ENG 101 Real examples and the pattern

Where the numbers on this page come from

The first three blocks below are real. The course files of a student who took ENG 101 were opened: the written task they submitted, the essay they submitted, and the feedback the instructor wrote on Moodle. The texts were read again and counted; the numbers are measurements, not estimates.

The instructor's name, the section, the dates and the student number were removed. What is left is the work itself: what got written, what got said, what got lost.

The essay that was submitted: as measured

876wordstitle and citation excluded, Essay 1 final draft

5paragraphsintroduction, three body paragraphs, conclusion

0in text citationsnot a single parenthesis

0Works Cited linesno works cited list was ever added

17 / 45passive sentencesabout 38% of the sentences are built in the passive

0%Turnitin similaritynothing wrong on the plagiarism side, the points were lost on citation

The written task submitted the same term

Part A: minimum asked was 150 words, written129

The task sheet asked for 150-250 words for Part A. Coming in under the limit means a zero on the task requirements item according to the criteria sheet.

Part B first argument: 200+ asked, written125

200 words were asked for each of the two arguments separately.

Part B second argument: 200+ asked, written139

393 words in total. That fits the total range the syllabus gives (300-550) but not the per part numbers on the task sheet. When the two documents contradict, the task sheet is binding.

The grade it got89

Even though all three parts were under the limit. So the rule is written down but enforcing it is up to the instructor; do not assume it will not bite.

How many hours late the outline went in31

Uploaded one day and seven hours late. The outline is not graded but it is a precondition for a graded submission.

How many hours late the first draft went in5

Exactly 4 hours 47 minutes. Even a few hours late counts as a full day, so the daily penalty kicks in right here.

What the instructor wrote, and what it turned into

One paragraph, one argument. If you have to say “and” when you summarize the paragraph in a single sentence, there are two paragraphs there.

taslak

Hsun Tzu defends the argument that source of why we want to be good person is related to our evil nature. His desires make him greedy. Hence, it can explain why a man tend to be greedy when he sees an opportunity to get more.

final

Man's desire makes him someone who does not obey rules.

The note that came back on the first paragraph of the written task: “Critical response - you have a mixture of arguments here in the first paragraph, be careful you don't create disconnection.” In the essay written the same term, the same idea came down to a topic sentence with a single claim.

A thesis does not summarize the text. It picks one of two accounts and says why.

taslak

In extracted text, Hsun Tzu defends that man do not possess good nature and what he makes goodness must be associated with his effort and conscious activity.

final

Hsün Tzu's “Man's Nature is Evil” is considered more persuasive than Mencius's opinion in terms of explaining what makes us evil, why an instructor is needed, and how goodness can be achieved.

Both are sentences the same student wrote about the same text in the same term. The first reports what the writer said, the second picks one of two accounts and names three reasons.

“The writer” is an anonymous attribution. Write the author's name, put the page in parentheses, and give the matching entry in the list.

taslak

The tendency to violate social norms is declared by the writer to be prevalent among humans due to these reasons.

final

Hsün Tzu argues that people tend to violate social norms for these reasons (Hsün Tzu ___). Put the page from your own copy inside the parentheses.

The corrected version is our suggestion, not the instructor's note. In the essay that was submitted, “the writer” appears three times and there is not a single parenthesis; both the format item on the criteria sheet and the “distinguish whose idea it is” item are looking for exactly this.

If the subject of the verb is the writer, make the writer the subject. Use the passive when the subject really does not matter.

taslak

Indulging in his intrinsic nature, leading to bad behavior, is noted by Hsün Tzu.

final

Hsün Tzu notes that indulging in this nature leads to bad behavior.

In the same essay, 17 of 45 sentences are built in the passive. The passive gets used to look academic, but the rubric wants the active voice unless there is a reason, and a passive sentence often deletes who is making the claim.

Check every sentence for a subject. Check every countable singular noun for an article.

taslak

when give some candy to children, all children carefully monitor other friends' share

final

when children are given candy, each one watches the others' share

From the same task. Two things drop out on the way over from Turkish: the subject and the article. When a sentence is thought in Turkish and written in English, those two are what get lost most often.

