expository essay harvard

Expository Writing. The writing requirement is a one-semester course offered by the Harvard College Writing Program that focuses on analytic composition and revision. Expos courses are taken as first-year students and are taught in small seminars focusing on writing proficiency in scholarly writing. Students meet one-on-one with instructors ...

Expos 20. Expos 20 is the cornerstone course offering by the Harvard College Writing Program and fulfills the College's expository writing requirement. THE EXPOS PHILOSOPHY. When you enter your Expos classroom this fall or spring, you will be participating in one of Harvard's oldest traditions; a one-term course in expository writing has been ...

Harvard College Writing Center 8 Thesis Your thesis is the central claim in your essay—your main insight or idea about your source or topic. Your thesis should appear early in an academic essay, followed by a logically constructed argument that supports this central claim. A strong thesis is

EXPOS 20. An intensive seminar that aims to improve each student's ability to discover and reason about evidence through the medium of essays. Each section focuses on a particular theme or topic, described on the Expos Website. All sections give students practice in formulating questions, analyzing both primary and secondary sources and ...

of reflection can come anywhere in an essay; the sec-ond is usually comes early; the last four often come late (they're common moves of conclusion). Most good essays have some of the first kind, and often several of the others besides. 10. Orienting: bits of information, explanation, and summary that orient the reader who isn't expert in the

Expository Writing 20. Expository Writing 20, the one-semester course that satisfies the Harvard College writing requirement, is offered during the fall and spring semesters, and students using this course to meet the College's writing requirement must take the course during their first year. Expos 20 is designed to introduce students to the ...

Undergraduates at Harvard College can visit the Writing Center for help with any writing assignment, fellowship application, or graduate school admissions essay. Writing Resources. Guides for writing essays and papers. Meet the Staff. Writing Center staff listing. Contact / Employment.

Expos Studio 20 continues the yearlong sequence designed to support students in their transition to college writing and in their growing development as writers. The Studio 20 course shares some essential goals with a standard Expos 20 course: both focus on developing original arguments, working with nuanced evidence, writing a research paper ...

Course Objectives: Expos 40 is designed to improve your understanding of the communication process and to develop your skills as a public speaker, listener and critic of public discourse. You will learn strategies for impromptu speaking, preparing and delivering presentations and speeches, and building your overall confidence in oral expression.

The structure of your expository essay will vary according to the scope of your assignment and the demands of your topic. It's worthwhile to plan out your structure before you start, using an essay outline. A common structure for a short expository essay consists of five paragraphs: An introduction, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion.

In general, your introductions should contain the following elements: Orienting Information. When you're writing an essay, it's helpful to think about what your reader needs to know in order to follow your argument. Your introduction should include enough information so that readers can understand the context for your thesis.

Emilie J. Raymer PhD, Preceptor in Expository Writing, Harvard University. This course introduces students to the demands and conventions of academic reading and writing. It focuses on analyzing texts, building effective arguments, and using evidence and secondary source material.

Tips for Reading an Assignment Prompt. Asking Analytical Questions. Thesis. Introductions. What Do Introductions Across the Disciplines Have in Common? Anatomy of a Body Paragraph. Transitions. Tips for Organizing Your Essay. Counterargument.

The final step of the outlining process is to repeat this procedure on the smallest level, with the original notes that you took for your essay. To order what probably was an unwieldy and disorganized set of information at the beginning of this process, you need now only think of a sentence or two to support your general argument.

Writing the Methods Section. In her Expos section, Jerusha Achterberg teaches how to clearly describe the methods that will be used in a subsequent paper. This activity was motivated by the fact that students were having trouble writing the methods section in their final paper proposals.

If an assignment prompt is clearly addressing each of these elements, then students know what they're doing, why they're doing it, and when/how/for whom they're doing it. From the standpoint of a rubric, we can see how these elements correspond to the criteria for feedback: 1. Purpose. 2. Genre.

The essays here represent various interests of students who took expository writing during the 1991-1992academic year. We chose them because they are interesting, well written, and representative of the immense variety of student interests that is one of the joys of teaching at Harvard. We think they are good essays, and we are proud of them.

The Blank Syllabus. In "The Blank Syllabus" activity, the instructor leaves assigned readings blank for some of the class sessions. The second writing assignment requires students to choose a reading from the course anthology--a reading that is then assigned to the class, thus filling in the blanks on the syllabus.

a group of essays to celebrate the energy and variety of the writing done in its classes during the previous year. Expository writing is the one activity shared by allstudents at Harvard, and afirst-year course in "Expos" is the one academic experience required of every Harvard student. This has been so since the writing program was