Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with writing and essay

How would you approach this college admissions essay prompt?

caroljean63 — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 22:26:05 -0800

How would you approach this college admissions essay prompt? "Discuss anything you wish you understood better than you do now. " Background: At this point in his life my son has wide ranging interests: politics, American history, economics, web design and web hosting/servers.

He has worked on several political campaigns and has won a couple awards/honors in web design competitions.

His biggest strength is leadership. He's worked as a project leader on several successful projects, team captain of most of his sports teams, etc.

Biggest weakness: He's extremely concise when writing and thinks this prompt is really not very open ended. From his POV, if he wanted to "understand something better than he does now," he would just do it! He wouldn't spend 3 days writing an essay about it, he'd google it, listen to a podcast, or read a book about it.

To a 17-year-old homeschooled kid who has grown up in the age of information at his fingertips, a question like that is foreign to his vocabulary. Still, this essay has a due date looming...

How to compose myself into an argument?

Sova — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 14:49:08 -0800

Recommendations for books that teach argument composition? I'm a first year undergrad in the social sciences, and have just completed my initial round of essays and exams. While writing these I realised that I don't know how to compose proper arguments. I missed out on a lot of schooling in the past, and so didn't pick up this skill at any point. My writing is not terrible, but it's clearly failing to express what I know, what I think, and do so in any academic kind of way. I find writing essays or exam answers to be throwing enough information into the pot to reach the word count and don't know how to go beyond that.

I would like recommendations for books that will help me to compose written arguments, and preferably give some insight into how to decompose the arguments of others. I have heard of The Crafts of Research, but don't know if this would suit my needs because I'm not doing research. I'm more or less okay at doing the reading for essays, and having original ideas, I just need to know how to order that thoughtfully.

Thanks in advance!

Help me become a better essay writer.

Knigel — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 13:18:03 -0800

Can you help me find essay communities? I would like to find a place to read other people's essays and share my own for possible feedback. I'd like to be a better writer while helping others. I would also like a place that I could post my own finished essays so that my students and friends can read them. I'm not looking for a place to to rip off other people's work, I'm looking for a place to improve my own writing.

I'd be interested in any essay forums as well.

Sample Essays (not for sale)

saoyama — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 18:10:11 -0800

What are some good sources for examples of well-written essays? I've been having a very hard time writing essays in college. I've read Strunk and White multiple times, which also goes for Orwell's Politics and the English Language. They're great and helpful but now I'm looking for essays that exemplify the good writing that Strunk, White, and Orwell write about. I'm not having much luck googling and I can't find anything in the archives, though there may be threads I overlooked.

I'm not necessarily looking for essays by famous writers--any author as long as it's writing that you consider outstanding. In fact I'd prefer essays by students or non-professionals. I just want more than the limited examples I've found in the books that teach you how to write.

Ultimately, I just need to read more but as a science major I don't often read essays and my writing probably reflects the dry and rigid writing found in abstracts. I'm looking for essays specifically because they are short (compared to entire books) and focused.

The mimetic and narrative capacities of artefacts

0bvious — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 15:58:58 -0800

I am interested in the mimetic and narrative capacities of artefacts, how cultural remnants transmit information through time and how meaning is translated once an artefact is re-appropriated or examined from a new perspective. I have several avenues of study at the moment (a list in extended explanation), but would like some more ideas. Areas of critical theory, linguistics, evolutionary psychology and poetics are all relevant. I want to show that the narratives and metaphors which can be understood as the architecture of our brains are somehow mimetically present in the physical, cultural and linguistic artefacts which surround us.

Here are a few of the readings I have gathered so far:

- Anthropological and evolutionary studies into the nature and transmission of narrative by Michelle Scalise Sugiyama (in particular her essay 'Reverse-Engineering Narrative' from the book 'The Literary Animal').
- Mikhail Bakhtin's 'Discourse in the Novel' (where he talks about language as having 'genres' or 'tastes' which can transmit as much meaning as the words themselves).
- Michael Shanks and Lynn Hershman Leeson's conversation at Seed Magazine on 'Presence' in art and archaeology and how new technologies affect it.
- Susan A. Stewart's book 'On Longing'.
- Gaston Bachelard's book 'The Poetics of Space'

Thanks in advance!

