Writing Skills

To write a conclusion for a literary essay, do four things in order: restate your argument in fresh language, fold your body paragraphs into … Read more

To quote dialogue in an essay, put a character’s spoken words in double quotation marks, keep the comma or period inside the closing mark, … Read more

Knowing how to write a book report that gets an A is less about clever sentences than about what you decide before you type. … Read more

A thesis statement for a literature essay is one focused, arguable sentence that states your interpretation of a text, names the literary element that … Read more

To write a literary analysis essay, work through seven stages in order: understand the prompt, read the text closely, develop an arguable thesis, gather … Read more

To pick quotes to support your argument, start from the exact claim you are making, find the passages that carry that claim, and choose … Read more

A personal narrative essay is a short, first-person piece of writing that tells one real experience from your own life, arranged like a story … Read more

The mistakes to avoid when writing a college application essay are mostly about restraint: answer the prompt you were given, stay in your own … Read more

Write the analysis itself rather than the act of analyzing it. Every sentence should make the text, the author, a character, the narrative technique, … Read more