Attention! International students do not have to freak out about writing essays in class anymore! This single article can give you the most effective solutions for your essays!
Inspired by:
Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White
You Need an Ear for Words to Write by Sydney J. Harris
Check these resources out to become the MASTER of English writing
If you do not have time to read both books, let’s now check out this article, written by Sungwoo Park, that sums up key information from those books.
Sungwoo Park (PhD in ten years)
Junior at Choate Rosemary Hall
Born and raised in Seoul, South Korea
Picked up English at the age of 6 in New Zealand
Not a master in English, but don’t know why he wrote this
Okay at English
English is Not A Talent
Writing is the most significant foundation in all areas of studies. Having over a million words to choose in English, a writer produces powerful, vivid writings like how an artist draws paintings with various tools and colors. International students, whose mother language is not English, often struggle to write a strong, succinct paper in school because they have not acquired the skills needed to compose a valuable essay using the least amount of words. However, as native speakers also picked up English long after they were born, kids from other countries have plenty resources and opportunities to master English. Linguistic skills can be enhanced at any time during one’s youth through exposure to media resources and various genres of literatures. Thus, in order for an international student to become a proficient English writer, one should
1) learn how to utilize contextual evidences
2) write concise and powerful sentences
3) choose appropriate vocabulary
NOW, let’s begin this journey!
1) HOW to use contextual evidences effectively
Contextual evidences from other writings often better essays because they support writers’ claims and enrich authors’ voices. Anyone can make claims; in order for the readers to not think the statement is ridiculous, writers are obliged to provide logical reasoning and proofs that advocate their point. Inserting contextual evidences, which are usually quotations or statistics, produces a better-structured essay that easily explains the readers how writers came up with their arguments. For instance, the following claim contains lines from the poem so that the writer of the essay could emphasize how Whitman had dedicated himself to the American Civil War:
“In his wartime poems, by using phrases like “the tearful parting—the mother kisses her son—the son kisses his mother” (Drum-Taps 37) and “the blood of the city up—arm’d! arm’d! the cry everywhere” (Drum-Taps 34), Whitman sought to inform the readers how tragic and inhumane the Civil War has been, and he urged the public to finish the seemingly endless warfare in this country” (Park).
If the sentence simply stated that Whitman tried to display the tragedy and violence of the Civil War through his wartime poems without having any lines from Whitman’s poems, the readers would have perceived the argument as a tedious, bland point that does not have any reasoning behind it. However, through allowing the readers opportunities to read Whitman’s wartime poems, the writer could construct a more convincing, vivid claim. Quotations play a similar role when the writer says, “As Holmes states that “for ten thousand ages, day and night,/ The human race should write, and write, and write” (Holmes 7-8), writing enhances people’s qualities of living” (Park). Evidences are particularly significant when authors seek to compose a thesis-driven writing that analyzes works of other writers. By citing lines that show Holmes’s thoughts toward the role of writing in people’s lives, readers can have better understanding about both Holmes as a renowned poet and the motivations behind how the writer came up with the claim. As a result, international students should use appropriate amount of contextual evidences to create an intriguing, powerful writing.
2) HOW to make your writing more lively
Less usage of helping verbs, such as can and be, allow writers to ornate their essays with vivid action verbs that depict one’s actions more clearly and accurately. Students from abroad tend to write long sentences because they have a common misconception that long sentences better describe the situation. However, excessive amount of words often bore the readers when short, strong sentences intimidate and impress them. Brevity is considered the key method to produce an enhanced writing, and avoiding helping verbs is the easiest way to master this method. For instance, take a look at the following sentence: “In Hollywood, where many celebrities live in massive mansions, there is a legless man who cleans the stars embedded in the sidewalks” (Park). Instead of using a helping verb, this sentence will gain vividness by giving an action to the legless man if the writer changes the clause to “a legless man cleans the stars embedded in the sidewalks.” Moreover, when the sentence “The novel Red Harvest is a parody of American detective fiction” transforms into “Red Harvest parodies American detective fiction” (Rose), the sentence becomes more catchy and eases readers’ understandings. Less usage of helping verbs also diminishes the number of unnecessary prepositions in the essay, and this improvement also betters one of the key objectives of an essay: persuasiveness. Therefore, international students should always keep in mind that shunning excessive usage of helping verbs in their essays will quickly improve their English writing skills.
BE, SHOULD, CAN: these verbs are necessary sometimes, but UNNECESSARY most of the time!
AGAIN, if you don’t understand how to apply this rule to your essay, you’re STUPID.
But, don’t hesitate to ask the master via email: sungwoopy@gmail.com
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.