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 guidelines, she included a list of banned topics. All the …
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 …
Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World is one of those books that has the power to really captivate readers. Even if you don’t like the promiscuity or John’s undoing, you have to admit that there’s something really enthralling about the whole thing. Unfortunately, being enthralled in a story doesn’t make you prepared to write an essay …
When you were kid, I bet you were asked (and more than once), “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I’ll also bet that, by the time you were a junior or senior in high school, you were asked (and again, more than once), “What do you want to do when you …
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 …
“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 …
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 …
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 …
Let’s see, for your Ancient History 101 course, your topics so far look like this: The history of the landline phone Life before the Internet A world without Snapchat Even though these topics might seem like ancient history, they’re probably not what your course is about or what your professor had in mind when she …
“For never was a story of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo.” This clever quote from Romeo and Juliet sums up the drama in Romeo and Juliet’s relationship. But if you’re struggling to find a topic for your Romeo and Juliet essay, you might feel the following quote sums up your own …
Don’t you just love when the name of an essay is straightforward? A classification essay is an essay in which you classify something—anything—based on shared characteristics. You can classify people, things, or even ideas. Your subject will represent a broad “whole.” The idea is to examine this whole for the parts that make it up, …
Take a look at these four essay topics, and tell me why they won’t work as a topic for your paper: psychology Romanticism World War II music If you said that all of these are great subjects but they aren’t great topics because they’re too broad, you’re right. You cannot possibly write a good essay about …
You’re not too thrilled about writing another essay, but when you check your next assignment, it reads: PRO-CON ESSAY. “Whoa! Pro-Con,” you wonder out loud, “Is that anything like Comic-Con? If Comic-Con is all things comics and culture, maybe Pro-Con is all things pro, like all things pro football or all things pro basketball.” No, …
How many times has a professor given you a list of assigned topics and told you to write about one of them? How many times did you complain that you didn’t like any topics on the list? I bet you’ve done it at least once or twice. You yearn for the freedom to choose your …
Two weeks ago, your professor assigned a cause and effect essay, but when the due date came, you didn’t even turn it in. What caused you not to turn in your paper? Of course, it could be any number of reasons. Let’s say you simply didn’t feel like writing it because you didn’t have a …
Really? You have to write another persuasive essay? As I see it, you have two choices: 1) Try to persuade your professor that you know all there is to know about writing and there’s no need for you to write this persuasive essay. 2) Assume #1 (see above) won’t work, and write another persuasive essay. …
Woot! You’re finally free to choose your own research topic. This calls for celebration! “Why celebrate?” you ask? Because you’re no longer under your teacher’s thumb, that’s why. You can pick whatever topic you like, something you actually care about. How cool is that? So take a few minutes (or longer) to think about issues …
Let’s cut to the chase. You have to write an informative essay. You pretty much know how to write one, but you’ve been staring blankly out the window because you can’t think of anything to write about. Am I right? Regardless of whether you’ve been staring out the window or avoiding the task at hand …
Even though you might not think you’re a master at persuasion, chances are you’re better than you think. Did you ever try to persuade your parents to let you stay out beyond curfew? Have you ever tried to persuade a friend to watch a movie he really didn’t want to see? Maybe you’ve even tried …
You may ask yourself, how do I work this? (Yes, thanks to David Byrne and the Talking Heads for my opening line.) I don’t know about you, but I’ve asked this question more than once in my lifetime. I’m sure you’ve asked this question many times, too. For example, how do I change my ringtone? …
Have you ever stared at the rack of candy at your local convenience store trying to figure out which candy bar you want? Do you finally just grab one simply because a candy bar is a candy bar, and it’s all chocolate, so one is just as good as the next? This might be a fine …