss steak is maid

• It nose bee four two long

• And eye can put the error rite

• Its rare lea ever wrong

• Eye half run this poem thru it

• I am shore your pleased too no

• Its letter perfect all the weigh

• My Chequer told me so.

The Proofreading Brain Explanation

• Your brain will count the Fs in the big content words that add meaning to the sentence: “Finished,” “Files,” “Scientific.” Did you find those three?

• Your brain, however, will skip over the little function words that make sentences grammatically correct but add little or no meaning to the sentence. Did you count the three Fs in the “ofs”?

• Did you find all 6?

Revising Your Essay Before Turning It in for a Grade• Don’t think of revision as fixing errors but rather as re-thinking and re-writing.• Go to the free tutorial center on campus.• Use office hours and student-teacher conferences.• Your essay was good. A small problem can make a big difference in your grade.• Go beyond the instructor's comments because every error may not have been

pointed out.•

• Problem List• Even though you may make a lot of mistakes when writing, they are usually the

same type of mistakes made over and over. To drastically improve your completed essay, make a checklist of four or five types of mistakes you tend to make when writing. By reading, skimming, or computer searches, look only for one problem at a time throughout the entire essay.

•

• Check List: When your essay is finished and proofread, print out your essay and look for problems in the following areas of your paper. When you find a problem, don’t correct it, just write a note on your essay. Look for problems with your:

• - organization (thesis and topic sentences)• -evidence in body paragraphs• -arguments in body paragraphs• -conclusion paragraph

• Then ….fix a few problems at a time until they are all fixed!

• …And proof-read your essay and fix the sentence-level errors one last time.•

Example Of a Real Student Essay

Introduction Paragraph• After eight hours of a long, stressful, day at work, the anticipation about going to the college

library to study is over. As soon as I arrive at the library, it is packed. I am shocked to find no

computers available, no desks to study on, and chaos of students around. As I look around desperate

for a computer, a male student notices me in distress. He then gets up and asks me if I want to use

his computer since he was leaving. Gratefully I thank him as I sit down and adjust to begin to do my

studies. There is not much desk space due to the belonging of students everywhere: no books, no

work, no studying around. I only see people’s belongings: jackets, sweaters, hats, purses, and other

unexplainable material. The chaos of the library comes from personal use of the computers online.

Groups clutter around to gossip, and some clutter just to watch useless nonsense. College libraries

should only be limited to education and educational use.

Body Paragraph• Parents pay for a grand, successful, and rewarding education for their children; not only parents but self supporting

college students do too. The college library desks are not a place to hang around, meet people, and have fun. Christopher

Caldwell’s “What a College Education Buys” states that parents think of college in terms of providing the training for good jobs,

but that is only a small part of what happens on campuses, “the education kids are rewarded for may not be the same

education their parents think they are paying for” (651). Caldwell is talking about the critical thinking skills emphasized in our

current liberal arts education. However, I think parents would be equally shocked to realize that students often see college as

neither job training or education. They are thinking about college primarily as a way to party and have fun all the time. At our

library, the desks are meant for books, computers and seriously focusing on your studies. To become a success, the desks and

computers provide that place, that area. Tuition and taxpayer’s money pays for the library, its desks, and its computers. This

money is being wasted when college property is used to socialize. Moreover, my tuition money is being mis-managed when I

am unable to find a computer in the library at which to complete my school work or I am unable to concentrate on writing my

paper due to the party atmosphere that surrounds me.

Another Body Paragraph

• The chaos of students is distracting for those who make the most of the college library for

studying and research. The computers are taken up by personal use, gossip, watching useless

nonsense. In an article entitled “Welcome to the Fun-Free University,” it criticizes how strict

colleges, “college administrators have been adopting harsh measures in response to unapproved

student behavior” (Weigel 653). I am not saying we should shut down all the fun on college

campuses, but there is a time and a place for fun. Study time in the library is neither. Personal use

should be banned, due to the fact it is more private use of college property. It is very harmful to the

school, staff students and non students. We need to monitor what happens in our college library, it

is not a public library, and there should be standards of care and safety.

Conclusion Paragraph

• Isn’t it obvious that college libraries should be limited to only

education and educational use? As a student of Hartnell College, I

value the proper use of the college library as it was meant to be:

for educational success in life. Simple signs posting the rules

followed up by librarians periodically monitoring the computer area

is all it would take to fix this problem.