(Source)

How to write a kickass paper/essay

Because sooner or later, you will have to do it. You won’t get through high school and/or college without doing it. Here’s how to get a good grade on the first try.

1. This isn’t the same thing as writing a story. In fiction writing, bending grammar rules and stuffy writing conventions is okay. In academic writing, it’s not. Get the facts across first and worry about character later. Academic writing is kind of boring, I know. Act like you know what you’re talking about. Don’t abuse the thesaurus until you sound like a post from r/iamverysmart, but try to sound educated.

2. Pick a specific topic. One of my essays from high school was a comparison of youth activism against violence, in the 1960s versus the 2010s. Ridiculously specific? Not ridiculously. If you pick a topic that’s too broad, you’ll end up pulling your brain every which way and overwhelming yourself. You might have some hits and misses with this, but it’s an important part of writing. Going over the word limit is just as annoying to your teacher as going under.

3. MELELEC. My 11th-grade English teacher taught me this little trick and I use it as a mainstay for writing. It’s helped me ace assignments and win scholarships. MELELEC is a paragraph structure that helps you write paragraphs that are not only thicc and will eat up page space, but also are packed with meaningful content. The format is Main Point - Explain - Link - Explain - Link - Explain - Conclusion. You introduce the idea of the paragraph, add some extra information, link a related point or piece of information, explain that, link another point, explain that, and then conclude the idea expressed in the paragraph. It works, I swear. Teachers and professors love it.

4. Absolutely NO second-person. That’s when you directly address the audience as “you.” Yeah, don’t do that if you want to sound professional. I’m doing it right now and sounding hypocritical af because I don’t need to sound professional. It’s Tumblr. Enough said. Anyway, second-person statements tend to have a defensive effect on the audience, which makes them automatically more hostile to whatever you’re trying to say. (”Nuh-uh. I don’t think that. I would do that. That’s not how it works for me.”) And given that the whole point of your essay is to convince your audience that you’re right, that’s counterintuitive. The only time the word “you” should appear in academic writing is when it’s in the context of a quotation.

5. Avoid first-person, too. In some cases, you might need to write an essay in the first person, like when a college prof asks you to write about a personal experience. Yeah, good luck writing about your life without actually mentioning yourself. But in more impersonal writing, like informative or persuasive essays, it looks unprofessional. Sorry, but the audience doesn’t want to hear your take on stuff; they want to know the facts. (Well, if you want to be really specific, they want to hear your take on stuff when it’s expressed as fact and backed up with, ya know, actual facts.) Which leads me into my next point…

6. State opinions as facts. Don’t do this in real life, as it makes you look like a pompous asshole, but do it in academic writing. In other words, never soften a sentence with “I think” or “In my opinion.” Everyone already knows it’s your opinion, anyway. Instead of softening the the blow to lessen the chance of it offending someone, cite some evidence or make another point to back up your claim. That’s substance, which is what your teachers and profs are looking for.

7. The thesis. It’s all about the thesis. The thesis is the TL;DR of your paper. It’s the answer to the question “What’s the doodly-darn point of this essay?” The traditional spot for the thesis statement is the last sentence of the first paragraph – it’s punchy and to the point there. Take time to have a good thesis 

8. Don’t ask rhetorical questions. You’re the one who should be answering the questions that your audience has. So predict what they might ask about your topic or the points that you make, and answer them. It’s not the audience’s job to answer your questions, for the love of all things good. You can make them leave thinking about what you wrote without being so anvilicious.

9. Three is the magic number. In high school, the typical format you’ll have for an essay is the five-paragraph format. Now you might be going “Whut? I thought you said that three was the magic number, Saybyebus.” Well, yes, I did say that, but two of the five essays are the introduction and the conclusion. So that leaves you with three paragraphs to really get into the meat of your essay and dish out the important information. So one of the best ways to work with this is to make your thesis three-pronged, and use each of the three paragraphs to address a point of your thesis. Boom-shacka-lacka. I just laid out the structure of your essay. Does that mean you have to cite me as credit? IDK, actually. But that does remind me of my next point…

10. DON’T PLAGIARIZE! Bruh, don’t do it. Whenever you learn something from someone else’s work and add that information to your essay, you have to cite them, even if you paraphrase them. If you don’t do that, it’s plagiarism. In high school, it’ll get you a big-ass downgrade, and you will probably get yelled at by your teacher. In college, it could get you SUSPENDED or EXPELLED. They take that shit seriously. So you should too.

rdj kissing josh brolin on the lips is such a power move. the man doesn’t give a single fuck. he’s the male protagonist archetype of this century but he will kiss as many guys as he pleases because he can and there’s nothing hollywood can do about it

Dean: What the–? C’mon, Sam. This is bullshit, let’s go.

Y/N: Y’know, that Ravener has venom that’ll kill you if you get stung, hunbun.

Dean: I’ll take my chances, sweetheart.

Sam: Aren’t you worried about getting stung too?

Y/N: Me? I’m a Shadowhunter. I can use an iratze if I get stung, but Shadowhunter runes would overpower silly little mundies like you. Now get out of my way. I got a date with an eidolon in an hour.

(Still totally wanna do a crossover of this, but I want more interest, so hit me UPPP)

Society diagnoses sociopathy as a dangerous thing while promoting the traits that come with it. Be the best at what you do, believe in yourself, think for yourself, don’t worry what others think, overcome all obstacles in your way, ignore or outmatch the competition, be the captain of your domain.

