What if I told you to build a garage but offered you no tools to work with, or told you to paint a portrait but you had no brushes, paints, or canvas? You can’t complete either of these tasks without tools. So what if I handed you a hammer, a saw, and a handful of …
Question: Who actually writes letters these days? Answer: Everyone, including you! Traditional, handwritten “snail-mail” letters might seem like they’re on the endangered species list, but that doesn’t mean that letter writing isn’t alive and well. Writing a professional letter is a necessary skill for anyone who wants to get ahead. Click To Tweet …
When you sit down at a Mexican restaurant, you’re often given free chips and salsa to munch on before your meal. If you’re one of those people who love to feel the burn, you’ll likely take one bite of the free salsa and ask your server for something hotter. Why? Because free salsa is usually …
J.R.R. Tolkien was grading a stack of college exam papers one summer day when he came upon a blank piece of paper tucked among them. He wrote on it the first thing to pop into his head: “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.” Over the next 20 or so years of …
Are you starting college soon? How about your first college-level writing class? Before you trek into this uncharted territory, you’ll want to sharpen your skills and steel yourself for the big day when you’re writing your first major college essay. But you’ll need something more effective than that double-shot of espresso to get you through those …
When you hear the word “ESSAY,” what comes to mind? If you’re like a lot of students, you might think pain. Boredom. Tedium. Sheer misery. Rarely does the word “fun” come to mind. I get it. There are all sorts of reasons that you might hate writing an essay. Perhaps you struggle to start your …
More often than not, when you’re assigned an essay, you think, “Great. I have zero interest in this topic. How am I supposed to write five pages about it?” But every once in a while, you get that essay assignment that encourages you to write about something you feel passionate about. Something you can sink …
If you’re thinking the SQ3R Method is a new iPhone QR code scanner app that allows you to scan your essay for grammar errors, you’d be wrong. (Though that would be pretty awesome, wouldn’t it?) The SQ3R Method is actually a reading method that will help you: Interact with a text Retain more of what …
There’s nothing like a deadline to spark your creativity! Or so some people claim. For others, it just sparks anxiety. Whether you’re writing a timed essay in class or you had some unforeseen circumstance and didn’t start working on your essay until the last minute, it’s important to put that anxiety to the side and …
On the west coast of Taiwan, just north of Taichung City, there is a place called Gaomei where the setting sun takes all but an inch of water with it out to sea. There, you can take off your shoes and socks and walk into the wetland, feeling the wet clay work its way up …
Ever been invited to a formal event, such as a party or dance, where the invitation specifically states “formal attire required”? We all know what formal means in a party invite. It means you can’t show up in your favorite hoodie or yoga pants. Writing a formal essay is like going to a formal event. …
Some of the greatest figures in our human history have been rule breakers. There were the American revolutionaries who refused to pay their taxes without being represented in the British parliament. There was Nelson Mandela who joined the African National Congress and fought against Apartheid, which had been the law of the South African land …
When I was a six-year-old kindergarten student, I decided (and my parents somehow permitted me) to take a box turtle I found in my backyard to school for Show and Tell. As I rode the bus to school, I was quite excited to show my classmates my new pet. The turtle was even more excited, …
There are lots of times when doing something in reverse isn’t the best idea—like walking backwards through town or driving in reverse down the interstate. Neither of these serve any useful purpose (and can actually be dangerous). So don’t try these at home. What you definitely should try at home (or in your dorm room, …
Despite what our mothers may have told us when we were testing the more “colorful” side of language as children—raise your hand if you know what soap tastes like—there’s no such thing as a “bad word.” There are, however, words that are inappropriate for a given situation. This not only means that you should avoid …
“Man, this essay is going to be impossible.” We’ve all been in this boat before, confronted with an essay assignment that is beyond difficult. What if I told you that I can teach you how to write an essay about pretty much anything under the sun? Even … hmm …wombats. “What? Why wombats?” you wonder. …
Whenever you’re writing an essay for a class, to get into your dream school, or for some other reason besides “just for the heck of it,” you usually need to write a minimum number of words or pages. And while there are probably topics you could write about forever — an ode to your pillow …
In an age where communication in the simplest form is all the rage, you can learn a lot from Twitter. Being able to write an engaging sentence in 140 characters or fewer can be a great skill to apply to writing an essay, like when tackling those all-important thesis statements. But, in the most obvious sense, …
In the past, you might have had problems getting that polished, professional feel to your essays, but you couldn’t quite figure out why. Are your ideas too underdeveloped? Is your thesis statement not good enough? Do you not have enough support for your arguments? Sometimes the problem with your essay is simply the point of …
Think back to the last time you tried to persuade someone to do something or to see an issue from your point of view. Did you succeed in convincing your teacher to give up grading or your parents to continue paying your cell phone bill for another year? No? Probably because you were using the …
Critical thinking: What would essay writing be without it? Well, you know what Mr. Spock would say. In fact, without critical thinking, essays would be highly illogical. Critical thinking allows you to dig under the surface to understand and articulate a subject or point of view. To put it another way: If you want to …