Dr. Brunet’s Suggestions for Writing Essays
1. Do not use the phrase “a lot”. Ever.
2. Paragraphs, paragraphs, paragraphs. Each paragraph should have a
thesis sentence; that is, it should have an opinion. Paragraphs, like
sentences should be short. If your paragraph takes up the entire page, it is
too long.
3. Do not confuse “of” and “have”: for example “must of had” is wrong;
“must have had” is correct.
4. Never, ever, ever start a sentence with a conjunction. A conjunction is a
word that joins two sentences or phrases. The three conjunctions are “and”,
“but”, and “or”. If you can say “this and that”, “this or that”, “this cat but that
dog”, you CANNOT start a sentence with the conjunction.
5. Speaking of “this” and “that”, if your pronouns outnumber your concrete
nouns, you are in trouble. Limit your pronoun usage.
6. Never use contractions in an essay. Always write out numbers (thirteen,
not 13), except for dates.
7. In an essay, you want to be as specific as possible, and always define your
terms. In other words, assume the reader is an idiot.
8. Do NOT parrot my lectures. Each paragraph should have at least one
original thought /idea/analysis supported by facts.
9. Watch your word choices, read your paper in your head to see if it
“flows” and to catch grammatical mistakes and in history essays write in the
past tense.
10. Articles that are used with nouns are “a”, “an”, and “the”. Not all nouns
are modified by articles. A good rule to follow is nouns that can be counted
are modified by articles (one student, two students, three students, ahh ahh
ahh….so “a student” or “the student”). Uncountable nouns generally do not
take articles: for example, we don’t say three homeworks, therefore we
don’t write “a homework”.
Suggestions for the Book Exams
a. Give opinions, but keep your biases out of your paper.
b. Do NOT tell me what happened in the book. I know what happens. You
won’t spoil it for me. Your essay is supposed to be an analysis of the book.
c. Keep quotes to a minimum and do NOT use block quotes. Excessive
quotes are merely an indicator that you have nothing to say.
d. What you should think about is your reaction to the book and your
opinion of the book. Your opinion should be more in depth than “I thought
it was good/bad/interesting/boring…etc.
e. Think about your reaction to the subject matter and the theme of the
book. Do you agree or disagree? Be prepared to explain your reasoning.
f. What is your opinion of the author and the author’s writing style? Again,
be prepared to defend your position.
g. Were you convinced by the author’s position/argument? Once again, you
need to be able to argue your point of view.