Believe it or not, you can do a bit of research for the AP Lang argument essay in the leadup to the exam – even before you know what the prompt is.

Here’s a tip that the College Board won’t tell you: before you even get the prompt for the argument essay, brainstorm a list of debate topics and try to find connections between those topics and your life.

If you take this tip, it will be a big time-saver for you when you’re writing the exam.

The open-ended nature of the argument prompt gives you maximum topic flexibility, so you can actually do preparatory research by finding a list of debate topics – it’s likely a bunch of those topics will be relevant to the prompt. This means you can get most of your brainstorming done before the exam even starts, which will give you more time to actually write your essay, or to dedicate to other tricky sections like multiple choice.

And what about finding connections between those debate topics and your life? This is not me being a positive vibes teacher, trying to help you “feel” the material. It’s more about making the argument essay easier to write. The more relevant you can make it to your daily life, the easier it will be to express yourself in a memorable way.

Example of brainstorm approaches to the 2023 argument essay prompt

Let’s take the 2023 prompt, for example (page 12 in the link). It references Maxine Hong Kingston, “an award-winning writer famous for her novels depicting the experiences of Chinese immigrants in the United States.” It references a quote Kingston has made: “I think that individual voices are not as strong as a community of voices. If we can make a community of voices, then we can speak more truth.”

The prompt goes on to instruct you to write an essay “that argues your position on the extent to which Kingston’s claim about the importance of creating a community of voices is valid.”

Broadly speaking, what philosophical discussion is this prompt about?

Well, it seems to be about the importance of the community over the individual, or vice versa.

And if you’ve done your research beforehand, then a bunch of different broad debate topics can apply:

1. Eastern collectivism vs. Western individualism
2. What’s more important – the wishes of the majority or the wishes of a minority?
3. What should the limits of free speech be in a democracy?
4. What constitutes “truth” in a world of deep fakes and ChatGPT?

These are all topics you would’ve at least touched on in some of your high school courses (hopefully you’ve taken some courses in history, philosophy, sociology, etc. –  humanities and social science courses are good to take to prepare for the AP Language exam).

Now, let’s go over your options for how to put some of these topics (not all – because that would be aimless) into your essay.

How to structure your essay (it’s all about the body paragraphs)

The way I see it, you have three options.

Option one: 3 body paragraphs = 3 different debate topics

One strategy for scoring high on the argument essay is to take three of these topics and use them, respectively, for your three body paragraphs. The key thing here is to find an overarching trend that ties the three topics together so that they can form a specific thesis that is unique to you. Look for connections between the topics. For example, immigrants from non-western countries may come from collectivist societies, and guess what – they’re going to be a minority presence in western democratic society, which might make it tough for their voices to be heard. To tie things together further, many of these immigrants (either themselves or their descendants) may do away with their collectivist backgrounds in favour of more individual-focused ones, or may even take on complex hybrid identities, which makes the problem of allowing minority voices to thrive in a democracy even more difficult to solve – because why should an entire immigrant community get to decide the voice of a hybrid person within that community? Hopefully you get the idea. Just make sure you don’t go rambling on like a smartass, the way I did in this paragraph (in my defence it was to demonstrate how to connect separate topics). Pick your topics and make sure your stance on them is clear. Make sure it’s obvious what you’re arguing in favour of.

Option two: three body paragraphs = 2 debate topics + 1 personal example

You might also opt to use two of your brainstorm topics for two body paragraphs, because you can use an example from your life for the third one. Let’s take the immigrant and hybrid experience points from option one. If you yourself are from an immigrant family, it’s only natural to write up a life analogy that tells your story. Maybe it was the voicelessness you felt until you joined an association that promoted your culture. Or maybe it was how, historically, your culture endured discrimination until enough people of the culture banded together and got their voices heard. Or maybe you’re not from an immigrant family. But if you’re Canadian or American (and not Indigenous), chances are your ancestors were immigrants. Go far back in time – what trials did they go through? Did they need to form a community to have their voices heard? Or if you’re well-read enough you can always reference the life story of a famous ethnic or immigrant person. Just be sure it hits those points about “truth” and “community” (otherwise you risk coming across as “hey look at me, I’m pro-diversity, therefore score me higher”).

