Skill: Writing
Category: Academic English and TOEFL
Level: Advanced
Essay Writing (Part Two)
The Thesis Statement:
The thesis statement presents the main idea of an essay. It usually comes as the last sentence in the introduction paragraph. In addition, in the thesis statement, the reader finds out what is the entire essay about. Fundamentally, there are two types of thesis statements—explicit or implied. They may also be called direct or indirect thesis statements.
Implicit Thesis Statement: The writers use an indirect way of expressing the thesis. They mainly do not give a specific outline of the essay.
Ex: The crucial problems encountering some countries today expect immediate attention.
Specific information is not given in the thesis that will follow in the essay.
Explicit Thesis Statement: The writers use a direct way of expressing the thesis. They mainly give a specific outline of the essay.
Ex: Smoking causes some problems to the respiratory system and lungs.
This thesis statement specifically outlines the information being discussed throughout the essay.
Writing the Body:
The body of an essay usually involves 3 or four paragraphs between the introduction and conclusion. They are the trunk or an essay. They detail the main idea, the thesis statement, in the essay. They provide shreds of evidence, examples, information and explanations to support the claims in the thesis. Each body paragraph should include a topic sentence, supporting sentences and a concluding sentence.
Writing the Conclusion:
To write a reasonable conclusion, follow these guidelines:
- Mark the conclusion with some connections to let the reader know this is the final paragraph of the essay.
In conclusion, Consequently, Finally,
To summarize, All in all, From the information give,
- Never introduce new information because new information indicates the continuation of the body paragraph.
- Reword or phrase the thesis statement.
Give suggestion. For example: In order for a country to be prosperous, the people should be united.
- Give an opinion. For example: Learning a second language at an early age is a smart choice.
- Give a prediction. For example: If the young children get a higher education, they will be able to make their country.
Read the following essay which is written by one EFL learners.
Have you ever thought of any most straightforward way to improve your listening skills? Listening skill is considered to be one of the prominent productive skills of a language. Learning a language without listening is significantly impossible. Consider a newly born child. If there is not any input, listening, s/he will stay dumb. Listening to various types of materials expertise one to sound like native ones. Because through listening, one can learn the real pronunciation of words, native chunks and academic structure, which they are challenging to be gained through other skills of the language. A variety of methods have been proposed by different scholars in a different context on improving listening skills. In this essay, I will explain some effective strategies which will help you improve this skill.
First, listening to interesting and enjoyable audio scrip causes a better understanding of listening and improves this skill. For instance, while you listen to something interesting, you can focus more on it and you never get tired of listening. Besides, interesting materials are a continuous process that means the listener is interesting to it and s/he, actually, makes it part of his/her daily program. Thus, language learners, besides improving their language competence, show more tendency to get information from the listening.
Second, choose comprehensible input according to your level of language. According to Krashen, the language learners should utilize “i+1” theory in which they should select materials to be higher only level from them. Choosing difficult materials from different fields would not be digestible for the learners and results in tiredness and poor performance. For example, in each field or context, there are some chunks relatively in which the learner would not understand them and cause inefficiencies. This is because if you listen to things that you mostly don’t know, you’ll spend the majority of your time frustrated and confused.
Third, focus on the big picture, not small details. Listening skill requires the most focus in comparison to other major skills of the language. This is because if you don’t emphasize on what you’re listening to, you may miss the core “message” that is being communicated. Sometimes, if you listen to details for examples for specific words or the meaning of them, you may lose the track and merely can’t get the gist of the listening.
Consequently, as long as listening is one of the most important skills in a language, it must be considered valuable. To improve listening skill, there are different methods, which may vary from individual to individual. In my point of view, if you use comprehensible, enjoyable materials and focus on the big picture rather than details during listening leads to a great outcome.