SECTION A: ESSAY WRITING ANALYSIS A1. COPY ESSAY What is Happiness? What is happiness is but from the past up to now everybody has looked for and wanted to get it? It is defined in Vietnamese dictionary that: “Happiness is comfortable state because of getting what we want”. Each person has a definition about happiness but in my opinion happiness can be summarized in a sentence: “Happiness is to have some work to do, have someone to love and have something to love”, To have work to do is one of three factors to become happy, You imagine someone who has all things he doesn’t have to work to afford himself or his family, all day he only eats, sleeps and plays, day by day the same his life will be very bored, Sometimes, this free time itself can make him make evils, Today, many rich pupils, students who get much money from parents don’t care about study or work and after that they maybe involved in addition or other social evils, etc. There is a porter next to my house, everyday he has to work hard until it is dark he just comes back home to have dinner with his family, But one day he said to me that he is very pleased with his job because he thinks he makes something good for his own small family, Indeed, there is some work to do and we like it, it is happiness, Once in a newspaper an American millionaire’s father Bill gates said that “ Money only makes furniture or comfort but work makes happiness”, Does love make happiness? It is sure that there are many people among us answering “ yes”, When we were small we might love the rampart of bamboos in the village or the rice field where after coming back home from school we used to make holiday with our friends and we felt happy, When we grow older we love our grandparents, father and mother very much, we love everyone around us but I’d like to mention to love between men and women right now Romeo and Juliet story is still a symbol of true love, Both of them killed themselves to keep happy state in love each other. That is Romeo and Juliet in story but nowadays there are many people because of love with someone – maybe one side love - but they still feel happy and everyday they try their best to work well “ Having someone to love” is one of the motive to encourage us to work more enthusiastically and live more meaningfully. Hope is very important mental medicine, We hope to have a good job, meet person we love etc and hope itself helps us want to live and work more and more, When we were 3 years old we hoped that when our mother came back home from market she’d buy for us toys or delicious sweets, 15 we hoped to be in a good high school, 18 we wished to pass the university entry examination, 27 we hope to have our own happy family, 45 we hope our sons and daughters strong and successful, 60 we’d like to have grandchildren intelligent and lovely etc, Moreover, coming back to the wars in the past we understand that if we had not had hope in peace and independence for the country we could not have great victories in 2 wars fighting against France and American, Hope always make our life more meaningful and it is sure that someone who always has hope in his mind will be a happy person, In life, we cannot always have enough the above three factors to become a happy person but sometimes happiness is what we have but we do not know happiness is not “ a thing” which we can usually feel but we should respect our own happiness and others. Nguyen Thi Kim Quyen A2. ANALYSIS What is Happiness Writing an essay well is a main skill in studying English. It requires all students have to know basic steps when they write an essay. “ What is happiness?” is a interesting essay written by a student named Nguyen Thi Kim Quyen that I have ever read many times and get many valuable experiences. I think there are some good points and weak points in this essay that can be helpful for students in writing. First, it is easy to find out that there are many points in the essay. The kind of essay is definition essay which is not easy to write fluently. However, the writer knows how to gather and organize the ideas for this interesting topic. She follows 3 main ideas to develop the topic: what is happiness? She defines “Happiness is to have some work to do, have someone to love and have something to love”, thus, this makes her introduction clearer addition, the introduction is very exciting with a good thesis statement so it makes readers pay attention to the essay. The last strong point is in the conclusion. The writer sums up the whole of essay not only bring to her efficiently but also makes the reader to understand. On the other hand, there are some weak points. The obvious thing is to use question mark. Thus this topic should be “What is Happiness?”. Also, the writer needs to revise some mistake in the introduction. The introduction is not good because of the hook sentence, therefore, she needs to change “What is happiness is but from the past up to now everybody has looked for and wanted to get it?” to “Happiness is a state of being that everyone wants to achieve”. The next weak point is about grammar. The writer has some mistakes in the third paragraph. The sentences “45 we hope our sons and daughters strong and successful” should change “45 we hope our sons and daughters to be strong and successful” and “60 we’d like to have grandchildren intelligent and lovely” ought to change “60 we’d like to have intelligent and lovely grandchildren”. It will be better. The third feature that is not good is about punctuation. The punctuation which is used in this essay is so inefficient that the reader feels some difficulties in reading, specially, the comma, the writer used it to be miscellaneous. The final thing is about logic. The writer does not have some linking words to link the factors together. Three parts of the essay should have the opening sentence, for instance, “the obvious thing of happiness is” or “the last factor of happiness is”. This is essential thing to make the essay more logical and coherent. To sum up, the essay is good at the way the writer discovers her creative thoughts and arranges her ideas suitably. However, she makes some mistakes in word choice, grammar and especially, she uses some important punctuations as the comma or the full stop. I believe that after revising all the mistakes, the essay can become a good example one for other students to learn. (450 words) SECTION B: A RESEARCH ESSAY How to Write an Essay Abstract Some people would say that writing an essay is very important; however, it has been decreased nowadays because of the digital era we live in, therefore, writing effectively becomes more necessary. Many people also realize that their writing ability is limited so they have difficulties in expressing their idea. Mastering the writing is very important for students who learn English as a foreign language. That’s reason why everybody who learns English or a certain language should know the writing. In this research essay, reader can have some valuable solutions to master the writing. Keywords: Writing, essay, effectively, difficulties, important, ability, idea, solutions. Outline I - Introduction II - Body Rewriting Draft Revision Editing III - Conclusion Writing is a vital aspect in English because it appears everywhere in life. “Writing, I think, is not apart from living. Writing is a kind of double living. The writer experiences everything twice. Once in reality and once in that mirror which waits always before or behind” (Bowen, 1957, p. 