Thursday, June 30, 2022

Essay landing: the plane or the chopper?





Have ever experienced or seen an airplane landing? As the plane begins to descend, it gradually speeds down. The wheels come out and as the expert pilot touches down with the nose of the aircraft aligned with the middle of the air strip, you hardly feel a bump. The  landing is smooth and steady and slowly the carrier comes to a stop altogether.   

The conclusion of a good essay just like that. It is deliberate and directed as it 'descends' towards its final stop. 

Step 1 is called the review: here, you either paraphrase the thesis or the main points, or do both. Step 2 is the 'memorable statement'. This is where you want to leave a lasting positive impression on the reader. 

Before we discuss the options for the 'memorable statement', keep the big picture in focus: The conclusion is the only part of the essay (after the introduction and some random segments here and there), where the examiner actually rests his eye balls and processes what you have written. More crucially, this is where they make up their mind about your grade!

And so your parting shot (the memorable statement) had better be good!

The good news is that all the techniques that help to capture the reader's attention at the outset are also the tricks that can work their magic at the end of the essay. 

And so you may close your essay with a rhetorical question, a quotation, a story, a striking fact or a story. In addition, you might consider clinching the essay by returning to the theme of the attention-getter. Alternatively, you may look forward to the consequences or implications of your arguments; or propose some recommendations, depending on the topic. 

At all costs, you must avoid a helicopter landing: abrupt, unexpected and unforeseeable.       



Wednesday, June 1, 2022

How to handle proverbs and axioms as essay topics

A proverb, according to the dictionary, is a short and popular statement that embodies some advice or expresses a universal 'truth'. An axiom on the other hand is an assertion that may sometimes be rooted in a discipline (e.g. philosophy or science) but not always and which is often debatable.

Which of the following would you characterize as proverbs and which as axioms?

  • If you wish the sympathy of broad manes, then you must tell them the crudest and most stupid things.
  • Young habits die-hard.
  • Only the wisest and stupidest of men never change.
  • Self-conceit may lead to self destruction. 
  • Modern Banking, finance and employment are part of one single paradigm.
  • Truth is a rare commodity despite the freedom by the print and electronic media. 

If you look closely, the first four of these statements share some linguistic and structural properties that distinguish these from the last two. Can you guess? 

Let's call the first four, Type A. Compared to the last two, Type A sentences employ shorter words. Moreover, they exhibit a deliberate parallel structure and repetitive expressions. When you read any Type A statement aloud you sense a certain melodic and memorable quality about it. Type A are couched as self-evident universal truths. Observe that some of them employ figurative language as well. 

On the other hand, the last two statements, Type B, present their claims in a matter-of-fact manner, without attention to how the sentences sound. They make use of mundane, even technical terms like 'paradigm', 'banking' etc. Type B use many poly-syllabic words and the very last statement is a complex sentence that includes a subordinate clause. 

Types A and B are both fairly common as CSS Essay prompts. In fact, over the last 25 years, it is hard to find a single CSS Essay paper where neither of them was used. 

Now Type A are statements are phrased as truisms i.e. as universally valid propositions. Consequently, the essay writer who chooses a Type A prompt is by the design of the statement committing to the validity of the chosen statement. His/her goal should be to elucidate the statement and highlight its scope of application.    

On the contrary, Type B statements, regardless of the sweep of their assertion, are contentious. Here the essayist is free to take issue with the truth value of the chosen Type B claim. They may agree, disagree, partially agree or partially disagree to the statement. At any rate, whatever position the essayist assumes with respect to the claim made in the axiom, they are expected to address the counter-arguments objections to their own stance. Unlike Type A prompts, Type B are open-ended by design.