Writing a Personal Essay: Effective Tricks

A good personal essay can move and inspire readers. It can also leave the reader unsettled, uncertain, and full of more questions than answers. To write an effective personal essay, you will need to first understand the structure of a personal essay. You will then need to brainstorm ideas for the personal essay so you are ready when it is time to sit down and craft your essay.

Find an angle for your essay. Your life may not be littered with exciting stories, or intense drama, but that's okay. Your personal essay can still be engaging for your reader if you focus on finding an angle for your essay. You should try to find a unique or interesting take on an experience, or moment in your life if you want to produce Special Essays. Looking at an experience from a particular angle can turn it into deep, meaningful subject matter for your essay.

• For example, maybe you want to write about an experience where you learned about failure. You may think the time you failed a pop quiz in class. Though the quiz may have seemed insignificant to you at the time, you realized later that failing the pop quiz forced you to reassess your goals and motivated you to get a passing grade. Seen from a certain angle, your small failure became a gateway to perseverance and determination.

Write about a significant moment. A good personal essay will explore a specific experience that created a sense of conflict in your life. The personal essay can be a way to explore how and why you were disturbed, bothered, or hurt by the experience. Think of it as a space where you can discuss a significant moment and reflect on its impact on your life.

• This could be a seemingly small moment that ended up having a profound influence on you later, such the first time you experienced disgust as a child or the look on your mother’s face when you told her you were gay. Try to really dig into why you were bothered, hurt, or disturbed by this moment in your essay.
• Remember that moments charged with strong emotion will often be more engaging to readers. Having a strong reaction to a specific moment will allow you to write passionately about it and keep your reader interested in your essay.

Discuss a specific event that triggered an emotional response. You may also explore a specific event in your life that left a lasting impression on you. Often, personal essays act as reflections on an event that occurred in your life and shifted it in some way. Think of a specific event that is unique and personal to you. The stranger the event, the more likely the essay will be engaging to read.

• For example, you may focus on the day you found out your father cheated on your mother, or the week you mourned the death of a loved one. Think about a heavy experience in your life that shaped who you are today.
• You may also decide to write about a seemingly light topic or event, such as your first ride on a roller coaster, or the first time you went on a cruise with your partner. No matter what event you choose, make sure it is an event that triggered a strong emotional response, ranging from anger to confusion to unabashed joy.

Think of a person in your life that you have difficulty with in some way. You may want to explore a tenuous relationship with a person in your life in your personal essay. Think about a person you have grown apart from or feel estranged from. You may also choose a person that you have always had a difficult or complicated relationship with and explore why this is in your essay.

• For example, you may think about why you and your mother stopped speaking years ago or why you are no longer close to a childhood friend. You may also look at past romantic relationships that failed and consider why they did not succeed or a relationship with a mentor that went sour.

Begin with an engaging opening scene. You should open your personal essay with an introductory section that is engaging and interesting for your reader. The opening section should introduce the key characters of the essay as well as the central theme or themes of the essay. It should also present the central question or concern in the essay.

Develop the characters so they are well-rounded and detailed. Be sure to describe your characters with sensory detail and physical detail. Even though you are pulling from your real life experiences in your essay, you should still consider storytelling elements like plot and character. Using these elements in your essay will keep your reader engaged and help your essay to flow smoothly.

Include plot in your essay. You should also have a sense of plot in your essay, where a sequence of events or moments add up to a realization or moment of conflict at the end of the piece.

Try out different literary techniques and forms. You can add richness to your writing by experimenting with different literary techniques and forms, such as metaphor, repetition, and personification. Your personal essay may be that much stronger once you add in literary techniques that show how well you can tell your story.

How to Write an Article Review

An article review is both a summary and an evaluation of another writer's article. Teachers often assign article reviews to introduce students to the work of experts in the field. Experts also are often asked to review the work of other professionals. Understanding the main points and arguments of the article is essential for an accurate summation. Logical evaluation of the article's main theme, supporting arguments, and implications for further research is an important element of a review. Here are a few guidelines for writing an article review.

