Nearly all my essays, I get "Please explain in more detail", and when I do attempt to explain in more detail "Tighten up expression", or generally more along the lines of be more incisive, succinct.

I spoke to my English teacher(I've approached other teachers before this), all she could suggest was, for seen questions write up a good structure and study it, and for unseen, take five minutes to plan it out. She didn't seem to quite understand what I was trying to get help with.

I have a lot of trouble with getting exactly what I mean out onto paper(although I must admit, I find typing a lot better), so I'll try and explain it my rather round about way. When writing under a time limit, I want to get all of what I want to say out as quickly as possible, my expression and grammar really suffers for this(which is pretty bad to start of with). It's usually the case when I go back to read it that I wonder what in the world I thought I was doing.

It's usually that a) I don't finish the essay and don't have time to check(more often than not) or b) have some time afterwards, but can't for the life of me, bring myself to reread and edit it.

My teacher went through my last essay with me this afternoon, and seems to think I have solid insights to the texts we're studying and could be one of the top students, if I can manage to be more succinct and tighten up my expression.

Anyone relate? Any tips or ideas from those English buffs out there :D?

WhatAsaidtoB,

Something that might really help you is to have an outline. Before you start writing your paper, write an outline to help guide you. The structure might keep you on track and help you explain better.

When i was taking English classes and I had to write an essay for a test I tried to figure out what the essay was on and when I studied I wrote an outline. It helped me write the essay faster and with more clarity.

If you are interested in accomodations at school one thing you can do is be able to write essay (tests) on the computer.

best wishes! I hope my suggestion helps!

Courtney

Nearly all my essays, I get "Please explain in more detail", and when I do attempt to explain in more detail "Tighten up expression", or generally more along the lines of be more incisive, succinct.

I spoke to my English teacher(I've approached other teachers before this), all she could suggest was, for seen questions write up a good structure and study it, and for unseen, take five minutes to plan it out. She didn't seem to quite understand what I was trying to get help with.

I have a lot of trouble with getting exactly what I mean out onto paper(although I must admit, I find typing a lot better), so I'll try and explain it my rather round about way. When writing under a time limit, I want to get all of what I want to say out as quickly as possible, my expression and grammar really suffers for this(which is pretty bad to start of with). It's usually the case when I go back to read it that I wonder what in the world I thought I was doing.

It's usually that a) I don't finish the essay and don't have time to check(more often than not) or b) have some time afterwards, but can't for the life of me, bring myself to reread and edit it.

My teacher went through my last essay with me this afternoon, and seems to think I have solid insights to the texts we're studying and could be one of the top students, if I can manage to be more succinct and tighten up my expression.

Anyone relate? Any tips or ideas from those English buffs out there :D?Oh yes do I :P

See, I like english a lot, but the one thing I can't stand about it is essay writing! I also find it very hard to get my ideas from my head to the paper. I had this problem even before I was diagnosed with ADD. But luckily, my 504 plan came with a solution.

I go into a resource room to take my tests untimed; meaning, I can take my time as long as I need to (which usually takes an entire class period, plus maybe about 15 minutes of the next class). When I do my essays, the resource teacher usually helps me; no, not by cheating, she just helps me by reminding me of what I know. For example, if I'm stuck on a certain question, she makes me tell her what I know, so I can use the process of elimination. Ask your guidence counslor about it, because I know it proves VERY helpful.

Best of luck to ya!

Hey, I have some problems similar to you. As a History major in uni, it's tough staying in the page limits.. I tend to write too little when rushed or write too much when trying to explain.

I found that the best thing to do is create an rough outline. Then allocate a certain amount of space for each point

For Example: In a 5-6 page essay (double-spaced), if you have the standard "3 arguments", divide it like so....

1) Introduction: 1/2 a page
2) First Major Argument: 1-1.5 page
3) Second Major Argument: 1-1.5 page
4) Third Major Argument: 1-1.5 page
5) Conclusion: 1/2 page

This way, you have a little reference for when you're writing too much/too little on something.

On occasion where I finished an essay early, I make an appointment with the University's 'Writing Centre'. Most schools have something like it for free where tutors will perfect your essay with you (not usually content though).

If you're in high school, see about meeting with your teacher to discuss the ideas and your writing - they're often understanding if you work ahead.

Hope this helps, and good luck!


C.

Sweetpea -


Book your Maximum Allowable years' or terms' worth of Writing Centre Appt's ASAP.

They fill up super fast there...


-Emma

i MUST get this out:
I have the HARDEST TIME completing essay's! essay's ae my enemy! i finally turned in an essay that was due 5 WEEKS AGO! i think that essay's are counter-productive or are hurtfull or harder for ADDers! (this isnt a one time thing either all my life essay's have been so hard to complete

Writing an essay on something you aren't interested in BITES! But sometimes it is necessary for a grade. What I found that helps is along the lines of what livinginchaos said... Write an outline... But after that... JUST WRITE.

Refer to your outline for structure... and learn about the topic in depth. Then just write the thing. Shoot for at least a page or two more than is required for the essay... then revise it and remove the parts that aren't relevant to the original idea/question. After removing the "fluff", you can then re-word gramatically what you have left and Viola! You've got an essay. Just remember to stick to the original topic and start early on it.

I know it's hard to start on something if you can't break it down into parts... so do so. Write each part separately if you have to... and worry about piecing it together when you finish.

Anywhooo:D Good luck... (yes I realize this is a very old post... I just hope it helps the next Essay Writer that comes along:D:D)

it did help me and will continue to help me Thank you!!!

I'm such a dweeb, saw about the first few replies to this, didn't have time at the time to reply and completely forgot about it. D'oh

Thing is, I did always use an outline, in timed and untimed essays, the problem always was getting my thoughts onto paper exactly as I understood them in my head and in a manner which my teachers could understand XD.

I think it was about the time of my opening post that my medication dose was sorted out and my marks for english went from scraping around sadly in the high 50s low 60s to hanging around in the 70s. Still short of what I felt I was capable of/understood but a whole lot better. Writing things down in a 'straight line' was much easier and I didn't feel the need to spit out everything right then and there.

I was speaking with a friend of mine who writes absolutely beautiful essays and she was shocked at the way I went about them. I'd often be working on more than one paragraph(intro, arguments etc.) at once, and if eg. in exams, we had to write more than one in a certain time frame I was often working on more than one or all of them at the same time. I suspect this is what sapped a lot of coherency and fluidity from my own work(although probably not soul culprit).

I suppose essays really are a very linear way to go about things and really doesn't lend itself to a more global(not really the word I'm looking for here) approach.

It's just not the way I like/tend to think maybe. Things fit together in more of a web I suppose, branching of a linking every which way.

And I failed english on a technicality, got 52%(where the hell that came from after I'd been improving I don't know, our school is not known for marking lightly either) and got scaled down to 47%. I thought it was ****ing hilarious XD.

Passed the Stat test to prove English competency to the uni I'll be attending, so no biggie.

Writing essays is really the one thing that I haven't figured out how to work around yet. :confused: I really think this is one place we can't do much about unless we somehow are able to convince our teachers for some extra time. I never really thought about essays as being linear vs. global because the purpose is to usually to test your global knowledge of a subject. The thing we ADDers find particularly hard is getting our global ideas transcribed to paper in a linear fashion. If you haven't already, you could try some kind of web to get started. I personally find it much easier to transcribe my ideas to a web and then to translate THAT to an essay, but it can still be a tedious and difficult process.