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Basic essay writing

Added Oct 27, 2014 •

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Brought to you by the talented Ms. Rudder, this video is a refresher course in basic 5 paragraph essay writing. When it gets to the complicated AP stuff, you can ignore it, but PAY ATTENTION to all the 5 paragraph essay stuff. SERIOUSLY.

Show Transcript

welcome to the first edition of his Rudder invade your life New England  today we're going to be covering formal essays this is really just going to be a quick review because this is stuff that you should this is a picture of the essay structure up at the top we have the upside down triangle and the fact that it's upside down signals it's going to start general and then get more specific in the most specific point is going to be your thesis when I say start general that means that your first since usually has nothing to do with the book characters author nothing like that it's Loosely tied into your topic  then you're going to have some number of body pair for an in-class essay you want to aim for 2 or 3 body paragraphs 3 is pretty ambitious at this point so try to infer two and just reminder your body paragraph should have an introduction sentence or topic sentence your chunks which are going to be the core of your argument and conclusion sentence either sums up the paragraph or transitions into the next paragraph or ideally some combination of both  and then you'll end with your conclusion paragraph which is going restate your thesis in different terms and then get more General ideally answering the so what question why is this important why did we just reminder set your thesis your thesis must have two elements the two elements are your topic so for the rhetoric as this will be what the essay is that you're writing about and then of course your argument or assertion this is going to be an opinion turned your thesis is going to be your one sentence answer to the Bronx Casper is chasing his tail right now can you turn it  this is an example of what an AP prompt will look like so it will have at least for the first type of question which is the writer it will have an essay or an excerpt this one is actually a letter and that'll be this is one of the shorter usually it feels a whole page there are few prompts that I have that go on to the second page but only a little and then it will have the prompt up at the top I've written The Prompt there on the left for you in a well-written essay analyze the rhetorical strategies that Chesterfield uses to reveal his own values all of the props for the rhetoric essays are going to essentially say this they're going to ask you for rhetorical strategies we're going to be going over to article strategies this whole year what for now think of this as anything about the style or structure of the writing think about the choices the author made and how he or she presented the ideas and then all his own values that's looking at the message or the purpose of the text it's all going to aim back to what the author wanted to do with the text every good thesis statements needs to answer the why or the how question so with the thesis statement on the left here historical Pirates and movie Pirates are similar and different in many ways that is not a good thesis it doesn't tell me anything we could say that any two things you could say that Justin Bieber and desks are similar and different in many ways they are similar because they both look funny they both make people uncomfortable and I'm sure they're different in some ways to  in contrast the thesis well Pirates and temporary movies are usually violence in a playful and inconsequential way historical Pirates were brutal murders that made the Caesar terrifyingly dangerous place focus is my tension and actually answers how they're similar or different this one is focusing on how they're different  okay just a really quick review of the chunks all chunks are going to have one CD in at least ucm's CD refers to concrete detail that's usually going to be a clue Nation especially for your rhetoric essays because you want to deal with the actual words of the author uses but cm is going to be the analysis of that detail and how it links to the thesis I like to think of chunks as being like chocolate chip ice chocolate chocolate chunk ice cream because other connotations of purchase kind of gross to me the ultimate goal for the rhetoric as it is to answer how the author effectively conveyed his or her if they hit my hand thank you Casper very helpful  can you please fighting the laptop three rules of quoting  the first is to give context for the quotation what's going on in the story or in the essay what's the topic that they're talking about then you need to lead into the quotation most simple the simplest way to do this is with us he writes or he says as Theory fine I'm going to be pushing you to incorporate your quotations into your sentences so they flow better and so you have more control over how your reader precedes the information but will work on that as the year goes on and then sighting is awesome but it's actually not required for the AP rhetoric timed writing SoDo waste your time on it so example is to successfully approach try the Greeks to kill if it Janiyah agamemnon's daughter as an offering to Artemis thanks for her life so that setting up what's going on this story right if I just had the quote held as nothing by The Savage Warriors no one would know it was information is essential Casper is now biting my hand and then her prayers and in her life are held is nothing but patient so now it's blowing with my sentence Casper pitcher to win add finally your place for doing an in-class essay I know you practice some of these but this year we're going to be focusing on them you want to make sure that your introduction and Asians are actually smaller shorter than they usually are so informal essays they can range but for about five paragraph essays we were 5 - 7 sentences you want them much shorter than that about 2 to 3 4 and Class essays because you really want to get to your argument you don't have a lot of time so we're going talk about introductions and conclusions we were at the end of this semester the beginning of next and we'll talk about how to make them stylistic and interesting but for right now your focus on your argument so just getting them as quickly as you can I also highly recommend that you annotate the passage as you read it so underline keep Hearts it see something like a metaphor or if you think word choice is really interesting or if you notice a pattern go ahead and take some notes in the sides this will help you when you are to the point of actually writing your argument and then before you start writing I highly recommends that you create a short outline just with bullet next so you know what's going to be in each paragraph what your main points are so that your thesis is actually saying what you're going to discuss and is accurately doing so so that the advice for tomorrow also remember to bring a few pieces of paper I'm going to have you only write on one side and Skip line and and good luck

Uploaded by Megan Moreau '01.

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Basic essay writing

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