From a topic to a thesis, from there to an outline: ten steps

011. Turn the topic into a questionA topic is the name of an area, a question is a demand for an answer. Start writing with a topic and the essay becomes description; start with a question and it becomes an argument. The way to narrow a topic is to find a question whose answer could go two different ways. · Far too broad: “What is evil?”, that is a semester of course material, not an essay question. · Still broad: “Why do people do evil?”, the answer sits in twenty separate literatures. · A working question: “Is what best explains ordinary people taking part in violence the situation they are in, or their personality traits?” Check: can your question be given two different defensible answers? If not, it is not a question, it is a request for information.
022. Find exactly where the texts part companyUse the text map for this job. Write each text's main claim in one sentence, then put the two side by side and mark the point where they give different accounts of the same fact. The thesis is born at that point; do not look for it anywhere else. · Zimbardo: role and situational pressure determine behavior more strongly than personality does. · Browning: men in the same battalion in the same situation behaved differently, some took part, some avoided it, some volunteered. · Where they part: does the situation determine behavior, or does it only raise the probability of it? Those are two very different claims, and both get defended with the same data. Check: is the point you marked a disagreement about a fact, or two interpretations of the same fact? The second is better; you cannot settle disagreements about facts in 900 words.
033. Write your first attempts at a thesis and say why they failThe first thesis is almost always bad, and you cannot see that without writing it. Write three attempts and test each against the program's six criteria: is it a sentence, does it take a side, can it be objected to, is it narrow, does it have one point, is it specific? · Attempt 1: “In this essay I will compare situational and character based accounts.”, Fails: it takes no side, it is a programme announcement. · Attempt 2: “The situation matters more than character.”, Fails: “matters more” cannot be measured; more by what, on which criterion? · Attempt 3: “People are affected both by the situation and by character.”, Fails: nobody would object, so it is not a claim. Check: if you cannot say “no, the opposite” to any of the three attempts, none of them is a thesis.
044. Build the working thesis together with the concessionUse the balanced thesis pattern the assignment sheet gives you: “Even if X is right on this point, Y's account is more defensible because of A and B.” Once the concession is inside the thesis, the counterargument stops being a patch added later. · Working thesis: “Even though Zimbardo's situational account correctly shows how participation becomes easier, the variety of behavior that appeared under the same pressure inside Browning's battalion shows that the situation does not determine behavior; the situational account therefore works not on its own but inside an account that also includes differences in character.” Check: does the thesis contain a concession, a claim and a reason? Do the key words of the question (“account”, “situation”, “character”) appear in the thesis?
055. Test your own thesis against the hardest objectionDraw a two column table. Your own reasons in the left column, the best answer the other side would give to that reason in the right one. If a row is left in the right column that you cannot answer, narrow your thesis to fit that row; that is not defeat, it is how you save the thesis. · My reason: different behavior in the same situation → the situation is not determining. · The best objection: the variety of behavior may come not from personality but from the situation being perceived differently from person to person. · My answer: if that objection is right, the concept of “situation” becomes untestable, because every outcome can then be explained by the situation. Losing testability shows the scope of the account, not its strength. · The narrowing made in the thesis: the claim is no longer “the situation does not matter” but “the situation is not sufficient on its own”. Check: if the other side read your objection, would they say “yes, that is my objection”? If not, you built a straw man.
066. Turn the reasons in your thesis into topic sentencesEvery reason in the thesis becomes a body paragraph. Once you have written the topic sentences, line them up and read them in order: does the defense of your thesis come out? If not, either the thesis or the order is wrong. · TS 1: Zimbardo's experiment supports the situational account to the extent that it showed a role changing behavior quickly. · TS 2: The variety of behavior in Browning's battalion, however, shows that the same situation does not produce the same outcome. · TS 3: Arendt's “banality” frame can close that gap, because it argues that the perpetrator can be reduced neither to a personality disorder nor to situational pressure. · TS 4 (counterargument): Defenders of the situational account put the variety down to differences in perception; that answer does not weaken the thesis, it narrows its scope. Check: when you read the four sentences one after the other, does the argument move forward, or is the same thing said four times?
077. Fill in the template in note form, do not write sentencesThe planning template's rule is clear: no full sentences, notes, mostly your own words, quotation kept to a minimum, author name and page number present. The skeleton below follows those rules; write prose into it and it stops being an outline and becomes a draft, and then it is no use to you in class. · Introduction, background: the two traditions of explanation; which texts; the exact place of the disagreement. Working thesis (above). · Body 1, TS 1. Sub arg. 1: role assignment + rapid behavior change (Zimbardo, p. ___). Sub arg. 2: the effect of institutional approval (Milgram, p. ___). Real life example: ___ · Body 2, TS 2. Sub arg. 1: three different behavior patterns in the same battalion (Browning, p. ___). Sub arg. 2: those who avoided it were not punished → the pressure was not as absolute as assumed (Browning, p. ___). · Body 3, TS 3. Sub arg. 1: the “ordinariness” of the perpetrator (Arendt, p. ___). Sub arg. 2: a critique of the concept of character itself (Doris, p. ___). · Body 4, TS 4 (counterargument + refutation). Objection: ___ . Answer: the loss of testability. The concession sentence will be tied back to the thesis with “however”. · Conclusion, rebuild the thesis in new words; “so what?”: if this is true, prevention policy targets institutional mechanisms of approval rather than individuals. No new information. Check: every “p. ___” you leave blank in the template is five minutes you will lose in class. Fill them in before you walk in.
088. Mark where the evidence is nowUnder every sub argument write exactly where the evidence is: the page, the paragraph, and if you are quoting, its first three words. The assignment wants two kinds of evidence, from the text and from real life, so mark them separately and then see at a glance which one is missing. · From the text: Browning, p. ___, “...” (three words is enough to find it). · From real life: your own observation or a widely known event. Common knowledge needs no citation; a claim that belongs to a source does. · What is missing: Body 3 has no real life example → either find one or shorten the paragraph. Check: how many quotations are there? More than one per page is too many; turn some into paraphrase.
099. What changes from the first draft to the finalThe first draft is written in class, and after your instructor's written feedback arrives a serious revision is expected. The revision has to be structural, not cosmetic. While reading the feedback, ask yourself three questions: which paragraph does not answer the question, which piece of evidence has been left alone, which claim has no premise. · Typical first draft problem: two arguments got mixed in the introduction → the introduction gets cut back to context plus thesis. · Typical second problem: body 1 summarizes the text instead of interpreting it → two sentences of analysis behind every quotation. · Typical third problem: not a single parenthesis → all in text citations and the Works Cited get added. · At submission, the first draft with your instructor's notes goes in alongside the final draft; do not throw that sheet away. Check: can you point to a structural change in the final draft? If you cannot, no revision happened.
1010. Time budgetNot all ten of these steps happen in class; what happens in class is only the writing. The course's ECTS table allows two hours of homework a week, so there is a budget for this work. Set up the split in advance. · Reading the text + text map: 2-3 hours, at least a week before the writing day. · Thesis attempts + the counterargument table: 1 hour. · Filling in the outline in note form: 1 hour, before the tutorial. · The tutorial: 15-20 minutes, and if you go in prepared, the next draft gets built right there. · Writing in class: three blocks. The final revision: 2-3 hours. · PDF and upload: two hours before the deadline. Check: a week before the writing day, do you have the thesis, the outline and the locations of your evidence in hand? If not, it is not a plan, it is a wish.

