If you are new to college and getting ready for English Composition (Freshman Comp), what should you try to put in your essays? Detail. Detail is what is lacking in many of our busy lives. We are a society of sound bites and 30 second clips, and unfortunately, that’s what is showing up in much of the writing of recent high school graduates.
So if you are a college student, keep detail in mind when you write. When you make a statement, you have to expand on it. And here are some examples of how you can expand your writing both creatively and objectively.
Example 1: In a personal essay, someone writes, “The food on my plate looked totally unappealing.”
It’s an okay sentence, and most people would have an idea what was meant. Still, there’s the opportunity to make it more detailed so that people know why it was so unappealing to the author: “I looked at my plate and silently gagged. There was congealed gravy on top of some grayish matter. I tried not to smell it, but I couldn’t help getting sour odor from the food into my nostrils.” The author now has told you exactly what was unappealing about the food on the plate.
Example 2: In a research paper, someone writes, “Many people will be involved in a drunk driving accident sometime in their lifetime.”
This sentence needs specific detail and support. After all, it is part of a research paper and it’s giving a fact without detail or support. Give the reader something to really go on and believe: “Almost a third of the American population will be involved in a drunk driving accident sometime in their lifetime (‘Drunk Driving Facts & Stats Tips’). That means that if you are sitting in a classroom of twenty students, at least six students in that classroom will be in an alcohol related accident some day.” This passage now has a real statistic what is cited and a little elaboration that may make the statistic more personal.
There are many ways to expand your writing and make your essay longer and more detailed. Remember: don’t just fill your essay to meet the minimum length. Figure out how to fill your essay with substance, with detail that makes the material more interesting.
The Five Senses
One thing that’s often forgotten today is to depend on the five senses. We are such a visual society that we forget that there are other senses to draw from. What are the five senses?
· Sight
· Hearing
· Taste
· Touch
· Smell
Look back at the food example. Yes, it’s very visual, but it draws on smell too. I won’t even try to imagine what that stuff would have tasted like, but you get the picture. Think of all the things you can include in your essay. Talking about past birthdays? Did your parents light the birthday candles with a match? Recall that sulfur smell and describe it. Been right beneath fireworks? Describe the sounds of the explosions and how the ground rumbled under your feet. You can also try to describe the smell of gunpowder that would have gone along with it. Writing about your best football game in high school? Don’t forget the feeling of being tackled with all that weight piled up on you. Describe the mud splattering against your face during one of the wettest games ever.
Examples and Statistics
Examples can make your writing come alive, it works in giving support to your topic. The examples can come from your own life or from newspaper and magazine articles or from any other source you can think of. It really depends on the type of essays you are writing. In fact, for the research paper assignments I give out, I encourage students to use examples. Some teachers and textbooks refer to them as case studies. Either way, find people who have been in similar circumstances and describe their situations and how it relates. Find examples in business or science or at gatherings. Make sure you refer to the source where the information came from when you use it. Sometimes it can be as simple as mentioning the publication or author. Other times, you have to be more formal and document the sources. Again it depends on the assignment.
Use statistics to show that what you are writing about matters. If you are writing about global warming, use examples such as the polar bears’ hunting territory shrinking. Use statistics about how much that territory has actually shrunk. Maybe their territory was all of the arctic and now it’s the size of ….. Again, you need to say where information came from, formally or informally depending upon the assignment.
There’s a lot more that I could write on this topic, but I think I’ve given you some ideas of how to add detail. Like I said before, if I could give one piece of advice to new college writers, it would be to learn to write with details and avoid those 30 second sound bites.
No comments:
Post a Comment