Don't be a hater if your teacher is a hard grader.

“Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader - not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon” (E. L. Doctorow). Writing applies to everyone, it's an everyday skill that is used frequently in society. While it may come naturally to some, others need to practice and build new strategies in order to form good writing skills. When you discover new writing techniques, it’s important that you reflect and learn from other examples that will lead you to be a better writer. Discovering other essays will give a new perspective on different types of writing. Consistency, solid transitions, and in-depth analysis are the keys to producing compelling pieces of writing. Writing with consistency is an important aspect of creating a strong piece of work. Being consistent is a specific piece that goes along with a writer's voice. Diction, syntax, structure, and style are all things that should remain consistent throughout the essay. Don't go out of your way to try and sound smart. Doing so will throw off the consistency and create confusion for the readers. To further explain,  “Foolish might be the first thought, but the thoroughness of the animations that were provided on Good Tickle-Brain could force one to reevaluate”(Sweitzer, “Macbeth Essay”). This excerpt from an essay is used to show how people go out of their way to sound smart and original. In this specific quote, the weirdness of word alignment and punctuation decision, makes it confusing for readers to comprehend what is being portrayed. A more understanding way of showing this information could be to say, “Although some might judge after a look at the title “Good Tickle Brain”, the thoroughness of the animations on the site prove its helpfulness and importance.” Do you see how this quote is simple and easier to understand? Consistency is very relevant and crucial for the fluidity of an essay. For a more detailed explanation on how to be consistent visit http://www.dailywritingtips.com/8-steps-to-more-concise-writing/ Another way to better you essays would be to corporate good transitions to your writing. Doing this will create a smooth and informative essay. Transition between ideas and paragraphs may seem unimportant, but it helps control the flow between topics. Try to conclude a the paragraph in a single sentence. An example of this is, “The animations located on Tickle-Brain offer helpful and easy ways of comprehending Shakespearean literature” (Sweitzer, “Macbeth Essay). In this transition, the writer is able to fit the main topic of the body paragraph into two lines. The idea that the animations on Tickle Brain were beneficial in helping comprehend Shakespeare's writing was discussed and shown throughout a whole paragraph. The transition was installed to refresh the topic and ideas of the paragraph. State the facts, make it short, and incorporate the important details, but don't drag it on. I rearranged the quote above and constructed a poor transition, “As you can see from this paragraph, the animations on Good Tickle Brain gave a good understanding and made it easier to comprehend Shakespeare's language.” Isn't that bad? Transitions should be fluid and simple, don't include unnecessary detail. Having a strong analysis is a very important piece of writing. After you use textual evidence to support a claim, the analysis is important to further explain, as well as break down the quote. Without this, the quotation will not prove any relevance or importance. A good analysis taken from one of my essays is, “In this quote extracted from the play, Tickle-Brain explains the endeavor held by Macduff and Malcolm to retaliate against Macbeth for the act of murdering Malcolm's family.”(Sweitzer, “Macbeth Essay”) After extracting a quote from a specific work, I went on to describe its significance in a simple and straightforward way. A poor analysis mirroring the one above could be shown in two ways. 1. Simply not explaining the quote to the necessary length. 2. Explaining the quote to an unneeded extent making it confusing and lengthy. For example, “In this quote taken from Shakespeare’s Macbeth,  Tickle Brain goes on to describe how Macduff feels. Macduff is furious and anxious to seek revenge on Macbeth. The reason being that Macbeth has murdered Macduff's family.”  Wasn't that confusing and unnecessary? That quote went on forever, repeating the same thing and basically restating the textual evidence in another way. Make sure that your analysis is clear, interesting, and explained well. If you don't, the analysis will fail to provide a strong meaning and won't support the quote. There are many different ways you can improve your writing to get that A on your essay. The three that are easy to forget, but hold much value are consistency, transitions, and analysis. Take advantages while looking at other essays; think, reflect, and construct to better your writing in the future, and let me know if the grade on your next essay is any better after reading this. My last message to you is simply...

Twitter username: @ShaneSweitzer