Those masterfully developed ideas, beautiful turns of phrase and dramatic conclusions will often be revealed to you in the fifth or sixth draft, long after you initially thought that you were finished. Wait three days before you submitAfter reading your essay over and over, it often becomes difficult to pick up minor or even significant errors.
Somehow, the eye tends to glaze over certain sections, assuming theyre flawless when theyre not. One way to combat this tendency is to put off turning in the essay for at least three days after youve "finished. " The routine would go something like this. Finish the essay. Put it aside for three days. Dont look at it, read or obsess about it that last one is often the hardest.
After three days, read the essay again, as if for the first time. Chances are you will find areas that can be strengthened and whether its a major point or a single word or phrase, that three day waiting period will have been worth it. Youve got one chance to make a positive impression with your essay and rushing, in any way, isnt going to help.
So start early, work slower and write the best essay you can possibly write. A couple of days ago I was sitting out front of Starbucks, next to my electric scooter, sipping on a White Mocha Frappachino, and a couple of tables away from me was a community college literature teacher, and he was busy grading essays.
We got to talking about what a challenge it was, even in the advanced English classes with the kind of work that the kids were turning in these days. And perhaps I shouldnt call them kids because these are young adults who have finished high school and are getting ready to go to a university, but have pit stopped themselves for a couple years at the community college level.
One of the biggest problems and this community college professor of literature was worried about was the coming layoffs and all the budget cuts. And I might let you know I do live in California. Unfortunately in California especially in the LA area the unemployment rate is quite high, and with that so too are the increased enrollment numbers at the community college, and all this at a time when they are cutting back, letting teachers go, increasing classroom size, and even cutting several classes from the schedule.
Many kids now will end up going to the community college for three years or even four years to get all the classes they need because they have to wait on waiting list to get certain prerequisite classes in order to graduate with their two-year degrees and they can go on. We talked about the number of students who had barely made it out of high school, and they had been ESL students during their high school days.
He indicated they still werent up to snuff, and even many of the kids that did come from English-speaking families, much of their work that they turned and was atrocious. Security varying of security inhouse considerations analysis practices an and grammar errors, along with the occasional text message abbreviation.
I handed him an article that I read in the Wall Street Journal on March 3, 2011 which was titled "Students Struggle for Words - Business Schools Put More Emphasis on Writing Amid Employer Complaints" by Diana Middleton. In the article there was this quote "Students have to unlearn bad behavior, such as using complicated words over simple ones - edifice over building for instance.
"Indeed, I explained to him as the coordinator for a think tank which operates online, many of our members would come up with business plans and presentations when they were seeking venture capital from an Angel investor or VC, and it was amazing how horrific their writing was. Sometimes they would use e-mail slang, text message abbreviations, or even create fancy words that didnt exist.
It was hard to tell where they were coming from, and its obvious that no investor could possibly take them seriously. Now then, some of the concepts, inventions, and inhouse security practices an analysis of varying security considerations were quite good, and worthy of funding, but often those who invest in such companies bet on the jockey not on the horse, and if they dont feel comfortable with the individuals involved because they cant spell, cant write, or even create an adequate abstract, mission statement, or executive summary security varying practices inhouse security of analysis an considerations is just no way thats going to fly.
The community college professor indicated to me that they needed help from the business community, more funding, and better teaching at the lower levels for us to solve this problem.