Essay writing tips.

Plow King

Plow King

Little bit.
I have my HSC tomorrow, as do alot of others. There are alot of smart people on this site, so I'm going to ask if anyone out there has any tips on howto write a good essay.

I've got my esssayss planned out to an extent. Oh and good luck to everyone tomorrow doing the HSC :)
 
For what sort of subject? English? History? Economics?

You'd be kidding yourself if the one frame would cover all of them...

Without knowing what subject, the easiest way I've found is to work out what you're going to write in reading time, write out a decent plan in the first 5 mins of the exam, and then punch out the essay afterwards. If it's history, remember to analyse the source (author/context) as well- it's the easiest way of getting extra marks in an essay.
 
Last edited:
The best bit of advice i ever got was to make sure that you answer the question. It may seem obvious, but you have to address every part of the question. So if you have your essays planned, make sure that you adapt them to the question. Im more worried about the creative writing part of it myself, have you got one?
 
^^ Keeping to the topic is indeed some good advice but you will find that if you write enough essays, for instance if your doing a text responce, that you will have enough material to virtually write on anything! (there is only a number of topic they can give remember). When you recieve the topic, its always a good idea to brainstorm it...pull apart the question, the key words and apply it to what you know. Im refering to English here but the same could be said for other subjects...

Im doing VCE this year (English exam is on the 2nd of November) and we are to write 4 essays in 3 hours-2 text responce (Part 1 and 2) as well as a 2-part language analysis, part 1 being the analysis and part two being a speech or some sort of opinionative piece. Whats the deal for HSC?
 
AngoXC said:
^^ Keeping to the topic is indeed some good advice but you will find that if you write enough essays, for instance if your doing a text responce, that you will have enough material to virtually write on anything! (there is only a number of topic they can give remember). When you recieve the topic, its always a good idea to brainstorm it...pull apart the question, the key words and apply it to what you know. Im refering to English here but the same could be said for other subjects...

Im doing VCE this year (English exam is on the 2nd of November) and we are to write 4 essays in 3 hours-2 text responce (Part 1 and 2) as well as a 2-part language analysis, part 1 being the analysis and part two being a speech or some sort of opinionative piece. Whats the deal for HSC?
Click to expand...

In the first exam which is 2 hours long..

We have to answer some 'short' answer questions. on our area of study
Write a Creative writing piece on our area of study
And write an essay on our area of study

The area of studies being 'journeys'

Imaginative, inner or physical journeys.
 
I'm more worried about Section I (short answer questions) because there's very little you can do to prepare for them and if they give you long or complicated texts it can be a nightmare. At least with the creative writing and the Area of Study essay you can almost always just slightly alter a prepared answer to fit the question.

As for the Essay structure, I'm doing the following:
Intro: 2-3 sentences about the question, then introduce the texts, concluding sentence
Main Section: 2-3 para's per text about how the text relates to Journeys, Forms and Features of language (using extensive quotations)
Conclusion: only if you have time. No more than 8 lines

If that doesn't make sense just do what you've been doing all year.
 
I hate to say this, but if you don't know how to write a good essay after 12 years of schooling, what have you been doing at school, and what makes you think you will all of a sudden learn how to write well from stuff posted on an internet forum?
 
If your well an truly fucked at the end of it - can't think of what to write or running out of time then throw down a few dot points.

Oh and isn't it just a matter of re-writing an eassay in an english exam? I always had my essays prepared and proof read by my english teacher?
 
leitch said:
I hate to say this, but if you don't know how to write a good essay after 12 years of schooling, what have you been doing at school, and what makes you think you will all of a sudden learn how to write well from stuff posted on an internet forum?
Click to expand...

Essay writing only comes into the scheme of things in about Year 9 or so and even then, its not untill around late Year 11 that they can be deamed 'good'.
I think hes well within reason to ask about it here actually...I think your being a little too critical...hes just looking for tips...

