Technology has vastly changed the educational landscape in recent decades. The introduction to the classroom of tablets, easy internet access, and learning management systems (LMS) has altered the way teachers present new material and students process it. Nevertheless, some things about formal schooling show no signs of changing anytime in the next couple generations. Children will always have to read and write. They will always be taught certain basics in math and history. And, at least based on how things currently stand, they will always have to write the expository essay.
The expository essay is both loved and hated by those in the education world. Some claim that it instructs children in the fundamentals of writing, instilling in them the central abilities to analyze, interpret, and tie everything together. Others deride expository essays as limiting and formulaic, arguing that it restricts a child’s writing ability and breeds generations of youngster’s who have no love for the art.
Regardless of your opinion, it’s hard to say that the expository essay is not conquerable. By being aware of its structure and following a few key steps, there’s really no reason why you can’t excel on your expository assignment – whether you love it or hate it. Here are some tips to keep in mind:
The Thesis is Everything
The most important part of writing a successful expository essay is coming up with a strong and clear thesis statement. The thesis must be arguable, you must be able to support it with evidence, and that evidence must be able to be broken down into body paragraphs. Ultimately, every element of the essay revolves around the thesis: the introduction builds to it, the body paragraphs aggregately support it, and the conclusion considers its implications.
Build Body Paragraphs Around Your Evidence
Whether your essay discusses a work of literature or a political controversy, you’re going to want to break it down into pieces of evidence in order to support your argument and fit the expository context. When planning a body paragraph, make sure to build it around that paragraph’s key piece of evidence. Then, set-up the evidence with a sentence beforehand and explain it with a sentence or two afterwards. Then, once the evidence is in the paragraph and enclosed by your analysis, add a topic and concluding sentence that best connect the evidence to your surrounding paragraphs and to the thesis.
Separate Yourself From the Rest
In the likely case that you’re writing this expository essay for a class, there’s a good chance that you’ll come up with a solid thesis and decent supporting paragraphs and a perfectly acceptable conclusion – just like many of your classmates. To truly separate yourself from the rest, look to make your transitions as smooth as possible and your conclusion as strong and far-reaching as you can. Organize your paragraphs in a way that naturally lead to seamless transitions for example, and don’t be afraid to discuss larger implications of your argument at the end of your conclusion. It is also helpful to have a wide repertoire of transitions from which to pull. If done right, your essay will be greatly strengthened as a result.
There are many other methods and means of improving your skills as an expository writer. Although a sometimes boring and formulaic essay approach, the expository assignment certainly forces you to think about structure. In any piece of writing, it’s undeniably an important component to consider.
Interested in knowing how to study for upcoming exams? In this post, we’ll go through the most important parts of the process which unfortunately tends to be overlooked far too often.
1. The urgency of NOW!
I’ve noticed a strange phenomenon pertaining to studying. For some reason, when it comes to exams, people tend to worry a lot more about their exams than they they do actually preparing. If you are currently worried about an upcoming exam, why not harness that negative energy into something positive instead? Whenever you start getting worried again it becomes time to hit the books. Do not succumb to procrastination. Do your studying and do it now!
2. A road map helps a long way
Always keep your exam date near to heart. Time tends to go by pretty fast, you may be surprised that 3 weeks left have all of sudden turned into 5 days left. Don’t let this happen to you. Organize your studies and memorize all of your test dates. Put them up on the wall if necessary.
A good way of constructing your road map is to first set the date for your upcoming exam, then outline all the major topics that you would need to have covered until then. Finally, you can divide these topics into smaller tasks, describing the everyday tedious “on the ground” “getting your hands dirty” work that simply has to be done. This could be something like reading chapter 3 or solving problem 5a.
3. Compile an I Don’t Know Paper (IDKP)
This is something that I personally like to do. Whenever you begin a new course, start out by getting a piece of paper or a text document and then start recording all of the things that you need to understand before the test date. These are the things that we intend to ask our professors but instead we put it up and thus forget about it until it’s already to late. By collecting all of the I Don’t Know’s in a IDKP, you can then, at the end of each week seek out the answers to these questions either by asking a colleague or your professor or by simply going to your local library and/or the internet.
Either way, don’t let it go unanswered or you will regret it later on when sitting during the exam only to have realized that your intended inquiry is now an exam question. The the motto is: Answer your own questions before they become exam questions!
