How To Write Better (Essay)

 part of my final year law & syariah students at USIM
discussing their topic during a workshop (March 2011)

Touching simple words that reflect deep meaning

Sharing a small part of my module for a  presentation on how to write better academic essay, hope it helps...

Academic essay is written with the aim to respond to a question in order to inform/ explain/persuade etc readers of an idea based on fact/evidences/views. The types of essay can be factual. persuasive, argumentative, discussion or reflective and the format can be for speech, article or even reports.

MUET WRITING 800/4 past year questions for practice

MID YEAR 2009: MUET WRITING 800/4 QUESTION 2
Information and communications technology (ICT) is the cause of today's many social ills. What is your opinion? Support your answers with examples. You should write at least 350 words. [60 marks]

YEAR END 2009: MUET WRITING 800/4 QUESTION 2
People commit crime for selfish reasons. Discuss. You should write at least 350 words. [60 marks]

Vocabulary and Reading Quest

Vocabulary Quest

§  synonym using Oxford Thesaurus &

§  meaning using Oxford Advance Learner’s Dictionary

Reading Quest   Based on HOTS (higher order thinking skills):

o   analysis(review, dissection, scrutinize, distinguishing between facts and inferences),

o   synthesis (creatively builds a structure from diverse elements or ideas; put parts together to form a whole with emphasis on creating  a unique and new meaning.),

o   evaluation (use criteria to make and justify judgments about something) and

o   affective (respond with a statement of feeling, emotion, attitude and opinion without a standard appraisal; expressing feeling, emotion, opinion or attitude)

Verb tense [The continuous (progressive)]

Verbs are words that express action (run) or a state of being (love). The action can also be
abstract rather than visible, such as the words think and decide.
Verb tense tells when an action occurred on a time line. There are three tense-
present, past, and future.
Aspect indicates whether an action is complete or not.
The simple aspect indicates that an action occurred, without an indication of when it occurred.
The continuous (progressive) aspect indicates that the action is ongoing.
These two concepts are combined to give the twelve verb 12 different verb tenses. These are:
The simple tenses- present, past, and future
The continuous tenses- present, past, and future
The perfect tenses- present, past, and future
The perfect continuous- present past, and future.

Simple Past Tense

We use Simple Past Tense:

1). to describe actions and situations that happened in the past. These actions and situations were started and finished in the past at a definite time.
 The sentence often contains an adverb or adverb phrase of time, such as yesterday, the other day, last night, last week, three days ago, a few minutes ago, in (year), from (year) to (year), etc.

Subject Verb Agreement

Basic Principle: Singular subjects need singular verbs; plural subjects need plural verbs.

My brother is a nutritionist. My sisters are mathematicians.

1)The indefinite pronouns anyone, everyone, someone, no one, nobody are always singular and, therefore, require singular verbs. Examples:

Everyone has done his or her homework.

Somebody has left her purse.

None of you claims responsibility for this incident?

*None of the students have done their homework. (In this last example, the word their precludes the   use of the singular verb.

2). Prepositional phrases that come between the subject and the verb do not change the number of the subject. Some examples : as well as, in addition to, together with, along with, Examples:

 The teacher, as well as the students, was working on the problem.

The mother, together with her children, is waiting.

Subordinating Conjunctions

Subordinating conjunctions allow a writer to show which idea is more and which is less important. The idea in the main clause is the more important, while the idea in the subordinate clause (made subordinate by the subordinating conjunction) is less important.

Complex sentences with dependent adverb clauses:

Adverb clauses provide the following kind of information: when, where, why, for what purpose, and so on.