my essay tutorial

Dear forum visitors,

I have already posted this in some other forums but I think it is not so ugly to consider it my little contribution to your English writing community.

Seems as though most of you are bored with reading ready essay samples accompanied with help-me-correct-this appeals. You have been learning English and would rather look into the innards of essay creation process to get something useful for your own improvement. So would I.

I’d like to present my strategy to go about essay writing. If you do not like, tell me why. If you do, I am glad to be helpful.

Well, here is the task I found in a textbook on IELTS.

Enormous effort is put into researching and marketing 'the perfect potato crisp' while research into stress at work, for example, is ignored. How important are staff working conditions? Should employers research and improve the working conditions of their staff or should they concentrate more on their product?

The question as it stands implies you should speculate about what comes first – product or workers?
So it is an opinion essay.

If you decided on an opinion essay, give it a proper structure.

1) Introduction is a must. You don’t believe you could get a good grade without introduction, do you?
2) 3 paragraphs are also necessary – three is a magical number. It can do wonders to your overall band score.
3) Conclusion. You do not want to infuse your examiner with a feeling of incompleteness.

My opinions

I will try to be positive about work force. They really deserve to be cared about. I hope you feel the same. Some scholars call it brainstorming. Let’s storm our brains.

First of all, you should not wander off trying to find ideas in the darkest parts of your mind. We will get some obvious hints right from the assignment.

“Enormous effort is put into researching and marketing 'the perfect potato crisp'…” – Brilliant!
“research into stress at work, for example, is ignored …” – Could not be stated better!
“How important are staff working conditions?...” – Oh! We know what you are up to. Of course they are!
“Should employers research and improve the working conditions of their staff?” Lots of thanks, you’ve been most helpful providing ideas.
“… should they concentrate more on their product?...” Devious, but thank you anyway for bringing it up again.

I think they have already written the better part of the essay. We should only rephrase these expressions to avoid the offence of plagiarism.

Inquisitive minds will easily complete the list of ideas with their own suggestions. Hard thinkers like myself might as well stop brainstorming right here.

I know, I know – you are going to blame me for this, because it is not sufficient to develop 3 paragraphs.
But brainstorming never ends. I am far from assuming that you will stop thinking after 5 minutes of initial excessive brain work and will begin writing down words in mechanical way dreaming of buying a new car.
There is also vocabulary building part, and you have a clear structure of your essay.

Opinion = in support of workers

Introduction – topic and opinion in short
Paragraph 1 - staff working conditions are important
Paragraph 2 - employers should research and improve the working conditions
Paragraph 3 - concentrating more on their product is bad
Conclusion – short summary of paragraphs


Rephrasing ideas

In my opinion, it is the hardest part. It is about your vocabulary, so nothing we can do but remember some basic expressions. If you get stuck, just write down whatever comes to your mind looking at the key words of the assignment. You will sort it out later on. Some of the words you will insert into sentences, the rest will stay untouched. It surely pays off; you would not bother thinking of necessary vocabulary as you write.

Example vocabulary

Key words:

research analyze, explore, inquire, investigate, look into, study
marketing advertising, promoting, pushing products
working condition situation, state, work load
stress at work pressure, nervous tension, difficulty; hardness, strain
ignore disregard, do not take into account, close the eyes to
employers managers, bosses
staff work force, personnel, employees
concentrate on the product consider closely, direct attention, fix attention, focus, give attention

do a lot of damage to overall productivity
friendly environment

Beginning to write

Introduction.

Earlier, we agreed to fight against staff overload. Let state the problem and introduce our opinion.
(Simply speaking, let’s rewrite the assignment).

Nowadays, most businesses concerned primarily with improving and pushing products at all costs, therefore neglecting the strain this strategy puts on their personnel. I believe it is of vital importance to restrain excessive work load. I also think employers should pay more attention to organizing friendly working environment for their employees.

OK, it is sleeping time… I am tired and will have no more of this nonsense.
If you are not satisfied call my customer service, otherwise look forward to the next part – Paragraphs.

P.S. I might be absolutely wrong. Feel free to destroy my carefully thought-out system, but don’t forget to suggest something more useful instead. I will appreciate if you supply supporting ideas for the paragraphs of the essay according to my plan.

Regards,

Dmitrij.