Understand what an article review is. An article review is written for an audience who is knowledgeable in the subject matter instead of a general audience. When writing an article review, you will summarize the main ideas, arguments, positions, and findings, and then critique the article's contributions to the field and overall effectiveness.

• Article reviews present more than just an opinion. You will engage with the text to create a response to the scholarly writer's ideas. You will respond to and use ideas, theories, and research from your own studies. Your critique of the article will be based on proof and your own thoughtful reasoning.
• An article review only responds to the author's research. It does not provide any new research.
• An article review both summarizes and evaluates the article.

Think about the organization of the review article. Before you even begin reading the article you will review, you need to understand how your article review will be set up, so read some review topic essay first and get a clue how to do that. This will help you understand how to read the article so that you can write an effective review. Your review will be set up in the following parts:

• Summarize the article. Focus on the important points, claims, and information.
• Discuss the positive aspects of the article. Think about what the author does well, good points she makes, and insightful observations.
• Identify contradictions, gaps, and inconsistencies in the text. Determine if there is enough data or research included to support the author's claims. Find any unanswered questions left in the article.

 

Preview the article. Begin by looking at the title, abstract, introduction, headings, opening sentences of each paragraph, and the conclusion. Then read the first few paragraphs, followed by the conclusion. These steps should help you start to identify the author's arguments and main points. Then read the article in its entirety. When you read the first time, just read for the big picture – that is, look for the overall argument and point the article is making.

• Make note of words or issues you don't understand and questions you have.
• Look up terms or concepts you are unfamiliar with so you can fully understand the article.

Read the article closely. Read the article a second and third time. Use a highlighter or pen to make notes or highlight important sections. Highlight the main points and the supporting facts.

Put the article into your own words. You can do this as a freewritten paragraph or as an outline. Start by putting the article in your own words. Focus on the argument, research, and claims the article makes. Make sure to include all the important points. It is pivotal that you are accurate. 

Come up with a title. This title should reflect the focus of your review. Decide between a declarative title, descriptive title, or interrogative title.

Write the introduction. The introduction of the article review will have the identification sentence. It will also mention the central themes of the article and the arguments and claims of the author. You also need to state the author's thesis. Sometimes, the thesis has multiple points. The thesis may not be clearly stated in the article, so you may have to determine the thesis yourself.

Summarize the article. Express the main points, arguments, and findings of the article in your own words, referring to your summary for assistance. Show how the article supports its claims. Make sure to include the article's conclusions. This may be done in several paragraphs, although the length will depend on requirements established by your instructor or publisher. 

Write your critique. Use your outline of opinions to write several paragraphs explaining how well the author addressed the topic. Express your opinion about whether the article was a clear, thorough, and useful explanation of the subject. This is the core of your article review. Evaluate the article's contribution to the field and the importance to the field. Evaluate the main points and arguments in the article. Decide if the author's points help his argument. Identify any biases. Decide if you agree with the writer, then provide sufficient support as to why or why not.

Conclude the article review. In a paragraph, summarize the main points of the article, as well as your opinions about its significance, accuracy, and clarity. If relevant, also comment on implications for further research or discussion in the field.

• This should only be about 10% of your overall essay.
• For example: This critical review has evaluated the article "Condom use will increase the spread of AIDS" by Anthony Zimmerman. The arguments in the article show the presence of bias, prejudice, argumentative writing without supporting details, and misinformation. These points weaken the author’s arguments and reduce his credibility.

Wonderful Ways to Write a Descriptive Essay

We write a descriptive essay if we simply need to describe something (it can be a person, a location, an action or even an event). The descriptive essays provide the clear and detailed descriptions. It is a type of essay that does not require exact facts and figures. Moreover, it makes the reader fall to thinking about the gist of the essay. Descriptive essays provide not only information but also a description of the things, places or events in the way the author feels and thinks about them. There is no need for statistics or other facts because the reader should feel the text and imagine it.

The most common way to create a descriptive essay is to convey feelings on the paper. You should write what you see and feel. Try to show your attitude to the place or person that you want to describe. Sit down and start writing a masterpiece about everything around you. Show the reader what you are really talking about in your essay. Let him imagine the whole picture. Your essay should be a narration of what you experienced and perceived. Describe what you see and touch, hear and think, smell and taste. The major point is to provide a full picture.

