To write about any simple thing or subject matter, we surely need an idea. If you don’t have an idea about what you want to write, how can you possibly write a full-fledged essay? The result is you will find yourself with two or three lines, but does that make an essay?

Idea - The Nightmare Of Writing!

But the biggest problem which GP essay candidates or any essay writing students face, is actually “how to acquire ideas“. The latter seems to be a daunting task since writing is not like other subjects where success depends upon assimilation of a certain number of facts, theories and the application of principles.

GP Essay Writing Or Essays Go A Step Ahead..

Essay writing transcends the requirement of other subjects by going a step further; it tests the total equipment of the student - his intelligence, his manners, his taste, his common sense, his personal experiences, his observation and his character. Infact, that’s the beauty of GP Essays. It makes you discover yourself and your abilities.

My GP (General Paper) classes have contributed a lot in discovering myself and some hidden skills. Of course, I was just like you, hating to write an essay. But a GP class, is completely different from our common english language class. Unless and until you grasp the true meaning of the purpose of a GP class, you will not really go in the right attitude and direction which contribute a lot to the future of how you will write.

Acquiring Ideas - 3 Steps Only!

1) STEP 1 - Reading

Reading is the most essential means of gaining knowledge. You could argue that listening might be above reading to increase your awareness, you might be right to a lesser extent, why? Just think for a moment, does listening contribute to help you write good english and gain vocabulary? The answer is “no“. When you read you see how words are written and that’s crucial from a proper grammatical point of view.
Reading will help you in two fold:
a) Increase your knowledge (to gain ideas)
b) Increase your vocabulary (to convey your ideas with the right words)

Nowadays, reading opportunities has never been so easy and comfortable. The computer/internet world allows you to read from anywhere and about anything you want. It’s like you are having the whole world’s library in your hand and in “one click”. So, make the most out of it my friend!

Now, you need to be selective in what you read. Spending hours and hours reading a lengthy gossip, for instance, is not desirable. Read quality stuff as opposed to quantity. Some points to note:
i) Always have a good dictionary handy and each time to you stumble across a new word, look for its meaning and write it down. (I recommend the concise Oxford Dictionary)
ii) Read about stuffs that pleases you, but provided you select quality material.
iii) Read a good newspaper from your locality and keep updated. (For example in Mauritius, I recommend ‘News On Sunday’ to all students)
iv) Read to increase your awareness and vocabulary, don’t rush to read a lot of pages like it’s a race.
v) Read with your soul. Put in effort, interest and will. Else you are wasting your time

2) STEP 2 - Observation

What I mean by observation and what you should understand is: observation means ‘to look carefully and diligently for the sole aim of discovering and noting anything that can help you in writing and gaining ideas‘. An active and intelligent mind is always on the lookout since there is something to be learned in everything, however simple it is! You should develop a creative mind. An artist always has this philosophy: “Beauty is found even in ugliness“. Same applies to your observation, you just need to view things at the right angle and with the right frame of mind.

3) STEP 3 - Ask Questions

The most stupid thing to do is to remain an ignorant. In classes, there are so many students who don’t ask questions, either they are shy or they are not interested at all. This is a big mistake. You are compromising the growth of your own knowledge.

Ask questions and challenge answers whenever you feel there is any bias or you have a better answer - that’s how you will progress!

Throughout history, people who have been most famous for their wisdom, have been those who asked questions and sought for answers in all its angle.

Writing The GP Essay

Here’s a list of my previously written article on Writing and GP Essays:
=> Writing the GP Essay - Write to convince!
=> Method For Presentation Of Topics
=> Words You Need To have In A Story Or Essay

For Bloggers

If you are a blogger, you should read this article: Wonderful Blogging Ideas - How To Breed Them In Your Garden?

This article is a collection of useful words specially meant for students or anyone who is indulged in writing stories or essays (or writing in general)

1) Mind

Vexed (vexations), perplexed, puzzled, worry about, absent-minded, upset, tense, depressed, distraught, blank mind, short-minded, broad-minded, quietened my mind, my mind tossed like a tempestuous sea, mentally disturbed, retarded, insane, a mad cap, unmindful of, nervous, irritated, irascible

2) Attitude

self-centered, egoistic, egocentric, respond, tyrranical attitude, usurper, vilainous, vilainy, debased person, baseless person, unscrupulous person, swindler, fraudulent person, upright

3) Behaviour

playful, mindful, indifferent, ironical, sarcastic, bitter, gloomy, aloof, attentive, obsequous, servile, dispassionate, moody, amiable

4) Abusive Language

barbaric, offensive, uncultured, unschooled, feel disrespect for, inconsiderate, paying heed to his brutal words, pierced you through your heart, lack of tact, in his face, swore at him squarely

Do you have your collection? Let us hear yours?

