High English Writing

The Agumentative Essay

2011-08-21T03:53:00.000-07:00

"Argument" is the term applied to the type of essay which aims to win to the reader over to the point of view of the write.By building up a logical and convincing argument,you will make your reader see that you position is sounder than any other point of view about the matter.

Argumentation at it best calls for very careful and logical reasoning.In preparing an argument,it is a good plan to startby mantioning the point on which you agree with the person who takes the opposite point of view from yours.Then proceed step by step to show why you beleve on the poins on which there is disagrement.

It is good from to start whith an Introduction,then go on to you main discussion or Development,and then sum up in a Conclsion.

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The Expository Essay

2011-08-18T03:52:00.000-07:00

Expository writing explains what a thing is,how it works."Exposition"is term used for the type of essay wich consists primariliy of explanation.When we tell a friend why we like or dislike a new book which we have read,or why we prefer some desserts to others,or what it is that make us beleve that a certain football term will win a match,we are using exposition.

It is apparnet that we use exposition a great deal in everyday speaking and writing.But the important thing is to use it well.In order to make your explanation clear,you must have a very clear conception of the matter wich you wish to explain.Think over the facts wich you must mention,and arrange them in an orderly,sensible fashion.Then go straight to the point.Do not waste words.On the other hand,do not omit anything wich is essential to a complete understanding of the matter under consideration.

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The Abstract Essay

2011-06-28T05:15:00.000-07:00

The most usual questions involving short compositions on abstract subjects are those asking for the advantages or disadvantages of an object or course of action, or the causes or results of an event.

Here your main concern is to preserve balance in your answer. Keep strictly to the matter in hand.

Agains, be impartial. For example, you may be a cricketenthusiast; you may detest the game; but it is your part to leave your personal feelings out of account and deal with both advantages and disadvantages fairly and equally. If you are asked to write two paragraphs on the advantages and disadvantages of cricket as a summer sport in England, devote one paragraph to advantages and the other, of equal length, to disadvantages.

Most abstract subjects, however, are too difficult to be the theme of simple composition.

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The Narrative Essay

2011-03-12T15:38:00.000-08:00

Students are sometimes required to write a short story or to give a brief account of some historical event. This is harder thdn writing a description, for it involves both ability to describe and ability to narrate.

Unless the reader is given some clear conception of the characters and object involved in the story, he can take no interest in it.
It is but a matter of dim shadows moving vaguely in darkness. But if the descriptions are too long and detailed they hold up the progress of the story and distract the reader's attention. Sir Walter Scott, in spite of his genius as a story-teller, sometimes fails in this way; and, what is a fault in a novel is a capital crime in a short story.

A preliminary writing narratives, then, is writing descriptions in as few words as possible---a single Adjective, perhaps.

The next step is to decide where to start---a very important matter. Read twenty or thirty good modern short stories and make a list of the opening incidents. You will find that very often the narrative opens in the middle of events, and that an apparently casual sentence or two later shows us what happened first. This is a particulary good way to write an exciting story. But it is a way that requires considerable skill. The best model for the beginner is undoubtedly the story that begins at the beginning, goes on to the middle and ends at the end.

Answers to questions in history or similar subject require a rather different treatment. If you are asked for an account of a battle, you are expected to give a "short" account of the events leading up to it as well ar of the consequences of the conqueror's victory.

But whatever the kind of narrative, the same qualities are necessary in the body of the story---proportion, correctness, and interest. Get your facts right, give enough detail to make the matter interesting but no detail which ir purposeless, and emphasise the different part of the story in exact proportion to their importance. Above all, use your imagination. Try to "see" the event you are describing and to make it as real to the reader as to your self.

Although in the technique of longer short stories great advances have been made lately, the very short story has never been better told than it was nearly twenty centuries ago. The brevity, the vividness, the quick movements of events, the use of revealing detail that are found in many of the short stories of the past continue to fascinate readers of today.

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The Descriptive Essay

2011-03-09T17:22:00.000-08:00

They are two main ways in which descriptions can be written---realistic and suggestive, though the two methods may, of course, be combined in one description.
Since the second method demands wider knowledge ane more abstract thought than the first, it is most people the harder.

For the realistic method thd main requisites are an observant and presents in words both thd general appearance and the details of the object which he is describing.

