What does my professor expect?
Students wrestle with this question throughout their entire college experience. In an effort to help students begin to answer this question for classes that I teach, I provide here some brief examples of student writing with my comments. There is no absolute “right way” to construct an essay, but the general requirements laid out in the essay instructions will lead to a fairly traditional, straight forward essay that is engaging and convincing. The following excerpts are introductory paragraphs from exams taken in classes I have taught. The exam question precedes each example.
Example One: This is from an “A” essay.
Q. Why does Bringhurst think Young is important to U.S. history?
Brigham Young came from humble beginnings and rose to relative status and wealth as the leader of the fledgling Mormon church. His management and vision of that church turned it into a driving force during the time of “manifest destiny”, and Mormons accounted for thousands of the pioneers who settled the West. By establishing colonies all over the frontier, Young was responsible for making the annexation of those territories inevitable, thereby directly enabling the expansion of the nation. Because of these effects on U.S. growth, and because his life serves as an example of American experience in the latter half of the 19th century, Newell Bringhurst presents Young as a key figure in U.S. history.
Comments:
Notice how the essay begins with a hook. The opening sentences state that this is a story about a poor boy who becomes an influential historical actor. Though this is not the main focus of the essay, introducing Young in this manner catches the readers’ attention. The paragraph then smoothly moves from the hook to the aspect of this man’s life that matters most to the essay. The paragraph notes some of Young’s accomplishments in a way that leads smoothly and logically to the clearly stated thesis. That thesis is, Because of these effects on U.S. growth, and because his life serves as an example of American experience in the latter half of the 19th century, Newell Bringhurst presents Young as a key figure in U.S. history. Notice how the student varies sentence structure and vocabulary. This prevents the paragraph and essay from becoming dull and pedestrian.
The flaws in this paragraph are few and relatively minor. For example, the Mormons do not call their church the Mormon church. Also, the comma in “manifest destiny”, should come before the quotation marks. Do you see others?
Example Two: This is from a “C” essay.
Q. Why does Bringhurst think Young is important to U.S. history?
The Mormons played a huge role in the development of the United States. Bringhurst author of Brigham Young believed that the Mormons were very important to United States History. The Mormons quest to find religious freedom, ultimately took them to Utah – a “frontier sanctuary” where they could get away from religious persecution, and live out their lives in peace. But peace would only be around for a short time.
Comments:
Here the student has shifted the focus away from Young and onto the Mormons. This is an important flaw because this is not what the question asks. There is nothing in the paragraph to suggest that Young is going to be discussed, much less what Bringhurst argues about him. The single body paragraph does discuss Young, but not very clearly and not in a way that supports the argument of the essay. The concluding paragraph of this essay (not provided here) begins with the following sentence, Brigham Young was very important to US History because he over-came huge abstacles, challenged the Government, nothing got in his way. This, if it was actually a sentence, could be a thesis statement, but if it is to fill that role, it needs to be in the introduction and the essay needs to discuss these particular accomplishments of Young, which the essay does not. Furthermore, there are numerous punctuation, grammar and spelling errors throughout. How many can you identify? Hmmm, maybe C was too generous.
Example Three: This is from an “F” essay.
Q. Did the Puritans solve their dilemma? If so, how? If not, why not?
No, & Yes they did solve the dilemma. I’m kind of in b/t the two answers b/c. I think for some people things worked out well for them and others it did not. The kingdom was not so much of a democracy & freedom was limited.
Comments:
Problems abound here. First of all, No, & Yes is not an appropriate answer, especially for this question. A student might argue that though some aspects of the dilemma were solved, overall it was not. Conversely the argument might be that it was solved, but imperfectly. At the end of the day, the answer must be yes or no, not both. It is difficult to ascertain exactly what the student is trying to say here, and this weakness is compounded by the use of non-words, contractions, and first person pronouns. Any sentence that begins with I think, is doomed. This is a very weak term that leaves the door wide open for readers to challenge the conclusions, because they are based on opinion rather than on facts and logical argument. The question does not ask, “What do you think?” It asks for a firm conclusion based on available facts.