English 101 Notes
• Essay – short prose writing that explains an insight of your own
• Narrative – story; essay is when you tell a story
• Story – contains protagonist, setting, conflict, resolution, plot
• One sentence paragraphs are more effective in writing; it catches the reader’s attention more efficiently. Surrounding the main point with boring words in a long paragraph is not as effective. People will read the one alone sentence.
• Divide essays and stories into paragraphs (arbitrarily) because it makes the piece of work easier to follow.
• The more you look at something, the more you see; you see more, meaning you understand and take in more information or discoveries about the object.
• Always draw or write things down even if you don’t look at it again. Your thoughts are like dreams, if you don’t write it down, you will probably forget it later.
• Adverbs tell instead of show—“She is happy.” vs. “She smiles.”
• Show, NOT tell! Showing uses more words. Use action verbs and not adjectives or adverbs.
• Detail is the life of the work. Avoid unnecessary detailed descriptions such as weight, height, etc.
• Don’t worry about language, but get to the point/story. Don’t worry about poetic words; don’t let them get in the way of the story itself.
• Leave out chunky paragraphs! Cut out dead wood and unnecessary things. Make what you’re writing interesting, but stay invisible. “If it sounds like writing, rewrite it!”
• Write what interests you; write what you like. If you don’t like what you’re writing, then the reader probably will not like what they’re reading.
• Cut dead wood from your writing: “Needless to say”—then don’t say it. Dead wood like this is not necessary information. Just get to the point of the story or essay.
• “I believe,” “I hope,” “I think,” “I feel,” don’t qualify, so just say it. These are not necessary in the beginning of ever sentence. Get to the point.
• Get rid of things too cliché in your writing.
• Irony always has discrepancy.
• Writers
• Narrative – story; essay is when you tell a story
• Story – contains protagonist, setting, conflict, resolution, plot
• One sentence paragraphs are more effective in writing; it catches the reader’s attention more efficiently. Surrounding the main point with boring words in a long paragraph is not as effective. People will read the one alone sentence.
• Divide essays and stories into paragraphs (arbitrarily) because it makes the piece of work easier to follow.
• The more you look at something, the more you see; you see more, meaning you understand and take in more information or discoveries about the object.
• Always draw or write things down even if you don’t look at it again. Your thoughts are like dreams, if you don’t write it down, you will probably forget it later.
• Adverbs tell instead of show—“She is happy.” vs. “She smiles.”
• Show, NOT tell! Showing uses more words. Use action verbs and not adjectives or adverbs.
• Detail is the life of the work. Avoid unnecessary detailed descriptions such as weight, height, etc.
• Don’t worry about language, but get to the point/story. Don’t worry about poetic words; don’t let them get in the way of the story itself.
• Leave out chunky paragraphs! Cut out dead wood and unnecessary things. Make what you’re writing interesting, but stay invisible. “If it sounds like writing, rewrite it!”
• Write what interests you; write what you like. If you don’t like what you’re writing, then the reader probably will not like what they’re reading.
• Cut dead wood from your writing: “Needless to say”—then don’t say it. Dead wood like this is not necessary information. Just get to the point of the story or essay.
• “I believe,” “I hope,” “I think,” “I feel,” don’t qualify, so just say it. These are not necessary in the beginning of ever sentence. Get to the point.
• Get rid of things too cliché in your writing.
• Irony always has discrepancy.
• Writers