Critical Essay Writing

Critical Essay Writing An essay is a continuous piece of writing in which ideas, propositions, research and justifications are put forward and analysed in the form of a series of paragraphs. Read and reread your paper to ensure the sentences are sensible and paragraphs flow into each other smoothly. Check the grammar, spelling, and punctuation make necessary corrections. Delete any irrelevant sections; improve expressions by changing the vocabulary. Now write up your final draft and submit it before the deadline. An introduction to academic writing for English Language Learners, focusing on essay development, grammatical correctness, and self-editing. You don’t have to stay in one place and write from beginning to end. Give yourself the freedom to write as if you’re circling around your topic rather than making a single, straightforward argument. Then, when you edit, you can make sure everything lines up correctly. However, even in those essays that appear to be highly creative, unscientific, or personal, an argument of some kind is being made. To start you off, and to minimise the likelihood of writer’s block, a useful exercise is to do a ‘brainstorm’ of all your ideas in connection with the essay title. It can be a way of making a lot of progress quite quickly. Let’s look at one of the paragraphs from the chocolate essay to see how the text is an interplay of the internal voice of the writer and the external voices of other authors. The ability to construct good essays involves understanding the process and the conventions of essay writing. The more experience you get in writing essays, the more comfortable you will become with this genre. Slang and jargon should not be used and long, rambling sentences should be avoided. A good dictionary is the writer’s friend â€" spell checks cannot always be relied on. Realistically, it is possible that they may even decide not to make that effort. It is your task to present your argument in a way that your audience can follow; it is not your audience’s job to launch an investigation to detect the points you are trying to make. Underpinning the structure will be the ‘argument’ your essay is making. The tutors reading and marking your essays deserve your consideration. They will be reading and marking many, many student essays. If you make your argument hard to follow, so that they need to re-read a paragraph to try to make sense of what you have written, you will cause irritation, and make their job slower. Again this may be strong and obvious, or it may be almost invisible, but it needs to be there. In different subject areas, and with different styles of writing, the term ‘argument’ may seem more or less relevant. Your grammar (sentence structure, use of vocabulary…) should be considered carefully, as should punctuation. Together with research and planning, these areas make an impression on the reader. Some assignments, and most examination answers, will be required to be presented in the form of an essay. Referencing is integral to academic essay writing and shouldn’t be viewed as an ‘add-on’. When you are referencing, always use a referencing guide to help you ensure 100% accuracy. The Topic Sentence should unambiguously express the topic of the paragraph and be linked with the overall thesis of the essay. The conclusion should not just repeat the ideas from the introduction. The introduction includes the background to the essay, the important issues and a thesis statement. The introduction leads your reader into the essay. The conclusion reminds your reader of the main points made in your essay and leaves your reader with a final impression and ideas to think about later. Essays should be presented word processed as directed on A4 paper.