Please do not smoke this stuff, especially before

your English paper 3.

In your own eyes you will be a creative genius;
the person marking your work, however, will
consider you to be an incoherent imbecile, and
will allocate marks accordingly.
HANDWRITING! Write legibly with a blue
medium-point pen.
         
         
   
If the marker has to go to an optometrist after attempting
to read your work it is unlikely that your results will be
good.
1. Clearly indicate your planning.
2. Your planning should be on a page by itself.
3. Do not duplicate your planning; planning is done once only.
4. Clearly indicate where your final (neat) copy begins.
5. Ensure that both the topic number and the title are written above both
the planning and the essay.
6. Essays should not contain subheadings.
7. An essay should consist of an introductory paragraph, the paragraphs
forming the body, and a concluding paragraph.
8. Always do a word count – if you are an FAL candidate. This is of little
consequence if you are writing the HL paper.
1. Select your topic carefully.
2. Plan fully and effectively.
3. Stick to the topic! [Effective planning ensures this.]
4. Do not repeat content in your essay; in particular, do not repeat the title.
5. The content must be factually accurate.
6. The content must be logical and credible (believable).
7. Both your introduction and your conclusion must be effective and
original.
8. Do not include “Lunch Bar”(obvious) content, e.g. “I was born as a child
of two parents.” “We as human beings…”
 9. Do not “fluff out” your essay with pre-prepared content, e.g. “That was a
day that I will never forget in my whole life as long as I live.”
10. Do not include any non-English words or phrases.
11. Do not include clichés (over-used phrases) in your essay, e.g.:
“Education is the key to success.”
“A wise man once said, and I quote:…”
“We the youth of this country…”
11. NEVER EXCEED THE WORD LIMIT! AT ALL! FOR ANY REASON
WHATSOEVER! EVER! – if you are writing the FAL paper, that is; this is
of little consequence in the HL one.
1. Punctuation is used to clarify meaning: always use basic
punctuation correctly. [Capital letters, full stops and
commas]
2. Upper/lower case confusion: Do not use capital letters
where they are not required.
3. Do not mix up pronouns. E.g. one, you, they
4. Never use “he/she”: if the gender is not specified then use
the masculine form “he”.
5. Never use the oblique slash ( / ) in an essay; this is known
as the “indecision mark”.
6. Avoid using the second person (you): essays are written in
the first or third person, i.e.: I, me, we, us; he, she, it, they.
7. Do not use a double subject.
E.g. “My sister she is a nurse.”
Corrected: “My sister is a nurse.”
8. The pronoun “I” is always written as a capital letter.
9. Use prepositions correctly; they can completely change the
meaning of a sentence if misused. E.g. “war on terror”;
“war of terror”
10. Articles [the, a, an]: Do not omit these or include
unnecessary ones.
11. Formal writing should not contain contractions.
12. If contractions are used, such as in direct speech, do not
omit or misplace the apostrophe.
13. Numbers under twenty-one are written as words, not
numerals.
14. Do not “chop up” words at the end of a line. If you run
out of space then cross out the partial word and begin it
again on the line below.
15. Do not use spoken English – this is not a speech but
written piece.
16. Ellipsis is three dots. “…” to indicate the continuation of
thought.
17. Never use slang such as “gonna”, “wanna” or “gotta”:
these are not English words.
18. English is a disjunctive language, which means that words
are not usually joined together. Typical errors: “alot”,
“nexto”.
19. tavern, not tarven
20. Avoid as far as possible, to begin a sentence with a
conjuction: And, Because etc
21. Error: “I shall try and finish it today.”
Correction: “I shall try to finish it today.”
22. Error: “We will be there soon.”
Correction: “We shall be there soon.”
23. The words “youth” and “plastic” do not normally
change when used in the plural form.
24. Scholars in grade twelve are referred to as “matrics”, not
“matrix”.
25. “Elders” are people who hold a specific position in churches and certain
tribes; senior citizens are termed “the elderly”.
26. In British English the “-ise” suffix is used, not “-ize”.
27. Their – personal
there – direction
they – pronoun
28. The apostrophe is used to indicate possession or contraction, but never a
plural.
29. A comma is not normally used before the conjunction “because”.
30. Whenever you are able to do so, avoid ending a
sentence with a preposition.
31. Never use the word “whereby”; it is invariably used
incorrectly, and results in a language error. Note that
the actual meaning of this word is “by which”.
32. The words “primary”, “secondary” and “tertiary” are
adjectives, and as such they require nouns to describe,
e.g.: primary school; secondary school; tertiary
education.
33. Error: “could of”
Correction: “could have”
34. Error: “did go”
Correction: “went”
 Narrative
 Descriptive
 Argumentative
 Discursive
 Reflective
 Expository: This type of essay is no longer included in the curriculum, but
is still valid if used.
 Narrative
Telling a story. Written in the first person (I, we, me, us) and past
tense.
 Descriptive
Describing people, places, emotions etc. Contains multiple
adjectives, adverbs and figures of speech.
 Argumentative
Giving your opinion on a topic. Presenting one side of an
argument. Subjective. Persuasive.
 Discursive
Presenting both sides of an argument. Balanced. Objective. “The
Advantages and Disadvantages of …”
 Reflective
Looking back on an event or experience, and thinking about
lessons learnt or changes that have occurred.
 Expository
Presenting a lesson. Informing, explaining and clarifying.
Remember that your essay will be read and assessed by a person
who would like to enjoy reading it.
Does the introduction grab the reader’s attention?
Your introduction should be short and punchy:
Yuk! Disgusting! This has moved the word “repulsive” into a
whole new category for me.
What is there left that has not already been said about this subject?
Well, maybe the truth?
It was at 09H17 on the 24th of November 2017 that the world
changed forever – and nobody noticed.
Is the content fresh and original and different? Is it something
that the reader has never encountered before?
Does the content flow smoothly from sentence to sentence and
from paragraph to paragraph?
Is it a pleasure to read?
Is the conclusion memorable? Does it round off the essay
effectively?
The most effective concluding paragraph is usually a single
sentence.
If that was what they regarded as the simple solution then I
would really love to see the complex one!
And that was the how the event ended, not so much with a bang
as a trillion-megaton thermonuclear blast – not!
At that point she switched off the alarms, opened the door,
loaded her AK, sat down, and waited…
Make us laugh – or at least smile. A little bit of humour goes a long way.
Use simple techniques such as hyperbole or litotes to exaggerate or understate
things in a witty way, or include a pun or two.
No religion or politics, please! We have vast experience of life already so…
We are irritated by people who try to convince us that a specific politician or
political party is going to end unemployment and poverty when we know their
track records and their consumption of Johnny Walker Blue and Havana
cigars.
We sigh in desperation when we read about life-changing religious experiences
which seem to be exactly the same as the thousands of others that we have
suffered through in the past.
The easiest type of essay to write is the narrative.

