Essay English Topic 1
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Final Essay: English 110, summer 2007
Your essay will be approximately five paragraphs long with MLA citings.
For your final paper this semester, you will choose your own topic.
Think this out, and do not make this paper typical. Write it as if it’s the last essay you will ever write.
Straight out, I don’t want you to be afraid to take chances. What makes writing interesting is the slant. Look at your subject from different angles. Be an academic poet of sorts. Check out the margins of the world you are researching. The most interesting facts live in the margins, the areas outside the subject. Great writers can describe a chair and hold your fascination. Never forget you are writing for a reader, a human being that loses his attention pretty fast, so you want to keep him interested. To do this, look for the what, why, where, and how of your subject. Don’t gloss, dig deep and pull up some interesting facts and ideas.
Make sure that your introduction builds tension. You want it to grab hold of the reader and make him want to keep reading. Your introduction should be more than a statement of your intentions and opinion. The introduction should set the tone of your essay. Get excited about your subject and don’t worry about impressing your audience--make it interesting and your audience will follow you. Just make sure you’re consistent and truthful. Nothing causes a reader more pain than a writer who is duplicitous, who fakes his love for a subject. Get into your work. This paper is going to be a piece of you, and it should show like an individual fingerprint, especially to an experienced reader. So tell the truth.
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Watch your paragraph structure. Each paragraph should dedicate itself to your subject and be free of empty sentences. Get rid of the irrelevant—tell the truth. Also, watch transition words and sentences. Chain your sentences and paragraphs together with strong transitions from one idea into the next. The...
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