It’s a bright, sunny summer day, and you and your friend decide to walk to the beach. You cut through a park and encounter a woman walking a German Shepherd dog. When you meet up with your group at the beach, your friend tells a story of how you were almost attacked by a vicious …
Most people run into some form of satire in their day-to-day lives—from comedians talking about politics to online comics criticizing the education system. But somehow, when students have to read or write satire for class, they tend to get a little lost. Most of the time, the lost feeling comes from making the topic way …
As Malcolm X once said, “If you have no critics you’ll likely have no success.” While critics often get a bad rap, they have the important task of taking information from movies and literature, analyzing the information, and breaking it down for their readers, viewers, or listeners. When you write your critical lens essay, you …
If you’ve ever watched Survivor, you know how important it is for contestants to plan, form alliances, and do anything they can to avoid getting voted off the island by the Tribal Council. Writing an essay is kind of like being a contestant on Survivor. You need to plan ahead, learn the tricks of good writing, …
You’ve been toiling away the entire term, and now it all comes down to this—the term paper. In many classes, term papers take the place of a final exam and can determine a whole letter grade (and sometimes more). No pressure, right? While writing a term paper can be stressful, time-consuming, and really just a …
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 I looked for the monkeys, …
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 …
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 …
Ever sit under a tree on a beautiful summer day and reflect about your life and what you’ve learned? No? That’s okay if you haven’t. A lot of students are way too busy to spend their days reflecting. But if you’ve been assigned to write a reflective essay, here’s your chance to do so. Are …
After years of being told that you shouldn’t use “I” or other personal pronouns in your essays, you get to break all the rules! Here come the personal pronouns! Finally, a topic that is actually interesting to you: YOU! Finally, an essay topic that is actually interesting to you: YOU! Click To Tweet The excitement …
You’re sitting in class, and let’s face it, your mind is wandering a little bit. But then your instructor says that your next assignment is to write a Rogerian essay. Confusion strikes. You immediately sit up in your seat, hoping for some sort of elaboration on how to write a Rogerian essay, or at least …