52). A good writing also demonstrates the knowledge of the writer. There are some scholars who have the definitions about writing. “In academic English, writing is usually organized into paragraphs. A paragraph is a small unit of writing that contains a single idea” (Huong, 2011, p. 8), “Writing skills can be the ticket to better college grades and greater academic achievement” (Troyka, 1993, p. 3) and “Writing is essay: all you do is sit starting at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead” (David & Jacqueline, 2006, P. 92). In this essay, there are some steps that help the reader to know how to make a writing process. In the first place, “Prewriting techniques are unique methods of brainstorming that help you discover ideas, find support for those ideas, and fill in that empty screen or blank page” (While, 1991, p.5). Rewriting is the first stage of the writing process. Elements of prewriting may include planning, research, outlining and clustering. In this step, you think and plan for your writing by exploring ideas about your topic. You should let your mind go free about particular subject, idea or question. During the pre-writing stage, also known as the brainstorming stage, a writer seeks to generate and develop ideas about topic. The writer generates ideas by performing activities, such as: free writing, brainstorming or clustering to come up with topics or ideas around those topics. Then you conduct and gather information to research or expand ideas. You ought to list random thoughts as they occur and do not worry about their relevance. You also use this way to develop ideas of essay, therefore, this helps you orient more easily. After that, you create an outline because this is one way to help you to create organization within your paper. Plus, you answer some general questions, such as: “what interests me?”, “what special knowledge do I have?”, “what issues do I care about?”. Even though the natural next step is beginning to write, many writers will return to this step for multiply reasons, whether it is because an idea is not working out as they thought and they want to start over or to dig deeper for more information about their original topic. To be in with, this is drafting step. “Children put their ideas on paper. At this time, they write without major attention to punctuation, grammar, or neatness” (Becky, 2006, p.112). This step is really necessary because the writer writes using the ideas and plan you have developed during your prewriting. You put your ideas into words, keeping in mind your purposes for writing (to inform, persuade and entertain your reader). At this point, you are involved with the content of your ideas, not with your grammar, punctuation or spelling. You begin writing by composing an introduction to the piece. The purpose of the introduction is not only to state the topic of the piece, but it should also draw the reader in to the piece of writing. Now you have a first draft. Thirdly, Allwright (1998, P.84) states that “Revision begins with the large view and proceeds from the outside in, from overall structure to paragraphs and finally sentences and words, toward ever more intricate levels of detail. In other words, there is no sense in revising a sentence to a hard shining beauty if the passage including that sentence will have to be cut” and David & Liss (2006, p. 40) thinks that “Revision is a grand term for the frantic process of fixing the mess”. Revision is one part of writing process because you have to and change with the aims of improving or correcting. In this step, you read over what you have written, decide what ideas to be removed or added and, if needed, reorganize the ideas to improve the first according to the needs and expectation of your reader. This is the common way to all types of writing, such as: process essay, cause and effect essay, definition essay. If your revision skills are good, you have a lot of benefits. In addition, you have to concentrate on your choice of words and sentence structure for a smooth flow of content and an appropriate tone for your audience. The writing process examines the content, organization and all of them allow you to examine your audience as well as your approach, your writing as well as your thinking. When you revise content, you have all the features of your written material. Also, when you arrange your writing, you ought to review some parts, such as: paragraph or even sentences, thus, the best way to start is about paragraph placement and sentence arrangement. You read over your whole piece quite quickly, circle any typos and mistakes that you spot but concentrate on overall flow. If it is an essay, you check for any gaps in logic and or any sides of the argument you might have missed. Finally, according to Blass & Pike “Although writers often use the term editing loosely, editing at the polishing stage is more specifically defined: fine-turn the language. At the stage, writer review and assess text by examining diction, tone, style, rhythm and flow. Intermingled, these elements work together and not only express a writer’s voice, but are also influenced by a writer’s intended audience” (1996, p.102). Editing is the polishing step of writing process. When you edit, you have two basic kinds of changes: you check grammar, punctuation, spelling, formatting and then your writing can be fixed. Also, you improve the way you express your ideas. You may change words, sentence organization, punctuation, combinations of words, sentence types, lengths and structures to make your writing not only clearer, more vibrant and exciting but also more specific and logical. If you want to express what you want to say, you find a more effective way. Finally, editing is a positive process, this is a time to work on creating a polished piece of writing that will make proud of your essay. You should edit your writing 2 more times at least, thus, make sure that the final product is very good and does not have any errors. In conclusion, Nunan thinks that “Writing is probably the most difficult thing to do in language” (1999, p. 271). Writing can be a great tool to help you know more about the way you think. The above-mentioned four stages of the writing process are a framework for writing well and easily. You might bookmark this post so that you can come back to it each time you start on a new article, post, essay or story use it as a checklist to help you. I hope that after reading the essay, all of you can write a more coherent and effective essay. References Allwright, J. (1998). Academic writing: process and product. London: Modern English Publications in Association with the British Council. Becky, L. (2006). Handtalkers for early math fact and simply word problem with CD-ROM. Super Duper: Super Duper Publications. Blass, L & Pike, M. (1996). Moisaic one and MC Graw. Hill International Editions. Bowen, C.D. (1957). Atlantic. USA: Ibadan Joytal Printing Press. David, B & Jacqueline, R.. (1998). Developing reading and writing skills. Canada. David, J & Liss, R. (2006). Effective academic writing 3. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dang, N, H. (2001). Writing experiences – two. Hanoi: Hanoi Open University. Nunan, D. (1999). Second language teaching and learning. Boston: Heinle & Heinle Press. Troyka, L.Q. (1993). Simon & schuster handbook for writer. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall. While, R & Arndt, V. (1991). Process writing. Pearson Education. PAGE 9