Writing an Effective essay

Writing an Effective essay. There are two examples I have attached with the files. Student A and student B. and there is A24 to get some ideas about the text you are going to write.

Name: Omran Halawani

Teacher’s Name: Mari R. Chevako

Course: EAP-101

Date: 4/19/21

Who in this world doesn’t want to be happy? Everyone is on the search for ways to achieve happiness. If happiness is so significant, we must first comprehend the variables that more people must address to be happy. Happiness can come in different ways. Some people would say that the more money they have, the more comfortable they get. Others are happier when they were able to help those people who are in need. The article of four authors presents different ways to attain happiness. They have mentioned that people may strengthen their happiness by establishing relationships, helping others, and finding purpose in life. At the same time, a person’s money cannot attain real happiness.

The work of four authors writing about happiness has a different perspective on attaining happiness but has the same goal. Let’s have a look at the summary of their texts. First, “The Funds, Friends, and Faith of Happy People” was written by David Myers, a psychology professor at Hope College in Michigan. He emphasizes the correlation between wealth and well-being, close relationship and well-being, friendship and well-being, and marriage and well-being. According to Myers, the relationship between wealth and well-being is that money can somehow affect a person’s happiness. Having more money can improve their quality of life, and they can enjoy those things they wanted to have and experience. In Myers context about the correlation between close relationship and well-being, he states that new social ties are usually characterized and cemented by celebration because of our panhuman quest for intimate relationships. In friendship and well-being, people feel happier when with others and have close friends and partners to share their most private thoughts. Lastly, in the correlation between marriage and well-being, Myers mentioned that people are happier when attached compare to those people who are not married. Second, “Good genes are nice, but joy is better” by Liz Mineo, a staff writer at Harvard Gazette. She talks about how we will be able to live longer and be happier if we embrace society. In her article, she says, “Close relationships, more than money or fame, are what keep people happy throughout their lives.” Our relationships and how comfortable we are in them have a significant impact on our wellness. A person cannot have a meaningful life without friends, family, and even a significant other. The third text is “True happiness isn’t about being happy all the time” by Lowri Dowthwaite, a lecturer in psychological interventions at the University of Central Lancashire. The author presents the idea that the secret to greater satisfaction and well-being is psychological flexibility. Dowthwaite also mentioned that “Striving for a happy life is one thing, but striving to be happy all the time is unrealistic.” Despite all the ways to happiness, we inevitably encounter undesirable feelings, suffering, and sadness. But life would not be exciting if we always feel happy. That is why sadness is what makes it balance.  Lastly, “On Coronavirus Lockdown? Look for Meaning, Not Happiness” was written by Emily Esfahani Smith. From her point about happiness, she states that adopting a tragic optimistic mindset allows people to flourish in the face of adversity. According to Smith, “It’s not the adversity itself that leads to growth. It’s how people respond to it”. It solely depends on how he perceived the different challenges in life. How he responds to it will indeed affect the result of every situation. Facing various challenges in life is inevitable, but we will be able to overcome them.

The four authors all have similarities in stating that a person cannot attain true happiness by itself but rather be with others to create friendship, relationships, and social connections. According to Smith, close relationships help people cope better with various pressures, such as grief, abuse, job loss, and sickness. Liz Mineo also supports such claims by stating that people are happier because of close relationships rather than wealth or fame. Moreover, those who find a purpose to live have more reason to be satisfied and overcome hardship. They do not see it as an obstacle to achieving greater happiness. Lowri Dowthwaite states that seeking meaning in one’s life is the key to living a happy life. It’s about embracing our humanity with all of its ups and downs, appreciating the good feelings, and channeling the bad to achieve our full potential. From the point of view of Smith, she states that it’s not the hardship that causes you to grow. It’s how you respond to these matters. Indeed, a person cannot live a happier life and cannot achieve greater satisfaction without challenges.

