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Posts Tagged ‘personal essay prompts’

The Advantages of Sample Essay Prompts
29
October
2008

The advantages of sample essay prompts are many and varied, especially if you intend to pursue a field of study which will involve lots of writing intensive classes.  Honestly, these days, just about every collage student can count on getting several writing intensive courses at the very least, no matter what their major.  Similarly, no matter how old you are, whether you are in high school or college, practicing with essay prompts can be extremely beneficial.

Not only can you learn the foundations necessary for a number of different essays and research papers, but sample essay prompts will simply make you better at your craft.  The more you write, the more your writing itself will improve.  Sample prompts, no matter what kind they are, can help you technically – quite a bit, in fact.  You will be able to hone your skills in grammar, spelling, punctuation, and overall style.  You will learn to craft strong but interesting sentences which transition into concise, well thought out paragraphs, which will in turn lead to grade A, high quality papers – or stories, or poems, whatever kind of writing you prefer.

But yes, essay writing prompts can help any number of writers.  Academics, researchers, instructors, journalists, novelists, writers of literature, poets, et cetera – if you intend to be any of these things, or any number of others, you can count on doing a lot of writing.  Even if you write as a hobby, sample essay prompts can certainly be helpful.

For example, personal essay prompts are not only beneficial to future fiction and non fiction writers, but they can even help when it comes to persuasive essays and research papers.  Sometimes, especially when you have to persuade someone to believe in or agree with something, you have to show pieces of yourself as well.  Personal experiences, opinions, feelings: these all make an appearance even in academic writing.

Expository essay prompts are especially helpful to college and university levels, no matter the level at which you are studying.  At the most base level, most if not all academic writing involves explanation.  They all have their foundations in the expository essay, just as they all have persuasive roots as well.

Though it may not seem like the most exciting activities in the world, you should seriously consider drafting papers around sample essay prompts as an occasional exercise.  Using writing prompts can sometimes help writers get through a block, and sometimes they can just open up the flood gates.  They make great exercises both for that and to polish up your essay writing skills when necessary.  For instance, if you are applying to colleges to attend next fall, consider practicing with some essay prompts.  That way you can be prepared for your application essay.  The same goes for graduate school candidates and even high school students preparing to take the PSATs, SATs, and ACTs.  Like say, if you ever find yourself suffering from writer’s block, prompts can also help you to get ideas flowing in a focused direction, which can often overlap into your own creative writing. Learn what you need to know about essay help online.

How to Handle High School Essay Prompts
9
October
2008

Through grades nine through twelve, you will be given a large variety of different high school essay prompts.  No matter whether you are a freshman, a sophomore, a junior, or a senior, your high school teachers are trying to teach you some very important things about writing.  Early on in your high school career, they are trying to teach you technical writing.  You will learn about punctuation, grammar, flow, structure, and even spelling, but what you learn will be much more in depth than what you were taught during elementary and middle school.  As you continue on, however, your teachers have something much different in mind.  Namely, they are preparing you for the essays and research papers you will be faced with in college.  As such, they seek to teach you the fundamentals of persuasive, expository, and personal essay writing.  So, how about we take a look at a few such prompts?

As stated, you will be dealing with various high school essay prompts.  The topics will differ just as much as the preferred format.  It is likely that you will begin to deal with expository essay prompts during your sophomore year, at the very least.  These are especially important, because they teach you how to really explain your point.  Possible writing prompts of this nature include:

Example 1: Being tolerant of someone else’s opinion and point of view is important.  Write an essay which explains why it is so important to try to see things from someone else’s viewpoint.

Example 2: Consider the importance of music in one’s culture.  What is your own culture?  Explain the type of music which is important to your culture and what role that music plays.

Example 3: Using examples from books, television, movies, or your own experiences, write an essay explaining the lengths people may go to in order to survive a particular situation.

Persuasive high school essay prompts are also important.  These will particularly come in handy when you start submitting college applications.  The writing prompts seen there generally you to persuade someone that you are a good candidate for that school.  Possible persuasive essay prompts include:

Example 1: In some countries, young people have to serve time in the military.  Do you think the United States should implement such a requirement?  Why or why not?

Example 2: Your city council is thinking about implementing a curfew for teenagers.  Do you agree with this?  Write an essay persuading your town council to consider your opinion.

Example 3: “It’s not whether you win or lose; it’s how you play the game.” Do you agree with this statement?  Explain your position and convince your readers why they should agree.

These are not the only types of high school essay prompts, of course, but they are the two most common.  You are also likely to see personal essay prompts, which tend to be extreme.  That is, students either find that they are the easiest writing prompts or the most difficult. Learn more about essay help you can get online.

