An Essay You Don't Have Time To Write

I can’t remember the last six months of my life as a student. I am also not an amnesiac, it’s just that I have had absolutely zero minutes to recap and ponder my life, to process it. And it’s not that I don’t have free time, I will admit, I procrastinate. But I can guarantee, I’m not spending my precious and limited time procrastinating sitting around thinking about my life…

But, I would definitely rather do that than waste time pondering how I am going to improve my essay writing skills. And I doubt that anyone else has time to either. So, now that I finally have some free time (and because it is my homework), I’ll be writing the essay you don’t have time to write: How to improve your writing.  

For most students, writing an essay presents a multitude of challenges. Especially during one’s education, when writing an essay becomes a regular chore of an academic week, writing almost becomes habitual. While learning to write and get over the fear of writing in itself is a skill, this repetitive writing can often lead to a pattern of mediocrity, where one fails to learn from their mistakes. The fact is the majority of amateur and student writers need work on improving their essays. Often times, a writer will lose their voice, the aspect of their writing that makes them unique and engaging. They will overlook common errors detract from the true value of their essay, and they become lost in the complexity of their own argument and writing and produce awkward and confusing work.

Another essential aspect of writing prolific and quality work is proofreading and editing. Often times this requires outside help, because a writer can become blind to small mistakes they are used to making. However, if a writer decides to take on the proofreading and also editing aspect of writing a paper by themselves, they should have a few materials. First of all, they should have some sheet or graph of the wide degree of grammatical and stylistic problems writers encounter frequently. One issue writers have when they lack the proper tools to edit and revise is failing to look for one problem at a time. Once a writ

er learns to search for one problem at a time the grammatical quality of an essay can be significantly improved. This particular author made this mistake multiple times throughout the essay, “However, when one examines “What is an American”, Hector de Crevecoeur; “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”,” (Erpf). Here, the writer uses commas outside of quotation marks, which is an error in American English grammar. If the writer of this passage had addressed each of the grammatical errors commonly found in formal academic essays one at a time it would be likely they would have realized this mistake, considering there are two of them in this sentence alone. Further, if the writer of this essay had had a guide to the rules of formal academic writing with them while editing and proofreading, they would have more likely seen this error and fixed it. Ultimately, as long as you make sure that you have easy access to the rules of literary etiquette, and you take your proofreading one step at a time, your essays should be grammatically sound.

 Another aspect of writing which is actually somewhat depended on having clear grammar, and which is also an essential aspect of producing an excellent essay is writing clearly. To elaborate, writing clearly is; writing elegantly, and concisely, but not awkwardly, confusingly, or lengthily. One way of making sure that writing is clear is to read it aloud. An author claims in a passage “In this sense, Whitman was an absolute social revolutionary in his work.” (Erpf). First of all, the author should have asked himself, “are there any words or phrases that do not add anything to my argument?” Because “In this sense,” is an absolutely useless phrase and an example of writing that is unnecessarily wordy. Further, if you read the sentence aloud, the last part, “in his work” sounds misplaced. This is an example of awkward and confusing writing. In addition, the word “social” doesn’t make sense, because Whitman’s work was a literary revolution, not so much a social one. It would be more concise and elegant if the author had written, “Whitman’s work was revolutionary.” (However, note that in most writing we refer to the author and their work in the literary present, this is an exception because it refers to the abnormality of Whitman’s writing during his time as a writer). In summation it is easy to get caught up in the complexity of your own writing, but it might not be for your audience. So read your work out loud. Get an outside opinion in it, and ask if it makes sense. However, when you ask for an opinion, make sure to keep it to, at most, two people. This isn’t necessarily a rule that is set in stone… But if you want to keep your essay unique and your voice clear, your not going to want to have your friends and teachers sand it down to a legal document. Which brings me to my next point.

In order to write better essays writers have to find and establish their own unique voice. The voice of a writer is something characteristic and unique to them. It should remain consistent and similar despite the style and topic of their work. In essays the voice lends creative leeway to t

Check out Walt Whitman's poem
Song of Myself, a
perfect example of effective
literary voice. 

he writer, and allows for the unique and special perspective that makes their essay singularly outstanding. However, it is not so easy to find one’s voice. Over time, it can be obscured by plain and boring language, statements the writer does not actually believe are true when they write them, and the passive voice. Here an author uses the passive twice in one sentence, “The United States of America is influenced under Christian religious principles, which can be recognized in everything from the  currency used to the Union Address.” (Erpf). If these two examples were changed to the active the author’s voice would be more present, and their writing more clear and powerful. See the difference: “Christian religious principles influenced the United States of America, and everything from the currency to the Union address reflects this fact.” In addition to becoming clearer in both the message and voice of the author by using the active voice, this sentence also now seems more like the author believes in what they are saying. This is a persuasive aspect of voice. If the writer of the essay actually agree with what they are saying, and there voice shows in that belief, their audience is more likely to agree with them. Further, when the author of an essay uses colorful language which amplifies their voice, they bring the audience’s attention to their statements and beliefs: “reflects this fact.” This is a perfect example of a strong, clear, and honest statement coupled with a rich word, “reflect.” Ultimately your voice as an essayist is what makes you unique. Use distinctive and vivid language to demonstrate to your audience that you do in fact believe in what you write, and your voice will be heard.   

Writing an essay is not hard. Writing a compelling essay with flawless grammar and literary etiquette, a clear, concise, elegant, but not confusing message, and a unique and compelling voice is not impossible; But it takes years of practice. It also takes help, so feel free to take advantage of the internet and use extensions to google drive like SAS Writing Reviser. At the end of the day writing an amazing essay comes down to this; Your grammar will be perfect if you take it one step at a time, your essays will be clear if you read them aloud and revise, and Your voice will be there if you believe in what you write about. And a little bit of extra proofreading never hurt.