Self-improvement and self-love can somehow empower us. According to Mineo, those who retained warm relationships led longer and happier lives. The idea of a close relationship is a helpful tool for us to achieve happiness. However, the relationship does not always have a positive outcome. Sometimes it fails because challenges are inevitable in all aspects of life, but optimism can help a person cope with difficulties. Building a relationship and having social connections can help a person to find its meaning and enjoy life to the fullest. According to Myers, in wealth and well-being, depending on how money is used, it can increase or decrease satisfaction. Money is a necessity for a person to survive, to sustain its needs and wants. However, no matter how wealthy a person is, how poor a person can be, the heart’s contentment is what matters most. Dowthwaite states, the way we react to life’s events has a more significant effect on our happiness than the events themselves. Short-term tension, depression, and anxiety do not rule out the possibility of long-term happiness. The fact that not every single day we will be happy. The road to happiness is paved with difficulties and misery. Happiness isn’t a formula that can be solved. As we’ll see, dissatisfaction and unease are natural aspects of human existence in achieving lasting happiness. Smith also implies that it’s not the hardship that causes you to rise. It’s how you respond to it that matters.

Moreover, in happiness, Dowthwaites mentions two paths to happiness: the hedonistic and eudaimonic approaches. Hedonistic is about “maximize pleasure and avoid pain.” This outlook focuses on fulfilling human appetites and desires, but it is always temporary. While the eudaimonic approach, it views as living authentically and for the common good. Kindness, fairness, integrity, and bravery should be used to seek sense and potential. These approaches depend on the person on how it will be achieved and its outlook on those approaches. No one can dictate to a person how they can be happy. It’s on their willingness to be happy or not to be happy at all. But overall, happiness can make life more beautiful and meaningful.

All four texts recognize the importance of social connection, optimism within adversity, helping others, and finding the purpose of life. Smith states that people who learn after a crisis spend a lot of time trying to understand what happened and how it affected them. To put it another way, they aim for and find good meaning. Dowthwaite states that people characterize their lives as happier and more meaningful due to hardship, sickness, or failure in a similar context. On the importance of relationship, Smith suggests that close relationships help us recover from suffering, find joy, and share our thoughts and experience with others. Mineo also states that “Good relationships don’t just protect our bodies; they protect our brains.” Together with our social connections, a positive outlook in life can lead to a fulfilling and happier existence.

In conclusion, the four authors’ goal is to see value in things that we cannot see, but instead, we can feel. We often aim for more money, better jobs, a wealthy lifestyle, and so many more on material things, but once we achieved those goals, we might feel happy, but we always wanted more. To determine a person’s happiness is to consider at what point he can be contented. Happiness is also equal to contentment. Our relationship, friendship, social connection is crucial for us to grow and fully understand the concept of why we don’t just live alone in this world. Having people around you can make you happier, cause complex situations more manageable, and uplift our emotions. Life itself is full of suffering, and it is inevitable, but being optimistic can make it a lot better. Having a positive outlook on everyday existence alleviates hardship. Find the purpose to live and appreciate the life offers can make a person fully comprehend the concept of happiness.

Works Cited

Dowthwaite, Lowri. “True happiness isn’t about being happy all the time”. 18 January 2018. https://theconversation.com/true-happiness-isnt-about-being-happy-all-the-time-88600. Accessed 12 April 2020.

Mineo, Liz. “Good genes are nice, but joy is better.” 17 April 2017. news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/04/over-nearly-80-years-harvard-study-has-been-showing-how-to-live-a-healthy-and-happy-life/. Accessed 12 April 2020.

Myers, David. “The Funds, Friends, and Faith of Happy People.” American Psychologist (2000): 56-67. Accessed 12 April 2020.

Smith, Emily Esfahani. “On Coronavirus Lockdown? Look for Meaning, Not Happiness.” 7 April 2020. 12 April 2021. www.nytimes.com/2020/04/07/opinion/coronavirus-mental-health.html?searchResultPosition=4. Accessed 12 April 2020.

