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How to write a 500-word essay
By Lex Levingston
In order to compose a 500-word essay, a compelling piece that will persuade an audience to understand your ideas in a limited space, you must begin with an expository sentence that conveys the entire point of your essay. Then you have to give several statements which back up your original point, or otherwise flesh it out. Not every sentence must serve the point of the essay; some are just there for fun. But serve the essay, you must. (Don't I sound like Yoda?) After all, your reader would be mightily displeased to find that he has completed reading an essay and learned nothing. It’s a good idea to break your main points—which back up your original statement—into paragraphs. This is not only a good technique to keep the reader from becoming too fatigued; it is also a good way to organize your thoughts. A paragraph is a self-contained, self-aware, all-purpose apparatus upon which you will gleefully deliver your persuasive content (and done with increasing skill over time). It would not normally make sense to let your main points span two or more paragraphs, but sometimes an essay naturally flows from one paragraph to the other, refers back to previous ideas, and generally does not behave as you would expect. Some authors prefer to write in three paragraphs, others five, but there is no set format, no template, that your essay must follow absolutely. Rules were made to be broken, and this goes for writing as much as it does for life. You may write in long sentences or short ones, but each “clause” must be properly written: And independent clause must have a verb and a subject, and should not be interrupted by hard punctuation (such as a period or a colon) until it is complete, and should not be forgotten if you begin a dependent clause. (Dependent clauses, on the other hand, still require a verb and a subject, but conform to no such rules of punctuation, and often find their way into the beginning, middle, or end of independent clauses.) A stray comma in the middle of an independent clause is a great way to ruin a sentence. Just imagine if I had placed a comma before the word “is” in the previous sentence. It would have been completely unnecessary, unhelpful, and ungrammatical. Also, don’t forget the point of your essay! You are working on building your point to its ultimate conclusion, and now is not the time to get side-tracked. When you feel as though you have exhausted the most promising avenues of debate, it is time to conclude your essay, and reiterate the substance of your argument or lesson. A 500-word essay can often seem daunting, but then when you’ve completed it, you realize you need to cut out a hundred words! This can be one of the most rewarding aspects of writing an essay in a limited space. By omitting needless and useless words, the final product is more creative and more impactful. |
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