Suggested Reading:
=> Method Of Presentation Of Topics
=> Writing the GP Essay - Write to convince!
=> Secret to your success! Do you have a vision of who you are & who you want to be ?

 When you plan to write about something (applicable to any other article writing or GP Essays) a methodological approach must always be adopted. It can also be applied to an oral presentation of any topic.

This approach consists of a number of steps which are followed in a logical order:

1) STEP 1 - Understanding

You should make yourself understand the topic first! What it really means, what are its full implications..etc

2) STEP 2 - Definition / Introduction

You should first give a brief description or definition of the topic in a clear, simple language.

3) STEP 3 - Classification

You should classify the facts and details of the topic in a logical, coherent form for your reference.
For example:
- Start with a brief background/history of the topic
- present most common facts first (any general opinions that are already known)
- Show the positive aspects then the negative ones if it is a controversial topic

4) STEP 4 - Presentation / Development

You may now present your topic by following the order of details in the classified references/notes you made in STEP 3
- Use clear language
- Avoid complicated expressions
- In case of an oral presentation, pronounce technical terms clearly and slowly to ensure everyone understands
- Use illustrations only when it is necessary to explain
- You may use references to arouse interests
- Entertain with a joke, but never do this if you are not sure
- You may add an emotional touch if you want, but never exaggerate

5) STEP 5 - Conclusion

You can now conclude by:
- giving your opinion
- summarizing the main points
- Add any last message (make it a striking and impressive one)

This approach is the hard work, knowledge and experience that I have gained personally while I was a college student some 4 years back. All of my articles on writing is based from my own experiences and insights and I have full trust on what I try to teach or show you and I sincerely hope it will be helpful to you. But I’m not in any means saying that I’m a perfect guy in writing.. but consider my “such type of” articles as a humble attempt of sharing the knowledge that I have gained freely from people whom I consider to have attained wisdom (I will surely and undoutedly dedicate this Post to my evergreen english Gury aka my english teacher who is by now aged 68yrs old. Sir, you are always in my heart, God Bless!). I hope you liked this article and I will also suggest you to read my previous articles listed below:
1) Writing the GP Essay - Write to convince!
2) How to write good english
3) Writing

Feel free to share your point of view and your experiences  by using the comment form,
thanks!

Hello dear readers and viewers. In this article, I will try to stress how you should go about writing an essay, especially those taking a GP (HSC) Cambridge paper.

Before going further, I assume you have read my 2 previous articles:
1) Writing
2) How to write good english
Note: If you haven’t done so yet, please go read them and then get back to this one. (You should at least read ‘article 2′ above)

That said, lets get to work..

An essay, especially an english GP essay, is something which can be very very interesting and easy to do. Yes, I know what I’m talking about from my own personal experiences! I was very weak in writing essays, perhaps partly due to the fact that I was a science student (you should have heard about this line from your teacher )
But with a correct strategy and correct personal commitments, you can achieve what I was able to achieve (that is an A, A+, A++ in almost all my essays).

Let us consider some few points:

Why do we have to write an essay ? (ask yourself first and then look down.. )

1) To show (to the examiner) that we can comfortably express our thoughts and opinion in a clear, simple, effective and persuasive manner.

2) To show that we can fluently and maturely use the chosen language. (Read How to write good english)

3) To show that we can analyse, argue and discuss a given topic very intelligently and creatively

Very often, students fail to choose a correct topic to write their essay, ending up in a waste of time and effort. This gives rise to a stressful mind, especially in exams where your time is limited. Consequently, they fail to deliver a good essay and perhaps without finishing it on time. So, next we have:

How to choose the correct essay

- As a GP (general Paper) student you are expected to have a general knowledge on almost any topic, coupled with a fluency and maturity in your langauge.

A) How to display fluency in our langauge? Read How to write good english

B) How to have a general knowledge on topics?

1) Participate actively in ALL your GP classes.

I never attended a class passively, I always participate, discuss, challenge and argue (sensible discussions) with my teacher. (I finally ended up as leading the class , ssshhh, keep it for yourself )
Don’t be shy, you will do mistakes, but most importantly you will learn from these mistakes to become better! So now on, don’t sleep in your classes, go rock that GP class!

2) Write down new, useful and prominent words or ideas that your teacher or any other student might have said.

Once at home, re-read them and make additional notes (make sure you read the trick I taught you in my article How to write good english) use the internet or any other related informative materials to enrich your knowledge. These early months of your HSC classes are the most determining part. If you have not given enough time, you will not be able to absorb much information in your head.