The beginner should prepare himself for writing descriptions by a study both of books and of the world around him. He should, in his reading, pay particular attention to the descriptions instead of skipping them because he wants to get on with the story. He should notice how the effect---tragic, grotesque, dainty---is obtained. He should consider what details are inserted and what are omitted, and should try to discover a reason for the insertion or omission.

But alongside this he must study the objects round him; try, for instance, to guess the character and tastes of the woman opposite him in the bus and mentally compose descriptions of her person, clothes, and bearing which which will reveal her supposed character.

Some types of mind draw analogies and see resemblances much more readily than others. Those who have no innate ability in this direction are unlikely by racking their brains to produce anything except either commonplaces or laboured and unnatural compositions.

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Types Of Essays

2011-03-09T17:21:00.000-08:00

There are five general types of essays, in addition to those already discussed:

1. Descriptive;
2. Narrative;
3. Abstract;
4. Expository;
5. Argumentative.

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Essay Subjects

2011-02-25T14:33:00.000-08:00

Essay-subjects generally fall into one of half-a-dozen classes, and at the school or college examination most of these classes are usually represented.

These different types appeal to candidates with different interests and different talents. No body can expect to write an equally good essay on each of them---one subject is intended for those interested in history, another for the novel-reader, others for the budding scientist or naturalist, another for the imaginative person with a narrative gift, others for the debater.
If you have an alert mind and reasonably wide interests, you can hardly fail to find more than one subject which attracts you. But you may choose only one. It is clear, therefore, that nothing is to be gained by attempting to prepare yourself to write on all possible subjects.
If you love games and nature-study, books and arguing, you can be fairly confident of finding a subject to suit you. Do not, therefore, waste your time writing essays on historical subjects because you "loathe history and always do badly in that kind of subject." Spend your time on training t he talents you prosess, not on laboriously trying to create new ones out of nothing.

But a vague interest alone is insufficient. The fact that you like looking at "ants" and know that there are red, white, and black ants is not sufficient for an essay of the informative type. For that, you need a considerate amount of real knowledge---some of it at first-hand--- of the habits and life-history of ants.

You could, of course, given an alert mind, make a satisfactory essay out of the industrious habits of ants---your surprise as a child when you first saw the inside of an anthill; your dislike of the morals drawn for your benefit; the new outlook upon mechanical labour and the comparison of present-day industry to an ant-hill.

The imaginary conversation type of essay, however, is a trap for many weak students.
It strikes them as being easy, whereas it is really one of the hardest types.
For it involves sufficient mastery of tge language to write easy, natural dialogue in good English.
The imaginary speakers must not use slang or the lower forms of colloquialism; but neither must they use turns of phrases which no ordinary person would ever use in familiar speech.

Moreover, they should have, and express in their speech, a certain individuality, especially if the subject of their conversation implies that they are of different temperaments. This type of essay is for those who enjoy the theatre.

The reflective type of essay is the most difficult of all for the average student, though a small minority will find it suits them better than any other. It may be in the form of a quotation, as for example, "Courage" or "Justice", or a short phrase, as "The Pleasures of Loneliness".

For students who know themselves incapable of dealing with a quotation frequently imagine that they can write something about, say, "Courage" though, too often all they have to say is that courage is a great virtue for which the English race is noted. Such subjects as this have been worn so threadbare that little fresh to say is likely to present itself to the average student.

The most promising line of attack is again that of personal experience. You may point out that when you were a child, you were always told that brave boys did not cry, while the tears of your small sister were taken as a matter of course. You may add that this privilege of sex is not being granted to your three-year-old niece, and wonder whether courage is at last ceasing to be a purely masculine virtue.

Or you may recall that Jack, your friend, who at school was acclaimed a hero for saving a child from drowning, was playing truant that afternoon because he dared not face a promised interview with the headmaster. From this you may go on to speculate as to what courage is. This, indeed, is the one type of essay where the definition may be of use--not that you are to begin "Courage is the Virtue of Fearlessness"; but that you should ask yourself what exactly you understand by courage.

Is it an instinct or a virtue, something inherent or acquired? what connection has human courage with animal courage? The natural response to danger of some animals--the hare, for instance---is flight; the natural response of others is attack. Is it possible that the naturally "brave" boy has merely a double dose of this instinct of aggression, while the timid child has the flight-instinct of the hare? Is the man who "never knew what fear was" courageous or merely insentive and lacking in imagination? Is courage,then,perhaps the conquest rather than the absence of fear? Is the true distinction not between physical and moral courage, but between an inborn good quality for which no credit is due and an acquired virtue?

