Review Your Essay

When you have finished the first draft of your essay, you should ask yourself the following questions:

• Does it contain a thesis statement?
• Did you create an outline plan before/while writing? If not, can you easily construct one from the essay?
• Do the topic sentences for each major section reflect the main points mentioned in your plan?’

There are lots of different things you should do when you write essays. What is more difficult to remember is all the things you should not do in an essay. Here are some suggestions.

1. Do not ask questions; an essay is to answer questions and phrases such as "Have you ever wondered what _______________ means?" or "What do you think?" may be all right for conversation, but such questions waste ink and paper in an essay. Do not be vague; get to the point.
2. Try to avoid the use of the word "I"; an essay is always an expression of your opinion, so it is unnecessary to often say In my opinion... or I think... or I feel... Sometimes passivisation can help; e.g. `It has been argued...' instead of `I have argued...
3. Avoid personal examples; remember who you are writing for and delete everything in your experiences which does not make for interesting reading. Instead, try and speak about the general qualities that make your essay useful. Is every detail meaningful and important?
4. Do not be vague in your references; avoid phrases such as sometime ago the radio said... or it is written that... or a famous man once said... The reader wants to know when it was on the radio, where it was written and the name of the famous man. If you can’t remember the source, it’s not a good example.
5. Avoid expressions such as everyone knows... it is common knowledge that... and we all believe... because if everyone knows, you don't need to write it down.
6. Avoid idioms; they are either too obvious or too obscure. Idioms are often too simple and require too much explanation. Also, there are many pairs of contradictory idioms. For example: the early bird gets the worm (meaning being first has its benefits) versus the first bird out of the bush gets shot (meaning being first can be dangerous); the squeaky wheel gets the grease (meaning noisy people get benefits) versus the nail that sticks out gets hammered down (meaning noisy people suffer).
7. Avoid the obvious; phrases such as We all live in the world... or China is a large country with a long history.... Such knowledge is generally familiar to anyone old enough to read and not necessary to repeat.
8. Do not be informal; an essay is not a love letter or a conversation and you should not use slang or abbreviations such as don't for do not.
9. Don't overgeneralise; It is very easy to disprove a statement like `All Chinese families would prefer to have a baby boy' or `Chinese students never question their teacher'. It is safer to say `Most / many Chinese families...', `Chinese students seldom....' or `There is a tendency for....
10. Don't tell the reader that you are going to `fully analyze' the topic, or present an argument that is `crystal-clear' or even that you will `research in depth'. The reader must be left to decide whether your essay is fully analyzed, clear or sufficiently deep.