Essay writing

Task 1
Read and compare the three essays on pages 13, 116 and 117 of Straight to First. After reading, answer these
2 questions:

Do you think technology has had a positive or negative influence on our lives? Why?

Is it better to be self-employed or to work for an organisation? Why?

Task 2
The following data shows the number of words in each sentence for each essay.

Essay on page 13 Essay on page 116 Essay on page 117

Paragraph 1: 22 words, 13 words
Paragraph 2: 12, 25, 12
Paragraph 3: 12, 19, 22
Paragraph 4: 7, 23
Paragraph 5: 23
Paragraph 1: 30 words, 15 words Paragraph 1: 16 words, 5 words
Paragraph 2: 10, 25, 18, 20 Paragraph 2: 15, 25,
Paragraph 3: 25, 28 Paragraph 3: 20, 24, 22, 9
Paragraph 4: 20 Paragraph 4: 15, 19, 17

Answer the questions:

1. How many words is the shortest sentence? _________ And the longest? _________
2. How many words is the shortest paragraph? _________ And the longest? _________
3. Calculate the average number of words in a sentence for each essay. To calculate this, divide the
total number of words by the number of sentences. Do your calculations in the table below.

Essay on page 13 Essay on page 116 Essay on page 117

Total no. of words 190 181 187
Total no. of sentences 11 9 11
Average number of
words per sentence

Task 4
Should all sentences in an essay be close to the average number of words per sentence, or is it better to have
a variety of longer and shorter sentences? Why?

Explain the relevance of this ancient Chinese proverb to writing an essay.