I’ve read thousands of argumentative essays. Some were brilliant. Most were forgettable. But you know what I noticed? The conclusions were almost always the weakest part. Students spend weeks building their arguments, marshaling evidence, crafting counterarguments, and then they just… […]
I’ve been writing essays for longer than I care to admit, and somewhere along the way I stopped counting words and started counting something else entirely: the weight of each sentence. Not its length, but whether it actually needed to […]
I’ve been staring at blank pages for years now, watching films and trying to translate what happens on screen into words that matter. The truth is, most people approach film analysis backward. They think it’s about summarizing the plot or […]
I’ve spent the better part of a decade reading student essays, and I can tell you with absolute certainty that the question of what makes an essay “short” is far more complicated than it initially appears. Most people assume it’s […]
I’ve spent the last eight years reading research papers, writing them, and watching students struggle with the architecture of academic writing. The structure question comes up constantly, usually when someone’s already three weeks into a project and realizes their foundation […]
I’ve been teaching AP History for about eight years now, and I’ve watched hundreds of students stare at a stack of documents wondering where to even begin. The Document-Based Question isn’t some mysterious beast. It’s actually a conversation between you […]
I’ve read thousands of essays. Not an exaggeration. When you spend years teaching, editing, and reviewing student work, you develop a particular sensitivity to how people begin. Most introductions fail before they even get started. They’re either too timid, too […]
I’ve read somewhere around three hundred scholarship essays. Not all at once, thankfully, but over the past five years working with students and reviewing applications for various organizations. What strikes me most isn’t the quality of writing–though that matters–but how […]
I’ve read thousands of college essays. Not an exaggeration. Between my years as a writing tutor, my work with the National Association for College Admission Counseling, and my time reviewing applications for a mid-sized university, I’ve encountered introductions that made […]
I spent three years thinking I was a terrible writer. Not mediocre. Terrible. My professors would hand back essays with comments like “unclear thesis” and “needs better organization,” and I’d feel this sinking feeling that maybe I just wasn’t built […]