Student B

Mari Chevako

EAP 101-004

10 December 2018

Assignment 25

Since early years of human education, we have been taught a wide variety of writing skills. From learning individual words, we moved to building simple sentences, then to writing whole paragraphs and finally, to creating academic papers. Each level has been getting more and more complex leading us to improve our writing skills. To become a better writer in the college context, one must understand that academic writing needs necessary tools such as learning about his own rhetorical situation, well-conceived choices and useful strategies in order to develop a strong paper. This knowledge that I have gained this semester by learning my own rhetorical situation, academic writing and by working with other students as well as with my professor helped me become a better writer and improve my writing.

Before coming to the United States, my knowledge about academic writing was very limited. Although my English classes back home taught me how to write well-organized paragraphs including introduction, body and conclusion, some strategies such as knowing my own rhetorical situation or developing burger paragraphs were brand new for me. Those classes concentrated mostly on learning new vocabulary and grammar in order to begin to write rather short pieces of writing that usually were one page long about easy topics. That is why I needed to take EAP 100 to prepare myself for more complex tasks where I learnt useful information about the college writing such as how to develop strong paragraphs including supporting citations and their explanations. However, I did not really have any assignments that challenged my new writing skills in EAP 100. So, when I moved to the next level; that is EAP 101, I could finally use this knowledge that I have been gaining since I came here. At the beginning of this course, the most challenging task was learning both my own and others’ rhetorical situation, particularly the context part. After a few exercises, however, my skills improved, and that enabled me to write the assignment 14 about Emily Smith’s context, purpose and audience in her article, “There’s More to Life Than Being Happy”. Then, we started preparing ourselves to write the assignment 24; that is, an explanatory synthesis of an article “A Dark Side of Happiness? How, When, and Why Happiness in Not Always Good?”, written by Jane Gruber, Iris Mauss and Maya Tamir. Because of the complexity of these two texts, we as a class revised them many times and produced many drafts improving our writing. That is why I would like to refer to them in the following paragraphs.

First, knowing my own rhetorical situation including mostly the audience of my writings might be crucial in order to become a better writer. In his article, “How to Read Like a Writer”, Mike Bunn emphasizes that knowing the intended audience might help writers make right choices that consequently, make a text more understandable for a specific group of readers (79).  For instance, in the summary paragraph of my second draft of the assignment 14, I wrote, “[Smith] introduces Viktor Frankl” who I used also as an example in other parts of this essay. While revising, I realized that my audience might not know who Viktor Frankl was. That is why in my third draft, I added, “[Smith] introduces Viktor Frankl, a Jewish psychiatrist” providing my audience more details in order to provide his background. Similarly, in his article, “The Maker’s Eye: Revising Your Own Manuscripts”, Donald Murray points out that by putting ourselves in the audience’s place we “make sure that [we] deliver information which a reader … needs to know in a manner which easily digested” (2). That means, all information that we as the writers provide should be detailed and understandable. So, keeping this knowledge in mind enabled me to develop a strong first draft of the assignment 24. From the early beginning, I paid attention to giving as much detailed information about the background as it was possible such as providing authors’ full names, titles of articles, their publications and release dates. Every writer has his own rhetorical situation and knowing it helps me develop my writing skills.

Furthermore, to write a well-organized and strong essay, one must remember about the basic rules of academic writing in order to provide a good evidence supporting ideas included in writings. According to Murray’s article, “a good piece of writing is built from specific, accurate, and interesting information … [that] must carry the reader toward meaning” (2). In other words, choosing a right piece of evidence might be one of the most important parts in the process of writing. Similarly, in his article, Bunn mentions the importance of supporting writer’s own claims by giving appropriate and effective evidences (80). For instance, in the logos paragraph of my second draft of the assignment 14, I wrote, “After [Frankl’s] experience in a Nazi concentration camp, he said, ‘the difference between those who had lived and those who had died came down to one thing: Meaning’”. By referring to his life story, I tried to give a concrete example in which Smith appeals to logos. However, after a conference meeting with my professor, revising my essay by myself and re-reading Murray’s article, I understood that I should have provided more credible evidence. Therefore, in my third draft, I decided to refer to concrete facts; that are, results of a scientific study from a journal included in Smith’s text. This knowledge of academic writing helped me choose strong examples and write my assignment 24 that did not need any significant changes between my second and last draft. That is why I believe that becoming a better writer means being familiar with the rules of academic writing.

