If you’re not familiar with the work of Edgar Allen Poe, you might think “The Tell-Tale Heart” is a love story or maybe even a story about a jilted lover. This is a clear case of why you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover (or a short story by its title)....

You’re looking for a great compare and contrast essay topic to kick start your assignment. How can you choose an interesting topic that’s simultaneously narrow yet broad enough to provide you with plenty of great material? In this blog post, I’ll...

Ever have the grand idea to bake a super-amazing birthday cake for your significant other, then realize that you have no idea how to bake? If your baking skills are anything like mine, you probably struggled a bit and worried that your cake would taste more like...

If you’re a student, you know the never-ending cycle of assignments and projects. The current project: a project report. As you probably know, writing a project report means that you need to do three key things: Review the literature about your topic Report the...

Some of the greatest figures in our human history have been rule breakers. There were the American revolutionaries who refused to pay their taxes without being represented in the British parliament. There was Nelson Mandela who joined the African National Congress...

I know what you’re thinking. Another Shakespeare play to analyze? I get it. Shakespeare can be hard to read. But here’s the thing… Shakespeare wrote some of the most well-known and most replicated plays. Ever. The themes he uses can be found throughout literature...

“All the world’s a stage, / And all the men and women merely players.” Don’t worry, you didn’t miss a line while you were reading. This particular quote is from one of Shakespeare’s other plays, As You Like It. However, it perfectly sums up The Taming...

All semester you’ve known you’d have to write an argumentative essay. You figured you had it made because you had what you thought was a surefire plan to rework last semester’s paper about gun control. Then your prof dropped a bombshell. Along with the assignment...

When I arrived at the monkey exhibit at the zoo, it was 3:00 p.m., and there weren’t many people around. There was only one small girl wearing white shorts and blue flip flops and her mom, who was holding a bag filled with snacks and souvenirs from the zoo. When...

Here’s something you might not know about me. I have amazingly keen powers of observation. Right now, I see a student looking for a little help on an observation essay. Pretty good, huh? But an observation essay isn’t just about listing what you see. In a way,...

Imagine these two (potentially) devastating scenarios: You fire up your laptop to complete research for your upcoming essay, and you see a message that says, “No Internet Connection.” You text the girl you went out with a few days ago to ask if she wants to...

You’ve decided to write a persuasive essay, and the topic you’ve chosen is cyber bullying—specifically, something should be done about it, but what? The core, or the “guts,” of your essay should come from your own thoughts and views on the issue. To really...

Interviews can be fascinating stuff. Watching an interview with your favorite celebrity can keep you on the edge of your seat because you want to know everything about what makes that person tick. On the opposite side of the spectrum are the dull interviews that...

If you’ve ever watched TV, YouTube, or any other media outlet, chances are you’ve seen celebrity interviews that have gone horribly wrong. There are, of course, times when the interview falls flat because the celebrity just doesn’t want to answer questions....

I bet on at least one occasion you cheered for a high school or college team simply because it was the home team. We’re generally biased toward our own school or town, so it’s only natural to want them to win. This type of bias is common and usually pretty...

Who says all good books have to be happy ones? The Grapes of Wrath certainly proves this is just not the case. It takes place during the Great Depression, so you know right away that it’s not going to be a particularly uplifting story. But just because the story...

When I was a six-year-old kindergarten student, I decided (and my parents somehow permitted me) to take a box turtle I found in my backyard to school for Show and Tell. As I rode the bus to school, I was quite excited to show my classmates my new pet. The turtle...

Have you ever wondered what it might be like to just aimlessly wander the country, enjoying the journey instead of worrying about the destination? If so, Jack Kerouac’s On the Road might be the perfect book for you. Many people say that this is a book that changes...

Have you ever heard that immersion is the best way to learn a language? The same can be said of literature. The more you read, the more you learn about how stories, poems, and plays are structured, what makes them so enthralling, and how to analyze them. Just like...

Let’s say you just moved into your dorm room, and you’re moving in with a heavy, awkward, flat box that’s soon to become your TV stand. When you open the box, the directions are text only. There are no images to show what screw A or fastener B actually look...

If you’re like most travelers, when you arrive home from a trip, the last thing you want to do is unpack your suitcase. You’re worn out from your travels and can totally relate to the Beatles when they sang, “Leave it till tomorrow to unpack my case.”...