Writing A Strong College Admissions Essay

Writing A Strong College Admissions Essay Write out that response, then tell me why it doesn’t defeat your argument, or at least why it only mitigates it. This is the stuff that actually makes up your argument. If you perform poorly at this, you might as well pack up and go home. Next, think about what you need to prove in order to make that claim. If you can, familiarise yourself with the people who think they’re wrong and awful. Figure out if there are arguments which are unresolved and see if you can make a contribution towards resolving them. You don’t want to get penalised because you didn’t reference your readings properly after you’ve put in all that effort to make sure that your arguments are founded in the literature. If the reading list is really short, you’ll need to go beyond it. Look through the reference lists of the papers and books you’ve just read. Ninety nine percent of the structure of your essay is exactly the same as you learned in secondary school. You might think you’re too good for Point, Evidence, Explain. How are you going to relate your argument to the existing literature? Make sure you know their arguments reasonably well and have armed yourself with flexible quotes from their work. Examine your essay from a reader’s perspective and make changes accordingly. You can give suggestions, state limitations and scope of your approach in the concluding paragraph. Try to conclude the main points in a different way than stated in the body of the essay. Make sure that you do not deviate from the central idea and theme of the topic. Finally, make sure you formulate every claim in the strongest possible terms. Don’t make your opponent look like they have no arguments, or take the weakest version of their argument. Think about the strongest possible response to the claim you’ve put forward, then beat that. If you’re making a claim, you need to tell me why that claim is correct. Think of a potential response to your argument, perhaps from an author you’re arguing against. It summarizes or restates the main idea of the essay. You want to leave the reader with a sense that your essay is complete. List the points that develop the main idea of your essay. Finally, check your essay for any spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, relevancy or other editing. What might be the immediate negative reaction of someone reading your central claim? How can you defend yourself against that response? Ideally you want to be able to split your burdens of proof into a few different points. Start your intro with the central claim of your essay. If I’m reading it, I want to know within literally five seconds what you’re trying to convince me of. Think about the text you’re reading and think how you might respond to it. This is the single easiest way to get more marks. If I see an argument citing an author whom nobody else has mentioned, and it’s a decent argument, it will make my day. You will save yourself literally days over the course of your university career. They allow you to reference as you write, and you can create and reformat your bibliography and citations at the touch of a button. Focus on your purpose â€"to persuade.Ask yourself throughout the writing process if that is what you are doing. Once you’ve written the whole essay, read over it again. Look at every premise you’ve used and claim you’ve made. Be aware whilst you’re reading that all arguments and authors are fallible. Mark out a few of the most promising-looking readings. Conclude your essay by restating the main idea in different words. Restate the strongest points of your essay that support your main idea. Use this tip sheet to ensure your paragraphs are performing the role they are meant to perform. Use this tip sheet to help you structure your supporting paragraphs. Use this list of transitional words and phrases as a reference for your writing. Use the appropriate level of language for this type of writing.In this case, it is formal. Never “drop” a quotation into your paragraph.Always introduce the quotation and explain it after.