What, you may ask yourself again, is the connection between bullying and cowardice, between bragging and bravery? Is the braggart or the bully---as the modern psychologist suggests--merely trying to compensate himself for the sense of inferiority aroused by his own consciousness of helpless fear? Are we all born brave, but made cowards by stupid adults, who persuade us that darkness is terrible by telling us we are quite safe with a nightlight?
What benefits does the human race owe to courage and what to fear? Had man been entirely fearless, would he still be naked savage fighting all his enemies with fists and feet alone? Or would he have been long since exterminated by the fiercer animals? Do we not owe all our weapons to fear of the enemy, clothes and houses at least in part to fear of the cold; agriculture,manufactures, and trade to fear of famine or discomfort? Is not war itself, which we have for so many centuries glorified as the game of strong and braue men, merely the child of fear? Neither courage nor cowardice, then, is perhaps wholly good or wholly bad.
The old Greek view that virtue lay in the middle point between two extremes is perhaps the just view.

You should illustrate freely the ideas which these questions suggest to you. Indeed, if your mind moves more easily among concrete things, you may begin at the other end of the procesr and arive at your idea of courage by examining a whole series of deeds which seem courageous, trying to decide which are actually courageous, and---a different question---which are admirable and useful.

But, whatever the method which you adopt, it is this analysis of your own conceptions which will give you the best chance of getting off the beaten track.

By: Admin http://high-english-writing.blogspot.com/

The "Beginning", "Middle" And "End" Of The Essay

2011-02-22T17:50:00.001-08:00

Every essay must have:

1. A Beginning;
2. A Middle; and
3. An End.

(a) If your beginning is poor, you prejudice the reader against you.

(b) If your conclusion is weak, the last impression you make upon him is bad.

Take some pains, therefore, to find a striking opening.

(c) The body of the essay is easier to manage. The main points to bear in mind are the necessity of:

(¡) Relevance. Do not let a word or an idea side-track you. Here the great essay-writers are bad models. They can disgress gracefully, so that the digression is an added beauty; but that is an art beyond the reach of the learner and the inexperienced writer or the examination candidate.

(¡¡) Proportion.
(¡¡¡) A sufficiently detailed treatment of each idea.
This involves limitation of the number of ideas.
(iv) Careful division into paragraphs, each dealing with one idea.
(v) A smooth and natural transition from one paragraph to the next.

To make this easy transition requires some practice.
Here, you must study a selection of the best essays, and note the different ways in which it can be effected.

Perhaps the detailed treatment of each idea is, after the linking of paragraphs, the matter in which most students find themselves at a loss. This is because they do not realise the value of detail and illustration. They do not expand their ideas, working out their implications.

When, then, you are writing of the rival merits of the cinema and the theatre, and have mentioned that the film can present realistically scenes which can never be shown at all on the stage, do not drop the point and pass on to the next paragraph. Give examples from your own experience, if possible.
So, too, when you are writing on "Historica Novels as pictures of Life in the past,"
you must not be content to say that some authors give vivid pictures of the life of the common people, or even that Scott does this. You must give as many examples as your alloted space will allow, drawn from as many different books as possible.

A mere catalogue, however, will not do. You must, here again, add sufficient detail---a skilful phrase will often be enough---to individualise the people or vivify the scenes which you include.

Not only will this device make your essay attractive instead of unreadable, it will also show the examiner that you have intellectual interests and that you can relate your amusements to your work, instead of merely regarding essay-writing as a mechanical and unpleasant reproduction of other peoples' ideas on a stereotyped plan.
Imagination may, in some subjects, supply your details. Do not be afraid to invent. You are the creator of a small work of art, not a witness on oath. If you put into your country lane flowers and insects which were not there but might have been, if you provide your Aunt Jane with a hooked nose or an interest in snakes that she does not possess, nobody will be the wiser and nobody will be the worse, but your essay may be much the better.

The conclusion of your essay, like the opening, must arrest attention. Do not therefore write "But my time has expired and i must stop." Nor should you write, "Thus we see that....," and then proceed to show that it is possible to repeat in one or two sentences all that you have written in five pages of essay. Do not be afraid that, unless in some form or other you say "My essay is now ended," your work will be unfinished. Study once more a few closing sentences from practised essayists.

Your concluding paragraph should be a brief restatement of your main points in way that makes clear their importance.

Look over the endings of some of the essays that you have written so far. Choose one ending that you think is not so good as it might be. Rewrite the ending in a way that rounds off your essay more effectively and leaves your reader with the idea or impression you intend.