3) Get to know topics beforehead

Your teacher will probably point out what he will be doing for the next class. So, go and get as much information as you can about that topic.. read them several times, structure them in order of “introductory info“, “benefits/advantages“, “consequences/disadvantages” and/or “any conclusive parts“.

4) Get a love and enthusiasm in your reading and collection of information.

Things should be to such a point that ideas start flowing in your head in a logical manner. Just a thought - If I ask you about Pamela Anderson, you will say more than you are being asked. Why? Because you have surely read or heard things about her and most importantly this is an area of interest to you! (except if you a girl of course )

Structure of your Essay:

1) Introductory Part (this should be 1 paragraph) - Give a small clear definition or explanation of what you will be talking about.
2) Body of your Essay - (This should normally span to 8 paragraphs, but not too lengthy) Elaborate on 4 advantages and 4 disavantages of the defined topic in paragraph 1. Give examples as and when needed!
3) Conclusion - (this should be 1 paragraph) - Give a small conclusion on your own and if possible suggest a solution or any recommendation. This really makes for a good conclusion.

So, in all we have around 10 well balanced paragraphs. This surely makes for a fully-fledged essay within the expected number of words (as per the exam essay rules)

IMPORTANT POINTS TO REMEMBER:
=> You are NOT supposed to prove the subject title of your essay! You should discuss and analyse it!

=> Give at least one example in each discussion or whenever you are elaborating an advantage or disadvantage. NEVER EVER write a GP Essay without an example! You will lose much points and credibility (in the eyes of your examiner)

=> Each paragraph should talk about ONLY 1 specific idea.

=> Make your paragraph fluent, make it flow. Do not just change paragraph abruptly.

=> Make your essay lively and convincing! You can write the most foolish essay, but if you write it in a convincing manner and with maturity, you will score the required marks! I know what I’m saying, trust me on that!

Well guys, these were only some hints and some advice from me, based on my personal experience. The biggest work is to be done by you. You have to write a lot of essays to get good at it. It’s just like playing football, the more you train, the better you perform. Heed your teacher’s advice carefully. Go ask him and discuss with him any problem or confusion you might have. I wish you all the very best for your GP preparations and go rock those exams! Cheers!

An additional suggested reading:
=> Secret to your success! Do you have a vision of who you are & who you want to be ?

=> Method Of Presentation Of Topics 

 Before reading, make sure your read my previous one on: Writing 

The meaning of ‘good english‘ may vary from people to people around the world since we come from different backgrounds and due to the nature of our education. Despite the fact that there is no governing bodies of linguists to gauge its exact meaning, we do have a standard set by the authorities indulged in linguistics. Hence, sensible authors, careful writers and educated people using english language as their medium of writing, try to conform to these standards as closely as they can. These standards may be grammatical rules, language structure, and universally accepted words, idioms or metaphors.

There are so many languages nowadays which can be used, but english is the most widely used world-wide. In my humble opinion, english language includes and transcends all subjects. It is for english writings/lovers a whole means of expression, the attainment of which makes them articulate and intelligible human beings (since i’m in a good mood right now, i will add more to this sentence : ) ), able to inherit the past, to possess the present and to confront the future.

I was not so fluent and good at writing english in my early days of school. I was always favoring French, the second official language of my country - Mauritius. There were some personal reasons which i will not elaborate right now to keep on the subject title. But one main reason was that i was always scoring an ‘A’ in all my french classes despite the fact that i was never doing any french essays or practicing it. This fact was initially a mystery to me because i was always trying my best in english and was never successful in getting good results. Then, i finally remembered that i was frequently reading some 1 or 2 pages of french books every day. Yeah i mean it, i loved the famous french book - ‘Les Six Compagnons de la Croix Rousse, by Jean Jacques Bonzo’ and this made reading french more than a hobby. I was reading in my free periods, sometimes during recess, in the bus and at night just to finish all its series. Like this, my hunger for french adventure books became a craze. But in this process, i was unaware that while reading so much, french words seemed to have become hackneyed phrases. That is why my friends used to tell me “man, where do you fetch all these nice french wordings?”. In other words, what i want to emphasize here is that if you keep reading and looking at english/french words or a small sentence everyday for at least some 30mins per day, you will end up with these words embedded in your mind without knowing. And when you will start writing, you will be amazed to see your mind popping out nice words.

While reading you should build up a personal ‘database‘ of special words or phrases. Get a small copy book and list down all striking and unknown words to you. Therefore, be regular in breeding a medley of nice words in your special ‘note-book‘.

