{"id":337,"date":"2013-10-21T00:00:28","date_gmt":"2013-10-21T00:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.princetontutoring.com\/?p=337"},"modified":"2013-10-28T15:26:28","modified_gmt":"2013-10-28T15:26:28","slug":"essay-tlc-five-ways-to-make-your-paper-dazzle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.princetontutoring.com\/blog\/2013\/10\/essay-tlc-five-ways-to-make-your-paper-dazzle\/","title":{"rendered":"Essay TLC: Five ways to make your paper DAZZLE"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.princetontutoring.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/essay-writing.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-340 alignright\" alt=\"essay writing\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.princetontutoring.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/essay-writing-300x292.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"292\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.princetontutoring.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/essay-writing-300x292.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.princetontutoring.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/essay-writing-624x608.jpg 624w, https:\/\/www.princetontutoring.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/essay-writing.jpg 900w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>Your copy of <i>David Copperfield <\/i>has more highlighter marks than your younger sister\u2019s hair; you\u2019ve been staring at your computer screen so long your eyes are changing color; and you may or may not be able to see pink streaks of dawn outside your bedroom window. Essay writing, you tell yourself, should <i>not <\/i>be like this.<\/p>\n<p>Need help from something other than SparkNotes? I\u2019m gladly here to give it. Follow these essay TLC tips and no matter where you are at in the writing and editing process, your paper will automatically improve. They cannot guarantee an \u201cA\u201d grade\u2014that is ultimately up to you!\u2014but they <i>will <\/i>make your paper stronger. And the good news: you don\u2019t need to pull an all-nighter to follow them!<\/p>\n<p><em>[Continue reading to learn five tips!]<\/em><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>TLC tip 1:<\/strong> <strong>Firstly, neither SparkNotes nor all-nighters are advisable study methods<\/strong> for navigating junior high or high school essays or projects\u2014or anything else, for that matter! The former should <i>not <\/i>act as substitute for reading a book or Shakespeare play, not only because you miss out on the totally awesome experience of a great piece of literature, but also because SparkNotes are not necessarily accurate. College professors certainly are <i>not <\/i>writing those summaries. SparkNotes are helpful for a cursory review after you\u2019ve read the book, but do not resort to them in any other context. (This also applies for Wikipedia!) And as for the latter: sleeping on a paper will <i>always <\/i>make it better. Promise.<\/li>\n<li><strong>TLC tip 2:<\/strong> <strong>Find your active voice.<\/strong> No, I don\u2019t mean write your essay like Batman would (although that would give you high points for creativity and voice, maybe). Locate any language that appears weak, roundabout, unclear, or unconvincing, and change it into language that is strong, concise, and persuasive. This often entails changing passive voice constructions (in which the subject receives the action of the verb, i.e., <i>fish are eaten by cats<\/i>) to active (in which the object receives the action of the verb, i.e., <i>cats eat fish<\/i>). But it also means taking out unnecessary word constructions that bog down your essay. Choose words that are brief and add an extra <i>punch. <\/i>Some great verbs: <i>attack, emphasize, critique, scrutinize, attenuate, suggest, ameliorate, amplify, contrast, refute.<\/i><\/li>\n<li><strong>TLC tip 3:<\/strong> <strong>Get rid of empty words.<\/strong> There are some words that should <i>never <\/i>appear in your essay because they are either clich\u00e9 or simply bad language. These include: <i>bad, good, stuff, maybe, thing, ugly, pretty, better, got, worse, best, basically, totally, literally, interesting, due to the fact that, <\/i>etc. For more \u201cplague words\u201d that shouldn\u2019t step foot inside your essay, check out this <a href=\"http:\/\/grammar.ccc.commnet.edu\/grammar\/plague.htm\">awesome grammar website.<\/a><\/li>\n<li><strong>TLC tip 4:<\/strong> <strong>The Magic Thesis Statement.<\/strong> Okay, it isn\u2019t all that magic. But it is a helpful formula if you have scanned over your essay and can\u2019t seem to find where your main argument is. I\u2019ll talk more about theses in upcoming blog posts, but for now, make sure that your thesis lies at the end of your introduction or second paragraph, and fits the following (general) formula:<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>By looking at _____, we can see _____, which most people don\u2019t see; this is important\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 because\u00a0\u00a0 ______.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>(For more on the MTS, check out <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rollins.edu\/tutoring-writing-center\/resources\/images\/MTS.pdf\">this helpful website<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>TLC tip 5: Does your essay have a \u201chook\u201d?<\/strong> By \u201chook,\u201d I mean those first few sentences of your introduction. Do they grab the reader in a particular way, or do they begin in the boring fashion of every average student\u2019s English essay: \u201cIn William Shakepeare\u2019s <i>Macbeth, <\/i>the bad guy and the good guys\u2026\u201d Find something interesting or unique to start your essay. Begin with a quote from the text or an article. Jump right in to what you are writing about. The more energized and specific the prose, the more powerful that first impression will be on your reader. The same goes for your conclusion.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Once again, these five tips will not guarantee an A+: that work is ultimately up to you. But with a little bit of TLC, enough time, and an indefinable amount of passion and interest in what you are writing about, you will most certainly perform well\u2014and enjoy the writing experience.<\/p>\n<p>About the author: <em>Kathleen McGunagle is a senior in Princeton University\u2019s English department and Interdisciplinary Humanities Certificate Program. Concentrating in British Renaissance Literature, she will be writing a thesis this spring on Shakespeare and early modern materialist psychology. Kathleen is an Academic Peer Adviser at Princeton, tutor through Princeton Tutoring, and avid performer. She has recently returned from a year of study at Worcester College, Oxford.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Your copy of David Copperfield has more highlighter marks than your younger sister\u2019s hair; you\u2019ve been staring at your computer screen so long your eyes are changing color; and you may or may not be able to see pink streaks of dawn outside your bedroom window. Essay writing, you tell yourself, should not be like [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[39,40,37,30],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.princetontutoring.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.princetontutoring.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.princetontutoring.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.princetontutoring.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.princetontutoring.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.princetontutoring.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":344,"href":"https:\/\/www.princetontutoring.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337\/revisions\/344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.princetontutoring.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.princetontutoring.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.princetontutoring.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}