Option three: three body paragraphs = 1 debate topic + 1 personal example + 1 counter-argument

My personal favourite approach to figuring out body paragraphs is option three: pick one brainstormed debate topic, one personal experience, and one counter-argument that addresses the other side of the debate. For the latter, you’re basically imagining someone disagreeing with you and critiquing your points. What would you say back to them to defend your side of the argument? Your response, or counter, becomes the focus of your third body paragraph.

For example, let’s say you ended up arguing that in a democratic society, minorities need to come together as a community to have their voice heard – this idea that if you’re a minority, you need to find a community of that minority so you can join it and band together to get a stronger voice, one that can unearth “truth” (maybe truth is how the minority group is not present enough in leadership positions in corporations, governments, etc. And they need this presence to thrive as a community). And in paragraph two, you talk about how you joined an association of your culture at your school, and it was only through this association (strength in numbers) that you were able to put your culture on display (maybe it was a multicultural event or something like that). Thanks to the group you were able to fundraise, tell the story of your trials (as an ethnic group), and let other students see and understand the beauty of your culture.

That’s all fine and dandy, but what if you’re someone who isn’t really into your ethnic background? You’re sort of here in the west to blend in, ditch your origins. And you deal with this problem of people seeing you and your ethnic makeup and automatically assuming you’re all about that ethnic life. For this kind of person, is joining an ethnic association the only path to advancement? That seems kind of messed up.

This is what someone arguing against you might say. And now you need to mention their argument, which runs counter to yours, in your third body paragraph. And you also need to explain (with logic of course) why you’re still right – why banding together in an ethnic association is a good thing, even for people of that ethnicity who don’t care to be in that ethnicity.

So remember, when you’re brainstorming debate topics for the argument essay – don’t go in researching one side per topic. Know all the sides!

If the prompt is broad enough, you’d be surprised at the things you can talk about

Now, let’s say on your brainstorm list, there was a topic like the environment – more specifically, what can we do to save the environment, knowing that our global economic system is based on constant material consumption?

You may be thinking: “alright, this topic isn’t relevant to the prompt. May as well forget it.”

But this isn’t true. Try to think more broadly. How might a “community of voices” apply to the environment?

Well, climate change is a global problem. A lone green nation on one end of the earth is powerless to make a difference on a global scale. But what if they formed an alliance with other states in different parts of the globe? What if they formed a community, so to speak, to become stronger and put more pressure on the heavy greenhouse gas-emitting countries in the world?

But still, this is not good enough. Why? Because it ignores the “voices” and the “truth” part of the prompt. So let’s try to incorporate those.

What if we could form a “global community,” so to speak, not of countries, but of citizens in countries. We could get the citizens inside heavy greenhouse gas-emitting countries to make some noise to inspire change, within their respective countries. And because it’s a global network of citizens dong this, the pattern would allow the truth to prevail over not just climate change deniers, but lazy governments who gaslight their citizens with half-measures, like unambitious emissions targets or modest consumer purchase incentives (something sucky like we’ll give you a $1000 tax credit if you install $30 grand worth of solar. And when you say huh what, that’s not enough, they’ll say no it’s definitely enough – trust us, we’re the government).

So basically the community of voices (which consists of concerned and protesting citizens around the globe) brings out the truth about the climate change. And we wouldn’t have this truth without their advocacy, because governments try to hide climate change realities with their gaslighting and their half measures.

IMPORTANT POINT: Notice I’m trying to avoid making it about climate change deniers. This is because it’s a bit too simple for the kind of sophistication required of the AP Language exam. At this point, most people know climate change is real and happening. The deniers are a fringe group not really worth our time. But deceptive politicians are much more dangerous to society – they acknowledge climate change, making themselves appear trustworthy, but their actions (or lack of actions) have devastating environmental consequences.

Preparing for the argument prompt – your takeaway

Basically, you have endless topic opportunities in any given argument essay, and it’s all because the prompt the College Board gives you is super broad. It’s almost like a bone structure for a debate scenario that can be applied to multiple fields. So the more debate topics you know (and make sure you know them well – know the different sides), the easier the argument prompt will be for you.

BUT BE CAREFUL: you do not want to force one of your brainstorm topics onto the prompt. Do a quick argument outline to be sure that your logic will check out. If in doubt, ditch it and move on to more relevant topics on your list.

