From a business report or feasibility study, to more casual love letters and social media exposés, the uses of excellent essay writing skills are endless. Because of this, students are trained to develop their writing skills from primary school up to college, and beyond.
Unfortunately, not everyone can develop a passion for writing the best essays even with years of extensive practice in the academe. If you’re among those who need a little nudge in writing essays, then read on to learn about the top five writing tips to help you become a better essay writer.
Read Other People’s Essays
Like learning any other skill, you would need to see samples of other people’s works when writing essays. Reading other people’s write-ups will help you develop your own writing style, especially if you choose to go through a variety of different essays.
Try to choose those that are expertly written and those that are penned by some of your peers. This will help you compare the quality and style of those close to your “level” of writing with those who have already developed an expertise in the discipline. Excellent sample essays are also abundant online in case you cannot get your hands on essays written by academics.
You can also sample the works of famous essayists such as Michel de Montaigne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Joan Didion, Langston Hughes, Virginia Woolf, and so many other great writers.
Expand Your Vocabulary
Since you will be using words to make stellar essays, you would need to have a vast bank of words to accurately express what you want to say.
This means you should expand your vocabulary and learn how to use certain variations of the different terms well. This will prevent you from beating around the bush when trying to make a point, and deliver the message to your readers as clearly as possible.
Some of the best ways to achieve this is by:
using a thesaurus to learn about synonyms and antonyms;
researching about words you’re not familiar with, with the help of a dictionary;
learning about root words, suffixes, and prefixes as well as their appropriate uses; and
starting a vocabulary journal.
Use the Elevator Pitch Technique to Summarize Your Essay
The “elevator pitch” technique is a strategy used by people working in sales to summarize the reasons why customers should buy their product in a short span of time. In writing essays, using this summary style means you would have to pique the interest of your readers, so much so that they would want to read more of the essay.
While this can be a challenging exercise, it can help you become extremely concise when coming up with ideas for your essay and when choosing words to use. It can also aid you in improving the clarityand flow of your sentences and in penning your introduction faster.
Consider Your Essay as Just Another Story
If you’re one of those people who would rather scroll over Facebook or write a lengthy post about how awesome your day was at the mall, then you probably feel that essay writing is a daunting task. Fortunately, this can be remedied by a simple mindset readjustment by thinking of essays as just another Facebook post or story.
Like any other story, essays describe a conflict and change—with the conflict referring to the ideas presented in the essay, and the change pertaining to your perception of those ideas as the writer of the essay.
Tell the Reader What Your Sources Told You
Another neat tip you can try when writing essays is to put other people’s words into your output. This means you have to research reputable sources well and quote them in the body of your essay. You can also paraphrase the information using your own words, but make sure to offer proper attribution to the original creator of the idea.
You should also include contrasting views to showcase all sides of the argument and to cater to other readers’ preferences that may be different from yours. This will make your essay “source heavy,” which is a good thing when you’re looking to impress your teachers.
Of course, you should use this technique sparingly as not all academics like this style. Some prefer to read about students’ original thoughts and ideas in the essay assignments.
Practice Makes Perfect
Nobody is born an expert essay writer, so don’t worry if you don’t immediately improve on your first try.
Remember that even great writers had to hone their skills in writing before they reached the peak of their careers. That said, try to apply some—if not all—of these tips to help you get started.
AUTHOR BIO
Taimoor Liaquat is the CEO at MyPerfectWords.com, renowned as the global source for professional writing services at all academic levels. The company’s team of world-class native English-speaking essay writers with advanced degrees at elite US universities ensures high-quality custom content for all clients.
Creativity is a really important aspect of business. Only when your employees are feeling creative will they come up with brand new ideas and directions for your business. And yet, the vast majority of offices and businesses completely fail to inspire any kind of creativity.
Creativity doesn’t come from nowhere. It is actually a combination of things and usually, the first spark of an idea happens when you find the right inspiration and you are relaxed enough to let the thought through. This is why a dull grey cubicle in an open plan office is rarely a place for great ideas!