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Welcome To My Blog

2011-02-22T16:07:00.000-08:00

Thanks To Visit High English Writing

Heading

2011-01-27T13:25:00.000-08:00

In developing the heading, the learner may make each the subject of a paragraph;or if
necessary, he may make it the subject of several paragraph,each paragraph, how-ever,
dealing with a new phase or division of the heading,for the rules as to the unity and
cohorence of the paragraph must be carefully observed.

It is not necessary that each paragraph should suggest the following one, for such a
method of composition may tend to looseness of thought and encourage wandering from the
subject, but there must be some connection between succeeding paragraph, either by way
of explicit reference, or by continuity of thought.

If the writer observes these precautions he will easily attain thet "unity" which is
essential to a long composition, as it is to a single paragraph or to a sentence.

Where the length of the composition is limited, the leaner will often find it impossible
to treat adequately every phase of a wide subject. In that case he will often be called
on to compress his remarks judiciously, and it will be necessary for him to deal only
with such of the more important aspects as his time will permit.

Unimportant details must be wholly omitted, and the leaner must try to treat the different
part of the subject according to their relative importance.

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Planing And Writing The Essay

2010-02-14T14:06:00.000-08:00

When you have decided upon your subject and method of treatment, there are two courses open
to you . If you have a fertile brain, a reasonnably logical mind, and a well-developed sense
proportion, you may write your essay straight off, each idea suggesting to you a related
idea, and the whole shaping itself spontaneously into essay form.

This method, where it is possible, produces the freshest and best shaped essay, since the
complete composition, "grows", like something organic, instead of being laboriously
constructed--built up brick by brick. It is the ideal at which you should aim.

If, however, your mind is apt to fly off at a tangent or cease to provide you with ideas, so
that you must rack your brains to discover what next to write, you should "plan" your essay
before writing it. But this plan is intended only as a guide. When you come to write essay,
you must, if necessary,modify it.

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Four Stages In Essay-Writing

2010-02-13T01:26:00.000-08:00

It is most important that essay should be written strictly according to method.
There are four stages to be gone through:

1. Thing about the subject, and set down on paper all the facts or ideas that occur to you.

2. Arrange these facts according to topics, and so construct an outline for the composition.

3. Write the essay.

4. Revise what you have written.

Note On The Four Stages

1. The title of the essay must be read carefully, so that the precise scope of the subject
and the point of view from which it to be treated may be grasped.

2. When the facts have been arranged, it will bo found that they group themselves under
certain heads. Suppose there are five topics. Each of these topics will now form the
subject of a paragraph, and the Essay will contain five paragraphs in all.
The rules of paragraph structure must be carefully observed.
It must be seen that a due proportion of space is allotted to each aspect of the subject.

3. In writing the essay, one must pay attention, of course, to grammar, punctuation, and
style. In the matter of style the following points should be particularly noted:

(a)Clearness is the first essential. Therefore words must be chosen accurately.
Words, phrases, and clauses must be placed in the right order.
All Pronouns (i.e. he,she,it,they,etc.)must be clear in their reference.

(b)Slang and Colloquial expressions must be avoided.

(c)The first person should not be used in any Essay in which the subject can be treated
impersonally, that it to say,such expressions as "I thing", "in my opinion", must not
be used. To qualify a statement, it is always possible to use impersonal expressions
such as "It is generally agreed", "It is probably a fact", etc.

4. It is most important that everything that is written should be thoroughly revised.
In this way the student will detect a number of errors which can be easily corrected,
but which, if allowed to remain, would detract considerably from the value of his work.

It cannot be too strongly emphasised that the actual writing of an essay is only half
the task. The preliminary arrangement of material and the final revision of the work
are of great importance, and must receive careful attention if a good result is to
be obtained.

The most important section of an examination English paper is essay. It, more than any
other part of the examination,tests the student's intelligence,reading,and command of
the language.
He cannot ,then,learn to write satisfactory essays merely by reading a chapter or two
on the subject. No textbook in English can supply him with brains, or with the
vocabulary and general knowledge acquired from years of reading.
All it can do is to show him how best to use his resources.

As in a simple composition, the first thing required is a little individuality.
There is always a wide choice of subject. The student should choose that in which he
feel the most genuine interest. Do not write on Sir Walter Scott because you once
wrote a precis of a textbook account of him and can consequently reproduce the
account nearly word for word.