Finally, revising my own essays and getting helpful feedback from my professor during conference meetings improve my writing skills leading me to becoming a better writer. Murray states that the writing process consists of producing many drafts what means editing the same text again and again (1). That means revision made both on our own and by others might make writers create even better writings. For instance, in my second draft of the assignment 14, I concluded Smith’s ethos in the context paragraph by connecting writer’s background and her expertise in a positive psychological field. However, during a conference meeting, my professor suggested me to separate these parts. That is why in the third draft, I developed my context paragraph focusing more on author’s education and the larger conversation she joins by writing her article. Additionally, I added a separate paragraph about Smith’s ethos referring to numerous reports of well-known psychologists that she provided to make her audience more likely to read and accept her claims. Similarly, in her article, “The Ethics of Reading: Close Encounters”, Jane Gallop mentions that the key to become a better writer is to learn how to close read that “means looking at what is actually on the page, reading the text itself, … noticing things in the writing” (7). Moreover, she says that close reading might have useful benefits to improve our skills in catching errors such as typos or wrong word choices. This knowledge allowed me to write the assignment 24 that I close read and revised a couple of times before handing it in. Although my writing still had some mistakes, they were rather minor. For example, I did not write commas where they should have been or in contrary, I wrote too many of them. Overall, both revisions made on my own and feedback got from my professor helped me to improve my writing skills and write good final draft of my assignments.

To become a better writer and develop strong essays, we need to know our own rhetorical situation, rules of academic writing and be aware of the importance of working with others who might get us useful feedback in order to improve our skills. These tools are necessary to fully understand college writing that is much more complex requiring right choices and strategies. This knowledge that we have been gaining at a university differs from that what we were taught in lower stages of our education. That is why we as the students and writers must work hard to improve writing skills in order to become a better and better writer.

Works Cited

Bunn, Mike. “How to Read Like a Writer.” Writing Spaces, edited by Charlie Love and Pavel Zemliansky, Writing Spaces, 2011, pp. 72-86, writingspaces.org/sites/default/files/bunn–how-to-read.pdf. Accessed 4 Dec. 2018.

Gallop, Jane. “The Ethics of Reading: Close Encounters.” Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, 2000, pp. 7-17.

Murray, Donald M. “The Maker’s Eye: Revising Your Own Manuscripts.” Language Awareness: Readings for College Writers, edited by Paul Eschholz, Alfred Rosa, and Virginia Clark, 8th ed., Boston, Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2000, pp. 161-65.

Student A

Mari Chevako

EAP 101

7 December, 2018

Draft 4

Reflective Essay

Many college students struggle to get their thoughts in the page and writing assignments can be very stressful or even intimidating. However, students cannot get through college without having to write a lot and often at a higher academic level than they are used to. Students need to use some variation of strategies and process in order to become a successful college writer. As a result, college students should be well prepared with necessary strategies and resources to help them face college-level challenges and succeed in the college context. There are many processes we have discussed during this semester that helped me build knowledge about reading and writing, such as working with others, evaluating my rhetorical situation, building knowledge about ethical consideration, and understanding the importance of revising.