The post How to Study for the AP Language Argument Essay (Without Even Knowing the Prompt) appeared first on O.B. Chip's Writing Tips.

These simple tips can help you ace the AP Lang rhetorical analysis essay.

The AP Language rhetorical analysis essay is tricky because you’re essentially writing an argument about how a writer writes an argument. So you end up with this distance you have to deal with – you’re writing is not about your own argument; it’s about someone else’s. But wait a minute, you’re still writing an argument, so…

This distance makes the rhetorical analysis essay meta, and meta things can bog you down and overcomplicate your writing. It can also take you down a wholly different path: you might end up half-assing your analysis or failing to get into specifics, which can lead to oversimplified claims that’ll make the grader feel you’re not up to the challenge of writing at a college student-level.

So what can you do to impress the grader and make them feel you have college-worthy argumentation? I will tell you.

Don’t say the author uses x, y, and z rhetorical devices

I see this over and over. Students saying “the author uses metaphor, irony, and parallelism to convey his love of (insert thing author loves here).” Don’t do this. It tells the grader nothing. Why? Because you haven’t explained what the metaphor is, what the irony is, what the parallelism is, and how all three are tied together and relevant to the author’s love of (insert thing author loves here). This kind of writing is merely functional – it reads almost like a technical manual an engineer (who doesn’t know/care about good writing) might write. It lacks personality.

I’m not trying to be mean. If you write like this, surely you have a personality. You just need to bring it out in your writing.

HOWEVER you are writing about someone else’s writing, which makes things complicated. So what’s the next best thing you can do? Well, you can bring out that someone else’s personality.

Here’s how to do it. Let’s use Michael Pollan’s writing as an example. Pollan is a nature writer a lot of AP Language teachers like to assign to their students. His essay, Weeds Are Us, has a lot of interruptions (in the form of parentheses, aka the brackets holding this clause together), and asyndeton, which is a rhetorical strategy that uses commas to link (or separate) ideas.

You can see for yourself. Here’s the first two paragraphs of his essay:

So we’ve figured out two rhetorical devices we want to talk about: parentheses and asyndeton.

*A QUICK NOTE: Keep in mind I’ve narrowed the scope of parentheses and asyndeton just to keep things simple for the purpose of this article. They have broader applications than what I’ve described above, but we’ll save that for another article.

Don’t write like this:

Michael Pollan uses parentheses and asyndeton to convey his understanding of romantic thinkers.

Instead, write like this:

Michael Pollan’s writing style is fast-moving and loaded with detail. He builds ridiculously long lists and interrupts himself (via parentheses) with sarcastic remarks to convince his readers that we should question the relevance of Romantic-era thinking in solving modern environmental problems.

You can see I have downplayed the actual rhetorical terms (parentheses and asyndeton) in this thesis – in fact I didn’t even bother to mention asyndeton. These are just jargon words at the end of the day and they’re not important. What’s important is defining them, and describing how they work to convey the writer’s personality. I can always drop the exact technical term later on if want to, in the body paragraphs.

Your takeaway here is to use personality-driven words (in my case with Pollan, it was fast-moving, loaded, ridiculous, interrupts, and sarcastic) to describe the writer’s rhetorical strategy.

A step-by-step outline of this thesis writing process might look like:

1. Identify the actual rhetorical strategies a writer uses (aka the jargony terms).
2. Take a look at the terms all together, holistically, to see how they’re an embodiment of the writer’s unique personality. Remember, you don’t have to identify every single term. Two or three key ones will suffice.
3. In your own words, describe the personality (with as much detail as you can).
4. Use your personality descriptors in your thesis.

Use the clue in the prompt

There’s a reason AP Language teachers are obsessed with the context in which a writer writes. It provides the information you need to frame your understanding of the passage, which will make it easier for you to say something insightful about the passage.

In the case of the rhetorical analysis essay, it couldn’t be easier. The prompt practically gives you a bone structure for your thesis.

Let’s take a look at the passage that was provided for the rhetorical analysis essay in 2022 (on page 11 in the document).

You’ll notice in the prompt it says: Write an essay that analyzes the rhetorical choices Sotomayor (the first Latina justice of the U.S. Supreme Court) makes to convey her message about her identity.

