Essay Help
Common mistakes in your essays
that you can fix to make your next
essays better.
Table of Contents: click on the
information button to view the appropriate slide
• Page limits
• Titles
• Background
information
• Introduction
• Thesis
• Conclusion
• We, I You
• Informal Language
• Author’s Name
• Present Tense
• Sentence patterns/to
be verbs
• Confidence
• No over-praising
• Quotations
• Final touches
Page Limits
• 2-3 pages means at least 2 FULL pages.
• Not 1.5, not 1.75, 2 full pages
Titles
• This is your title, not the title of the work
you are writing about.
• For example: “The Fall of the House of
Usher” should not be your title.
• Your title could be something like this:
– Analyzing Tone in “The Fall of the House of
Usher”
Titles of Works
• Novels and plays should be underlined or
italicized
– Example: Catcher in the Rye or Julius Caesar
• Short Stories and poems should be in
quotation marks
– Example: “The Tell-Tale Heart” or “I Hear
America Singing”
Background info
• Any background information needs to
either be in your words or in quotations.
• Any plagiarism will be severely punished.
Introduction
• Your essay must have an introduction.
– Hook
– Generally introduce topic
– Mention author and title
– No quotes (leave these for the body
paragraphs)
– Thesis (last sentence of introduction)
Thesis
What to avoid in a thesis:
• Do not use “I” in a thesis—keep it objective
• Cluttering the thesis with unnecessary phrases
– “in this essay, I will show you”
– “in my opinion”
– “which I will explain later”
• Lists—too general and do not lend themselves to indepth analysis
• Simply stating a fact
• Taking a stand without a reason
• Expressing the thesis in the form of a question
• Unsupported thesis—when the paper goes off in a
different direction
TPR
• Step One: Topic
–
State the topic under consideration
•
•
Cats
Grades
• Step Two: Position
–
State the specific issue in the form of a debating
proposition
• Cats should be subject to leash laws.
• Grades are unnecessary in college.
• Step Three: Rationale
TPR
•
Step Three: Rationale
–
Using a because-clause, convert the resolution into
a sentence that states your position on the issue
and provides a main rationale for that position.
•
•
•
Cats should be subject to leash laws because they are
inveterate wanders.
Grades are unnecessary in college because students learn
more rapidly without them.
Step Four: Reverse and Test
–
Test your faith in the thesis and expose potential
counterarguments by reversing your position.
•
•
The cat’s independent and adaptable nature makes it the
only pet capable of living an unrestricted existence within
the city.
Traditional grading procedures may offend educational
purists, but public school systems require pragmatic
approaches to evaluation.
Conclusions
• Your essay must also have a conclusion.
• Your conclusion should restate your
thesis, summarize your main points, and
tie everything together to make the essay
sound complete and finished.
We, I, You
• In an analytical essay, stay in third person.
• This means do not write about yourself or
directly address the reader.
• Incorrect examples:
– What I’m saying is…
– I believe that…
– This makes you feel like…
• Correct examples:
– Poe argues…
– This gives the feeling of…
– One can assume…
No Informal Language
• In an analytical essay do not use informal
language. Make yourself sound academic and
smart.
• Examples:
– For “cocky” use “arrogant”
– Don’t write “u,” write “you”
– Don’t be a valley girl. “He was like a total Romantic”
• This also means no contractions (don’t, can’t,
won’t). Write out both words.
Author’s name
• When you first mention the author, use
their full name (Edgar Allan Poe)
• After that time, however, only use the last
name. (Poe describes the horror of the
human existence)
• Only use the full name again in the first
sentence of your conclusion.
Present Tense
• When writing about literature, use present
tense even if the author is dead.
• Example: Poe writes about gruesome
details in his texts, which is Romantic
because he feels that the ordinary had no
place in art.
Sentence Patterns— “to be” verbs
•
•
•
•
Try to use strong action verbs instead of
“to be” verbs
Fire belched from the dragon’s mouth.
(instead of: the dragon was belching fire)
The cloud darkened with the moon
(instead of: the moon was darkened by
the cloud)
Be sure of yourself
• Do not write weakening phrases such as:
– Sort of
– Kind of
– Basically what I’m saying is
• Include your own analysis—don’t merely
summarize someone else’s ideas.
Contribute new ideas
Over-praising the author
• It weakens your essay to over-praise.
Focus on the text and the prompt.
• Examples:
– In this magnificent story
– What Poe so marvelously shows in this
paragraph
Quotations
• The comma and period come before the
quotation mark of a title or single word.
• Example: “blah blah blah,”
• The comma and period come after the
page number when quoting a text.
• Example: “He suddenly turned around” (3).
Block Quotes
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Use block quotes whenever the quoted text goes over four lines.
No quotation marks
End your embedding with a colon
Start the quote on a new line
Indent the entire quote one inch from the left margin.
Maintain double spacing
Example
Nelly Dean treats Heathcliff poorly and dehumanizes him throughout
her narration:
They entirely refused to have it in bed with them, or even in
their room, and I had no more sense, so, I put it on the landing
of the stairs, hoping it would be gone…
Quoting Poetry
•
•
When quoting 3 lines or less, if you are incorporating more than one line, separate
the lines with an / to indicate a break.
Include line numbers in parentheses after the quotation.
– Example:
Lao-Tzu warns, “Real words are not vain, / Vain words not real” (1-2).
•
For more than three lines, block quote the lines.
– Example:
Though we often think of absence or emptiness in negative terms, Lao-Tzu emphasizes
the positive importance of unoccupied space:
Doors, windows, in a house,
Are used for their emptiness:
Thus we are helped by what is not
To use what is. (5-8)
Embed quotes
• You cannot simply put a quote in your
essay and leave it alone. You need to
introduce (embed) it and then explain it.
• Example:
– In his short story, Poe writes, “blah blah blah”
(4). This quote explains the narrator’s erratic
behavior be…
Quotations and Analysis
• Do not begin or end a paragraph with a
quote.
• Make sure you both explain what the
quote explains and how that quote applies
to what you are saying.
– Explanation and analysis
• WHY/HOW: always ask yourself why
and/or how the quote proves your point or
says what it does.
“This shows that…”
• Many essays rely too heavily on the
phrase “this shows that.”
• When re-reading your essay, make sure
you don’t use this too many times.
Finalizing
• SPELL CHECK!!!
• Read your paper aloud to check for errors.