I just want to say that there's actually plenty of reasons why somebody wouldn't reblog a post. Here's some of them: 1: They have a very small/lurker blog without many followers and they know that nobody will see it anyway. (Or they want to get bigger/centre their blog around something, but don't quite know how.) 2: If they have a larger blog (Or even if they've got a smaller one) they're scared of accidentally reblogging from a bad source (TERF, racist, etc) without knowing. 3: They're seriously just shy. I don't have social anxiety myself, but a lot of people do, and it can affect you online (At least, that's what I've been told). 4: It could be something that they personally enjoy, but they don't want their followers to know they enjoy out of embarrassment or fear. 5: There might be practical limitations stopping them from reblogging. I've had some pretty bad glitches, to the point where I just give up. It's likely that others might have experienced the same thing. These are only some of the reasons why somebody might not reblog a post. Please don't assume that people who don't reblog absolutely everything, or who don't reblog anything at all, are dicks.

sometimes i wonder how a writer would describe me if i were a character in a book

Hello! I was wondering if you had any links or tips for writing characters with distinct regional dialects?

Writing Accents and Dialects

Dialogue in fiction: How to write authentic dialects and foreign accents

How to Write Accents and Dialects

How to Give Your Character an Authentic Dialect

The Do’s and Don’ts of Dialects

Writing Dialogue in Accents and Dialect

The Uses and Abuses of Dialect

Dialogue: Writing Dialects and Accents

When Can You Include an Accent and Dialect in Your Dialogue?

Accents and Dialects

Writing Dialects

How to Write Accents and Dialects

Dialect and Contractions in Fiction

Writing Dialect in Fiction: a History and Study

Effective Dialogue: Accents and Dialects

How to Write Dialects, Accents, and Slang

Talking the Talk: Writing in Dialect

So, to SPN blogs... I get it that you want to enforce the fact that the fandom will stay together after the show ends next year. I get that you want to talk about what happened. I get that discussions are going on. I get it. That's fine. However, a lot of us (Including me!) are still incredibly emotionally raw from the news. Some people might not even know, and have only just heard about it from this post. Some of us just want to curl up and cry, and don't give a single flying fuck what anybody else has to say about the news. So basically, I get what you're trying to say/do. But maybe wait with the inspirational text posts and the gifsets and the discussions and the "OMG LOOK AT THIS!!!" until the people who are emotionally raw feel that they can log onto Tumblr and take a glance at their dash and not burst into tears, all without having to block tags that includes things that they might actually want to see. You get me? From 2020 onwards, Supernatural is gone. We won't see Sam and Dean, or Castiel, or whoever your favourite character is... Ever again. We won't see a singular glimpse of any of them on our screens outside of Netflix and reruns, ever again, unless by some miracle, we get either a movie, or a reboot of the show. And that's powerful stuff. I'm a teensy-tiny blog with few original posts and mostly reblogged stuff, but if you see this, please take this to heart. I can't log onto Tumblr now without seeing SOMETHING to do with the show ending on my dash, and it just makes me want to curl up and cry because I get so emotional. I can bet you that there are other people who feel the same way. So, I'm begging you, anybody who posts SPN-related content... Either tag your posts clearly as related to SPN ending so that people don't have to block the whole Supernatural tag, or don't post anything to do with it for a while. Okay? Okay.

the whole “mermaids are all colourful and friendly and wear seashells as clothes and collect sparkly things and sing to the fish” is definitely appealing, 10/10, but let’s be realistic for a sec.

the ocean is scary as shit.

as humans, we have only explored about 5% of the ocean. meaning, we have seen very, very little of what lives in the ocean.

in that mere 5% we know about, while we have found some awesome stuff (coral reefs, starfish, dolphins, fish that glow!!!), we have found some absolute fucking monsters. huge sharks, giant squids, eels, some pretty freaky fish, the list goes on.

so, let’s be realistic.

you’re gonna look me in the eyes and tell me that all mermaids are dainty little figures with brightly coloured tails, long, flowing hair, big blue eyes and perfect white teeth? no. way.

show me the mermaids that live in the deepest parts of the ocean, of places man has never, and will never, get to. show me mermaids who hunt in packs, who don’t sing, but rather shrill and screech, or are so silent that you don’t notice them until it’s too late. show me the mermaids with grey, silver, multicolour, scaly skin and eyes that glow yellow in the dark and teeth that make great whites look friendly. show me the mermaids with coral and plankton and barnacles growing on their skin, with kelp in their hair.

give me mermaids who can camouflage into their enviorment, who can shoot ink, who can electrocute unsuspecting prey. give me giant mermaids with tails like eels or like jellyfish or like sharks, that will kill anything they see, that can cause tsunamis with a wave of their hands. give me mermaids who are ripped, with no hair, with fangs. give me mermaids with armour similar to crabs, with flesh harder than rock, with nails like talons. give me mermaids that have hidden themselves away from man in the furthest reaches of the depths, who have slowly evolved to look more monster than girl.

bring me the mermaids that no one wants to acknowledge, the ones that fuel nightmares and folk tales and urban legends.

bring me the diversity, the reality, of the ocean into mermaids.

another funny edit

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imagine if Supernatural ever have a crossover with Shadowhunters…

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I’d die instantly