Writing An Essay

In my classes students work in pairs making up dialogues, short stories, taking part in discussions of the most acute problems, making presentations and writing essays. Did I say “writing essays”? It must have been a slip of the tongue because for most students writing an readable essay presents a real problem. So, before giving this assignment to students an English teacher has to give them someguidelines which they should follow to make their essays presentable.

Firstly, I recommend reading an extract from O.N. Grishina’s book Text Analysis Guide, Chapter 1: Essay.

“An Essay is a short literary composition, which clearly expresses the author’s personal opinion about a definite subject of general interest with the aim of shaping the reader’s opinion.

From this definition it is easy to infer that the basic distinctive features of the essay are: brevity; clarity of the message; subjectivity; appeal to a wide audience; and strong impact (logical and emotional).

There are several types of essays:

– narrative essays (e.g. autobiographies, memoirs, character sketches);

– descriptive essays (e.g. travel notes, feature portraits);

– critical essays (e.g. book reviews, film reviews);

– interpretative essays (e.g. offering interpretations of a proverb, saying, quotation);

– argumentative essays (e.g. supporting a disputable point, as ‘Too Much Knowledge is a Dangerous Thing’);

– analytical essays, and so on.

All essays belong to expository prose, which is designed to ‘expose’, i.e. to set forth facts, ideas and opinions in an orderly fashion”.

Secondly, I suggest putting down a few “tricks” which might make an essay an interesting read:

1. Your essay should express one clear message you want to present (one idea you want to “sell”);

2. Try to make your essay logical (the reader should understand what is on offer): divide it into paragraphs, see if they follow one another in logical order and interconnect with one another;

3. Always consult a dictionary to find synonyms to words and to see peculiarities of their usage in the language;

4. Try to avoid simplistic vocabulary; make your speech colourful. (to make the idea “sell well”);

5. Try to liven things up by adding a catchy phrase, a thought-provoking idea, a funny joke, an example; always make the beginning and the closing line of your essay exciting and “inviting” the reader to read on (Hint: Look at newspaper headlines);

6. Try to avoid contracted forms (not to sound familiar); do not use any smiley-s and do not write any personal messages in brackets, use slang expressions moderately; and always bear in mind political correctness;

7. Make your essays presentable (show the reader you care about them): for soft copies use Times New Roman 14, use Times New Roman 16 for titles; indicate your name/group number.

Thirdly, I present two essays which might be demonstrated to students for analysis.

ESSAY 1: How to Improve Your English without Attending Classes

Are you at loggerheads with your English Teacher? Does he drive you crazy and rub you up the wrong way? Do you feel at sea at his classes? Do you return home dead on your feet after it? You don’t have to keep up appearances any more and pretend that you are pleased with your English lessons. What a pain! Now you don’t have to attend them at all!

There are many ways of improving your English without attending classes. Actually the authors don’t recommend attending them at all. The only thing you can do there is count flies. This activity is no doubt useful for, after a while, your mathematic skills will be incredible, but we have grave doubts whether it can really help your English. Let us give you some tips that may help you avoid this extremely boring and unnecessary practice.

For those who can’t help missing their English lessons, it’s advisable to imitate the teaching process. Teach yourself. We’d suggest buying a small blackboard of orange colour with little butterflies and dragonflies on the edges (the insects and the colour may vary), a box of many-coloured chalks and sheets of many-coloured paper (for the process must not be so dull as at real classes). Pens can also be of different colours. But do not use a red ink, which your worst enemy Teacher uses one to correct mistakes in your exercise book which you hand in while attending classes.

So begin your own class every day at 11 or 12 o’clock. Don’t wake up early. You don’t have to rush to the university. Several problems that usually crop up vanish by themselves. Amazingly enough, you are never late, you don’t have to blush on entering the classroom and make excuses in a stuttering voice. If you are ill – be, if you please, and still you will not miss your own class, so you will never fall behind! You are able to choose those textbooks that you like and work out a program to your liking.

By the way, speaking of books. The authors firmly believe that a good book is much more useful than a good teacher. Here you can also decide what to begin with: fairy-tales, love stories or philosophical novels. And it will be only you who are to blame if you don’t understand a word of the latter! The authors tend to think that such books as Harry Potter can enrich your language greatly.

Those who are inclined to romance and tenderness may choose learning love poems and love songs as their training activity. This is certainly nice but not for everybody. Those who don’t walk in clouds and live in a make-believe world of lullaby and pink princesses, have an option of learning limericks such as:

If I were an egg,
And you were an egg,
We should have to take care.
No bumping of heads,
Or stepping off beds,
We should just have to roll everywhere.

