The GED Language Arts,Writing Exam - Writing an Effective Essay

On Part II of the GED Language Arts, Writing Test, you will be asked to write a short essay about ageneral topic, such as whether there is too much violence on television or what makes a

On Part II of the GED Language Arts, Writing Test, you will be asked to write a short essay about a

general topic, such as whether there is too much violence on television or what makes a good par-ent You will have 45 minutes to demonstrate how effectively you can express your ideas in writing

A strong GED essay will have these five key elements:

1 Response to prompt (Does your essay present a well-developed main idea and a focus that responds to

the assigned prompt?)

2 Organization (Have you presented your ideas and support in a logical order?)

3 Development and details (Have you explained your ideas?)

4 Conventions of EAE (Have you followed the conventions of Edited American English?)

5 Word choice (Is the word choice accurate, diverse, and appropriate?)

As a general guide, you will need to write about four or five paragraphs to have a sufficiently developed essay That includes an introductory paragraph that states your main idea, two or three paragraphs developing and sup-porting that main idea, and a brief concluding paragraph Your essay should be approximately 250 to 300 words

Writing an Effective Essay

PART II of the GED Language Arts, Writing Test has only one

ques-tion—an essay prompt But this test is just as important as Part I, and you must pass the essay test to pass the writing exam This chapter will teach you how to write an effective essay for the GED You will learn six steps to take during an essay exam, including how to brain-storm and organize ideas and how to write with style

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 G e n e r a l W r i t i n g S t r a t e g i e s

To do well on the essay exam, you need to have a solid

grasp of general writing strategies These strategies are

those basic techniques writers use to develop a readable

and engaging text They include:

■ writing in a way that is appropriate for audience

and purpose

■ providing appropriate and sufficient support

■ crafting effective introductions and conclusions

■ using effective transitions

■ revising for more effective writing

Audience and Purpose

At its core, effective writing has a constant awareness of

and attention to audience and purpose Good writers are

always thinking about their readers: Who are they? What

do they know about the subject? What prejudices or

pre-conceived notions might they have? What will keep their

attention?

Good writers are also always thinking about purpose

Is their goal to teach a lesson? Provide information?

Entertain? Answer a question? Convince or persuade?

WRITING FOR YOUR AUDIENCE

Knowing your audience will help you make a couple of

key writing decisions First, it helps you determine your

level of formality Will you use slang or very formal

lan-guage? It depends upon your relationship with your

reader On the GED, you will be expected to write for a

general audience That is, you should assume your

read-ers are “everyday” people with a wide variety of interests

and backgrounds You will need an appropriate level of

formality for this audience Treat your readers with

respect, but do not put them off by sounding too formal

or pretentious Avoid slang (too informal) or jargon

(technical or specialized language) Let your writing be

natural without being too informal

Your audience also determines the level of detail and

specificity in your essay Because you are writing for a

gen-eral audience and not friends, you cannot assume that

readers know the context of your ideas and experiences

For example, if you are arguing that Internet sites should

be censored, do not assume that readers have seen the

kind of sites you are talking about—or even that they

have been on the Internet You will need to briefly

describe those sites to give your readers sufficient context

As important as knowing whom you are writing for is

knowing why you are writing What is the goal of your

essay? What are you hoping to convey through your writ-ing? The more clearly you can articulate your purpose while you outline your essay, the more effective your writing and revising states will be

Here are some verbs you might find helpful for describing your purpose:

prove convince demonstrate compare contrast review inform summarize propose

Of course, your specific goals will be guided by the prompt you receive on the GED In a narrative essay, for example, your main purpose will be to describe In a per-suasive essay, your main purpose will be to convince In

an expository essay, you may aim to inform, compare, propose, or explain, depending upon your topic

As you think about how to write your essay, think about how you would fill in the blank in the following sentence:

Beginnings, Middles, and Ends

As you know, essays have three distinct parts:

■ beginning (introduction)

■ middle (body)

■ end (conclusion)

You will be expected to have all three parts in your GED essay

First impressions count, and that’s why introductions are

so important in writing A good introduction:

1 indicates what the essay is about (its topic) and

what the writer is going to say about the topic (its

main idea)

2 grabs the reader’s attention.