Now, does this mean that you should read everyday? Not really, but you should definetly read your smorgasbord of words in your note-book everyday! I strongly believe that there are 2 kinds of people - one who read very very often, if not everyday, to master the language (as i did unknowingly for the french language) and the second person who read little, but nurturing a high mastery (this one was my conscious experience with english). But here, the key tricks are:
1) Each time you read, you should keep growing your ‘database’ of words.
2) Make the english dictionary your english friend/guide - never keep a word in your book without finding and writing down it’s meaning. Else, do not bother about even writing it down.
3) You should pinpoint good critical articles/books, think about what you are reading and in this process be generous to yourself by taking notes conscientiously of new prominent words. This is because you are reading rarely and hence you should make those rare readings worth 10 times the ones that you would read everyday. So you have to be very selective and analytical in what you will read.
4) Now that you have a copy-book full of defined words, don’t just sit around and smile at it. Go and put them into practice. Start by writing sentences with these words and write some essays. Writing here is pivotal. Just like a car cannot run without a battery, you cannot expect to have a fluent english if you do not write. (the battery being your skill in writing and your car the knowledge of the language and wordings)

Going further in our approach, while reading decent articles, you should see how Mr X is using his words in his articles and how he constructs his sentences. Then, with your analytical and critical reading, coupled with your observation and some personal insights, you should try to emulate the fresh expressiveness of Mr X. How to do this, you say? Go and try to build a sentence where you can use those words better than Mr X. You will once again be amazed at yourself at how well you performed and you will even be seeing yourself gaining momentum and hence writing good paragraphs.

I hope that my second article/work on writing, have been positive to you. I’m trying my best to produce some good articles since my aim, as i said in my ‘About section’, is to make you say ‘Wondeful‘ by bringing decent piece of work written by me. So, keep supporting Wakish Wonderz and keep being around. My next article is on ‘GP Essays - how to write General Paper essays‘. This is particular targeted to students taking part in HSC Cambridge students as an addition to this article on ‘How to write good english’. But no wonder, all these articles on writing is a must and worth-while reading for everyone, since learning is an ever on-going process.

Before ending, I will sincerely advise you to buy or get a copy of this book below. This book was prescribed to me by my English/GP Guru and I should say that I salutes my Guru for this book, it a treasure to me!(You will indeed come back and thank me for having shown you this book!)

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Writing forms part of the evolution of a human being as from the small age or more precisely in the first stages of primary education. Why is this so? To answer this question we should perhaps first of all ask ourselves what is the aim of education; the purpose of all education should be (is?) to teach students to think and to write well so that they can express their thoughts effectively. Students should also be taught how to read critically, thinking about what they read - because reading supported by personal observation and conversation is the key to knowledge and knowledge is the key to virtue and acquiring wisdom!

That element of writing forms part of the pillars of a successful man. At an early stage, when children are introduced to this new tool which is writing, some of them think this is so boring. I remember my first essays at primary school. Those were my headaches, as so many of my friends. But we were still so young and immature, so what about the mature (only physically or mentally?) and grown-up people? Still nowadays many adults find themselves in a deep confusion when the ‘boss’ asks them to draft a report or still some become utterly perplexed when the little ‘Mr junior’ comes and say “daddy/mummy teach me how to write a good essay..”. This sad outcome is the result that those people either failed to grasp the importance and true meaning of writing or they have perhaps not been able to nourish and maintain the faculty of writing efficiently and hence effectively in the long run.

Why should we write conveniently? Is it just because for the sake of education, for the sake of x, y or z? NO to a large extent! The ability to express yourself clearly is (and will be) an essential basis for success as a student, when applying for employment and still in any career. In any subject (even in any career), if two students (2 job applicants) are otherwise equal in ability and intelligence, the one who is the better able to convey thoughts effectively in writing will score the higher marks and earn the higher respect and due consideration.

To end here, let me quote a very lovely, thoughtful and val uable sentence from a famous writer, Dorothy L. Sayers - in her book ‘The Lost Tools of Learning’, she wrote: “Modern education concentrates on teaching students subjects, leaving the method of thinking, arguing and expressing one’s conclusions.. [Teachers] are doing for their pupils the work that the pupils themselves ought to do. For the sole true end of education is simply this; to teach men how to learn for themselves and whatever instruction fails to do this is effort spent in vain.”

I hoped i have instilled in you the importance of writing a nd that you have appreciated this first piece of work/contribution of mine. I wish you all the best and may you enjoy the benefits of writing and hence the success of a professional man.

Don’t go yet, read my next article..bookmark my site and do come back

My next article is on: How to write good english

Suggested and Recommended reading:
=> How to write good english
=> Writing the GP Essay - Write to convince!

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