There was a young fellow at Ealing,
Devoided of delicate feeling.
When he read on a door,
“Don’t spit on the floor,”
He immediately spat on the ceiling!

These are sarcastic enough to live up to your realism. Those who are close to common people may learn sayings, proverbs and tongue-twisters. For instance: She sells sea-shells on the seashore of the Seychelles. The shells that she sells are sea-shells for sure.

If you are still not capable of choosing a book, let us give you a piece of advice. Begin with the source of words – read a dictionary. You can’t imagine what a fascinating read a dictionary can be. This page-turner, full of wry humor and breathtaking tales where characters and circumstances are so skillfully interwoven, will involve you into a wonderful world of the English language. We can guarantee that it will become your bedtime reading!

For the laziest, we can suggest listening to audio-books which can spare you a lot of time. An audio-book may be with you round the clock whether you are cooking, jogging, driving, taking a shower or even sleeping. This almost endless source of deep knowledge will make your English much better within an astonishingly short time. Just don’t forget to recharge your mp3-player batteries.

The authors know for certain that there is nothing better in this world than listening to music. This nice and pleasant way of learning English is also rather effective. You only have to remember that such groups as AC/DC and Korn will hardly develop your English because you won’t be able to understand distinct words. The odds are also against any English language improvement if you are a Rammstein fan. In the only two songs they sing in English, they demonstrate an awful German accent which may make all your efforts go to the dogs. Beware! So if you are fiercely loyal to this group, you have no option but to pick up another way of improving your English.

Listening to the radio, for instance. It’s a perfect opportunity to master English if you still want to listen to something instead of straining your poor eyes, which is fully understandable. One can go blind if they keep on reading so much! The innumerable variety of on-line radio-stations will provide you with qualitative and solid English. Our choice is BBC. By the way, on-line you can not only listen to the radio, but also watch TV, MTV for one! To say nothing of films that you can download from countless internet sources. The authors tend to think that such downloading programs as EMule, Azureus and local net ports are very helpful.

When your film is downloaded you immediately find yourself in a very advantageous position with reference to your poor group mates. You don’t have to watch a film sitting in a cold room with the Teacher’s eye on you. You can and must make a couch potato of yourself. Make some popcorn, make some home made chips, fry some meat, make yourself cozy on your favorite sofa, switch off all the phones and begin to get familiar with the world movie masterpieces. Even if you fall into a deep sleep and begin snoring, nobody will gaze at you in surprise and abuse you. The authors would also like to remind you that the selection of films is up to you. Nobody will forbid you to watch stupid brain-killing American comedies like “American Pie” or burst into bitter tears while watching “Fall in New-York”. You may even blow your nose or call Mel Gibson a skunk while watching “What Women Want”. And remember that no one could be better company for you than you yourself.

If you, dear Reader, still want to communicate rather than be alone, use your sociable nature in order to improve your English. The Internet may provide you with native speakers. You only have to install ICQ or MSN Messenger and pick a victim. Don’t get the victim down and say that you are going to use him or her. “Just do it!” as Nike recommends. Such a source is very convenient and will serve you. But, unfortunately, it’s not very safe, so you’ll be better off if you have a couple of them at the same time. If you can’t accept typing and want to exercise your pronunciation you are sure to make friends with a living foreigner. They are to be found in the Red Square, Okhotnyi Rjad and some pubs and night clubs. As a weak alternative, we may also suggest attending concerts and going to the theater. Thus you will kill two birds with one stone: you will be certain that he is not a 40-year-old Turk pretending to be an 18-year-old English student and you will also speak a lot. And soon you will not have to explain who the husband of a hen and the father of a chicken is. You will know it yourself. If you are lucky and smart enough, you will boss the foreigner round, spend his money and maybe marry him, which will mean your staying in Great Britain or America forever. The authors would kindly like to remind the dear Reader that while attending classes you will never get acquainted with a foreigner.

If you are ashamed to shirk classes openly and you are too painfully shy to inform the teacher directly that you consider his lessons dull, send him an e-mail. Become a correspondence student! Inform him also about your progress every week so that he can be proud of you. Do it in English so that he can also be sure that you don’t lack in knowledge.