3 establishes the tone of the passage.

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Techniques to grab attention include opening with:

■ a question

■ a quotation

■ a surprising fact or statement

■ an imaginary situation or scenario

■ an anecdote

■ interesting background information

■ a new twist on a familiar phrase

For example, a more attention-grabbing introduction

to the Batman passage in the pretest might be something

like the following:

Pow! Bam! Zap! Batman triumphs again, saving

the citizens of Gotham City from evil.

This opening plays upon a convention of comic strips

and the Batman television series And because it is

unique and action-filled, it generates interest and

excite-ment in the reader

Conclusions, too, should be powerful After all, people

tend to remember most what comes first and last, and

the final words have the power to ring in readers’ ears for

a long time afterward A good conclusion will:

1 restate the main idea.

2 provide a sense of closure (not “open a new can

of worms” by introducing a new topic)

3 arouse readers’ emotions to make the ending and

main idea memorable

The Batman text, again, provides a good example

In Batman, Kane gave us an image of our own

superhero potential.

This concluding sentence sums up what makes Batman

so popular, rounding out the passage in a way that makes

readers think about their own similarities to Batman and

what sort of superheroes they could be

Many of the same introductory techniques can be used to help make conclusions memorable:

■ a quotation

■ a question

■ an anecdote

■ a prediction

■ a solution or recommendation

■ a call to action

For example, the conclusion to an essay about a healthy diet might end with a call to action:

Take a good, long look in your refrigerator and pantry What unhealthy foods call your icebox and cabinets their home? Find them, get rid of them, and stock up on foods that will help you live a longer, healthier life.

 E f f e c t i v e E s s a y s a n d

t h e W r i t i n g P r o c e s s

Experienced writers know that good writing doesn’t hap-pen all at once Rather, it develops in stages That’s

because writing is a process, not just a product And it’s

difficult to get a good product without going through each step in the writing process

The writing process can be divided into three steps:

1 planning

2 drafting

3 revising and editing

When you are under pressure to write a winning essay

in just 45 minutes, you may be tempted to skip these

steps and just write your essay in one shot You may end

up with a successful essay with this approach But your chances of doing well on the GED Writing Test—or, on any writing task—will increase dramatically if you take the time to work through each step Even though you only have 45 minutes, the ten minutes you spend plan-ning and proofreading your essay will be time well spent

In fact, for essay exams, the planning stage is so impor-tant that it has been divided into six separate steps in the following section

How to Divide Your Time

on an Essay Exam

When your time is limited, how long should you

spend on each step in the writing process?

On an essay exam, use this general rule for

dividing your time:

41of the time: planning

21of the time: writing

41of the time: revising and editing

Your 45 minutes on the GED can be divided as

follows:

10 minutes planning

25 minutes writing

10 minutes revising and editing

 S i x S t e p s t o a S t r o n g E s s a y

These six steps will help you write a strong, effective essay

on the GED

Step 1: Understand the Writing

Prompt

Before you can begin to plan your essay, you need to be

sure you understand the kind of essay you need to write

As noted earlier, it is essential that you respond

accu-rately to the writing prompt you are given on the exam

If you write about a different topic, you will not receive

credit for your essay It’s therefore critical to understand

exactly what the prompt is asking you to do

Earlier in this section, we divided the essay prompts

into three types: narrative, persuasive, and expository

How do you know which kind of essay the prompt is

ask-ing for? Each prompt will have key words that can help

you understand what to do These key words include

terms such as:

tell describe identify explain

Notice, for example, the underlined key words in the two prompts below:

The Internet includes many websites with images and content that are inappropriate for children Other sites on the Internet promote violence or intolerance against certain groups of people Should websites like these be censored?