There’s your clue right there. The prompt has basically given you a framework for at least part of your thesis. You just need to flesh it out. What is Sotomayor’s message? What is her identity? Message and identity are two abstractions you can fill in, based on what you glean from the passage. But don’t short-change Ms. Sotomayor. Simply saying she’s a Latina (identity) who believes in Latin-American advancement (message) is too basic. What kind of specific trials (no pun intended) or obstacles do Latinas tend to go through that other ethnicities (or even Latinos, their male equivalents) don’t? What might Latin-American advancement actually look like, at ground level in day-to-day life, or at the level of policy? Is Sotomayor even concerned with trials and obstacles at all – is she concerned about something else? Make sure you come up with something specific enough to do justice (I’m really not a pun guy – seriously) to the prompt. Don’t be lazy! Dig as deep as you can.

If you take a look at the top sample essay provided by the College Board (which is 2A, on p. 6), the student describes Sotomayor not simply as a Latina, but as a “product of America’s diversity” and “the daughter of Puerto Ricans.” These are terms that hint at the specificity of Sotomayor’s experience as a “New Yorkrican,” which is what her speech is all about. The student also describes the message not as mere Latina advancement or struggles, but as the idea that “identities shouldn’t be black and white” (meaning one clear thing vs. another clear thing), and the student also roots this black-white description in ongoing debates in America about homogeneity vs. heterogeneity, which Sotomayor also alludes to. It all begs an alluring question – how specific can an ethnic identity be?

Don’t write like this (but do use it as a framework):

Sotomayor conveys her message by sharing her identity.

Instead, write like this:

Sotomayor shares her unique experience as a “New Yorkrican” to convince viewers that a salad bowl approach to society is more accepting of intra-cultural nuances than a melting pot approach.

You’ll notice I flipped the framework in my correct example – I describe the identity before the message. This is fine too. Do whatever flows with you. You’re writing on a time crunch, after all.

Bottom line here is: use the clue, but only as a framework to dig deeper.

Don’t forget to dive into the subject the writer is writing about

So you’ve figured out the rhetorical strategies the author is using, you’ve figured out what the personality of the author is, and you understand the author’s argument. But can you envision other people who may disagree with the author’s argument? And these other people – what’s their aim? What do they want?

If you can’t answer these questions, it means you don’t have a good grasp of the subject. And you’re going to struggle to get a good grade on your essay if you don’t know the subject.

Let’s go back to the Sotomayor example. You’ll see the top student in the sample essays describes the subject (you can find this on p. 6, in the student’s intro) as “debates between a homogeneous vs. heterogeneous society in regards to cultural identities.”

You’ll notice this isn’t the most pristine description in the world, but the student still manages to tap into this debate idea of the kind of co-existence policy America should advocate: melting pot or salad bowl. You’ll notice also Sotomayor mentions this debate situation herself, in her speech.

What makes this top student really succeed is how they’re able to keep looping back to this debate subject in their essay. Closing sentences in this student’s paragraphs include:

 “…[Latina] cultural identity has many layers.”

“…. reinforces that there isn’t a single experience or quality that make a person a single cultural identity.”

“She maintains that there are so many factors that contribute to cultural identity, not just common languages or foods, that drawing distinct separations between them simply cannot be done.”

You’ll notice all of these phrases keep looping back to the subject Sotomayor is engaged in, which, to boil it down to simple terms, is the debate between melting pot and salad bowl. The student clearly describes what’s at stake if America takes the melting pot route, and by describing this, the student addresses the other side of the argument (or in other words: all the people out there who might disagree with Sotomayor’s salad bowl/intra-cultural nuance advocacy).

As I mentioned before, this student’s writing isn’t the most vivid or pristine, but it gets the job done. And although the student might lack serious writing chops, they make up for it with sophisticated thinking and genuine engagement with the subject. And guess what – that’s enough to earn them the sophistication point.

So it’s not game over if you don’t have the most sophisticated writing in the world. In the scoring commentary (see p. 13, at the top), the grader awarded the sophistication point to this student for their “nuanced understanding” rather than their “writing style.”

Just make sure you don’t think you can get away with bad writing, because this student’s writing is good. It’s just, in the College Board’s terms, not “consistently vivid and persuasive.” In other words, it’s good, but not great.