In conclusion, the authors are happy to give you suggestions which are rather sensible. Don’t go to the university at all. It will save you a lot of trouble. You see, one day your English teacher will, no doubt, catch you in a hall and then he will remind you of all the sarcastic e-mail cards that you have sent him along with your progress reports. Don’t expect the English teacher to be sympathetic; he will not dismiss you painlessly, so, in order to avoid meeting with an accident, it’s prudent to avoid going to the university altogether.

To sum up, we are glad to inform you that the ways of improving your English without attending classes are numerous, diverse and depend only on your imagination. As the last and the sharpest variant we can suggest that you go abroad forever. That would make easier not only your English upgrading, but also your life on the whole.

And remember – no matter how you improve your English – let it be impeccable!

ESSAY 2: Advertising Makes Our Life Brighter

I am worth it – L’Oreal Paris; A little less Gravity – Nike; Shift Expectations – Nissan; Pursuit of Perfection – Lexus; It’s a Sony – Sony Corp.; Good food, good life – Nestle; Connecting People – Nokia… We are surrounded by blatant ads everywhere: on TV, in the underground, in the streets. Colorful, eye-catching, insolent, obtrusive at times.

Some people just hate advertising, saying it is a real brainwash and people should not be bombarded with it like that as they can not stockpile useless information. Others still think that advertising prompts people to buy more, and this universal greed and consumption should have some limits. But as for me, I would say that I like advertising because it really makes sense and it brightens up our life.

But first I must make a confession. I am not fond of watching TV. Absolutely not. I rarely watch it more than three times a week, given that the time that I spend doing it does not usually exceed 2 hours. It’s just that I rarely happen to find programs that are interesting to me. As a result, I see little TV advertising, and come across only quality ads like those found in high-profile glossy magazines (Vogue, ELLE, Cosmopolitan, and Esquire) and in shops. That makes a great difference. And these advertisements influence me a lot, prompting me to buy goods I would not buy at random. However, I’ve always been keen on smart ads and I consider that advertising can really be of use.

What leaps to the eye – advertising makes the streets look beautiful. Consider shop windows which are decorated exquisitely not only before Christmas and New Year’s, but every day, just to attract clientele. Recently, I went to GUM and it really took my breath away, the way this shop looks before Christmas. Everything glimmers, shines, and sparkles! By the way, it might be another trick of merchandisers: silver and gold, seen everywhere, remind people of luxury and imbue them with a subconscious desire to pamper themselves and indulge in pleasant things, thus to consume more. But those who do not see this, just walk about nonchalantly enjoying the beauty.

Second, advertising makes it possible to run programs on TV which otherwise would not be available. Thus, advertisers pay for the entertainment of people who later fork out money for the extensively advertised goods. However, it is a pity children come under fire, too. It is only too often that young children whimper and beg their parents to buy them chips, sweets or toys. Children are thus taught to consume more from the very beginning of their life. I remember that in my childhood I rarely ate chocolate. And with chocolate bars being advertised every 20 minutes on TV, you can not expect children nowadays to think of chocolate or anything as if it were a delicacy. Poor, poor little ones!

The final argument is, advertising makes our life different. I myself buy not a particular thing (a skirt, a coat, a pair of shoes…) but a particular brand. Brand loyalty IS a reality. For me, it is essential whether I buy a sweater at Sisley, United Colours of Benetton or Mexx, because this thing I buy is not valuable in itself, it is valuable only if it has this magic tag with the brand name. Silly, isn’t it? But it works. Advertisers have understood this long ago and tend not to translate brand names into Russian but leave the original spelling, so that people should be attracted to goods. The magic behind the brand becomes apparent when we see the values underlying them.

And it shows in ads, too. It’s not just a facial crème that we buy, it is happiness that is at stake (“Happy Derm” cream, L’Oreal Paris). Do you think it is a usual toner or a usual perfume? Girl, you are mistaken, these are powerful weapons that make you invincible (‘Infallible’ toner, L’Oreal Paris; “Very Irresistible” perfume, Givenchy). And some people, like me, do believe these implicated ideas and do buy these “cure-alls”.

I perfectly understand those people who say advertising is ubiquitous, and obtrusive, and stupid. Sometimes it can be. But then, every cloud has a silver lining. Instead of being bored by ads, you may find inspiration in them. I really envy copyrighters who make colorful ads which are later shown everywhere. In a consumer society like ours, it is they who own the world, reining in our minds and our actions. Miracle – you make it happen…

After presenting these two very different essays to my students we discuss the strong points and drawbacks of each of these essays together and correct some mistakes. Finally, my students get several topics to choose from and the task to write an essay.