In your essay, state your position on this issue and explain why you take that position Use your personal observations, experiences, and knowledge to support your essay

Sometimes, events take an unexpected turn and things turn out differently than we imagined Tell about a time when something unexpected happened to you In your essay, describe what was supposed to happen and how things actu-ally turned out Use supporting details through-out your essay

You are on your way to a successful essay if:

1 You understand what kind of essay to write:

narrative (tell a story), persuasive (make an argu-ment), or expository (explain an idea or respond

to a situation or scenario)

2 You follow the directions exactly and directly answer the questions in the prompt In the first

example, you must state your position on the issue raised in the prompt—censorship of cer-tain types of Internet sites In the second exam-ple, you must tell a story about a specific kind of experience—a time when something unexpected happened

Step 2: Formulate a Clear Thesis

Before you begin to write, you need to decide what you are going to write about Once you are sure you under-stand the prompt, how will you answer its question? Your answer will form the core of your essay It will be the main idea that controls everything you write and deter-mine the kind of support you will provide In other words, your answer to the question in the prompt is your

thesis—your main idea It is the “argument” that you are

going to make and the idea you need to support

A thesis does not just repeat or paraphrase the ques-tion or prompt It does not simply make general

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ments about the topic or state how others might respond

to the question A good thesis takes a clear, personal

posi-tion For example, look again at the following prompt:

Our relationships with our neighbors are very

important Sometimes, these relationships are

the source of great joy in our lives; other times,

they can be the source of great trouble In your

opinion, what makes a good neighbor? In your

essay, identify the characteristics of a good

neighbor and explain why these characteristics

are important for people living side by side Use

your personal observations, experiences, and

knowledge to support your essay

The following sentences are not thesis statements

(they do not answer the question)

■ There are all kinds of neighbors

■ What makes a good neighbor?

■ There are many characteristics of a good

neighbor

These, however, are thesis statements They respond

directly to the question

■ Good neighbors are helpful and kind

■ The best kind of neighbors help when asked and

otherwise mind their own business

■ Good neighbors are friendly, helpful, and

respect-ful of boundaries

Step 3: Brainstorm Support for

Your Thesis

Once you have decided how to answer the question(s) in

the prompt, decide how you will support your answer.

On your piece of scrap paper, list at least three to five

rea-sons, examples, or specific details to support your thesis

or events to develop your story

Because you are still in the planning stage, write down

whatever comes to mind You don’t have to include

everything you list in your essay And the more ideas you

put down, the more freedom you will have to pick the

best (strongest) support for your thesis

For example, here’s how you might brainstorm sup-port for the previous prompt:

Thesis: Good neighbors are friendly, helpful, and respectful of boundaries

Why?

Friendly neighbors are pleasant to have around, make it nice to live where you live

Helpful is important—know you can count on them for small favors, when you are in need Need to respect boundaries, not take what

is yours, not get too involved in your life—

otherwise, they will not be welcome

Examples:

Friendly—my neighbor Selma and her family— always saying hello, often chatting, cookies at Christmas

Helpful—lending tools to Dad, borrowing sugar etc., babysitting

Respecting boundaries—don’t just walk in, don’t be nosy; they’re your neighbors, not your family

Listing is just one brainstorming strategy You can also

map your ideas This is especially effective if you are a

visual learner, as shown on the map on the following page

Freewriting

If you are totally stuck and can’t think of how to answer your question or how to support your

thesis, try freewriting This brainstorming tech-nique is what it says—free writing Write down

whatever comes to mind about the question or topic Don’t worry about grammar or structure

Write in your own language if you like Just

write If you keep your hands moving for even

two or three minutes, you are bound to come

up with some good ideas

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a garden

Accepting pac

Mind own bu

Step 4: Create a Detailed Outline

The next step is your opportunity to make sure the essay

you write is both well organized and well developed By

creating a detailed outline, you can:

■ put your ideas in a logical, effective order

■ fill in any gaps in your support

B ASIC O UTLINE S TRUCTURE

Essays follow this basic structure:

