Do you remember when Brangelina first happened? Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie were both pretty good on their own, but when they got together, they became an instant Hollywood power couple. In the world of literature and essay-writing, the Brangelina of essays is the summary analysis. t By now, you’ve probably written more analysis essays …
Let’s say you and your pals have just watched the latest superhero movie, and one of your friends asks, “So what did ya think?” Your response might be something like, “It was awesome! I loved the fight scenes and the CGI!” Or you might respond, “Man, that sucked! The story didn’t even make sense!” Now …
The explanatory essay (sometimes called an expository essay) is one of those standard essays that you’ve probably written at least a few times in your academic career. The explanatory essay often takes the form of a cause and effect essay, a definition essay, a how-to essay, or a compare/contrast essay. Perhaps you’ve written this type of essay before. …
Are you the type of person to passively read your assigned text only because you have to? Or do you dive right into it and react with the same intensity any self-proclaimed Star Wars nerd would react to this climactic scene? No matter which category you fall into, knowing how to write a reaction paper …
SURPRISE! You have to write another essay. You were hoping for a surprise party, weren’t you? Sorry, I can’t help you there. But if you think writing a comparative essay is one heck of a good time, then this party is for you! Okay, the fact that you have to write another essay isn’t really …
Do you remember the fable The Ant and the Grasshopper? The ants work all summer long preparing for winter and storing food. The grasshopper laughs at the ants, and he plays all summer because he has plenty of food (for now). When winter comes, the grasshopper is starving, begging for food because he didn’t prepare …
What’s the first thing you think of when you hear the word “interpretive”? For me, a couple things come to mind—interpretive dance, language interpretation, and fortune telling. Hear me out on the last one for a second. Think about Professor Trelawney’s class—what was one of the first things they did? Read tea leaves. Those young …
Compare the feeling you get when you earn an A on a paper to how you feel when you get a D on a paper. There’s really no comparison, is there? My goal in writing this post is for you learn more about compare and contrast essays, so you can skip that wretched feeling of …
All throughout your English, literature, and history classes, you’ve been learning the importance of analyzing over summarizing. But there’s a time and a place for everything—and for summarizing, that’s right here, right now. Learning how to summarize an article is important. It’s a skill you can use in basically any class and even in many …
Travel. Adventure. Exploration. There’s so much to learn out there for those who go looking for it. André Gide once wrote: “Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.” Of course, nowadays it’s a little less romantic. We “lose sight of the shore” after putting our seat …
You’ve been reading Macbeth very closely and have gotten pulled into the drama of it all. And let’s face it—the fact that it’s Shakespeare’s shortest tragic play certainly doesn’t hurt. But just because it’s shorter than the rest doesn’t mean it’s not packed with betrayal, murder, symbolism, foreshadowing, and a lot of other goodies to …
For those of you who aren’t exactly fans of essay writing, standing in front of a firing squad might seem like a better option than having to write another essay about the death penalty. I hear ya. This is a long-debated topic and one that can be challenging to write about because it can seem …
Ever been nervous on a first date or freak out the moment you’re supposed to start a new job? Most people have. Why? Because you want to start on the right foot. You don’t want to call your date “Kay” when her name is actually “Kali.” And you don’t want to trip over a chair …
Some semesters can seem like the perfect storm—reading unfamiliar material, advanced writing, and seemingly not enough time to do it all. Before you start feeling like you’re drowning, learn how to take charge of your essay and be the captain of your own ship. Although it might feel like you’re trying to pilot a boat …
“Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration” —Thomas Edison Edison was right. It takes a lot of hard work to be a genius. I’m here to tell you that it takes a lot of hard work to be a good writer too. One of the first steps you can take to be a good writer, …
Don’t know how to write an article review? Don’t panic—it’s easier than you think. Even if you’ve never written an article review before, the skills you’ve gained writing other types of essays will come in handy. Expository, descriptive, analytical, and argumentative essays have all prepared you to write an article review. Even if you haven’t …
I absolutely love film. But I don’t absolutely love bad films. So you can understand why I appreciate good film critics. They essentially save me from wasting my life in two-hour increments. Although critics can be quite critical (read: negative) at times, they aren’t always this way. In fact, they can be downright gushing when …
It’s pretty easy to look at a poorly written piece of writing and say, “Here’s what you shouldn’t do.” After all, most of us can recognize bad writing when we see it. We can recognize good writing too. But it’s not always that easy to identify what makes good writing good. It can be even …
Hypothesis: (noun) a supposition or proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation. Yikes! That sounds pretty serious (and a little intimidating too). Don’t let it scare you, though. In simpler terms, a hypothesis is an idea of what you think will happen in your experiment or …
Do you ever get so connected to a character that it almost physically hurts when the character gets killed off? For me, it happens all the time when I watch Game of Thrones. You don’t have to watch an HBO series to get this reaction—characters in books can lead to the same feelings. Whether on screen …
You’ve just been assigned to write an opinion essay. “Opinions?!” You think, “I’ve got plenty of those!” But slow down, cowboy, you’re going to have to narrow it down to a single opinion. More than that, you must be able to support that opinion with facts, figures, or examples from the real world. “You are …