- ll college students face challenges or obstacles to success, but these challenges often vary from one student to next. What are the three biggest challenges that you face as a college student? Devote a body paragraph to each challenge. Explain the challenge in detail, as well as how you are trying to overcome it.
Essay Guidelines, Requirements, and Advice
- Essays must be double-spaced, appear in Times New Roman 12-pt font, and have 1” margins on all sides. [NOTE: If assignment is not properly formatted, it will not be considered complete and will not be graded; if it is never properly formatted, it will receive a zero.]
- Essays must also have a specific title.
- Essays must have at least 800 words, with an introduction, a conclusion, and three well-developed body paragraphs. [Note: 800 words is the minimum required length. Grades will be significantly lowered for essays under the required minimum length.]
- Essays must have a clear thesis statement at the end of the introduction paragraph. Also, body paragraphs should focus on only one major support point (challenge), which should be explicitly stated in the first sentence of the paragraph (topic sentence).
- To support and develop your major support points, provide ample and thorough explanation, as well as detailed examples followed by explanations of how those examples illustrate or relate to the major support points.
- Each body paragraph should end with a concluding sentence that somehow relates back to the topic sentence/major support point, summarizes the paragraph, and/or presents a transition to the next paragraph.
- Essay grades will be based on the thesis, organization, support and development of ideas, insight into the subject, clarity, style, and mechanics (punctuation, grammar, and spelling).
- PROOFREAD your essay; scour it for errors and omissions. One of the most effective ways to make sure that your paper “flows” and is free of careless mistakes is to print it out and read it aloud (hint: trust your ear—if you stumble over parts of your draft when you read it aloud, chances are your reader will, too). This process should be done several times until the draft is flawless.
- DO NOT GOOGLE anything for this assignment. We will cover MLA Documentation soon and how to incorporate sources properly, to avoid plagiarism, etc. Until then, do not use the words or ideas of anyone else; do not search the internet at all; resist the temptation. TurnItIn will detect any material from the internet in your essay not cited. This will result in a failing paper. What’s in your head is good enough for this assignment.
- Avoid second-person (“you, “your,” “you’re”), as well as the words “thing(s)” and “stuff.” [Tip: use the Find option in Word to help you adhere to this requirement.]
- This essay must be submitted as a hard copy in class and electronically as a Word document (doc. or docx.) through TurnItIn on Canvas no later than 9:00am on Wednesday, March 6th. (NOTE: you may submit your draft multiple times so that you can benefit from the feedback on grammar, mechanics, spelling, and so forth that TurnItIn provides. Only the last draft that you submit will be graded.)