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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
INTRODUCTION
Heres the thing: Every course you take has a hidden course underneath
English composition.
The problem is this: You hate to write; you really never learned how to do
it well. But all your course grades depend on your ability to write essays
how crazy is that?
Youve also heard it all before. If you would just get organized, plan ahead,
and be more serious about those essay assignments, youd get some decent
grades. Here is how you want to respond to people who say this:
Look, dude, I have never been a good writer. I hate English classes.
And now every class I take is an English class. Dont you think if I could
write well that I would whip this stuff out?
How about you get more organized, and then you would have the
time to write my essay too.
You dont understand that Id rather have a root canal than write an
essay.
When you hate to write, you act like all other humans when they face a task
they really dont want to do. You procrastinate; you check your bank account
to see if there is enough money to pay someone else to do it; you try to find
an essay online that you can somehow re-write. None of these work, and you
face the frightening prospect of having to do this yourself. What you have is
essayphobia.
This book is going to cure you of essayphobia. Youre going to learn that
writing essays is not rocket science; youre going to learn that there is a
basic 5-step process; and youre going to learn some tips and tricks along
the way that will be your little secrets for making the process much easier.
This book is divided into 5 chapters:
Chapter 1: Understanding the Essay Assignment
Chapter 2: Doing the Right Research
Chapter 3: Organizing the Research
Chapter 4: Writing the Rough Draft Yes, Its Necessary
Chapter 5: Editing, Revising, and Getting That Good Grade
Some chapters are longer than others, but they are all written in simple
language that anyone can understand. Bonus tips and tricks will be inserted
along the way.
There are two appendices. One will include a sample essay; the other will be
sample citation formats.
Lets get you those good grades!
Essay Topics
Assigned Topics
There are times when a teacher/professor will want the entire class to write
on the same topic. In this case, both topic and type will be the same.
Options
Most often, however, they will allow some options within a broader topic. For
example, in an American history course, a unit on the Civil War might have
several options for essays, and you will get to choose.
English courses may have the greatest flexibility for topics. An instructor
might simply assign a type of essay and let you choose any topic of your
liking.
Choosing Topics When You Have Options
First and foremost, choose a topic you like. It is much easier to write about
something that holds your interest, and you wont mind reading about it if
you have to do research.
If you are not sure about topics, there are several sources to use:
Go through the related chapters of your textbook and see which ones
might interest you
Google the general topic area, asking for essay topic ideas. There is
also an educational sub-site of Google, http://scholar.google.com/,
where you can find topics and short summaries. This might help you
decide if a topic would interest you.
Look through your lecture notes from the class
Do a search on Quora chances are, others have asked the same thing
Throw the question out to your friends on social media you might be
surprised to get some pretty good results.
Bonus Tip: If your teacher or professor has spent a lot of time on a specific
topic in class, you might want to choose something that is related. It doesnt
hurt to show an interest in what s/he finds important. Just sayin.
it might be to download the essay and just try to re-write it, dont give in.
This never works out, and you will still probably get caught.
Taking Notes
Yes, its tedious and no fun. And the worst part? The best way to do this is to
actually buy some 3 X 5 cards and get out that pen or pencil. The reason you
want to use physical cards is that you will be shuffling them around when
you have to organize the sub-topics (more on that later).
One Card for Each Source
You need a master card for each source you use. This contains all of the
bibliographical information author, title, publisher, year of publication, and
such things as volume and issue numbers if using journals or URL and dates
if using Internet sources.
Bonus Tip: Number your resources. Then when you are taking notes from
each one of them you only have to put the number of the resource at the top
of the card. Youll thank me later for this.
Only One Piece of Information/Data per Card
This is really important. When your start organizing those cards, you will
understand why. If you have more than one piece of information on a card,
organizing can be a nightmare, and you dont want any of those.
Each note that is on a card must have the number of the resource and the
page number of that resource from which the information came.