The Many Benefits of Writing Prompts
16
September
2008

Today we are going to discuss the benefits of writing prompts, namely by taking a look at several research paper examples.  Prompts are extremely beneficial in any number of ways.  When we reach a certain age, they may seem a little unnecessary.  After all, these are things that we have to deal with when we are in grammar school and middle school – and sometimes in high school as well.  We generally view them as tedious, but then, all school and homework assignments are rather tedious, aren’t they?

However, writing prompts are actually going to help you.  In fact, they are a tool used by your teachers, in order to groom your writing style.  You see, they teach you how to come up with thought provoking ideas on your own.  They also give you a chance to form your own style and tone as a writer.  Furthermore, they teach you quite a lot about form, structure, and format as well.  These lessons are invaluable, and trust in the fact that you will be very grateful for this knowledge when you get to college, where just about every other class seems like it is writing intensive.  It may be heard to believe, but these prompts are actually the foundation for the writing you will do later in your academic career – such as with essays and research papers.

Having said that, let’s take a look at a few sample writing prompts.  First off all, here are a few expository essay prompts, which will later be incredible invaluable.  After all, in most if not all academic writing, you are going to be asked for factually explain something.

Example 1: Write a clear how-to guide describing how to either: change a tire; train an athlete in the sport of your choice; or drive on dirt roads.

Example 2: Your class is making a time capsule.  It is going to be opened fifty years from now.  Choose some items that will tell people in the future about the year 2008.  Explain what you want to put in the capsule and why.

Example 3: Consider something you have made yourself, with your own two hands.  How did you make it?  Is there anything you would change?  Write a clear explanation so that someone else could easily build the same item.

Next, we are going to examine some persuasive essay prompts:

Example 1: Your teacher has decided to give your class three tests on the same day.  Write an essay persuading your teacher to give the tests over several days instead.  Explain why it is necessary.

Example 2: A new scientific study has found that students need to be in bed by 8:00pm every night.  They cannot watch TV, read, or even have the lights on past that hour.  Your parents are thinking about following this.  Persuade them into changing their minds.

Example 3: Your school/school board is thinking about implementing school uniforms.  Do you think this is a good idea?  Write an essay explaining your views.

Now, let’s look at some personal essay prompts:

Example 1: Many children have a problem with their parents’ rules.  Think about a rule you once had a problem with and write a personal essay explaining what happened when they enforced that rule, how you reacted, and why you did not like it.

Example 2: Write a personal essay describing a time in your life when you were very anxious.  Explain what made you feel nervous, how you reacted, and what ultimately happened.

Example 3: Write a personal essay wherein you describe your most memorable vacation.  Was it good or bad?  What happened during the vacation?  How did you react?

As you can see, although simplistic in nature, writing prompts can help you learn how to create your own topics and ideas.  Moreover, essay prompts show you exactly how to explain something to your reader, in order to get him or her interested in reading.  Aside of format and structure, that is the most important aspect of academic writing.

The Purpose of Personal Essay Prompts
10
September
2008

Your teachers and professors do not give you personal essay prompts because they are dying to read about how your first week of college is making you feel, why you want to major in a particular field, or what you hope to accomplish when you get older.  That is not to say that they will not be interested in why you ultimately tell them, though.  The point is, your instructors give you these essay prompts because they want to see your abilities and gauge how skill you are when it comes to focusing on a specific event or incident, no matter how meaningful or mundane it may be.  Moreover, more than anything, they want you to interest them, they want you to make them interested in your essay.  They want you to pull them into whatever you are describing.

Now then, there is actually a merciful aspect behind all the personal essay prompts your instructors assign when you have to write a personal paper.  Why?  Because writing about ourselves and our experiences can be some of the hardest things a writer ever does.  Think about all the writers who do not.  Journalists are staunch in their desire to write about other people, someone else’s experiences, the lives of others, et cetera.  Although fiction writers generally include a lot of ourselves in our work, most of us stick to characters rather than writing about caricatures of ourselves.  Professional essayists are another matter, as are writers of biographical non fiction, such as David Sadaris or even Anne Frank.

However, there will come a time in every student’s life when you have to write a personal, or narrative, essay.  For instance, did you know that college application essay prompts are considered personal essays?  With those types of essay prompts, your readers are also interested in your skills, your tone, your style, and how engaging it is.  It so happens that they are also interested in learning a bit about you as well.  That is why, so often, such topics deal with why you chose your particular major, that particular university, et cetera.

Not all personal essay topics will be so specific.  They can be general, even generic topics, such as “Describe a time in your life during which you were perfectly content.”  Some of you might consider personal essay prompts of that type quite boring – and, indeed, they certainly seem that way!  The trick – in truth, the entire underlying assignment – is to make it interesting by engaging your reader.  That is the key with all essays and research papers, no matter what their structure or purpose.  You have to draw in your reader, make he or she interested in what you are trying to say.

Personal essay prompts will be helpful that far down the line; they will help you with a number of different types of papers.  Personal essays themselves are the least of it.  Narrative essay prompts can also help you when it comes to writing such things as personal experience research papers.