1 introduction (states thesis)

2 body (explains and supports thesis)

3 conclusion (brings closure and restates thesis)

Your outline should follow this basic structure, too

Because you are writing a very short essay, you should

have at least one point in your outline for each

para-graph Thus, the “body” section of your outline should

be broken down into the individual supporting ideas for

your essay:

1 introduction

2 support 1

3 support 2

4 support 3

5 conclusion

This basic outline has three supporting points If each

outline item has one paragraph, you will have a total of

five paragraphs in your essay While there’s no set rule to

how many points or how many paragraphs you should

have in your essay, this is a pretty good guide to follow

Three supporting paragraphs will generally give you

enough support to make a strong case (if you are writing

a persuasive essay), sufficiently explain your ideas

(expository essay), or tell your story (narrative essay)

Three-Part Essay Structure

Introduction: Tell your readers what you are

going to tell them (State your thesis.)

Body: Tell them (Develop your ideas and

pro-vide specific support for your thesis.)

Conclusion: Tell them what you have told them.

(Restate your thesis.)

O RGANIZING Y OUR S UPPORT

Obviously, you know where to put your introductory and concluding paragraphs But how do you organize the ideas in the body of your essay? Which of the four organizational patterns you reviewed earlier—chronol-ogy, comparison and contrast, cause and effect, and order of importance—should you use for your support? (See pages 69–71 for a review of organizational patterns.)

If you are responding to a narrative prompt,

chrono-logical order is clearly your best choice Describe the

events in the order in which they happened Be sure to use strong transitions and details as you tell your story

If you are responding to a persuasive prompt, order of

importance is probably the most effective pattern to use.

Because the prompt asks you to take a position, your main support will consist of the reasons that you took this particular stance A logical and effective way to pres-ent those reasons is by rank Organize ideas from the least important to the most important reason, from the least compelling to the most compelling example

If you are responding to an expository prompt, your

organizational pattern will depend upon your purpose

Often, order of importance will be your most effective

choice This is true for the good neighbor prompt Notice, for example, how you might organize the sup-port from the brainstorm above:

Introduction: Good neighbors are friendly, helpful, and respect boundaries

1 Friendly neighbors are pleasant to have

around, make it nice to live where you live

Ex: my neighbor Selma and her family

2 Helpful is important—know you can count

on them for small favors, when you are in need Ex: lending and borrowing things

3 Need to respect boundaries, not take what is

yours, not get too involved in your life—

otherwise, they will not be welcome (It’s okay to not be friendly and not be helpful, I can live with that—but it’s not okay to not respect boundaries.) Ex: physical boundaries (yard, house) and social boundaries (private family business)

Here, the characteristics that make good neighbors are organized by order of importance The most important characteristic and most compelling examples come last

S TRONG S UPPORTING P ARAGRAPHS

Outlining your ideas not only sets up an effective

organ-ization It can also show you if your essay is sufficiently

developed For an essay to be effective, each paragraph

must be effective, too And that means each

para-graph must be sufficiently developed.

While there is no magic formula, there are some

gen-eral guidelines regarding paragraph length A paragraph

with just one sentence—unless that sentence is

specifi-cally set off to create a special effect—is too short It

doesn’t sufficiently develop its idea A paragraph with ten

sentences, on the other hand, is probably too long

There’s likely to be more than one idea developed in that

paragraph (Remember, a paragraph, by definition, is a

group of sentences about the same idea.) For an essay of

this type, paragraphs of three or four sentences each

should be enough to explain and provide specific details

and examples for each of your supporting ideas

To help you develop your paragraphs, expand your

outline For each main supporting idea, list at least one

specific detail or example Imagine each paragraph as a

mini-essay, with its own thesis (topic sentence) and

sup-port (specific examples and details) Notice, for example,

how the outline above can be expanded as follows:

Introduction: Good neighbors are friendly,

helpful, and respect boundaries

1 Friendly neighbors are pleasant to have

around, make it nice to live where you live

Ex: my neighbor Selma and her family—

■ always saying hello

■ often chatting

■ cookies at Christmas

2 Helpful is important—know you can count

on them for small favors, when you are in need

Ex:

■ borrowing sugar etc

■ Hank lending Dad tools

■ Selma helping Mom sew curtains

3 Need to respect boundaries, not take what is

yours, not get too involved in your

life—other-wise, they will not be welcome (It’s okay to

not be friendly and not be helpful, I can live

with that—but it’s not okay to not respect

boundaries.)