The examiner may be familiar with the textbook itself. In any case, he will certainly
detect a smell of textbook about your essay,and,particularly if your own undoubted
style in other part of the paper is bad,refuse you credit for good composition,
since you have only shown a good memory.

Besides, what makes a good textbook account makes a very poor essay. What is wanted
in a textbook is a sketch of Sir Walter Scott's life, with the facts packed as close
as possible, and an account of his works giving the generally accepted view of them.
What is wanted in an essay is your individual impression of Sir Walter Scott And such
of his book as you have read.
If you have no clear idea of the man's personality and have read few or none of his
book, you obviosly cannot provide what is wanted.

Only in the last resort, if you find it impossible to excogitate any ideas of your own
on any of the subjects set, should you undertake this merely reproductive type of essay.

Not only is the choice of subject wide, but most of the subjects are susceptible of
being treated in many different ways. you may, for instance, have to write an essay on
"Aunts". If you choose to do so, you may begin.

Aunts have, no doubt, played a great part in the world; at any rate, they have played
a great part in that reflection of the world--books.

First there springs to mind Aunt Trotwood from "David Copperfield" with her eccentric
dress and manner, her frantic cries of "Janet,doneys!" her kind heart and her courage,
her excellent common-sense.

When you have said a little more about Miss Trotwood, You may pass on other aunts of
literature--the set of aunts in G. Eliot's "Mill on the floss," for instance, and
Hetty's aunt poyser in "Adsm Bede"--and end with a general reflection upon the
novelists' favourite types of aunt.

Or, if you are interested in history or classics, you may write about the aunt of
history or of mythology. If you have a nimble wit and an active brain, you can
point out that while the "wicked uncle" is a commonplace, aunt are always benevolent,
even if sometimes a little given to moral discourses and rebukes; that aunt,moved by
their sisterly affection or dislike for the mother or father, are either the greatest
upholders of parental authority or else the most outspoken critic of the way in whice
their nieces and nephews are being brought up-even the most charming of them cannot
achieve the reticence on the subject so usual with other visitors.

These suggestions are not, of course, given for the student to adopt slavishly.
They are only intended to show him how a little thought will provide him with
ample material of the right kind-- fresh and interesting, not hashed up and
second-hand ideas and information.

Those who are not ready writers will probably find it wiser to plan out their essay
before they begin the actual composition, and make a scheme showing the ideas which they
intend to use them. If they find the actual task of composition difficult, they may even
think it worthwhile to separate the two processes entirely--to devote some hours merely
to writing essays upon schemes already provided.

This , however, is an exercise only for those who find it hard to express ideas at all
even in the barest and crudest manner, and they must not expect to do more than write
a dull theme in drab English. For fresh treatment can arise only from real interest, and
few people take interest in a still-born scheme from somebody else's brain.

By: Admin http://high-english-writing.blogspot.com/

Style

2010-02-12T04:57:00.000-08:00

It is natural for a student of english who wishes to become proficient in Essay-Writing
to read the work of successful essayists. But he must remember, if he is preparing for an
examination, that there are certain forms that are not to be imitated.
A popular essayist has won his special public, and his personality is so well known and
well liked by his regular readers that his name alone at the head of an essay is enough
to arouse in them a strong interest in what he has to say.

Hence he can write freely in the first person singular, that is, using the pronoun "I";
but this is a manner that the student should carefully avoid, unless it is specifically
demanded, because it assumes a reputation that does not exist.

Again, there are certain elaborately unusual methods of treatment that are typical of
certain essayists--Bacon,Lamb,Macaulay,Matthew Arnold,G.K. Chesterton, for example--and
even if the student could achieve any-thing similiar, he could not do so within the time
limit of an examination.

It is inadvisable for a student to copy the mannerisms of other writers, or consciously
to try the develop his own.
With practice in writing, once the elementary difficulties of the craft have disappeared,
everybody acquires his own style.
It is useless to try to force its development.

By: Admin http://high-english-writing.blogspot.com/

The Essay

2010-02-11T05:48:00.000-08:00

As a form of literature The Essay includes composition of a very varied character.
But for examination purposes the term "Essay" has a definite signification.
It is applied to a composition in which the writer states his knowledge and gives his opinions about
a certain topic.
The Essay, as thus understood, may contain narrative or descriptive elements, but will also include
comments and criticisms representing the writer's own point of view.

By: Admin http://high-english-writing.blogspot.com/