DISCLAIMER: Make sure you’re confident of your analysis skills

Keep in mind this is not a deep dive into what makes a good rhetorical analysis essay. It’s just some quick tips you can apply to your writing which can give you the push you need to score higher on the essay. These are not shortcuts. They’re reminders for how you should be presenting your analysis. You should definitely be confident of your analysis skills before you go into the exam – the graders are too smart to be fooled by an essay that only looks good on the surface. However, the way you present yourself and communicate your findings is crucial. What I’m trying to say is if a genius can’t present her own genius, then no one will know she’s a genius. So these are a set of tips that’ll help you ensure you’re looking composed and presentable in front of the grader. My point here is that you’ll need composure and presentation to maximize your score.

The post How To Get Full Marks on Your AP Language Rhetorical Analysis Essay appeared first on O.B. Chip's Writing Tips.

Due to how much our society encourages bullshitting, many students BS on their essays without even knowing it. Here’s how to identify your BS, and change your ways.

Many students BS not because they’re trying to be sinister deceivers, but because they don’t know what they’re doing.

And if a BSer can discover that they’re BSing, it means they can be rescued. This is assuming, of course, that they are willing to be rescued.

So this article is all about determining what it means to BS and what BSing looks like, so that you can make sure you’re on team realness aka all the legit writers out there who have actual things to say.

And yes, I may as well mention here that I’m an Advanced Placement English Language and Composition teacher who has seen all kinds of BS. I have been so drowning in BS (I realize the literal visual of that is gross – sorry) that I have even assigned the BS-filled public relations statements of adults to my constantly BSing students, so that they can analyze and deconstruct the statements and perhaps even see that they, mere students, have it in them to be BS-free and better at writing than people more than twice their age.

Let us define BSing (short for “bullshitting”) as the tactic a person uses to fool others into thinking that he is knowledgeable in a given subject, and worthy of being heard and respected.

So here’s the three major examples of BSing I’ve seen.

Beating around the bush with abstract phrases

Instead of talking about the struggles of low-wage workers living in urban centers, a chronic BSer will tell you about the “various aspects of economically disadvantaged people living in major metropolises.” What’s the difference? The BSer is using broader, more abstract language to describe a phenomenon, rather than concrete, visually descriptive language. You’ll notice many of these abstract phrases are also bigger words with higher syllable counts. Bigger words and higher syllable counts are a disguise BSers use to hide the fact that they don’t know what they’re talking about. It’s a pretty bad disguise if you think about it, sort of like if an undercover cop with a five o’clock shadow wore a Supreme t-shirt to bust some grade niners who were up to something illegal. Yet the disguise works on many people, due to how our politicians also BS a lot, which sadly validates BSing in our society.

Don’t write like this:

“Joe Schmitt talks about various aspects of economically disadvantaged people living in major metropolises.”

Instead, write like this:

“Joe Schmitt talks about the struggles of low-wage workers living in urban centers.”

I could spend an entire article talking about the differences above, but I won’t, so here’s a quick analysis:

“Low-wage” is two syllables compared to the nine of “economically disadvantaged.”  You’ll also notice it helps explain exactly how the economic disadvantage is working – it comes from low wages. “Workers” helps you visualize people actually working (maybe in a mine or a field or a warehouse) rather than “people,” which is more generic and open to interpretation.

Inventing illogical significance points

Including a significance factor in your essay is usually the most important thing you can do to bump yourself up to an A. But it’s difficult to pull off, which may lead to some BSing (whether accidental or not).

Here’s how it usually happens. Let’s say you’re writing an essay about whether or not the United States should add more nuclear power sources to their power grid. And you decide to side with the idea that yes, they should. So you’re trying to think up why it’s important for the US to be pro-nuclear power, and so off the top of your head, you say yes, they should add more nuclear power sources, as this would encourage more efforts at making nuclear power sources safer and less prone to accidents.

What’s wrong with the scenario above? Well, this is an idea that the student more or less pulled out of their ass – there’s no real process of logical reasoning behind it. We can even look at the example above in very simple equation-form to see if the logic checks out.

Basically the student is saying:

More nuclear power sources = safer nuclear power.

As you can see, it doesn’t take a logic mastermind to tell you this doesn’t make sense. And most English teachers, especially if they’re AP Language graders or college professors, will actually be logic masterminds, so you do not want to mess with them.

Don’t argue like this:

Yes, the US should adopt more nuclear power sources in their grid because more nuclear power sources = safer nuclear power.