Before coming to the United States, I had some English classes in Saudi Arabia in high school. These classes helped me learn some English rules and write short paragraphs about different topics. However, these classes were not able to develop my academic reading and writing skills and prepare me to become a better writer in the college context. After high school, I decided to study abroad and live in the United States in order to improve my English and complete my academic studies. When I came to the United States, I started my ESL program at INTO Oregon States University. These ESL classes helped me learn more about academic writing and gradually move towards a higher level of writing. However, the thought of writing in a foreign language scared me because it can be a struggle to figure out which words to use to express yourself correctly. In addition, writing in a foreign language can be discouraging when you keep making mistakes. Over time, practicing writing in English helped me feel more confident and comfortable with making mistakes. However, when I entered UWM, I had to take EAP 100 that helped me become a better reader and writer and helped me with my other classes. English 100 helped me learn different ways of using my writing and a way of delivering my thoughts to the reader. In addition, this class prepared me and helped me explore new perspectives about college writing and academic courses. However, when I entered EAP 101, I started learning new strategies for academic writing. English 101 helped me learn how to read more effectively in order to support my writing with evidence. Moreover, reading different types of articles during this class helped me explore new approaches to identify the differences between college writing. However, EAP 101 challenged me with developing different types of academic writing, such as rhetorical analysis essays and explanatory synthesis. One example of these essays is assignment 14, which is developing a rhetorical analysis essay of Emily Smith’s article “There’s More to Life than Being Happy” and exploring Smith’s purpose, context, audience, and strategies. Another example of these types of academic writing is assignment 24, an explanatory synthesis essay exploring the similarities and difference between June Gruber et al.’s article “A Dark Side of Happiness? How, When, and Why Happiness Is Not Always Good” and all the texts and films we covered during this class. In this paper, I will be incorporating many ideas from these two essays that helped me build knowledge about academic reading and writing process.

Providing opportunities for students to engage and respond to one another’s writing can help students to learn how to collaborate with their classmates and improve their reading and writing skills. Therefore, working with others and getting feedback on my writing helped me to become a better writer in the college context. In the first place, the writing conferences and receiving immediate feedback and clarification from my teacher promoted my writing during this semester. For instance, the purpose paragraph in the third draft of assignment 14 was missing some pieces of evidence. My teacher pointed out that I clearly stated Smith’s purpose in the topic sentence which says, “The purpose of Smith’s article is to help people believe the fact there is more to accomplish in life than just finding simple happiness and help them identify the difference between finding happiness and finding a meaningful life,” but I moved to state a new idea without supporting the topic sentence. For this reason, I used Frankl’s story of the two men he met in the camps as a piece of evidence in the fourth draft. Moreover, participating in the peer reviews during this semester promoted my reading and writing skills. For example, my classmate helped me strengthen my writing by suggesting to clarify some ideas for my readers. At the beginning of my introduction paragraph in the second draft of assignment 14, the sentence says, “We can clearly see that many people don’t realize the real meaning of life, and they think that happiness in about getting everything they desire.” As a result, I tried to clarify my ideas in the third draft by adding some examples of the things people usually desire, such as getting more money and material goods. Furthermore, the conversation with the tutor in the writing center also helped me realize that my summary paragraph contains a lot of irrelevant information. They helped me discern the most important ideas and effectively identify the main points. Therefore, working with other people and participating in discussions can improve writing abilities and help students become successful writers.

Moreover, my understanding of the rhetorical situation helped me learn how to employ various strategies and communicate with my readers. The awareness of the context, purpose, audience and choices helped me guide the readers as they interpret my writing. For instance, learning about the importance of using effective choices and techniques in writing helped me fulfill my writing and reach my intended audience. According to the article “How to Read Like a Writer,” Mike Bunn says, “You think about how the choices the author made and the techniques that he/she used are influencing your own responses as a reader” (72). The author points out that the choices and strategies the writer uses influence his/her audience and affects his/her responses. Therefore, creating an effective hook that best reflects my topic helps me inspire my readers and grab their attention. For example, when I revised the first draft of assignment 24, I decided to start the introduction of the second draft with some ideas about the topic “happiness” in order to make the reader feel connected to my writing. As a result, instead of starting directly with talking about the different perspectives regarding happiness, I started my paragraph with the sentence “Happiness is a state of positive experience and feeling many people strive for in their everyday lives.” In addition, having knowledge about my intended audience is one of the significant components of understanding my rhetorical situation. According to the article “The Maker’s Eye: Revising Your Own Manuscripts,” Donald Murray says, “[Writers] put themselves in the reader’s situation and make sure that they deliver information which a reader wants to know or needs to know in a manner which is easily digested” (2). In other words, the writer should be aware of the different characteristics and expectations of their audience in order to learn how to craft their message. For instance, during the third draft of assignment 14, I thought it would be more interesting to add background information about Emily Esfahani Smith for people who are interested to know about her experience in positive psychology. Understanding the elements of my rhetorical situation helped me gauge the best ways to reach my readers and learn how to use different strategies.

