Writing is an important part of academic life, and every student encounters the need to develop new effective writing habits to be successful. There are many challenges associated with essay writing, such as having trouble with finding a suitable research topic and formulating the thesis or locating relevant evidence to support or disprove the argument (“How to write a research paper in history/finding sources,” 2020). Thus, the material of the lecture has shown to be essential for helping to delve deeper into the process of writing and encouraging to think outside the books. Important points covered include brainstorming, freewriting, mapping, questioning, writing assertions, visualizing, researching, as well as using patterns of development. All of these points are highly relevant to the process of writing, although I found the importance of evidence the most helpful point.
Evidence is expected to be relevant, specific, varied, representative, accurate, as well as sufficient to persuade readers. Thus, in an essay about small dogs being the best pets, one cannot provide evidence as to the benefits of having small birds. I have found the information provided about offering relevant evidence to support the thesis the most helpful because of the same mistake made in my essays. Often straying from the main thesis, I would find some interesting although irrelevant pieces of information and include them in the essay as a part of the reasoning. These would range from expert opinions from professionals from a different subject area to anecdotal examples that may not be accurate to serve as reliable evidence. Evidence-seeking can often be daunting, especially given the mixed array of sources available online, with some of them being irreputable and confusing.
References
How to write a research paper in history/finding sources. (2020). Web.