Essay Type:
Expository
Sub-Topics:
So, you have four sub-topics. Each of these will be a section of your essay.
Topic:
Essay Type:
Persuasive
Sub-Topics:
Five sub-topics for your essay argument to end the Electoral College
Bonus Tip: If you are struggling with determining your sub-topics, go online
and access an essay or paper on the same topic. It is not plagiarism to study
how someone else has organized a topic into sub-topics. You can waste a lot
of time on this task needlessly.
In the end, you have to put together an organizer that works for you. The
goal of creating an organizer is to get all of the detail down in writing, so you
dont leave out anything that should be included and so that you have a
logical order for your rough draft.
Example Outline
Title: The Electoral College A Dinosaur of American Democracy
I.
II.
III.
You will be surprised how you will catch those fragments (pieces of
sentences that you tried to write as complete sentences) or run-ons
(those sentences that are long, too complex or do not have connecting
words between two thoughts).
You will also catch the wrong use of verb tenses
You may find that you have used the same word too much and need to
replace some of those duplicates.
You may notice that you have too many long and complex sentences in
a row. This is tiring for a reader. Break some of them up into shorter
simpler sentences.
Bonus Tip: In formal writing, dont use contractions. This will cut down on
errors. For example, instead of youre, use you are; instead of theyre,
use they are.
Bonus Tip: There are some pretty good tools you can also use that will
shorten your editing and revision time. If you have a bit of expendable
money, you might want to sign up for Grammarly and Hemmingway Editor.
You can cut and paste your final copy into these apps and get some great
feedback that will point out any grammar or usage problems, as well as
suggestions for improvement. Grammarly will also run a plagiarism check,
which is important if you dont have one you can use.
Introduction
The presidential election of 2000 was a mess. The contenders were Al Gore
(Democrat) and George W. Bush (Republican). In the end, Gore got more
votes than Bush, but Bush won the election, because of a system we call the
Electoral College. The other piece of this mess was that, because some
states still use paper ballots that voters have to punch, votes from Florida
had to be re-counted by hand. The election results ended up in the Supreme
Court, and for weeks we did not know who our next President was. This is not
the first time there have been problems with our presidential elections. What
all of them point out is that our Electoral College system is antiquated, can
result in a President who has not received the majority vote of the people,
and is totally unnecessary in todays age of technology. It must be changed.
We no longer travel by horseback and stage coach. We no longer rely on a
telegraph system to send and receive news and information. We no longer
hold the belief of our founders that the ignorant populace cannot be
trusted to make wise choices. And in this age of technology, we no longer
need to use paper ballots. Citizens of the most highly developed nation of
the world can reasonably be expected to listen to candidates, to make
choices between two or more candidates, and to cast their votes in a
technologically efficient manner. The popular votes can be tabulated
instantly and the results made known almost as quickly. Doing away with the
Electoral College allows a popular election, the results of which are the will of
the people (Michener, p. 46). Our current system is a crisis in the making.
That crisis can begin with the electors. When voters go to the polls every four
years, they see the presidential candidates listed, and they choose one. Most
do not realize that they are really voting for electors that have been chosen
by the political parties in their states. Those electors are pledged to vote for
their parties candidates, but they are not legally bound to do this. The result
is that any elector may decide to vote for another partys candidate, with no
consequences. In fact, this has happened in the elections of 1948, 1956,
1960, 1968, and 1988, during which electors either changed their pledged
votes or did not vote at all (Gregg, p. 231). Because these changes did not
impact the outcomes of those elections, most people didnt even know they
happened. But they will know when another potential crisis occurs.
The Constitution is very clear, if there is no winner of electoral votes. While it
has only happened once in our history, it could at any time. When there is a
tie in electoral votes, the election is sent to the House of Representatives. By
majority vote, this body decides who the next President will be. The potential
problem with this system should be obvious. Often in election years,
especially during a presidential election year, there can be major upsets in
the makeup of both houses of Congress. People who have just been thrown
out of office will now be deciding who the next President will be, whether he
actually won the election or not (Edwards, p. 125-6). This is not the only
issue related to the concept of majority wins.