Ex:

■ physical boundaries: don’t just walk in; it’s not your house, don’t take things

• old neighbors, the Wilcoxes, taking things from our shed without asking

■ social boundaries: don’t be nosy; it’s not your family; respect privacy

• what happened when Uncle Andy’s neighbors got too nosy

➔ neighbors got involved in divorce

➔ made painful experience more com-plicated and confusing for everyone

Notice now how clearly the order of importance organizational pattern stands out, especially in the last section And because this outline is so detailed, it offers

a guide for just about every sentence in the body of the essay

Step 5: Write Your Essay

Now that you have a clear, detailed outline, you can begin

to write If you can quickly think of a catchy way to begin your essay, terrific If not, don’t spend precious minutes trying to come up with the perfect opening line You don’t have the time Remember, you only have 45 min-utes for the whole essay—planning, writing, and editing You need to start writing as soon as you organize your

thoughts One good way to jump right in is to paraphrase

(repeat in your own words) the key discussion note stated in the prompt and then state your thesis Here’s an example of this kind of introduction:

It is very important to have good relationships with our neighbors In my opinion, there are three characteristics that make it easy to live side by side with someone Neighbors should be friendly, they should be helpful, and they should respect bound-aries.

Notice how this introduction also outlines the three

main topics that will be developed in the body of the essay: being friendly, helpful, and respecting boundaries Once you have written your introduction, write the body of your essay paragraph by paragraph, following your outline Make sure each paragraph has a clear topic sentence and specific support Don’t forget about tran-sitions between paragraphs Key words and phrases like

more importantly and similarly help guide your reader

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through your argument (See “Transitions” on page 72 to

review transitional words and phrases.)

After your supporting paragraphs, write a brief

con-clusion Restate your thesis, but not in exactly the same

words Don’t introduce any new topics Instead, make

readers feel as if you have covered your topic thoroughly

and that they have gotten something meaningful from

reading your essay Here’s an example:

When you live side by side with someone, it’s

important to have a good relationship To be a

good neighbor, you need to be friendly and

helpful Most importantly, you need to respect

boundaries Your house is your house; your life

is your life It doesn’t belong to your neighbor.

Style refers to the manner in which something is done.

For example, we all buy and wear clothes that fit our own

personal style—the way we like to look and feel when we

are dressed The same is true of our writing; each person

has his or her own individual style, and the more you

understand stylistic techniques, the more effectively you

can express yourself in writing

Style in writing is created by several different

ele-ments, including:

■ word choice

■ consistent and appropriate tone

■ variety in sentence structure and use of

punctua-tion and other techniques for effect

Word Choice

One of the most important decisions writers make is

constant: word choice As you write, you are always, in

every sentence, thinking about the right words to

express your ideas The “right” word has three essential

characteristics:

1 It expresses the idea you wish to convey.

2 It is exact (precise).

3 It is appropriate for the audience and tone.

Notice how effective word choice cuts back on wordi-ness and creates much more powerful sentences in the following example:

He walked very quickly into the room.

He rushed into the room.

He raced into the room.

He burst into the room.

Each italicized verb has much more impact than the

verb walked and its two modifiers, very quickly These

exact verbs create a vivid picture; they tell us precisely how he entered the room

Exact nouns will improve your sentences, too Here’s

an example of a general sentence made more precise:

The machine made a loud noise and then

stopped

The generator made a loud bang and then

stopped

The second sentence, with its exact nouns, tells us what kind of machine it was and what kind of noise it made, giving us a much clearer picture of what happened Adjectives, too, should be precise Instead of writing:

I am very tired.

