You’ve known for a week that this day was coming. It’s the day you’ll have to write the dreaded in-class essay. You don’t work well under pressure. You have no time to organize your thoughts. You never know what to write. You’re freaking out and can feel your heart pounding out of your chest. You …
What do the following have in common? Hippies Kim Kardashian Whip/Nae Nae Friends (the television show) Call of Duty (the video game) At first glance, these probably don’t seem to relate to each other in any way, but they actually have at least one very important thing in common: they’re all pop culture legends. While …
There’s a right way and a wrong way to do most anything. Imagine you’re on an African safari dream vacation. Your tour guide stops in the middle of the Serengeti to point out a pride of lions and to allow a photo op. The right way to enjoy this breathtaking moment: Stay inside the vehicle …
It’s time to write yet another essay, and you’re looking for help so you can write a good definition essay. But how do you define “good”? Both you and your instructor may have very different definitions of the word. That’s the inherent problem with defining terms that can be subjective. Each person can have a …
Ever hear the phrase “for illustration purposes only”? An illustration is a picture or drawing, but in this case, it doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with actual images. “For illustration purposes only” means that examples are being presented to highlight or explain a topic. The same is true for an illustration essay. Its purpose …
Shakespeare is one of those authors who is hard to escape if you’re in any English or literature program long enough. While Shakespeare wrote a lot of plays, they fall roughly into two categories: comedies and tragedies. And when he wrote tragedies, he went all out. Spoiler alert: Most, if not all, of the characters …
On a magical Saturday afternoon in the mid ’90s, my family and I made a trip to the nearest Circuit City to buy our first home computer. I remember it well. The salesman in his red polo shirt saw my corn-fed parents and thought he might feed them a few lines of malarkey to go …
If you need to write an opinion paper about affirmative action and all you know about the topic is that it has something to do with discrimination and education, or discrimination and the workplace, you’re going to need to do a little research before you can write your paper. Even if you consider yourself an …
“Short” is a relative term. Your English prof might assign a “short essay” that’s 3,500 words, while your history instructor might assign a “short essay” that’s only 500 words. Big difference. A longer paper has its advantages. Sure, you’ll have to write a lot, but a 3,500-word essay means you have more chances to write …
It’s the bottom of the ninth, a.k.a. you’re running out of time to start writing your Catcher in the Rye essay, but you still have a chance to make it amazing. The bases are loaded—you’ve read the book and annotated, highlighted, or taken notes about all the important parts. Plus, your coach (that’s me) is …
You’re sitting in the back of a sociology class, trying to focus on the lecture, when the prof brings up a controversial topic, such as abortion, gun control, capital punishment, or marijuana legalization. I’m almost positive that you have a position on every single one of these topics. Knowing where you stand on a topic …
The year 2016 was pretty crazy, wasn’t it? It was the year of the summer Olympics in Brazil, where Michael Phelps won his 13th individual gold medal, breaking a record that was set by Leonidas of Rhodes in 152 BC. The Chicago Cubs won the World Series that year, which was the first time they …
I’m proud of you! You’ve done your homework. You’ve read up on how to write a position paper. You’ve thought about how you’ll write the outline. You’ve even brushed up on proper essay format. The next major hurdle: what to write about? Finding an original topic can sometimes throw you way off schedule, taking up …
You think you’ve lucked out because you’ve just been assigned to write a paper about a movie. Finally, a topic you can get into. Besides, how hard can it be to write about a movie, right? You’ve been watching movies forever, and you can certainly tell whether they’re good or not. You’ve got this one …
Edward Lorenz was a mathematician and meteorologist at MIT who created a complex mathematical model nearly 60 years ago to study weather and air patterns. His hope was that the research would lead to accurate long-term weather forecasts. However, in 1961, the idea of a predictable universe fell into chaos. Lorenz entered some previously used …
If you’re a math person, the word abstract likely conjures up numbers like three or seven (numbers that don’t really refer to a certain thing). If you’re more of an artist, you might envision Vincent van Gogh’s The Starry Night. And for those of you who are into teaching, medicine, or maybe psychology, you might think …
The personal essay, it’s an easy enough essay to write… right? We all have stories to tell and opinions on just about everything. The million dollar question is, how do you take your thoughts, ideas, and opinions and put them on paper? How do you let your personality shine through and create a concise, yet …
Every year millions of high school students apply for college. And every year, at least one of those colleges requires a leadership essay. While you may have never served as a manager, fought against injustice, or led a rebellion, you have at least some inklings of leadership inside you. After all, one of the greatest fictional …
T-21 hours, 33 minutes, 4 seconds, and counting. You’ve officially shifted into panic mode because your paper is due tomorrow, and so far all you’ve written is your name. We’ve all been there, crippled by writer’s block and unable to compose a single coherent sentence. Most of us have probably tried to get rid of our …
“Wow! That stinks!” If you’re walking by a smelly factory, this might be an appropriate response. If you’re walking by a farm on a sweltering summer afternoon, this might be exactly what you’d expect to hear. This is not, however, what you want to hear from your prof when she reads your essay. So if …
While you may not have written many summaries, I bet you’ve actually composed a lot of summaries in your day. Think about it: every time you tell a friend what happened in a movie or what you did on vacation, you’re summarizing. You’re even summarizing when you tell your friend about the professor’s history lecture …