Transforming Your Office
It might sound superficial but everything from the color of your office to the layout will have an effect on the way you work. Whether you are looking to boost your creativity or you want your team to be more productive, you should look at your office design first.
A bright space where employees feel that they can express themselves is really important. Indeed, being able to play – whether that means adding a foosball table or a stack of video games – is also really important. Adults learn through play just as much as kids do and being able to relax is vital for clear thinking.
If you can create a flexible space where your employees can make the room into what they need for their project, that would really help too. It’s incredible that something as simple as moving some furniture around could make a difference but, hey, at least that’s a fairly simple problem to fix! Have a look at Rieke.com to see what your office could become.
Be an Inclusive Office
Inclusivity is really important in any office but if you want to be more creative, you must ensure that you foster the right culture. Diversity is key to creating a team but we’re not just talking about socio-economic diversity, here, deep-level diversity including personality, values and abilities are also essential.
Though a group of people who all approach problems in different ways can be difficult to manage, they are much more likely to have a lightbulb moment than a group who all think in the same way. This is because as they discuss their ideas, they will be able to bounce off each other, finding flaws and solutions as they go.
But inclusivity is about more than diversity. Inclusivity is about giving people the chance to speak and to shine no matter whether they are a junior in their first week or a manager with years of experience. This article from Entrepreneur has some interesting ideas but the one that stands out most for creativity are the simplest: talk about something other than work.
Inspiration can and should come from anywhere and, though the office might be the most logical space for a business, you must adapt that space to make it work for you. Transforming your office is a good start to this process but you must also transform your culture to succeed.
Technology has moved at an amazing pace in the last few years. It is affecting the way we live in many positive ways, not least in the medical world. Medical innovations are changing people’s lives and making them much easier after a serious injury or illness.
Here are just some of the innovations changing the face of medicine forever:
Bionic Eyes
Building a bionic eye has been a real challenge for developers, but scientists seem to be on the verge of achieving this aim. Using 3D technology they have been able to print an array of light receptors onto a glass eye-shaped object. They are now working on more light receptors and a softer surface to make the implant more comfortable.
Monitoring Patch
There is now a monitoring patch that is affixed to a pregnant woman’s stomach, and it lets the doctors know the movements of the baby and the woman’s stomach muscles. The expectant parents can watch the baby on a screen, and if there is any sort of problem with the baby’s breathing, an alarm will go off alerting them so that they can get immediate medical attention.
Quicker And Accurate Test Results
We have all had the problem where we have been to the doctors for test and then had to wait weeks for the results. All the time you are waiting you are worrying about what might be wrong, and this does not help your health at all. New technologies are being used to speed up the time results take, and to make the results more accurate. Christian Fletcher at LifeBrite Laboratories is one of the pioneers utilizing the latest innovations in testing methods. Soon we will all be able to test ourselves and have results back almost instantaneously, and that truly will be a health revolution.
Collecting Health Data
The engineers at MIT have modified a wifi box so that it can track the vital signs and sleep patterns of several people in the same house, without any of them having to wear a device of any sort. This new technology will yield more biomedical data insights that can be used to help researchers optimize wellness, understand illness and select patient efficient preventions.
Smart Gadgets
For many years if you wore a hearing aid, it improved your hearing and if your wore contact lenses you could see better. These things, and others like them, have now been turned into smart gadgets. As well as improving your eyesight or hearing, they will monitor your heartbeat, amongst other things to get an overall picture of your health.
It is hoped that smart contact lenses can be packed with thousands of biosensors in the future. These will be engineered to pick up on early signs of cancer and other medical conditions. They will also offer diabetics a simple way of keeping a check on their blood sugar levels; so will help them to manage their diets and insulin intake.
Implants Of Records
An implantable device with a radio frequency is being developed that will hold all the medical records of the wearer. This ID chip will sit just under the skin. Another similar device is being worked on, but this one you would swallow and it would sit in your stomach. Both of them could make an amazing difference to the speed the right treatment could be given, and there are even people saying that they could be developed further to provide treatment as well.