In four previous elections in our history, the candidate who has won the
popular vote in fact lost the election, because of the Electoral College. Here
is a simplified explanation. One state has a population of 100,000. Candidate
A wins the election in that state with 51,000 votes. Candidate B receives
49,000 votes. Candidate A gets all electoral votes of that state 15. Another
state has a population of 75,000. Candidate A gets 10,000 votes; Candidate
B gets 65,000 votes. Candidate B gets all electoral votes 10. Candidate A
has a total of 61,000 votes from these two states and 15 electoral votes.
Candidate B has a total of 110,000 votes from these states but only 10
electoral votes. This can happen at any time, and the result is that a
candidate who is not the choice of the people will in fact become President
(Morris). The winner takes all practice, such as in this example, is not even
uniform.
One of the things that the Constitution did not stipulate was a uniform
practice on the part of states for assigning electoral votes. It became
common practice for states to adopt the winner takes all approach to
presidential elections. Thus, the winning candidate receives all of the
electoral votes, no matter how close the election may be. Over the years, the
states of Maine and Nebraska made changes. In those states, the electoral
votes are divided proportionately, according to how many votes each
candidate receives. All other forty-eight states keep the old method. This
creates unequal treatment of voters and candidates and should perhaps be
challenged through the federal court system (Michener, p. 79).
We understand the thinking behind the founders in setting up the Electoral
College. It is also obvious that, in the 21st century, we need to re-think how
we elect our Presidents. We continue to honor the democratic phrase, one
man, one vote, and yet that is not being applied. We have actual examples
to prove that candidates who do not win the majority popular vote
APA
Newspaper Article with Author
Johns, A. (2013, August 24). Tackling the Problem of Student Drinking. The
St. Louis PostDispatch, p. B3.
Article in a Book Edition
Conner, C. (2014). Listening as a Communication Technique. In H. Rogers & F.
Smith
(Eds.), The Art and Science of Communication (pp. 308-323). New York, NY:
Penguin
Press.
Websites
Jackson, J. (2001). Choosing the Right Dog. Retrieved from Pet Selection Web
site:
http://www.petselection.com/choosing-the-right-dog.
Magazine Article
Kander, S. (2000, November 14). Recipes for the Diabetic. Prevention
Magazine, 256,
320-361. doi:10.1226/prevention.290.5764.1226.
Book
Johnson, K. (2013). Leadership Styles (3rd ed.), New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
MLA
Books
Gillespie, Harley. Controlled Chaos: Life in a College Dorm. Penguin, 2015.
Gillespie, Harley, and Hopkins, Sally. Controlled Chaos: Life in a College
Dorm. Penguin, 2015.
Work in an Anthology
Harmon, Mark. New Advances in Neuroscience. The Brain: The Final
Frontier, edited by Stan Tarjan, 2016, pp. 23-38.
Periodicals/Newspapers
Harper, Steve. Is this the End of Television? Time, 20 Nov. 2015, pp. 6466.
Castello, Tom. A Possible Solution for the Homeless. Washington Post, 2
June 2013, p. LZ01.
Electronic Resources
Moreland, Patty. How to Make Perfect Chili. eHow,
www.ehow.com/how_10839_make-perfect-chili.html. Accessed 7 July 2012.
Pinkas, Brenden. 10 tips and Tricks for Essay Writing. A List Apart: 14 Sept.
2016, alistapart.com/article/essaywriting. Accessed 12 Feb. 2010.
Note: These are not comprehensive listings of all of the resources you might
use. For les common resource types, check the Internet through a Google
search.
Bonus Tip: There are a huge number of apps that produce citations
automatically. You enter the resource details (type of resource, author, title,
pages, websites, etc.), check the style you need, and the app will generate a
citation which you can then copy and paste onto your bibliography page.
Save yourself a lot of hassle.