If
you choose to write a descriptive essay, include
details of input from all five of your senses: sight,
hearing, taste, smell, and touch.

If
you choose to write about one of the pictures,
make sure that you understand it fully.
Once you have selected your topic, consider what the most
obvious response is going to be – then write something
completely different.
KISSS: Keep It Sincere, Straight and Simple.

Select a topic that relates to real life.

Write a unique story based on your own life experiences.

Do not give us advice! It is most annoying to get given retarded simplistic
instructions concerning matters which have nothing to do with our lives,
or about which we have long since made our own choices.
No sex or alcohol, please.
We do not want to hear about your drunken experiences in the tavern
which caused you to go to jail or to give up drinking for life.
And we are bored to death by your descriptions of your bedroom activities!
Sex is not a spectator sport: we do not want you in our bedrooms, and we
certainly do not want to be invited into yours.
In conclusion, the ultimate conclusion:
That was a day that I will never forget in my whole life
as long as I live for ever and ever until I die and get buried
even though it might be 100 years in the future because it
was so scary/exciting/sad and maybe if I keep going for
another sixty words I can make it to the minimum word
count even though I have run out of things to say because
my planning really sucked and if I use lots of very long
words like transformation then maybe the teacher won’t
notice that I’m rambling on vaguely and in no particular
direction without any punctuation and pretty much zero
cohesion and I’m totally off the topic and the teacher
doesn’t like me anyway so actually there’s no point to any