Instead, argue like this:

Yes, the US should adopt more nuclear power sources in their grid because more nuclear power sources = a feasible approach to move away from fossil fuels – this is because we have developed the technology for nuclear already, unlike renewable sources like wind and solar, which we’re still trying to economize for higher scale production.

As you can see above, the corrected example has a significance factor that relies on the logic of possibility – it’s telling us the formula works because it is possible to achieve (possibility was one of Aristotle’s tips for logical argument), and it goes on to explain how the possibility works. Describing how your idea has a high possibility or feasibility-level is one great way to describe the significance of your argument.

So the bottom line here is: use a known and respected logical strategy to describe the significance of your argument, rather than something off the top of your head that’s maybe only vaguely related to the subject you’re writing about.

Simping the author

This is when, instead of discussing the subject an author is writing about, you put the author on a pedestal and praise the author for being great at writing. I’ll often see students do this when they’re trying to fill up an empty-looking sentence or paragraph.

For example, let’s say you’re writing on an author who wrote a creative non-fiction piece about life in an ethnoburb, (an ethnoburb is basically a well-to-do suburb with a unique, usually singular, non-white ethnic concentration). And you want to talk about a simile the author uses. Let’s say the simile is about how the import mangoes available in the mom-and-pop grocery stores in this ethnoburb are like being back in the home country, let’s say Pakistan, where you can climb mango trees in people’s backyards and taste unparalleled freshness and sweetness. So in your essay you talk about how the author’s simile about mangoes in the home country is such a great strategy to make the reader feel what it’s like to live in the ethnoburb, and you also say it’s really admirable how transported readers become when they read this author’s writing.

The problem is you sound like a suck up. And you’re not writing your essay to suck up. You’re writing it to contribute to the subject that this mango ethnoburb writer is talking about. It doesn’t matter that you’re just a student and the mango author is published and legit and in-the-workforce. Think higher of yourself and give this author a real critique. You don’t need to bash him – you can even just build off his idea or take an alternate viewpoint or move the conversation to a different, but related, subject. Your goal is to be an academic professional with a respectable viewpoint – not a suck up to other authors.

Don’t write like this:   

“The author’s excellent simile about climbing mango trees is a great way to put readers in his mind.”

Instead, write like this:

“The author’s simile about climbing mango trees demonstrates the success of ethnoburbs in western nations – specifically how they’re a great way for immigrants to lay down new roots without cutting out the roots of their home countries.”

You’ll notice in the corrected example above, I’ve moved the focus from praising the author to praising (or rather advocating) the thing that the author is praising: ethnoburbs. The validity of ethnoburbs in western nations is the subject of my essay; not the mango author. So if you’re someone who’s got this positive vibe energy that just can’t be stopped, channel that energy into praising a possible solution or angle in the subject. It’ll be much more academic and professional than putting another writer on a pedestal.

Your Takeaway – BSing is getting more dangerous

Moral Philosopher Harry Frankfurt wrote a book On Bullshit (that’s literally the title), where he suggested that BSers are more dangerous than liars because liars know the difference between truth and reality (they just choose to lie). Meanwhile BSers don’t care – they’re cool with making things up and actually believing in those things. Which takes us to where we are now in 2023 with the spread of fake news, and deep fakes, and any other buzz phrase with the word “fake” in it that I may be missing. And ChatGPT – one University of Toronto professor at the Institute for the History & Philosophy of Science & Technology argues that ChatGPT is the kind of BSer that Harry Frankfurt had in mind when he wrote his book, and this is because ChatGPT creates content for us without caring about the truth of its content (because that content comes from humans, who are full of BS). But obviously some content it creates will be truthful and correct, which gives it a kind of faux validity that might allow us to let its other BS slide (again, sorry about the gross literal visual).

ChatGPT ramifications can be especially dangerous when we consider the BSing strategy of inventing illogical significance points to push forward damaging ideas, such as accusing your country of committing election fraud, or arguing that climate change doesn’t exist. The same can be said of beating around the bush with abstract phrases – these abstract phrases can conceal violent realities that corporations or governments don’t want you to hear about. It might be the “upsetting event” where a United Airlines passenger got forced out of his seat and badly beaten by airline and airport staff, or the “threat reduction” that took place when policymakers and military officials ordered a drone strike that killed not just their living, breathing, human target, but all living, breathing civilians near the target too.