Just a few years ago, many of these things seemed like science fiction, but they are now becoming a part of everyday life.
If you don’t feel safe in your own home, then where are you ever going to feel safe? Your home is the space that you resort to after a long day at work. It’s where you go to unwind, get into your comfy clothes and snuggle up on the sofa with a naughty glass of wine. Then maybe pour yourself a divine candlelit bubble bath with incense sticks cleansing the air. – This is how your home should feel. Somewhere safe and cosy, so if you aren’t feeling that way, or you just want to brush up on a few safety regulations, then you should certainly do that sooner rather than later.
Here are some things that you should really consider thinking about.
Windows and doors
It sounds so obvious to mention locking your windows and doors, but you wouldn’t believe just how many people forget – especially when it comes to the summertime as everyone has every kind of window and door open because the weather is so lovely and hot. So when they decide to pop out to make a quick errand and forget to lock the back door or close the window – this is the ideal time for a criminal to let themselves in and take away all of your valuable items. So always be on the ball, regardless of what else is going on around you. One tiny missing detail could have such an awful impact.
Your boiler or furnace
It’s not often we ever think about these things in our home, as they tend to just be there and we don’t have to do much to them. But if ever there was a problem that went undiagnosed, this could be so dangerous, if not deadly, so you want to always make sure that everything is working as it should. You can call out your local service to take a look, but with how advanced technology is nowadays, you can think about getting yourself a kiln camera which essentially monitors everything that’s going on, while having the chance to see it for yourself too.
Candles
Let’s face it, we all like to feel a little pampered and cared for once in a while, or like to create a romantic evening for your other half, and the go-to thing in order to create that vibe, is candles. Now while candles are an extremely beautiful bit of deco and light source – they can be very dangerous depending on where you decide to leave them. It’s mostly common sense really, like don’t line candles up on the windowsill if you have curtains or blinds there as they can go up in flames. The same goes for if you put any in the bedroom – be sure to put them out properly before you go to sleep – as well as anywhere else they may be lying around.
So as you can see there isn’t that much you need to learn, it’s just paying attention to the little things and keeping your head screwed on.
We all know that making our money last until payday at the end of the month can be a bit of a struggle at times. For instance, months like December when there is so much to buy can be extra difficult to get through. But it doesn’t always have to be so disheartening once you do get to the end of the month. There are plenty of ways you can make your money last a little longer, no matter how big or small your wages may be. Read on to find out more.
Always Set A Budget
One of the best things we can all do to help us save a bit of extra money is to write up a budget. In this budget, you should include your monthly income as well as any regular expenses that you know you will face over the coming month. This should give you a good idea of how much cash you should have left once you’ve paid for all your usual bills and other expenses. Once you know how much money you have left for the month, you should find it easier not to overspend.
Consolidate Your Debt Repayments
If you are trying to pay off various credit cards and other loans, you might find that saving when trying to make a number of different monthly repayments is very difficult. There is one solution that will really help, though – you just need to consolidate all of your debt repayments. If you take a look on the CardGuru website, you should find the perfect credit card that you could use to pay off all your current debt. You will then only have to deal with one consolidated debt repayment each month. Many people find it easier to save once they do this.
When you are writing up your monthly budget, it’s a good idea to take a closer look at your expenses and see if there are any that you could do without. For example, you might still be paying for a subscription service that you no longer need. If you do find a few expenses that you no longer need to pay for, it’s important that you cancel them as soon as possible. Then you should find you have a bit more money to play with throughout the month!
Save At The Start Of The Month
Another really useful tip that many people use to help save a little bit more each month is putting some savings away as soon as they are paid. If you know you can afford $100 each month, then move that over to a savings account straight away. Then the rest of your money is to live off. You should find that this prevents you spending your savings on accident.
Always Sleep On Big Purchases
Buying things spontaneously is most people’s downfall when it comes to making their money last. If this sounds like you, then this tip may help you last until payday – simply sleep on large purchases.
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