How to do well on Issue Essays
The three big steps:
1) Acknowledge the complexity, and then take a side. You gotta do this. Pick it, and stick with it.
2) Support your point of view using relevant, and SPECIFIC examples.
3) Make sure to hit all the marks. Answer the question in the prompt. They are similar prompts, but with different details.
Once you read the prompt, take a few minutes to brainstorm ideas for BOTH sides of the issue. Then pick the best two or three on the same side. You want the side you have the best examples for. This may or may not be the side you personally agree with.
Example:
Your Outline should look like this:
Intro: Restate the issue, define terms if needed, and establish your position. Body: Illustrate one reason in each of 2-3 paragraphs. Conclusion: Re-summarize and close with a pretty sentence.
MAKE SURE YOU FINISH YOUR ESSAY.
Make sure to: 1) Vary sentence length. Ask questions, have short sentences, long sentences, etc. 2) Vocab. BE CAREFUL. Make sure you know what these words are. 3)Length: Scores are correlated with length, so as bad as it sounds, keep writing. Longer essays have shown to get better scores.
HOW TO GET IDEAS: 1) Current events. Dude, they just happened. Use ittttt. When I take my exam, you can bet your ass I’ll reference the election. Or hurricanes. Read the newspaper! 2) Your major! So... I’m awful at history (though Hamilton is helping with the American history bit...), so I’m not gonna reference what Henry Clay said. But, I can talk all day about DNA. So, I’ll keep to the science, but if thats not your jam, dont go for it. 3) Outside reading. The fancy stuff, props not YA (though I do like it). Shakespeare, fancy article crap. You know, business insider, NYT, stuff like that.
DON’T GO FOR PERSONAL STUFF. Its not as global. Try to pull up references from somewhere else.
Oof. This got long. But, I hope it helps!