Try an exact adjective:

I am exhausted.

Exhausted means very tired—and it’s a much more

powerful word to convey your idea

Appropriate Level of Formality

Word choice determines level of formality and vice versa Would you say to your boss, “Yo, wassup?” Probably not But you certainly might talk that way to your friends We’re usually careful to use the right level of formality when we talk to someone The same should be true of writing Writers must decide how formal or informal they should be when they write, and they make this deci-sion based on their audience and their purpose

Level of formality can range from the very informal

(slang) to the very formal (esoteric, ceremonial) to

every-thing in between Writers use word choice and sentence

structure to manipulate the level of formality Here’s an

example:

A: It was so cool I mean, I never saw anything like it

before What a great flick! You have to check it out.

B: It was really an impressive film, unlike anything

I’ve ever seen before You should definitely go see it.

These two sentences are drastically different in style

and, in particular, in the level of formality Though they

both tell the same story and both use the personal

first-person I, there’s clearly a different relationship to the

reader From the word choice and style—the short

sen-tences, the very casual language—we can tell that the writer

of passage A has a more informal, more friendly

relation-ship with the reader than the writer of passage B The

emo-tion of the writer in passage A is much more transparent, too,

because the language is more informal and natural.You get

the idea that passage A is addressed to a friend, while

pas-sage B might be addressed to a colleague or supervisor

In your essay, be sure to write at an appropriate level

of formality Do not use slang, but do not be excessively

formal, either

Consistent and Appropriate Tone

An appropriate and consistent tone is another essential

element of effective writing Tone is the mood or attitude

conveyed by words or speech Think, for example, of all the

different ways to say sure or hello It’s how you say the

word that conveys so much of its meaning

When you listen to others, it’s usually pretty easy to

hear the tone of their voice But how do you establish

tone in writing?

When you speak, you create tone by how quickly or

slowly you say a word, how loudly or softly you say it, and

how you use facial expressions and body language When

you write, though, your readers can’t hear how your words

sound And they certainly can’t see your facial expressions

or body language But you can use word choice,

punctua-tion, and style to establish tone For example, recall this

pair of sentences from the punctuation review:

Wait, I’m coming with you.

Wait—I’m coming with you!

Here, the punctuation changes the tone The first sen-tence is calm and neutral The second sensen-tence, on the other hand, is emotional and excited

There are endless varieties of tones when you speak Likewise, there are endless varieties of tone in writing Here’s a list of some of the more common words used to describe tone:

apologetic critical sincere insincere sarcastic ironic playful demanding bossy indifferent anxious respectful disrespectful foreboding uncertain threatening matter-of-fact somber grateful annoyed humorous mocking defeated uplifting timid joyful secure insecure

complimentary angry confident mischievous

As you write, choose words that convey your desired tone For example, if you are describing a humorous

event, you might use the phrase topsy-turvy rather than chaotic or disorganized Similarly, if you are describing an unpleasant event, you might use the word tumultuous or helter-skelter to convey the same idea.

Variety in Sentence Structure and Rhetorical Techniques for Emphasis

A strong GED essay will demonstrate an ability to manipulate sentence structure and punctuation for effect Sentence structure, as noted earlier, is an impor-tant element of style If all your sentences have the same pattern, you will end up with monotonous and dry writ-ing like the followwrit-ing passage:

She is a teacher She lives in Montana She has a ranch there She goes to California a lot She has family there She has two pets, a cat and a dog.

Unsophisticated and quite dull, isn’t it? That’s because all of the sentences are short and share the same

struc-ture; they all start with she and a present tense verb This

is quite different from parallel structure Parallelism means using a repeating sentence pattern to create rhythm within a sentence or paragraph This kind of rep-etition, on the other hand, creates monotony and shows

a lack of flexibility in creating sentence patterns Here is

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