Even Einstein did not skip this step. Your brain wants to follow an established logical, structural, grammatical, and word-choice pattern, and you must read well written materials to establish this pattern in your subconscious. As you begin to read and write more, words, sentences, paragraphs, and whole essays will sound either right or wrong. It will become more obvious to you where the errors are, and what you must do to correct them. And you will be able to write well, and write faster.
When you are reading the essays, make written notes about effective essay structure, paragraph structure, and sentence structure. Try reading them aloud to hear the structure. Write one thesis statement for each essay. Practice writing a few sentences like the ones you noted were the most effective. Take special note of the opening and closing of the essay. What are the special techniques the writing uses to open the essay (the "lead in")? Which concluding paragraphs did you particularly like? Try writing something similar.
In the summary of outcome paragraph, you tell the professor the bottom line - i.e. your resolution of the case - and why. It helps to give a framework for the rest of the paper. The problem with the summary of the outcome paragraph is that students sometimes change their mind on the conclusion of the problem in the middle of the essay. In the process of the analysis, they see something that leads them to another way of thinking. However, if you've already written your first paragraph, that realization makes for a lot of stress since you're now defending a position you don't think is correct.
Choose one of the sample LPI topics you collected for a practice essay. Write down several ways of approaching the topic, with at least three major points you can expand, one for each paragraph. Using the notes you made about effective essay structure, and your personal word bank list, practice writing sentences with nouns and verbs. Experiment with the essay structure until you have written something similar to the sample essays you read.
Read Mark Twain's little piece (below) about the troubles he has with his new watch, as another example of narrative writing. (There is very little in the way of paragraphing in this narrative, and as you read along you might want to think about how you would break this piece into smaller units of thought for your reader.) Answer the questions we pose after Twain's essay and apply them as well to Jeffrey Tayler's essay above.
Do we write "ten" or "10"? "I have an eight year old son", "I have an eight years old son", "I have an eight-year-old son", or "I have an 8 year old son"? What is the best way to write this? In this lesson, I will teach you six common mistakes that students make with numbers, and how to avoid them. We will look at pronunciation, grammar, and writing mistakes.
Hi there. My name is Emma, and today we are going to look at common mistakes that ESL students make when they're talking about numbers. Okay? So in this video, we will look at five different mistakes I hear my students make often and ways to correct these mistakes. So let's get started.
First we're going to look at pronunciation, the pronunciation of numbers. Okay, so the first mistake I hear often is when students are talking about time -- or things in general, but often with time -- they're talking about the month, the week, the night, the year, the day; they often forget to pronounce the "s" or they pronounce an "s" when they shouldn't. So what do I mean by this? Well, first I have "one month", "two months". So notice in this case: there's no "s" so I don't pronounce an "s". In this case there is an "s" so I do pronounce an "s". So even though it's a pretty simple rule, a lot of people when they speak, they don't do this. I hear students say all the time: "I've been here for one years." Or "I lived there for five year." Okay? So be very careful when you say numbers, make sure that the noun that comes after, if there's more than one: you need an "s" and it's pronounced, the "s" is pronounced.
So what I'd like to do is I'm going to read to you five sentences and I want you to hear if I'm pronouncing the "s" or not. Okay? Oh, and one other thing I should say. So sometimes "s" are pronounced as "s'" like "sss", other times they're pronounced like "zzz" like a "z". So for month: "months", it's pronounced like "sss" like a snake. Week: "weeks". Night:
"nights". Okay? Whereas "year" and "day", when we add an "s", the "s" is pronounced like a "z". "Years", "days". Okay? So keep that in mind.
Okay, so the first sentence. Listen carefully to see if I pronounce the "s" after the number or not. "I've been here for one years." Is that a correct sentence? No, it's not because I said "one", it should have been: "I've been here for one year."
Okay, number two: "Four day ago I saw my aunt." So what's wrong with this? Is there anything wrong? "Four day ago I saw my aunt." It should be: "Four days ago". There're four of them so they need to be plural, so you need to pronounce the "s".
Next one: "I've worked for two months." Is there a problem with that? "I've worked for two months." No, that sentence is okay. I pronounced the "s" because there were two months.
Okay, number four: "I must study for five month." "I must study for five month." Did you hear an "s"? So that one was incorrect. It should be: "I must study for five months."
Last one: "I went to Cuba for one weeks." What's the problem with this sentence? I pronounced an "s" after "week", but because there's only one, it shouldn't be "one weeks", it should be "one week". Okay? So I know this is a simple pronunciation rule, but it's something that it's very important to be careful with. So even if you have to practice at home: "One year, one year, one year. Two years, two years, two years." Keep repeating it until it becomes easy and you don't make that mistake. Okay.
So what's our next pronunciation mistake? Well this is sort of a funny one. A lot of ESL students, when they mean "Thirteen (13)" they say "Thirty (30)" and vice versa. So I'll ask a student: how many years did they go to university? Or not university, that would be a bad example. How many years of schooling did they have? And I'll hear "Thirty (30)" when what they really mean to say is "Thirteen (13)". Okay? And this is very common when it comes to money. Students, you know,
they'll hear the sum they have to pay incorrectly or they'll say something costs "Thirty (30)" when it really costs "Thirteen (13)" and vice versa. Same with when you give out your phone number, this could be a real problem -- or your address. So how do I pronounce "thirteen (13)" versus "thirty (30)"? Well the easiest thing to do -- and this goes for all the teen numbers so 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, it also goes for 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90 -- it's important to be aware of stress. So what do I mean by stress? Well, when we stress something, we say it louder and longer. So when you say the number "thirteen", the stress should be on "teen". So I should say: "thir-TEEN." It's very clear if I say "teen" longer and louder. Same with "sevenTEEN", longer and louder. So the stress, again, is on "teen", that's what you say louder and longer.
The ability to describe something convincingly will serve a writer well in any kind of essay situation. The most important thing to remember is that your job as writer is to show, not tell. If you say that the tree is beautiful, your readers are put on the defensive: "Wait a minute," they think. "We'll be the judge of that! Show us a beautiful tree and we'll believe." Do not rely, then, on adjectives that attempt to characterize a thing's attributes. these are all useful adjectives in casual speech or when we're pointing to something that is lovely, etc., but in careful writing they don't do much for us; in fact, they sound hollow.
The skills needed to narrate a story well are not entirely the same as the skills needed to write a good essay. Some wonderful short fiction writers are not particularly good essayists and vice versa. Still, it is useful to look at those elements that make up a good narrative and know how to apply what we learn toward making our essays as dramatic as possible whenever that is appropriate.
Let nouns and verbs do the work of description for you. With nouns, your readers will see; with verbs, they will feel. In the following paragraph, taken from George Orwell's famous anti-imperialist essay, "Shooting an Elephant," see how the act of shooting the elephant delivers immense emotional impact. What adjectives would you expect to find in a paragraph about an elephant? big? grey? loud? enormous? Do you find them here? Watch the verbs, instead. Notice, too, another truth about description: when time is fleeting, slow down the prose. See how long the few seconds of the shooting can take in this paragraph. You can read the entire text of George Orwell's story by clicking , and you can read additional essays by this famous author of and at