Furthermore, ethical considerations help students determine between acceptable and unacceptable behavior. Understanding ethical standards promote the pursuit of knowledge and help the student to become a better writer in the college context. According to the article “The Ethics of Reading,” Jane Gallop says, “I believe it is ethical to respect other people, by which I mean: listen to them, try and understand what they are actually saying, rather than just confirming our preconceptions about them, our prejudices” (12). The author means that it is important to practice close reading in order to train students to fight their assumptions and hear what a person is really saying. Close reading involves listening ethically to what someone else is saying and looking carefully at the evidence they provide to the readers. For example, in the third draft of assignment 14, I introduced the first purpose of Smith’s article which is helping people believe the fact that there is more to accomplish in life than just finding simple happiness and help them identify the difference between finding happiness and finding a meaningful life. However, after revising Smith’s purpose paragraph, I realized that I did not provide any evidence in order to show that I carefully listened to what the author offered to prove her point in the article. Therefore, in the fourth draft, I was able to clarify that I looked to all the information in the article by adding Frankl’s story when he tried to help the two men in the camps to realize that there is something expected from each individual in their lives. Understanding the key of ethical consideration includes reading carefully to what people are saying and looking to all the tools they use to confirm their claim.

Finally, revising plays an important role in the writing process that involves making improvements to all aspects of an essay. Having knowledge about the emphasis of revision helped me produce a progression of my writing. There are many problems the writer can catch during the process of revising, such as development. According to Murray, “It must give readers enough information so that they are satisfied” (2). The author means that the writer should estimate the reader’s hunger for information and provide a piece of writing with enough information. For example, during the third draft of assignment 14, I noticed that when I wrote about Smith’s choices and strategies, I used Frankl’s story as a piece of evidence without providing enough details about the story, such as the place where Frankl and his parents were staying. Therefore, I added more details in the fourth draft and wrote, “However, he decided to put aside his individual pursuits and stay with his parents in Vienna.” In addition, revising and editing my writing helped me create a strong and effective structure. Murry says, “Good writing is built on a solid framework of logic, argument, narrative, or motivation which runs through the entire piece of writing and holds it together” (2). The author means that good writing should be developed on revising and making improvements to all aspects of the structure that shape the essay. For example, when revising the third draft of assignment 14, I realized the possibility of changing the structure of my paper by reducing the information of the summary paragraph and combine it with the context paragraph. Understanding the importance of revision helps writers to transform their written work by making improvements to different aspects of their writing.

In summary, we can see that handling the demands college places upon the student as a writer can be intimidating for many people. However, there are many different processes and strategies students can employ to help them become better writers in the college context. Using different tools during this semester, such as working with other people, understanding of my rhetorical situation and emphasizing the process of revising, helped me become a successful writer and prepared me with knowledge about reading and writing. Having a solid foundation of processes and strategies provides me the guidance on specific aspects of writing and helps me succeed in college. Therefore, applying the skills I have learned during this semester in EAP 102 will help me to fully understand the principles regarding the procedures of the research project.

Works Cited

Bunn, Mike. “How to Read Like a Writer.” Writing Spaces, edited by Charlie Lowe and Pavel Zemliansky, 2011, pp. 72-86, writingspaces.org/sites/default/files/bunn–how-to-read.pdf. Accessed 20 Apr. 2018.

Gallop, June. “The Ethics of Reading: Close Encounters.” Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, 2000, pp. 7-17.

Murray, Donald M. “The Maker’s Eye: Revising Your Own Manuscripts.” Language Awareness: Readings for College Writers, edited by Paul Eschholz, Alfred Rosa, and Virginia Clark Virginia Clark, 8th ed., Boston, Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2000, pp. 161-65.