Plenty of colleges and universities in the United States of America require foreign students to take up writing courses, and one of the most popular ones is English 101. This course is designed to help students brush up on their argumentation and analytical skills, which are very important for essay writing.
English 101 lessons help students prepare for upper-level courses, improve their communication skills and equip them with the tools needed to write good quality essays. Those that are still struggling with their papers can address an essay service online to get professional custom writing assistance, but this course should give students the confidence they need to write assignments on their own.
The question now is, is there a blueprint for passing an English 101 course? The answer to that question is yes, there are things a student can do to excel in this course, and below is an ultimate guide with a few helpful tips.
Work on Your Writing Skills
When you are writing something, you need to make sure that it is clear, effective, and concise. Being concise means writing straight to the point and getting your idea across with fewer words as possible. Many students make the mistake of adding filler content to meet the word count, which is wrong. Adding filler content massively reduces the quality of your paper and may get you a low mark.
Many college and university tutors are not fans of filler content because they value quality over quantity. When your content is clear, it will have a sense of clarity, which adds credibility to your work. Adding in unnecessary work only adds clutter to your work, which can make it difficult to understand.
Overall clarity just means expressing your ideas logically and as plainly as possible. You also need to make sure that your work is well organized, from new concepts being introduced to additional points you want to add to your arguments, transitions, and more.
Know the Basics of English Grammar
It is well known in the education section that plenty of English 101 lessons don’t focus on teaching students the basics of grammar. Since this is the case, you need to find a way to educate yourself on those basics. You can speak to essay writers online or through an essay writing service, and these companies will have someone in their ranks who is well experienced to help you understand everything you need to know about the basics.
Take American English for example, exclamation points and question marks appear outside or inside of a quotation depending on the source. Commas on the other hand can be very confusing for those whose English is poor or not their first language. Comma splices need to be avoided, and this happens when a student decides to join two sentences together with a comma instead of separating them.
Learn How to Put Together a Top-Quality Essay
When you are writing an academic essay, it needs to have a formal tone to it, which means no use of slang or the first person. Many essay services say that students often shoot themselves in the foot by making their introduction too broad. This should be avoided if quality in an essay is to be maintained, plus it should also have a good thesis. The reason for having a thesis is to let the reader know what the main arguments are in the paper.
Everything you put on the main body of your paper has to support the thesis and when you are going through your paper read it over and over again to ensure you are on track and don’t go off the beaten path. If you want to alter or make changes to your thesis statement, you can ask your tutor for advice or hire a professional essay service.
Pick Good Sources and Writing Style for Your Paper
If you want your ideas to hold water, you need to back them up using reliable sources because this will demonstrate that you didn’t pluck your ideas out of thin air but went out of your way and researched the topic. Not every source is reliable and this is where you need to be careful because some journals, articles, books, reports, and various other forms of secondary information can be outdated.
Stay clear of sources that are too political and remember to always cite your sources correctly, otherwise, your work will be flagged for plagiarism. Educational institutes take plagiarism very seriously, and your work might be dismissed if it is suspected that you stole someone’s work and presented it as your own.
On top of using good sources, you need to follow the writing style recommended to you by your tutor. Citation and bibliography styles include APA, MLA, Harvard referencing style, or Chicago and if you have any questions regarding each style, you can reach out to an online essay writing service.
Listen to Feedback
When you have written your paper, the English 101 tutor will offer you feedback and a grade. You need to take every single comment shared with you seriously because this is the only way you can get better in future papers. Look at the areas where you are weak and focus on those, even with the help of a reliable academic essay writing service.
Don’t be shy to initiate communication with your tutor based on their feedback when they have free time. Talking about the feedback is very important because it lets you know what mistakes to avoid getting a better mark next time.
Final Thoughts
According to various essay writing services, English 101 is not the same as other high school English lessons, which is not the case. The major difference is that tutors who teach English at colleges create coursework that challenges students and lets them explore things through writing. High school tutors or teachers on the other hand rely heavily on standardized tests. For those who haven’t taken this course before, English 101 can sound daunting, however, when one excels, it opens up the door to many possibilities.
