I’m pretty sure your writing teachers have instructed you on the finer points of writing a variety of essays, including the persuasive essay, compare and contrast essay, and argument essay. You have these skills fine-tuned and can hold your own with the best...

You’re cruising through your writing class just fine. No speed bumps in the road to a decent grade. But then your instructor decides to put up a roadblock—a texting while driving essay. You screech to a halt. You weren’t paying attention to how to write essays...

How many times has a professor given you a list of assigned topics and told you to write about one of them? How many times did you complain that you didn’t like any topics on the list? I bet you’ve done it at least once or twice. You yearn for the freedom to...

Any reader of some or all of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s 60 Sherlock Holmes detective stories knows the author follows a certain formula. First, a stranger visits Detective Holmes and his sidekick Watson, presenting them with a mysterious criminal quandary. Then...

Have you ever logged in to your class to check your grades and sat there staring blankly in amazement because you failed a test or got a big fat “F” on an essay? After you got the anger (and maybe a few tears) out of your system, did you think about why you...

Who hasn’t seen Forrest Gump? A touching, hilarious, poignant movie about a shrimp-fishing, table-tennis-playing, long-distance-running war hero from the deep South. The movie begins with Forrest sitting at a bus stop. As various people come and go, Forrest...

The Problem: You don’t know how to write a proposal paper. The Solution: Find someone who does know how to write a proposal paper (that would be me) and read her advice (that would be this article). Problem solved. Phew! That was easy, right? So let’s get to...

It’s been a long night of frantic researching and writing, and as you check your word count for the fifth time in the past 10 minutes, you realize your required 2,000-word research paper is still only 1,162 words. Gone are the days of trying (and likely failing)...

POP QUIZ! How confident are you right now in your ability to write a killer definition essay? A. Super-confident. I can write a great essay with one hand tied behind my back. B. Reasonably confident. I’d probably need both hands to type my paper. C. Completely...

A transition is a “passage from one state, stage, subject, or place to another.” At least that’s what Merriam-Webster’s dictionary says. But that thing’s only been around for like 184 years or so, so I’d like to amend it a bit. Instead, let’s say...

At this point in your academic career, you’ve gone through the main three types of essays—argumentative, narrative, and descriptive. And you have to admit, you’ve gotten pretty good at them. But now your teacher wants you to write an exemplification essay,...

Write an analytical essay. It’s a short sentence, but it packs some intimidation, doesn’t it? Don’t let it scare you. It’s really just a fancy way of saying, “Write a paper, and support what you say.” It’s like piecewise linear interpolation. Now...

Have you ever tried to debate (or argue with) someone who just cannot see your point of view? They’re so caught up in what they think is right that they won’t even consider opposing evidence. It’s frustrating, right? That’s because, for many situations,...

There’s an old adage that says writing is a process, not a product. And to help drive that point in, I’m going to show you how to write an awesome process essay. In fact, you can consider this whole blog post as a type of process essay. But instead of just...

Remember when that annoying light came on while you were driving home last night? Turns out it really did serve a purpose—to tell you one of your tires was low. Unfortunately, you ignored the warning light. Unfortunately, you missed class because of your flat...

Two weeks ago, your professor assigned a cause and effect essay, but when the due date came, you didn’t even turn it in. What caused you not to turn in your paper? Of course, it could be any number of reasons. Let’s say you simply didn’t feel like writing...

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my 30 years on this planet, it’s that you should always read the instructions. Okay, most of the time. At any rate, I know that you should read the instructions on tests. I learned this by accidentally skipping two...

You’ve written a narrative essay or two by now, and they’ve been pretty good. But they haven’t given you that sense of pride that you get from, say, a well-supported argumentative essay. So when your instructor assigns another narrative essay, you’re looking...

As if writing a more standard essay were not enough, your instructor slaps you with this: a compare and contrast essay. What makes it worse is that it’s about poetry—as if you know how to compare and contrast poems already. How does she expect you to completely...

Ever heard the adage “don’t compare apples to oranges?” We all know what it means: comparing the two doesn’t make practical sense because they are very different. But have you ever stopped and thought about how you might literally compare apples and oranges?...

As an English teacher, I can tell you that everyone makes mistakes in writing. And in my years as a TOEFL tutor, I’ve seen just about every kind of TOEFL writing mistake you can imagine. Still, certain kinds of writing mistakes are more common than others. The...