The paragraph skeleton: five steps

Topic sentence

The claim of this paragraph. It has to be a part of the thesis, not a topic heading. “Xunzi talks about education” is a topic heading; “Xunzi's emphasis on education explains the fragility of moral behavior in a way Mencius cannot” is a claim. Its third function is the least known and the most useful: it controls the subject of the paragraph, and every sentence that steps outside that boundary gets thrown out.

the paragraph's own small thesis

Sub argument

The sentence that opens the claim up. This is where you set where the paragraph is going.

opens the claim up one step

Evidence

A quotation, paraphrase or summary from the text, with the page and paragraph number. The assignment wants two kinds of evidence: from the text and from real life. Skipping one is common; with evidence from the text but no real life example the answer stays abstract, and the other way around the essay comes loose from the text.

with its location noted

Analysis

Why the evidence supports the claim. The measure is simple: after every quotation at least two sentences should be yours, and in those two sentences do not repeat the words of the quotation, say what it does.

the most skipped step

Tying back

The closing sentence. On length: body paragraphs run at least five to seven sentences. A three sentence paragraph has skipped two of the five steps above; a paragraph filling a page is almost always two paragraphs.

ties the paragraph back to the thesis

Putting evidence in is not analyzing it

Two sentences after every piece of evidence: why the evidence supports the claim, and how this paragraph ties back to the thesis.

taslak

The writer says people are selfish by nature. Education is also important.

final

The writer says people are selfish by nature. That claim is what makes his emphasis on education necessary: if selfishness is the starting state, the source of moral behavior can only be an order imposed from outside. In Mencius's account education does not do the same job, because there it is feeding a tendency that already exists.

In the first one a quotation or summary gets dropped in and the next sentence moves to a new idea. The reader is expected to do the interpreting on your behalf, and that is where the Support score goes.

