Wednesday, 11 June 2014

Why do we write essays? CSC group 2

In their first exercise, Zemach, Broudy and Valvona  ask us to consider reasons for writing essays (2011, p. 2). However, where they limit their discussion to university students, we will open it up little.
  • What are some reasons university students write essays? 
    • Who else writes essays? Do they have other reasons than university students? 
  • What are some common types of essays? What do writers use essays to do?
We are doing this not as the discussion the Zemach, Broudy and Valvona suggest, but as a response writing exercise. In a new comment below, write down your ideas to the author's questions above.

  • The purpose of response writing is to quickly write down the ideas that come to mind in response to something: it is not academic writing where we spend some time thinking before writing. Response writing is a useful way to practice fluency. 
    • Write your ideas in sentences. 
    • Get an idea. Write a sentence to put that idea into English. 
    • Then write down the next idea in its sentence. 
    • And the next one. 
    • Don't stop writing: sentence, after sentence, after sentence. 

__________
Reference
Zemach, D. E., Broudy, D. & Valvona, C. (2011). Writing research papers: From essay to research paper. Oxford: Macmillan Education.

23 comments:

  1. I wrote on this this morning. You can see my comments here.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The people write essay to give the information of the idea to other people. The reason that they write essay is might be different from university students who sometimes, write the essay for express their study or their works follow their professor's assignment, not from their interesting.
    The common types of essay are the academic writings which are consist of the group of paragraph to state the ideas of the topic that the writers want to express.
    The writer use the essay to show their ideas and their study.

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  3. 1. To tell about the topic. To write the essay is the easiest way to describe about the topic that you got. Everyone mostly write the essays. No, I think they have the same reason as the university students.
    2. Academic essay, the article in the newspaper. To tell the story about the topic that they are interested.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I am not sure that wring an essay is the easiest way. And If you mean writing an essay for university students means tell the story that you are interested, I quite agree to the idea that other people have the same reason to write the essay.

      Delete
  4. The main reason why people write essay is because they would like to tell their story to other person. The essay is the good way of doing it because on the essay, people can organize the information so that it will make the reader feel happy and enjoy with their story. For the university students, writing essay plays an important role because they need to convey their idea to other people especially the lecturer. For example, taking exam is important part of studying and most of which are the writing one that students need to write down to answer. The answer might vary from idea to application of theory, which they have studied.

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  5. Because essays show the ability to think, analyze, synthesize and organize ideas of the writer. It is, therefore, generally used in advanced education, not only university student but sometimes scholars or professors in education. In addition, it's the easiest way to assess the ability of university student, particularly in social studies such as Law, Economics and so forth.

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    Replies
    1. Wow, I like the idea of the essay reflects the writer. I absolutely agree with your point.

      Delete
  6. I think people always have some interest things they would like to contribute. That is why people write essays. Writing essays does not always mean something very special; it could be just a story people met and had some idea coming up about. So they may just want to convey their visions to others by their writings.

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  7. University students need to write essays because they can clearly explains their ideas or opinions in the systematic way so that teacher can easily understand what messages students are trying to convey. Not only the university student have to write the essay but other people can write it as well. The example is the working staff. They need to write an essay or report to tell the outcome of their work. The reason is different because as a university student, you are writing an essay just to tell your idea or answer the question teacher ask. Yet, other people write an essay to present their work results.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I agree with the idea that everyone use the essay to express their work results because your idea or answer the question is also your work results.

      Delete
  8. 1. From my opinion, university students write essays because essays can help students to improve their thinking and language. They also lead students to be academic learners and understand the study.
    - Teachers and researchers can write essays for academic purposes like doing research and writing textbooks and composing novels.

    2. Essays have some common type are research paper and chapters in textbook.
    - Writers use essays to convey their research, experiences, results of experiments and knowledge to many people.

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  9. I think people write essay to show or discuss their ideas or may be their work. Therefore, it is not the important thing only for the university students. Other people such as people who work in the office or policeman also write it in order to make it as a record. This can help them remind what happen in the past and may provide the benefit in the future. Moreover, I am not sure about how many types of essays. If I guess, I will divided it into two types which are academic and non-academic essays. So, I think the essay is the basic thing that everyone can write.

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  10. -I think the university want the student to show the study and the new knowledge that they discover to other people.
    -Workers also write the essay for present their work or show their project to the leader
    - Formal essay, academic essay are some common types of essays. The writer use their essay to demonstrate their purpose of their work and the result of the work.

    ReplyDelete
  11. 1. University students write essays to practice using English in an academic way and to practice summarize the idea into a well-organized, impressive and lively way.
    - The researcher still writes essay to show their research result in a clear and well-organized writing.

    2. The common types of essays are such as the research paper, the scholarly paper, the descriptive paper.
    Writers use essay to tell a story.

    ReplyDelete
  12. 1. The university students write essays because they have to report their answers to the teachers. Other people write essay in order to share their ideas what are they thinking about something.
    2. The common types of essays are for answer the question, publish their studies, and express their opinions. Essays can be the knowledge for readers
    Everybody can write essay for different purpose. It depends on kind of person.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And I think it may depend on what are you doing now, right?

      Delete
    2. You got a point. I like the first answer.

      Delete
  13. The main reason, which comes to my mind, is that the teachers/professors would like the students to practice their communicative skills through writing essays to convey the messages to others. For the second question, I personally think anyone can write an essay - regardless of each one's purpose of writing. Some people may write a daily journal to keep track of what one does every day. Some may find writing essay as a relaxation. There must be some other purposes of writing an essay. So I don't think that writing an essay is limited only to university students. As for the third question, the most common type of essays might be an academic essay, discussing specific topic.

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    Replies
    1. I agree with the idea that everyone can write the essay. It may be in the several aims. Anyway, do you really think that writing an essay is an option for people to relax. Just kidding ^^

      Delete
  14. Essays shows details of topic that writer want to tell other. It's not only students write an essay but it can be a professional in some story they can write an essay about their work or their specialize. More over, essays can give an informations for other and useful for someone who need to know about some kind of topic.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I like the idea that the essay is useful for someone to need to use that.

      Delete
  15. University students write essays because they are the evaluation method how much they understand the topic they learned and how they can communicate to those knowledge for others to understand them.

    Apart from the university students, many high school students and faculty members write essays as well. For the high school students, they have to practice write essays because they need those skills for their higher education. For the faculty members, they need to write essays when they find some scholarships to use in their research.

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  16. I think that we write essays because essays tell us stories and stories can make normal people understand what we are going to say. Moreover, each academic essay has pattern that can make complex and complicated things clear and well organized. This can make students better in logic that is important.

    ReplyDelete

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