As 'flying high dh killer' said, dont rush. Plan it out. Planning should be take a few minutes at most. Work out your contentions, topic sentences etc and stick to the topic...

Good luck!
 
AngoXC said:
I think hes well within reason to ask about it here actually...I think your being a little too critical...hes just looking for tips...
Click to expand...
sorry you're right, but i still think it may be a slightly futile exercise. and just because you're not being taught "how to write an essay" until grade 8/9 doesn't mean you're not learning how to write one throughout your schooling. :p

anyway, i think a good skill with essays is to be able to predict what the examiner is looking for - try not to just write what you want to write, but also what the examiner wants to read. i know that sounds weird, but try to play to the examiners side.

something like "journeys" should be incredibly easy. the creative writing part will write itself, and the essay part should be similarly easy. there is so much that you can bullshit on about that as long as you have a clear argument which you then back up, you'll be fine.

i really think though, that the most important thing is just to not stress and freak out. if you do that, you're screwed.
 
Have you checked out www.boredofstudies.org ?

leitch said:
i really think though, that the most important thing is just to not stress and freak out. if you do that, you're screwed.
Click to expand...

Yep or you can do the total opposite like I did. I was way too lax about the HSC in general and was more concerned about making money and what the surf was like. Probably why I can't construct a sentence properly ;)
 
Journeys advice:
In paper one, there are short answer questions. The first of these may be SIMPLE COMPREHENSION and ask NOTHING about journeys (Band 1 questions). Answer the question written on the page and dont go to deep. One well constructed sentence will do for the first one marker.

Other short answer: DONT WASTE YOUR TIME REPEATING THE QUESTION! Short answers are exactly that, SHORT. Jump straight into a concise answer without repitition.

Creative writing: Does your piece show that you understand what the journey is, and displays techniques that you learnt throughout the year?
Avoid displays of teenaged angst.

For the rest of the essays: quotes quotes quotes quotes quotes quotes.
nuff said.
 
leitch said:
sorry you're right, but i still think it may be a slightly futile exercise. and just because you're not being taught "how to write an essay" until grade 8/9 doesn't mean you're not learning how to write one throughout your schooling. :p
Click to expand...

True. But up untill then, its pretty much creative writing etc, you arnt cohearantly developing an argument. I see your point though.



leitch said:
something like "journeys" should be incredibly easy. the creative writing part will write itself, and the essay part should be similarly easy. there is so much that you can bullshit on about that as long as you have a clear argument which you then back up, you'll be fine.
Click to expand...

I reckon. One of our SAC's this year was a creative writing piece based on one of our texts (topic was dreams I think) and for a suprisingly easy task, many people still had trouble but there was some absolutly amazing stories. Its still easy to get a little carried away with creative writing tasks though...
 
Remember: M.A.D.E

M - Main idea (one sentence, the opening to your paragraph)
A - Additional information (this is where you add some more info and elaborate on your main idea)
D - demonstration (put in an example, quote, or anything that has been said or done to back up your M and A)
E - Ending (last sentence (s) of your paragraph which sum up one paragraph, and lead you onto the next)

Do 4 +/- of these and your intro and conc.

Im only in gr 11, so it might not be grade 12 standard, but it gets me the results i want.
 
essay stucture

Introduction
your opinion based on the topics


topic sentence----- rough statment what the paragrph is about
explination-----discussion of the subject
example----- back up your discussion using qoats
clincher/linking sentence------- restate topic sentence then a brief words to give reader and idea of the next paragraph

more paragraphs using same teec format

Conclusion
restate introduction based on the paragraphs


only do it in third person

hope that help good luck mate:)
 
This is going to be my structure,

Introduction:

State my thesis, introduce the texts, and define what a journey is.

Body:

Use language techniques and quotes from the studied texts and relate them to my thesis.

Conclusion

Sum up my thesis and ANSWER THE QUESTION.
 
The best peice of advice i've been given ever by my english teacher was simple

SO WHAT?

if you answer that question to EVERY point you make, you're a winner
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top