Writing In Middle School

The following video tutorial gives instruction on writing an effective conclusion to an essay: http://polaris.umuc.edu/ewc/tutorials/conclusions/

As inexperienced writers, it can be easy for students to feel like they need to overcompensate to their professors by using overly extravagant words. In today’s society, thesauruses are available at just a right click in Microsoft Word, so it becomes extremely tempting for students to switch common, “simple” words for words that seem more “sophisticated” so they can sound smart and like they understand the topic more. Even though some “sophisticated” words are more specific and can work more efficiently on many occasions, students need to be aware of their audience and what level to accommodate their

To write great transition sentences, you must understand transitional phrases and words such as “however”, “although”, “meanwhile”, etc. These are just a few of the many transitional words that you can use to make you paper cohesive. They are easy to employ in a sentence and give your reader clarity as to the direction a paper is moving in a very subtle way. Take a close look at the following sentence: In addition to reading the entire checklist and writing many drafts, Susan reached out to her peers for a fresh perspective on her paper. Can you spot the transitional phrase? Try this in your own writing and see exactly how powerful transitional phrases can

It is essential to understand that classes taken in grade school do not give students a full understanding of each subject. With the topic of writing, there will always be a new lesson to learn, an aspect to improve, or a differing way to explain. Author Craig Vetter states in Bonehead Writing, “This is your enemy: a perfectly empty sheet of paper. Nothing will ever happen here except what you make happen.” Each story, essay, or response comes from a writer’s experiences. With each attempt at a new piece comes an underlying story of emotions the writer is facing. Each person’s writing is unique and the ideas people have are related to their past experiences and what they believe to be familiar with when deciding which writing style to use. As a high school student, I have learned many things about writing that helped me become the improved writer I am today, but the most essential advice I have received is practice makes perfect. Although there is no actual perfect way of writing, I have discovered that each essay I write, my writing improves. It is easier to spot mistakes, find areas to improve, and ponder elevated word choice to use.

The Little Seagull Handbook, by Richard Bullock, Michal Brody, and Francine Weinberg, is a book full of advice on the writing process. The book is divided up into sections which helps students to easily find the topic they need to review. Section W-4e on opening and closing paragraphs was used to improve my conclusions. I do not have a lot of trouble with conclusions, but I feel that mine do not fit as smoothly into my essays as they should. Therefore, I decided that it was best to improve my conclusions. The section lists out several tactics to form a conclusion, such as, summarizing the essay, discussing the implication of the essay’s argument, and giving a call to some kind of action. Reading the section has given me several ideas on how to finish an essay. Now I can either plan which tactic to use ahead of

The book They Say/I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing by Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein I feel like was helpful in many ways. Paragraph Eight I found very helpful because it teaches you how to connect your sentences. When you are going from one point to another it is very important to relate and connect your topics so it reads smoothly and the reader doesn’t get lost. In this chapter it also gives examples of transitions. Transitions help the reader know that there are new points or topics coming up in the writing. There are different transition word categories such as addition, elaboration, example, cause and effect. Ect. In these categories are words that help one transition their thoughts such as also, actually, in other words, and so on.

The Little Seagull Handbook, by Richard Bullock, Michal Brody, and Francine Weinberg, is a book full of advice on the writing process. The book is divided up into sections which help’s students to easily find the topic they are searching for. Section W-4e on opening and closing paragraphs was used to improve my conclusions. I do not have a lot of trouble with conclusions, but I feel that mine do not fit as smoothly into my essays as they should. Therefore I decided that I needed to improve my conclusions. The section lists out several tactics to form a conclusion, such as, summarizing the essay, discussing implication of the essay’s argument, and giving a call to some kind of action. Reading the section has given me several ideas for how to end an essay. Now I can either plan which tactic to use ahead of time or

4. The structure of the conclusion is basically the introduction backwards. The thesis is restated at the beginning, and then broadening out to more general statements.

No one wants just an essay with no flow or motion. As people do not want a river with many rocks in the way, students do not want the clarity of the expository blocked by unnecessary words and phrases. Transitions help people to remove these jagged words, allowing for the essay to stay clear and flowing. Students have learned that the clarity of the essay stands crucial to the whole of the

Your conclusion is the final point of your essay. It leaves the last impression on the reader. Honestly I feel that the thesis is probably the most difficult part of the paper it definitely makes you think. I had to figure out a way restate my thesis but as a conclusion. The conclusion allows you give a recap of the most important points within your essay. I feel that you have to have some type of resolution in order for the conclusion to be done correctly. Without proving your points, the conclusion really wouldn’t have a value.

Upper school English teacher Ms. L.C. says her favorite smell is that of a melting popsicle in the summer. “I love the sweet fructose of the popsicle juice,” said L.C. “Especially the way it combines with the smell of the wooden stick.”

It did not take much time to finish my introduction and from there the rest of the essay was quite easy. The conclusion was not that hard because since I had the information for the introduction I was able to use the same notes for the conclusion, making it easier for me to do.

Conclusions are the grand finale to writing a paper. They have the power to make professors stop and think “wow that was an overall strong paper” or “wow that went downhill quick.” After writing my essays this semester for Writing 102, I believe that my conclusions most likely evoked the second response. I have learned that not all conclusions have to be creative and elaborate because most of the time a simple and concise conclusion will serve the purpose. One of the main issues with my conclusions that I notice now, is they always begin with a random sentence that is not clearly connected to my essay.

My experience with English has changed drastically from middle school to college. Being in middle school I have really had to do much of a big paper, but as I progressed through college I’ve realized there much more that has to be added. I had always wondered why middle school was so easy but as years went on, I realized that advancing to college there’s a lot more requirements and importance to writing. In middle school, I was young and just starting to really realize what an essay was and after high school I really understood what an essay consists of. No matter how

Third but not least, the conclusion provides an almost mirror image of the introduction, wrapping up the arguments with a restatement of the thesis of your essay. I call this the bottom burger bun or in other words the conclusion. Holding it all together is the bottom bun of the hamburger or the conclusion to sum up all the key points of interest. The conclusion sentence should be interesting by giving it a call to action. As you can see a hamburger is easy to make like writing is not as hard as you think. Writing is very simple to do as preparing a hamburger.