5 Useful Exercises to Challenge Yourself in Academic Writing

Academic writing can be tough, and even tougher for those who are not naturally predisposed to it. However, if you are not talented at it doesn’t mean you cannot be good at it – practice can solve any problem. And while the advice to write as much as possible is good enough, there are exercises that can maximize your returns. 1.  Setting a Time Limit Very often you have to write an essay in a very limited amount of time, and some people tend to be paralyzed in such situations. Solution is simple: pick a topic for your essay and give yourself very little time to complete it. Exactly how little may vary depending on your skills: at first it may be a couple of hours, but the exercise wouldn’t be exercise if you don’t make progress. Give yourself less time whenever you repeat the exercise. This will teach you to think on your feet and do away with wordiness. 2.  Setting a Word Limit It can be combined with the previous exercise or used separately. Academic assignments are usually limited in size, although this limit is generally reasonable. So, in order to improve your writing skills you can make it unreasonable. What about exploring a complex topic in a hundred words? When each word counts, you have to put as much thought behind them as possible. 3.  Freewriting We are usually taught to concentrate more on planning than actual writing, and in most cases it is correct. However, sometimes it leads to your being simply afraid of starting: everything is planned, you know which part fits where, but cannot make yourself write the first word. Freewriting is aimed at, well, freeing your writing abilities. The exercise is as follows: you simply write down everything that enters your head, either for a certain period of time or within a word limit. No other limitations, no plans, just writing. 4.  Use an Arbitrary Limitation Limitation leads to creativity, and you may explore and exploit this tendency of human nature. For example, write an essay using only one-syllable words, or only present-tense verbs, or 2nd person, or open a dictionary ten times, select ten words at random and write a meaningful text featuring all of them. Or something else entirely – once you start practicing this exercise you will be surprised at your own bursts of creativity. 5.  Write Down Plans Freewriting is good to free yourself from limitations of planning, but a lot of us don’t know how to plan properly in the first place. And a good plan may save you in a tight spot. That is why it is a good idea to write plans without actually writing anything based on them. Thus you train your abilities to organize thoughts, make logical conclusions and use supporting evidence. When all is said and done, writing as much as possible is still the best way to improve your skills – using proper exercises can accelerate the process, but effort is always the basis of everything.

The Critical Components of Human Resources - 2789 Words

The Critical Components of Human Resources Richard Richison BUS303: Human Resources Management Professor Gallagher May 31, 2010 Human Resource Management (HMR) is built upon many different areas. The way each organization allocates resources for each area is different. Since every organization is different and has different requirements, not every HRM process is going to be the same. The areas this paper will focused on are Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) and the Commission (EEOC) which governs the EEO regulation, human resource planning, recruitment, and selection, compensation and benefits, safety and health, employee and labor relations, and human resources development. Even though each industry and organization is†¦show more content†¦The big question today is whether or not women and minorities still require special treatment. 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Below is a cha rt of answers for the question posed by Joe Messerli (Messerli, 2010). |Yes |No | |Affirmative action leads to reverse discrimination. |Diversity is desirable and won t always occur if left to chance. | |Affirmative action lowers standards of accountability needed to |Students starting at a disadvantage need a boost. | |push students or employees to perform better. |Affirmative action draws people to areas of study and work they | |Students admitted on this basis are often ill-equipped to handle |may never consider otherwise. | |the schools to which they ve been admitted. |Some stereotypes may never be broken without affirmative action. | |It would help lead a truly color-blind society. |Affirmative action is needed to compensateShow MoreRelatedThe Human Resources Department Is A Critical Component Of The Health Care Workforce1478 Words   |  6 PagesDisability Discrimination in Health Care The Human Resources Department is a critical component in the health care workforce. 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On Dumpster Diving Essay Free Essays

In the essay on Dumpster Diving we read about Lars Eighner Who is a scavenger in the sense that he searches dumpsters for leftover items that can be of aid to him to enable him to eat or to have clothing to wear. In this essay we see numerous rhetorical approaches to grab the reader’s attention in as he conveys a story and a lifestyle that sheds light to an unknown profession. We immediately read about how knowledgeable and passionate the author is about this subject as he comes out almost challenging the Marriam-Webster dictionary on if the word Dumpster should be capitalized or not. We will write a custom essay sample on On Dumpster Diving Essay or any similar topic only for you Order Now When I read Mr.  Eighner, someone who scavenged for food on a daily basis, and yet at the same time was able to challenge the most reputable dictionary I was confident in my choice for my paper His expertise was un-paralleled in that he could dictate exactly how to correctly and safely dumpster dive, and yet at the same time make you feel as if you were not reading an essay from someone who would have these types of personal experiences. In his writing he writes long enough on how to correctly evaluate the food found in dumpsters I felt as though if I were to be put on the streets tomorrow I would know what to do. He says that there are three principles to eating out of a Dumpster. He dictates that the first one is to use the senses and common sense to assess the condition of the found materials the second is to know the Dumpsters of a given area and lastly to answer the question of â€Å"why was it discarded? † (par. 7). Here I see his intelligence quite vast as he is able to make up three tentative rules on Dumpster diving from personal experience. Later on we see him discuss how to tell if canned food was good to eat. Most people assume that if it is still in a can it is good to eat, but this is not the case. We writes that canned foods should have some sort of a vacuum and that they should not be bulging, punctured, dented or rusty (par. 10). This display of knowledge and intelligence is unrivaled and further proves his expertise. Later on he continues to talk about food safety in which he says that dried food is usually the safest, if there is no visible contamination on it (par. 12). His intelligence is once again shown when in the next paragraph he discusses what can be pared away in a vegetable and at what point it becomes too rotten to eat. He articulates that leafy vegetables are usually contaminated by liquids and hard to wash. In these sentences about food safety we are shown a clear and well-articulated rudimentary â€Å"textbook† on how to evaluate foods that may be available to eat and whether or not it is safe to eat. But Lars Eighner does not stop here. After moving on from food safety we see his expertise in his cunning ability to locate good and credible dumpsters, such as one behind a pizza parlor. We then read into why so many pizzas go to waste and are given enough factual evidence that we nearly forget we are reading this essay from someone who hasn’t even worked in the particular restaurant, yet knew very much about it (par.  18). In the next paragraph I read something that would not register to the average reader, or one who might have not studied the text. He said that he had never placed a bogus order to the pizza parlor to receive a free pizza (par. 13). After reading over this a couple of times it leaned me two different thoughts, one was that he was an honest person and the other that he trusted in his expertise and intelligence so much that he did not have to do something like that to get his next meal. This put a lot of confidence in me that if I was thrown out on the streets with only this piece of writing I would be able to make him like Mr. Eighner. This essay or homemade textbook did not stop at food safety though. We are then informed about the different times of the year when people are more wasteful and likely to throw perfectly good food out. Lars Eighner shares that right after college breaks students are more likely to just throw everything out of the fridge in an attempt to become more clean and organized, which lends him some very good resources. (par.  20) He continues on saying that when the parents or dads come to visit their kids they tend to throw everything out, including spirits, porn and drugs. Students are many times more likely to be wasteful as they have a parent or adult pays for nearly every expense, so why would they care? With every paragraph in this essay we are further convinced of Mr. Eighners intellectual superiority when it comes to eating out of a dumpster. He knows where to find the best dumpsters, what times are most successful to scavenge and finally what safety precautions should be taken before eating. How to cite On Dumpster Diving Essay, Essays