Excellence, not perfection

     Perfectionists can drive themselves crazy because if they expect to do anything perfectly, they always fall short, and often end up feeling disappointed.  I friend of mine is a perfectionist. He took a math course and his final grade was 980 out of 1,000 points. He was so disappointed because he didn't get a perfect 1,000 points. In this world, nothing is perfect. Instead of striving for perfection, it's better to strive for excellence. Or if you strive for perfection as your goal, don't be discouraged when you fall short, as you always will.

     Writing is the same way.  Any writing can be improved, no matter how good the writer is.  A final draft of an essay will probably have at least one grammar, spelling, or punctuation error. It could have been organized a little differently to make it easier to read.  It could have included more, or different, examples to make the main points clearer. So do your best, but be satisfied with excellence and don't worry if what you wrote isn't perfect. You could say that there is no end to the writing process. You can always write one more draft of an essay to improve it. 

The final steps of the writing process

     When you make something, you have to polish and perfect it before you are done.   That is the same in writing. The last steps of the writing process are revising and proofreading.  To revise the first draft of your essay, read it again and ask yourself what could be improved.  Look at the outline that you made before you wrote the first draft and check to see if you followed the outline. Then, ask at least one other person to read your first draft and give you some honest feedback about how you could improve your essay. Then sit down and revise your essay, using all this information to improve it as much as you can. Then read the essay one final time very carefully, checking spelling, grammar, punctuation and formatting, and make any necessary changes. When you are satisfied that you have made all the revisions to make your essay as good as it can be, you have finished the final draft. Save it to your flashdrive and print a copy to give to your teacher.

Topic and conclusion sentences in paragraphs

     Just as an essay has an introduction and a conclusion, each body paragraph of an essay has a topic sentence (introduction) and a conclusion sentence. The topic sentence tells the reader what the paragraph is about, and the conclusion sentence concludes and wraps up the paragraph before moving on to the next paragraph. An effective way to write the conclusion sentence of a body paragraph, wraps up the paragraph and points to the next paragraph. In that way the conclusion sentence functions as a transition, helping the reader move from one paragraph to the next.  Every sentence in a paragraph should follow from the topic sentence.  If not, it is off topic, and should be deleted or moved to another paragraph. So just as essays have a beginning and an end, paragraphs do, too. You could say that a paragraph, like an essay, has three parts, introduction, body and conclusion. The parts of the essay are paragraphs. The parts of a paragraph are sentences.

Paint word pictures

     One goal of good descriptive and narrative writing is to use words to create scenes, characters, and feelings. Good novelists know how to create powerful word pictures in the reader's mind that allow him to visualize whatever the author is writing about. That's why many good novels are turned into movies. But the book is always better than the movie. The movie doesn't engage your imagination the same way a book does.  Watching a movie is passive, while reading a book is active. You can't put on the screen what the mind can imagine. Get into a book!

Writing: Get everything involved

     When you write anything, the time you spend on pre-writing will pay off in much better writing. Once you've decided on your topic and focus (thesis statement), spend time thinking and writing down what you already know about the topic, read about your topic, draw some pictures about your topic, talk to people about your topic and tell them what you're going to write about, ask their opinions about your topic, watch any YouTube videos you can find related to the topic, and watch a movie or listen to a presentation on TED.com about your topic. Then let all of this percolate in your mind (think "brainstorm") for a while. Sleep on it and let your unconscious mind do its job. Then you will be ready to write down all your ideas in a well-organized outline to begin writing.

Essays and speeches

     Essays are similar to speeches, except that writers use written words, while speakers use spoken words. People write essays and give speeches for the same basic reasons;  to persuade, inform, or entertain (PIE). There is a saying that to give a good speech you need to "tell them what you're going to tell them, tell them, and then tell them what you told them."  Just like speeches, essays have those three main parts;  introduction, body and conclusion.

Go with the flow

     People talk about the flow of an essay. What does flow mean?  Think about a river flowing. The water flows easily along as it goes down the river. A good essay has good flow, starting with the first paragraph. In the introduction, you get the reader interested in your topic with a good hook, set the stage for the essay with some background information, and then tell the reader what main points you are going to cover in the essay in the thesis statement. Then in the body you write about each of these points, with good transitions so one paragraph flows easily into the next. Finally, in the conclusion you leave your reader with a summary and a final thought. After finishing the essay, the reader should feel that he or she has taken a nice, smooth trip with you floating down a river from one point to another, and has enjoyed the ride.