Ever wondered just what it takes to write a good essay? What exactly are teachers assessing you on when they read your work?
Ms Yen Chan, Head of English at HIS, shares five basic principles that will help you, especially when you’re under the exam time crunch.
Not answering according to what the question wants is a huge mistake, and you don’t want to do this, especially in an essay since it’s not something that you can re-write in minutes. So, read the question carefully, understanding exactly what is needed.
Know the required length of the essay. Writing too much is not always a good thing. Presenting ideas accurately and succinctly is better than rambling on, even with bombastic vocabulary.
Think of words that you can use to convey your message and use in your essay. Write them down in a list first – like a word bank – even if they aren’t the final words that you will use. If you don’t plan and write them down first, you may end up using the same old (possibly bland) vocabulary that you’ve always used. When the opportune moment pops up for you to use a word from your word bank, you can then think of a suitable, more appropriate synonym.
There are reasons to write paragraphs of various lengths – they are all needed to make an essay effective. Depending on the type of essay you are writing (narrative, descriptive, informative, etc.) use paragraphs to your advantage.
However good the points and ideas for your essay, if you commit the grave sins of poor punctuation, horrible sentence structures, and careless spelling, you’ve just shot yourself in the foot!