4. Are you on track?
It’s easy to neglect work, even easier when it comes to education. That’s why you should appoint one day at the end of the week for the sole purpose of tracking your progress. Are you on track? Have you finished the tasks that you’ve outlined in your road map? Have you answered all the questions that you have been thinking about? If not, then no play for you until you’re back on chart.
Sure, missing out on one day isn’t that bad. The problem my friend, is when one day becomes two days and two turn into three and so on. Days tend to accumulate pretty quickly. If you’re behind schedule you should strive to get back on schedule as soon as possible. The longer you wait, the more difficult it will become to get back on track.
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This is the second post on how to learn and pass English. Some of the tips and techniques mentioned here can also be applied to other languages as well. If you haven't done so already, I'd invite you to read the first post in this series entitled how to pass English.
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Choosing a college major isn't always an easy task. For some it may indeed be as simple as making pancakes (if you consider that as simple) while for others it's a tedious task filled with anguish and despair. This article will try to mitigate that anguish and quench it like water quenches the fire.
Read MorePassing English isn’t really that difficult. Like all language studies you need to stay focused and be as effective as possible. The following are just a few advice on how to pass a subject such as English. Read More
A mind map is a type of (radial) diagram that contains words, ideas or tasks that are linked around a central idea or keyword.
A mind map can be drawn by hand or by means of a computer, before a particular lesson, while attending the class or even after the lecture has finished.
Popular Usage
Solving problems
Brainstorming
Note taking
Resolutions
Planning
Benefits
Gives you a good overview of important points and keywords (such as dates, facts or figures).
Organizes your topic in a way that let’s you write less and understand more. Thus making your studies more efficient.
Example of a mind map
Methodology
Always start out by placing your main idea or keyword in the center and then start pondering about anything that might relate to that keyword. List all the things you came up with on a piece of paper (not on the actual mind map) and then write them all down on the mind map by interlinking each idea to an appropriate category.
Remember that each line should carry only one keyword or one image and they should be of the same length as the keyword or image.
Obviously, there’s more than one way of mind mapping since the technique itself is very subjective. So even though I mention ways to form your mind map in this article, you should only take them as guidelines and nothing more. It’s more important that you develop your own style in order to fit your specific needs.
I recommend emphasizing certain elements in your mind map such as using different colors to make the mind map more vivid and easier to digest.
Let your ideas flow
Make sure that you don’t kill any of your ideas at the beginning. It’s a common problem that people try to edit their ideas before they’ve done collecting them. You can remove, edit and add as much as you’d like after you’ve finished listing them all.
Keep it clean
Another common mistake is to scramble in as much information as possible without keeping the format. If your mind map looks like clutter, you wont be able to understand it (maybe at the present moment but certainly not in the future). Finally, mind mapping is something you do to help yourself. Make sure that you can understand and interpret your own thoughts even if no one else understands it.
ou’ll find that it makes things so much easier. Look at the classes you have to attend, work out the time that you need to get to them and then set a realistic time every day so it almost becomes like part of your daily timetable. And how much studying do you need to do?
Well you can use a formula that goes something like this: for every hour of class, put in an hour and a half to two hours of study. Why the difference? Well, some of you might read much more quickly than others, some might take a longer time to absorb the same material. So it figures!
Just keep in mind that very often the ones who are slower tend to remember for longer, so it evens out! If you can study soon after your class, that makes it even better because everything is fresh in your mind.
Do take a quick break in between to relax. And remember – don’t push yourself. If you begin over scheduling your study hours, you’ll find yourself overexerting and that doesn’t really work too well in the end.
I’ve noticed it takes me a lot more time to get a blog post written these days, why? I’m not as efficient as I should be so I thought I might share my experiences on this issue today.
Do you want to be more efficient? If yes, then please take the time to read the following tips on how to be more efficient. If no, then close this website and never ever come back! (please don’t, I would so miss you)
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It’s about time we start a new series here, don’t you think? I receive a certain amount of questions in my inbox every now and then and I might as well answer the questions here. You can find my e-mail at the bottom of this post if you would like to send me a message or simply comment
Filip wrote me the following message:
” How to concentrate on my exams. There is always something more important than my studying. pls help”
Filip, like many of us you are suffering from lack of concentration. The good news is that it’s very easy to change direction. I would advice you to do the following:
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