This is a follow-on to comments on a post that the blog author entitled "university life," but which was not even close to becoming an essay on university life. To provide a bit more background for the general advice about writing that follows, first let me share a comment I made confirming what one of the author's classmates had been quick to notice during peer reviews this morning. I wrote:
"S... K. was ... right. What you wrote was too short to call an essay (only thirty-some words)" (pab, May 21, 2008).
I'd call the post on which S.K. and I left comments a quick post, rather than an essay. I recommend labeling it, and all other posts on your blogs like it (anything shorter than a five-minute typing test), "quickposts". Quick posts are fine for day-to-day fluency practice, and for logging ideas that you plan to write more about later (brainstorming). Book reviews, however, must be longer than typing tests; and essays, longer yet.
The minimum length for essays in Writing III is growing steadily:
- 250+ words for self-introductions,
- 300+ words for personal reviews of the movie Shrek, and
- 350+ words for essays on university life (due Sunday, May 18, to be precise).
Other basic requirements are that essays be carefully composed and organized:
- composed in original sentences (neither copied nor machine-translated), and
- organized into five or more well-developed paragraphs (five or more sentences in length), including introductory and concluding paragraphs.
The author of the quick post on which we left those comments this morning expressed a desire to develop skills while he/she is studying at the university. Well, brainstorming, outlining, composing, (re-)organizing, and summarizing in writing ARE skills that you must demonstrate in essays, book reviews, and other posts on your blogs, if you want credit for this course.
[315 words]
No comments:
Post a Comment