Boost Your Essay Grades in Just 1 Month

By Pervaiz Salik

This book deals systematically with all aspects of writing an examination essay and is based on 20 years of experience in teaching essay writing. It deals with planning, opening techniques, variety, vocabulary, the ending as well as the essential technical details of grammar. Examples, exercises and answers will ensure mastery of the art of writing all types of essays – including humorous and discursive and critical. This short book can be easily read and absorbed in 1 month, after which your grades should zoom up.

• Language: English
• Publisher: pervaiz salik
• Release date: Aug 23, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386063957

Pervaiz Salik

I have an honours degree in Mathematics from the Open University and taught in Scotland before gaining an M.A. in English Literature. I taught English to O Level International GCSE Cambridge students for 14 years in Pakistan and was Head of Department there. My Haiku on Cultural Diversity is published in UNESCO’S Cultural Report 2000. My story of Big Samson The Big Lion (in a much shorter form) was accepted for publication by Oxford University Press, but never published for technical reasons. Currently, I have published about 12 e-books on the teaching of English, novels, short stories and poetry. My Spelling book was ranked number 1 in its category on Amazon. My interests include chess, badminton, bridge and astronomy. (Pervaiz Salik)

Book preview

Chapter 1

Essay Writing: An Overview

How to Make Your Essays Interesting [These points will be discussed in detail in later chapters]:

1. Know these characteristics of good essays:

(a) Attention-grabbing opening

(b) Interesting details, observations, imaginative details throughout

(c) Variety in sentence structures, construction and other devices (literary: simile, metaphor, etc.)

(d) Rich, varied use of vocabulary

(e) Unusual twists and ending

2. Be technically correct:

(a) No grammatical mistakes

(b) Correct use of punctuation and capitalization

(c) Correct spelling

The more of the above elements are present in your essay the better will be your marks. We will discuss these points in more detail in later chapters. Here we deal with some important preliminary points.

3. Know the major types of essays you may have to write:

(a) Personal Experience

(b) Narrative

(c) Descriptive

(d) Discursive: Argumentative/Persuasive

(e) Critical

(f) Factual

[Presenting facts or explaining some task or skill to someone]

(g) (Humorous)

(h) (Imaginative)

Normally an essay will be a mixture of types, but one of the above will dominate. The first five are the commonest and most important types; they are discussed in detail later. The ones in brackets are more difficult and can usually be avoided because of choice; we will discuss them very briefly later on.

4. Know the three Stages of Writing

You should be aware that the actual process of essay writing in the examination involves three main stages:

(a) Planning [see next chapter]

(b) Writing: physically putting your thoughts down on paper

(c) Checking for errors [see chapter 12]

5. Make sure that your writing is clear and legible

Your handwriting is likely to be less than your best under examination condition where you will be writing more quickly. You should ensure that your writing is legible; in particular, individual letters should be clear: c should not look like an e, for instance. You may like to use a fine black-tipped pen to improve legibility. Also, if your writing is poor, practice writing a paragraph each day and ask others to read it and point out any problems in reading or mixing up the letters.

Chapter 2

Essay Writing: Planning

Planning is essential to ensure you have enough good ideas and the whole essay has unity and coherence. The usual way to plan is to write the main points of the essay from beginning to end. You can use keywords, phrases, or a brief sentence for each paragraph.

Example 1 (personal experience)

Write the planning for:

You borrowed something without permission and got into trouble.

Exemplar outline plan:

P1. Playing football in the neighbour's garden, my ball got stuck in a tree.

P2. No one was around, so I decided to borrow a neighbour’s ladder to climb up.

P3. The neighbour suddenly appears and takes away the ladder.

P4. The neighbour and guests talk in the garden the whole evening.

P5. Mother calls the police.

P6. Eventually, I climb down.

P7. Explanation and punishment.

(The use of the letter P reminds you to use a new paragraph for each main point. Some of these paragraphs may be combined, depending on the length, but aim for 5 to 10 paragraphs in a typical essay of 400 to 700 words.)

Example 2 (descriptive)

Write the planning for:

A place which is busy at one time but is very different at another time.

(I have chosen Helix Park in Falkirk and will compare it in the afternoon and at night.)