How Thinking About Sex Helps You Write Essays E-Book

Graham Allcott

• Herausgeber: Icon Books
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 32

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

Essay writing is a drag, right? Not if it's done the ninja way! In this short ebook, an edited extract from Graham Allcott's brilliant How to be a Knowledge Ninja, you'll learn how to write an essay - whether it's for an article, a dissertation or an assignment. Allcott shows how the best way to start an essay is by not writing anything at all, and how Ninja Preparedness can save countless headaches further down the track. He reminds us that the best essays are those where our personalities shine through, and also shares his Ninja cheats - expert tips for last-minute essay crise

Leseprobe

HOW THINKING ABOUT SEX HELPS YOU WRITE ESSAYS

GRAHAM ALLCOTT

This is an edited extract fromHow to be a Knowledge Ninja by Graham Allcott

AVAILABLE NOW WHEREVER BOOKS ARE SOLD!

Published by Icon Books Ltd Omnibus Business Centre, 39–41 North Road, London N7 9DP email: [email protected]

ISBN: 978-184831-996-7

Text and illustrations copyright © 2015 Graham Allcott

The author and artist have asserted their moral rights.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any means, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

‘For sale: baby shoes, never worn’

Next time you’re agonizing over word limits, it might be wise to remember the famous six-word story above, attributed to Ernest Hemingway, which offers a reminder of the power of words. Chosen wisely, your words have the power to persuade, to invoke strong emotional responses or paint brilliant landscapes. Chosen badly, they infuriate markers and ultimately reduce your grades.

In this chapter we’re going to start by looking at what you should know before you start to write and how to plan the perfect essay. Then, for the rest of the chapter, we’ll look at the productivity of writing and things you can do to adopt the habits of successful writers (without the 10am whisky drinking, obviously).

FAIL TO PLAN, PLAN TO DICK AROUND ON YOUTUBE.

In both How to be a Productivity Ninja and How to be a Knowledge Ninja, I’ve dedicated whole chapters to the thorny issue of procrastination and how to get over it and create momentum. They deliberately appear near the end of the books as I want us to have ironed out some of the habits that cause procrastination along the way. But that also means I need to address it as a separate issue here. So before we dive into writing, let’s address the planning that should go into an essay, report or assignment. A good dose of Ninja Preparedness here will save you lots of lost hours in the procrastination vortex. One of the scariest things for a writer is the blank page. Staring at a blank page is a terrifying part of every creative process, from writing songs to drawing pictures to writing books. You have nowhere to turn, nothing to cling to and it feels daunting. Facing the blank page with a plan, however, is empowering. So it’s important, before you even sit down at your computer or put your hands over the keys of your keyboard, to map out a bit of a process.

PLANNING AN ESSAY THE TWERP WAY

I’ve always loved being in the flow as a writer, but it’s taken me years (and three books) to recognize that writing is a process. I thought I just … wrote stuff. I never really stopped to consider what I was doing. But in recent times as I’ve reflected on what I do and how I do it, I’ve realized that I have cobbled together something resembling a process. My process is to write the TWERP way. There are five stages:

THINKING

You’ll notice that the first stage doesn’t involve any writing at all. This is an important distinction to make. It’s especially difficult if you feel up against a deadline to take time out to think about what you should be writing. It feels so urgent that you should ‘start’.

The thinking stage is important, and needs to do several things:

Bring together the reading or research you’ve been doing (ideally into one central place – more of which shortly).Start to structure the piece of writing.Generate ideas for the ‘scaffolding’ (the beginning, middle and end).Generate ideas for some of the key points or even tiny details such as little phrases you might use.Give you the confidence to stare at that blank page.