Writing a descriptive essay always presumes using creativity, even if a student thinks that a topic is boring and cannot be covered appropriately. However, if your instructor or professor allowed you to choose a topic for your creative essay on your own, the grade is much dependent on your choice. Moreover, whenever you have such an opportunity, choose generic topics. You can write a descriptive essay about corruption or other social issues, or just write about the person you know very well. These topics presume more efforts and time, but your professor is bound to assess your hard work with the highest grade.

The descriptive essay needs imagination; nevertheless, the writing skills are also required. You need some guidelines, if you want to know how to write a strong descriptive essay. Thus, if you are going to write a great descriptive essay:

• show your experience: make the reader imagine the situation and feel it;
• ask yourself ‘what are my reasons to write about that’, ‘what am I describing’;
• identify the sense you are going to describe;
• determine the way on how you will excite the curiosity of the readers;
• think about how you can make your readers understand what you have expressed;
• use the words that can attract your reader’s attention appropriately;
• follow the structure of the essay (tell the aspects in the right order to make your readers feel the same as you);
• avoid excessive information;
• try to focus at one point on every paragraph.

You should also think about the language of your essay. It should be imaginative and creative (you can easily create the exciting things). The descriptive essay gives you the opportunity to describe whatever you want, so you can write about your desires. Moreover, it can be a problem if you always include a lot of adverbs and adjectives. Try to decrease their quantity in order to make your text more attractive. Besides, you should limit the number of metaphors and similes where they are unnecessary. In most cases, they make the text difficult to understand.

To write a great descriptive essay, you should follow the structure of an ordinary essay. Make the text clear and understandable. Provide your essay with descriptions of people, locations, pictures or events. Your ending should reiterate the beginning of the essay. I am sure that this type of essay will be your favorite.

Creating a High-quality Research Paper Outline

Drawing an Outline for Your Research Paper

Although writing research works is an integral part of student's routine. A successful academic work must not only display your stance on the topic but also convince readers of its novelty and accuracy. To simplify this time-consuming task, make an outline which is a step-by-step plan of your research work.

 

Making a Top-Notch Research Paper Outline

The outline is a framework of your research paper on the basis of which you create the whole work. Every outline should be comprised of three main parts: introduction, body, and conclusion. The more elaborate outline you write, the easier it will be to produce a well-structured paper.

 

Introduction

The introduction sets the mood and either encourages a reader to proceed with reading or prompts them to put the paper aside. This is the most tricky part of any assignment, that is why students seek for quality college papers to buy option so often. Here are three principles to make your introduction stand out:

• Hook. This part depends on the general size of your work and may be from one to five sentences long. A hook must be riveting and thought-provoking to persuade readers to read your paper further.
• Determine the audience. Before starting writing your paper, find out who would be interested in it and try to meet the expectations of your target audience.  
• Thesis statement. Here you present your argument. You introduce the subject of your research paper and its significance. Bear in mind that your thesis statement must be comprehensible and simple but not boring.

 

Body

The body is the most significant part of your research paper. The overall amount of paragraphs depends on the size of your paper. The more arguments you present,  the bigger main part there should be.

Each idea you set forth should be supported with conclusive proof. Also, remember about references and citations that must correspond to paper format.

Counterarguments are not obligatory. However, if you state them, you must prove their inaccuracy. Such approach to your academic work will create an impression of painstaking research.

Remember to stick to the style and tone of your research paper which you set in the introductory part. However, do not forget to apply creativity utilizing miscellaneous language techniques to make your paper readable. As your target audience is not always well-informed about the subject you write about, you should provide comprehensive explanation written in an interesting manner.

 

Conclusion

The main task of this part is to summarize the arguments so that readers hit upon the main idea. The conclusive part should be concise and include all crucial points.

• Arguments summarizing. This part includes an overall overview of the arguments put forward in your research paper.
• Call to action. This section of your research paper must prompt readers to act by addressing the issue stated in the thesis statement.

Finally, you should always remember that the main task of your research paper is to demonstrate your capabilities and a perfect grasp of the subject you write about. Thus, drawing an outline will be helpful in your further research work.