Order and flow

The order of the paragraphs cannot be random. Usable arrangements: most to least important or the reverse, general to specific or the reverse, chronological order, cause and effect, comparison.
Which one you pick does not matter, that you picked one does. The rubric has a separate item for “develop ideas in a logical order”.
One practical rule for flow: what is given comes before what is new. The first sentence of a paragraph should connect to the information the reader brings from the previous paragraph, and the new term should land at the end of the sentence.
The conclusion is not a summary: rebuild the thesis in different words, briefly recall the main points if needed, then add a reasonable suggestion or a closing thought. No new information in the conclusion.
Ask the conclusion the “so what?” question: if your thesis is true, what changes? Answering that question stops the conclusion from being a repeat of the thesis.

Revision order, top down

Order	What gets checked	What it costs
1	Does the thesis answer the question asked?	A day
2	Do the topic sentences defend the thesis? Copy them one under the other and read them in order	Half a day
3	Is there one argument per paragraph?	A few hours
4	Has every piece of evidence been analyzed, or has it been left alone?	A few hours
5	Is there a counterargument, and is it the other side at its best?	An hour
6	Are the citations complete, do they match the Works Cited?	Half an hour
7	Language and academic tone	Half an hour
8	Format: double spacing, Times New Roman 12, page numbers	Ten minutes

Extra words are not a style choice

The program's material on concision carries this data: when 182 senior executives, senior scientists and project managers were asked to assess the writing they read, all of them complained about murky language in general. The more specific complaints: not tying the information to the actual issue, 169 people; unnecessary length, 164; not emphasizing the important points, 163.

The conclusion the material draws: inexperienced writers think ornate, long language looks professional, and the evidence says the opposite. Short, direct, plain language raises the impression of expertise.

Extra word hunt: mechanical fixes

effect a reduction in → reduce
come to the conclusion that → conclude
give an explanation of → explain
do an analysis of → analyse
make a recommendation that → recommend
at this point in time → now
on account of the fact that → because
there are many farmers in the area who are planning to attend → many area farmers plan to attend

Hedging: set the certainty by your evidence

Academic writing is assumed to mean speaking with certainty, and the program's material says the opposite. In scientific articles, hedging words appear at a rate of roughly 1 in every 100 words. Their job is to separate the fact from the claim: if the evidence you have does not carry a stronger sentence, weakening the sentence is not a flaw, it is accuracy.

The tools: modal verbs (may, might, can, could, would), evaluative verbs (seem, appear, suggest, tend to, indicate), probability adjectives (possible, likely, unlikely), approximators (approximately, generally, in most cases) and if-clauses.

It works the other way too: four hedges stacked up (“it would seem somewhat unlikely that”) makes the sentence meaningless. One hedge per claim.

Academic tone check

No “in my opinion”, “I think”, “because I feel”. The thesis is already your view, and saying so weakens the claim.
No generic “you”, no editorial “we”. Those two are the most frequently flagged on the language item.
No rhetorical questions. A paragraph that ends with a question is a paragraph without an answer.
No “etc.”, no “and so on”. Either complete the list or shorten it.
Do not start a sentence with and / but / so.
Do not write text about the text: delete phrases that narrate your own process, like “in this sentence”, “in the quotation above”, “as a result I found that”.
Avoid vague quantities: “some reasons”, “a few ideas”, “important issues”. How many, which ones, why, say it.
Do not praise or scold the source. Evaluate it and give your reason.
No exaggeration, idioms, proverbs or clichés: “everyone knows that”, “throughout history”, “in today's world”.
Looking for these takes five minutes: Ctrl+F for we, our, us, you, I think, in my opinion, etc. and the question mark.

Five patterns that slip from Turkish into English

Pattern	The problem	What is right
mention	It means to touch on something in passing	Marx and Engels do not “mention” communism; what you mean is discuss or state
because	A conjunction, not a conjunctive adverb	It cannot be a sentence on its own; starting with “Because ...” is only right when the sentence has two parts
also	Weak at the start of a sentence	Before the verb or after the first auxiliary: The government are also considering ...
on the other hand / on the contrary	The two are not the same thing	The first compares two different things, the second says the opposite of what the previous sentence negated. If you are not sure, do not use on the contrary
research / information / data / media	The first two are uncountable	There is no researches and no informations. Data and media are plural, and a television is a medium

The last twenty minutes

Read the text out loud. Split the sentence where your breath runs out. Copy the first sentence of every paragraph to one side and compare them with your thesis. Then convert the file to PDF, download it, open it, check it.

In the real file above, none of the points lost had anything to do with writing ability: there were no citations at all, “the writer” stood in for the author's name, and two submissions went in late. All three take half an hour to fix.