Looking for an alternative to Nerve Magazine

haasim — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 20:56:24 -0800

I am looking for a magazine that would be interested in a story I've written about being in love without sexual attraction. Nerve is the only magazine that I can think of, but from the looks of things, I doubt they accept anything from writers outside of sunny California. My story isn't sexual explicit, but I don't think a mainstream/family-friendly publication would be interested in this. Does anyone have any suggestions for a Nerve-esque magazine (or zine) that accepts non-fiction that isn't supposed to make you horny?

Looking for tools to help me get out of the endless reading trap

vizsla — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 18:04:04 -0800

Can anyone recommend some good research/study/outlining software that assists your writing? Either freeware or paid. Basically I mean software that alows you to collate ideas and notes as you read, as well as lets you do outlining - all this in preparation for writing a report or paper or essay. I find it really hard to write coherently for long periods of time but I love to research and learn and I just don't know when to stop reading. It always feels like there is more to learn. If I could find something that allows me to build an essay incrementally as I read, that would be ideal. If you have any other tips for improving your motivation to write, feel free to add them.

Please list anything and everything that has to do with interns and internships

Cochise — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 00:24:02 -0800

I'm writing an essay on interns and internships and I need suggestions for books, films, songs (?), quotations, etc., about or that reference, surprise, interns and internships in some way. All suggestions are welcome.

Writing Nonfiction and Children's Literature: Do you know of any good literature ABOUT these subjects?

0bvious — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 11:11:50 -0800

I am looking for well regarded books/scholarly papers about writing. Most specifically in the areas of Nonfiction (the essay style of article writing) and Children's Fiction (for a young adult audience). Any tips? Go as far and broad as you can. I'll be off to the British library tomorrow, so the sky is the limit. I am currently undertaking a Masters Degree in Creative and Professional Writing.

Having written an essay on 'The Problem of Dogma and the Power of Myth', I would now like to assess my article/essay style against writing theory.

As part of my course, I have also written an excerpt from a Young Adult Novel, and would dearly like to read up on some of the literature surrounding the genre.

Thanks in advance...

Free essay editing?

benji — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 11:59:38 -0800

Is their a free service that will edit my essay? I thought I once read that there is something similar to a wiki where you post an essay and it gets brutally edited.

Does this exist or am I just making it up?

If there isn't such a thing...should I create it?

It's Bad For You!

MiguelCardoso — Wed, 05 May 2004 20:41:09 -0800

I'm trying to write an essay on the current nostalgia for guilt-free (and information-free!) smoking, boozing and drug-taking and desperately need sources, whether web-based or bibliographical. [More inside.] For example, from 1933 to 1953 The Journal of the American Medical Association regularly carried cigarette advertisements and web sites like this one have several examples of smoking advertised as a health solution rather than a problem.

Does anyone know of 20th Century sources for recklessly irresponsible advocacies of drinking, smoking and experimenting with drugs? Or, more importantly, of how guilt and knowledge used to be dealt with? Specially of the "I don't want to know" variety.

Any help will be much appreciated.

How do I separate my pharmacy school application from everyone else's?

jmd82 — Wed, 14 Jan 2004 08:40:14 -0800

This month, I'm applying to Pharmacy school at UGA. The one "essay" goes: "In the space provided below, please provide a personal statement as to what skills, talents, or abilities you posses that will be helpful to you in our program."
Not looking for anyone to write my mini-essay, but anyone in the field of Pharmacy or admissions got any suggestions as to anything I could put on there to seperate my application from everyone else, or just pointers as to what kind of key words/phrases admissions poeple might be looking for?