Tips for Writing Strong Essays (Veteran Voices)
Tips for Writing Strong Essays (Veteran Voices)
Transcript
A phrase we're familiar with in the military is, "Tell them what you're gonna tell em, tell em, and tell em what you told em." So, what that means, how that translates into college is paper writing. So, a common thing that should be assigned when you're studying is, is like, the classic five paragraph essay. It's really anywhere from like 3-5 pages or so and you have your introduction, your body and your conclusion.
So, the way this, this, we transferred this militaryism, this armyism, into paper writing is, in the introduction, you tell them what you're gonna tell them in the body, you tell them and in the conclusion, you tell them what you told them. The whole reason being, is that the introduction is something of a roadmap for where you're gonna go in the rest of your paper. In fact, your introduction should fairly well be able to mark what moves you're going to make within the body paragraphs and then your conclusion telling them what you told them you, more or less sum it up. And you also kinda give them an application of where you can go farther with this information.
The greatest thing that I learned about writing essays is called "The Uneven U" and the concept is based on logical progression. So you always want your argument to be logical. You always wanna make sure that your reader can follow and understand what you're saying. So, the concept of "The Uneven U," is where you start with kind of a more abstract idea that you've developed, and you move kind of down, by providing concrete evidence and facts. And then you move all the way back up and you are finally able to prove through your logical progression, a big, final, salient, point. And that's really helped me with all of my essays.
Of course you wanna start with, you know, with a great introduction and thesis. And then, you know, your body paragraphs, you wanna work through those logically and then you wanna hammer it home by telling everybody exactly what you just told them in one, big wrap up.
So, the way this, this, we transferred this militaryism, this armyism, into paper writing is, in the introduction, you tell them what you're gonna tell them in the body, you tell them and in the conclusion, you tell them what you told them. The whole reason being, is that the introduction is something of a roadmap for where you're gonna go in the rest of your paper. In fact, your introduction should fairly well be able to mark what moves you're going to make within the body paragraphs and then your conclusion telling them what you told them you, more or less sum it up. And you also kinda give them an application of where you can go farther with this information.
The greatest thing that I learned about writing essays is called "The Uneven U" and the concept is based on logical progression. So you always want your argument to be logical. You always wanna make sure that your reader can follow and understand what you're saying. So, the concept of "The Uneven U," is where you start with kind of a more abstract idea that you've developed, and you move kind of down, by providing concrete evidence and facts. And then you move all the way back up and you are finally able to prove through your logical progression, a big, final, salient, point. And that's really helped me with all of my essays.
Of course you wanna start with, you know, with a great introduction and thesis. And then, you know, your body paragraphs, you wanna work through those logically and then you wanna hammer it home by telling everybody exactly what you just told them in one, big wrap up.