Ms Parrot: Essay Chef
View the video, then try the essay exercises to evaluate your understanding! Watch the story that is whole or see chapters of the story below. Most of the videos have captions as you are able to look at YouTube.
Download the transcript of the video or download the exercises in pdf format or as a expressed word document.
To view the video in the Chinese site youku please click here.
To look at the in-patient chapters regarding the above video, you may either click the ‘PLAYLIST’ menu item into the above YouTube video and choose the chapter after that, or, you can click one of several pictures below and view the in-patient video on YouTube.
Essays help you discover more info on an interest and write a analysis that is reasoned of issues under consideration, using a selection of external sources to aid your position.
An essay is a highly structured written piece with follow a typical pattern:
Writing a essay that is good be in comparison to baking a cake—if you don’t mix the right ingredients into the right quantities or order, plus don’t proceed with the required processes, then your final result won’t be everything you wished for!
There’s absolutely no set model for an essay, but the English for Uni website presents one way that is popular get it done. The example that is following based around a 1000 word discussion essay. To read about essays in more detail, download this pdf or word document.
It’s important to help you analyse your topic and title very carefully in order to understand the aim that is specific of question. To achieve this, you need to break down the question. Most essay questions will contain these three elements:
Content/Topic words give the subject of the essay.
Limiting/Focus words provide a narrower scope for the essay.
Directive or Instructional words tell you how to approach the essay.
Glance at these sample essay titles from A) Economics and B) Nutrition:
In example B, answering the question fully involves looking closely in the directive word Discuss and analysing its exact meaning.
Discuss: Present various points and consider the different sides. A discussion is usually longer than a conclusion, as you need to present evidence and state which argument is more persuasive.
So, in your essay entitled:
“Chocolate is a healthy food”. Discuss.”
you would want to:
• consider a number of points with regards to the title
• balance your points between supporting and opposing positions
• consider which of the positions is the most persuasive and explain why
You need to consider the duration of your essay. In a 2000 word essay you are able to cover more points compared to a 1000 word one! This example is dependant on a 1000 word essay.
With regards to Content words your focus is obvious: chocolate!
With regards to Limiting words, you need to consider what food that is healthy means. a simple method to|way that is good expand your vocabulary is to consider the Academic Word List (developed by Averil Coxhead at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand). The uefap website also offers very useful lists of words found in particular subjects, such as mathematics, business and health science.
Directive or words that are instructional
There are certain directive words, or instructional words you what to do in your essay as they are sometimes called, which tell. Some common directive words include:
| Analyse | Look at something in depth, examining the details. |
|---|---|
| Argue | Give known reasons for why you agree or disagree with something and show that you realize different points of view. |
| Assess | Compare different points and see in the event that argument or info is true or persuasive. |
| Compare | Show the similarities between two sets of data or arguments. ‘Compare’ often appears with ‘contrast’ in essay questions. |
| Contrast | Show the distinctions between two sets of data or arguments. ‘Contrast’ often appears with ‘compare’ in essay questions. |
| Criticise | Evaluate a disagreement or a text to see if it is good. ‘Criticise’ does not always mean you have to be negative. |
| Critique | Evaluate an argument or a text to see if it’s good. ‘Critique’ does not mean you have to be negative. |
| Define | give an explanation for meaning of a word or a phrase, particularly in the context of one’s essay. You can use a dictionary definition if it’s helpful, but keep in mind that the word might be found in a specific way within the subject you may be studying. |
| Describe | Give facts about something. |
| Discuss | go through the different sides of a disagreement and say which will be more convincing. Help your reader to know more info on something by providing relevant details. |
| Evaluate | glance at the strengths and weaknesses of this material and provide your opinion that is final of. |
| Examine | consider the strengths and weaknesses regarding the material and present your final opinion from it. |
| Explain | Help your reader to understand more about something by giving details that are relevant |
| Illustrate | Give examples which will make something clearer. |
| Interpret | Help your reader to know more about something and offer your own perspective if required. |
| Justify | Give reasons why you should explain everything you think of an interest. |
| Outline | Give a explanation that is broad of without way too many details. |
| Prove | Show if something is true and demonstrate the method that you reached that conclusion. |
| Review | Glance at something in more detail and provide your perspective upon it. |
| State | place your ideas or arguments clearly. |
| Summarise | Pull everything together and present it clearly without needing detail that is too much. |
Brainstorming means producing ideas related to a layout. You are able to write the basic ideas down in every order.
The following is a brainstorm that is possible the chocolate essay, carried out in the form of a mind map:
Keep in mind that the focus that is centralthe essay question) has several boxes connected to it which represent the writer’s first ideas. Other boxes area then added. A brainstorm similar to this is organic; it doesn’t necessarily stop growing. You can include, remove or reorganise it while you wish. If you like to put more system into the brainstorm, use a model that is step-based as the following:
Step one
Time yourself for the first draft of your mind map
Set a set time with this drafting from your base topic/question and adhere to it.
Step 2
Look critically at your draft
Which ideas could you develop or remove? Will there be a balance of ideas?
Step three
Think about ordering
Which issues might you tackle first in your essay and why?
Step 4 readers that are anticipate needs
Are there any any words and/or phrases that might need explaining? In that case, when may be the best time into the essay to get this done?
Step 5
Move
Reflect upon your brainstorming. Once you are satisfied with your brainstorm you should use it to plan your essay.
Once you’ve got done some brainstorming, it’s time for you to get researching!
Understand that an academic essay requires academic sources.
Finding what you need takes time and effort. The place that is best to begin (assuming you haven’t recently been given a prescribed reading list!) is to use an academic database. Then book an appointment with your subject librarian at your institution if you are not sure how to use a database.
Another option is by using an internet search that is academic such as Google Scholar. N.B. Make certain you are logged in the library at your educational institution, in order to make use of the database that is full linked to Google Scholar.
You’ll want to enter keywords to start with. When it comes to essay that is chocolate among the first associations we thought of was chocolate and mood. Whenever we enter these words into Google Scholar it will look like this:
This can take one to a webpage which lists a number of relevant articles, similar to this:
The initial two articles have already been cited 90 times and 103 times respectively, suggesting that they may be sources that are good your essay. The links to your right indicate that you can access the articles throughout your university website.
If you were to think a write-up looks promising, click on the look and link at the abstract:
Read the abstract and inquire yourself in the event that content associated with article will probably be strongly related your essay.
a) If yes, go through the pdf. This may take you to the article that is full after that you can skim read quickly to choose if it’s relevant.
b) then you have a choice if no. Either click on the links to other related articles or get back to Google Scholar and then choose another article to skim read.
If proceed the link right now you fail to find what you’re in search of, then you need to improve your keywords search.
When you have found what you think could be useful, make a note in your plan in the appropriate place.
Do the same thing for all of the points that need academic references to aid them.
Keep in mind that through your research you could discover new issues and perspectives you hadn’t considered before, so that your original plan might be quite distinctive from the final one!
After you have brainstormed your thinking and done some initial research, start putting them into a logical order included in the essay planning process. Brainstorming allows you to see just what you realize about the topic. Researching will give you more depth. Brainstorming, planning and researching are cyclical, which means that each process helps one other processes and also you might want to do each process more than once.
