Comments on writing

I have identified certain problem areas in your writing. Not all of these will apply to any one of you (hopefully), but I feel most will find at least some of this useful. I have not let these hurt your scores much (if at all) since we have all been through enough these past few months and I did not want to be too strict. However, in the interest of your further academic development, I did not want you to think that everything is okay and that you can continue doing what you have been doing. Even though it is not much, I hope this will help you produce better writing tasks in the future.

1.       Paragraphing

Problem: In quite a few cases, the whole body of the essay was only one paragraph. This habit probably stems from your high school compositions, but it is detrimental to the development of your writing skills. Every paragraph should represent one idea. Therefore, in this case you either had only one thing to say about the topic, which is insufficient, or you jumbled multiple ideas into one paragraph, which is bad form and a disservice to the reader.

Solution: Plan your essay in advance. Decide which ideas you want to cover and develop each of them into a paragraph. Use topic sentences. If what you want to say does not directly support the current topic sentence, start a new paragraph.

2.       Register

Problem: In many cases, the vocabulary used throughout was more suited to an article than an essay. There are no consistent structural differences between the two forms, so register is often used as a distinguishing feature.

Solution: Avoid using contractions, phrasal verbs and informal vocabulary in general. Additionally, try to avoid starting sentences with a coordinating conjunction.

3.       Topic coverage

Problem: This mainly refers to the topic Stereotypes – a necessary evil. In some cases, you ignored the second half of the topic and just wrote about stereotypes in general. That was not the topic. The topic was specifically about the purpose and use of stereotypes (basically why they exist and what they are used for), which is similar, but not the same.

Solution: Read the topic fully. Try to cover each and every aspect of it. If at all unsure, ask you teacher (or anyone else giving you topics to write about) for clarification. I am sure they will be happy to help.

4.       Vague vocabulary

Problem: This mainly (but not exclusively) refers to using the terms et cetera/and so on. These should only be used if you are partially referencing a list that is given in full elsewhere. The reader needs to know what exactly et cetera means and stands for. Since no full list of items is ever provided, these terms become vague and mean close to nothing.

Solution: Do not use these terms, or provide a full list and then use them to reference it.

5.       Word count

Problem: In most cases, the word count was higher than what was requested. I did not lower your score for this at all because this was just more rope to hang yourselves with (for clarity: more words -> more possibilities for errors -> lower score). However, in a real-world setting, this can get your written production thrown out immediately.

Solution: Respect the word count. If you go over, edit your work and remove unnecessary details. Try to be succinct wherever possible. Additionally, in the interest of word economy, try to avoid using adjectives and adverbs as crutches. English has a myriad of words to choose from and there is a very real possibility that you can convey the same meaning using only one word instead of two or three.