Writting Essays

Most of the time, english classes request that you write argumentative essays, essays that defend a point of view. Here are a few guidlines for argumenative essays I recieved when taking Eng 1C at UCR:

• thesis: The thesis should be a description of your point of view - wich should be a description of the evidence. It should encompas as much of the evidence as possible.
• Dealing with conflicting opinons: Make sure you do deal with them. Your essay must pursuade your audience. If you can't easily refute examples that contridict your thesis, you need to revise your thesis.
• Immediately after presenting the thesis address contradictions and refute them by attempting to prove them right. This makes you seem wise. After all, you are giving both sides a fair hearing in your paper.
• remember that the point of a agumentative essay is to persuade your reader. the general layout is:
  1. thesis
  2. present arguemnts against
  3. refute arguemtns agains
  4. present your thesis in detail
  this layout can be repeated for each grouping of points.
• try to create a sense of motion with your writting. The reader should be 'swept away' by your arguments. The corallary to this is that when you read an arugmenative essay, you should try to avoid being 'swept away' by the paper. Keep a skeptical distrust.

My Sophmore year of high school, the teacher used the following essay evaluation form, rating each item 1 to 5

1. The paper has an appropriate title
2. The intruduction includes a clear thesis statment and it is interesting
3. Each paragraph in the body of the paper developes the topic of the paper
4. The writing is well organized, the paragraphs follow a logical order
5. The writer supports ideas with textual citations and/or clear explanations and examples
6. the writer cites ideas and direct quotes from sources. There is no evidence of plagiarism or direct copying from a source
7. The writer uses transition words or phrases to make the paper coherent
8. Each paragrph contains fully developed ideas and does not digress from those ideas
9. Grammar, spelling, and punctuation are accurate
10. The writer's style makes use of precise, specific, prose that is clear and concise. The language is niether bombastic nor pretentions
11. the colnclusion of the paper brings it to a close, restates the central idea, and mainatains the readers interest
12. When appropriate, a list of Works Cited is attached