Which means this is needless to say, but I’ll say it anyways: don’t BS in your essays. And don’t think ChatGPT can help you ditch your BSing habits either.

The post How to Tell if You Bullshit in Your Essays (and How to Write BS-Free if You do) appeared first on O.B. Chip's Writing Tips.

Whether you’re taking AP Language or AP Literature, you should avoid these phrases. In fact, you should avoid them in any essay or written piece you ever write.

Every English teacher, while grading, will come across cookie-cuttered writing that makes them think “yup, here’s another student who writes without thinking.”

I’m talking about broad, catch-all phrases like “positive” or “negative,” or passive voice phrases like “this can be seen.”

I’m not sure where these phrases came from or why they’re still in circulation, but they’re out there, and they don’t seem to be going anywhere. And this is kind of sad to say, but by simply avoiding them, you can make yourself look further along in your education than your peers.

Who should we blame for the rampant use of these phrases? Students? Teachers? School systems? A society which encourages thoughtless language? It’s hard to say, and it’s not the focus of this article.

If you want to stand out from the crowd or if you need to impress a grader (such as an AP English Language grader) with writing that goes beyond a high school-level, you’ll want to avoid the phrases below.

“This can be seen”

This is one of the most common examples of passive voice, which is basically when someone describes an action, but doesn’t attribute an actor to the action. It’s like when the military says “the target was neutralized,” which is a trick they use to sound less violent with the public. Students, I like to think, are not as sinister or bureaucratic as the military, so typically they’ll use these kind of phrases when they’re not conscious of what they’re doing – like if they’re stuck in a passive voice habit.

Don’t write like this:

“There are many coming-of-age moments in To Kill a Mockingbird. This can be seen when Scout…..“

Instead, write like this:

“There are many coming-of-age moments in To Kill a Mockingbird. Examples include the scene where Scout…..”

“This is shown”

Another passive voice phrase – I see students use this when they’re trying to get into their analysis.

Don’t write like this:

“To Kill a Mockingbird contains symbols that illustrate the origins of racial prejudice in America. This is shown when Scout encounters…”

Instead, write like this:

“To Kill a Mockingbird contains symbols that illustrate the origins of racial prejudice in America. Lee uses one such symbol when Scout encounters…”

You can see in the corrected example above, I’ve used “Lee,” the author’s name, which means I’ve attributed an actor to an action. My example could be even more rudimentary – instead of “this is shown…” you could say “Lee shows us this…” – it’s not the best correction but at least it gets you away from passive voice.

Keep in mind there are protocols to follow when introducing authors in your writing (in this case I’ve cut straight to the author’s last name, which means I’ve introduced the author’s full name and credentials earlier in the written piece). I’ll have an article on these protocols later.

“Positive” and “negative”

Even adults often write with these phrases, so don’t beat yourself up too much if you do too. But still – don’t describe things by calling them positive or negative. These are sweeping phrases which are so broad in meaning that your essay will lose the chance to be unique, and it’s all because your descriptive phrases are too generic and…. don’t really describe. What’s worse is that since the phrases are so broad and multi-meaninged, your reader might come up with their own meaning, separate from your intended meaning, and you can’t blame them – you didn’t describe it in enough detail for them!

Don’t write like this:

“Atticus offers Scout an opportunity to think like an adult when …… This positive experience allows Scout to …..”

“The long stretches of time away from Dill leads to negative effects on Scout.”

Instead, write like this:

“Atticus offers Scout an opportunity to think like an adult when …… This experience, which eventually allows her to be wiser than her peers, allows Scout to …..”

“The long stretches of time away from Dill causes Scout to feel lonely and attention-hungry.”

“Mindset”

This phrase is not so bad on it’s own – the issue is it’s become a cliché (and like positive and negative, it’s used by adults too). When a grader sees the same phrase in use by all writers, over and over again, those writers are going to lose individuality and uniqueness (in the eyes of the grader). Is the grader going to be overtly thinking this, dehumanizing innocent students trying to do good in school? I doubt it – it’s not like the grader is a monster. These things happen at the unconscious level. So become unique, and get noticed.

Don’t write like this:

“Scout’s mindset gets in the way when she argues with Jem.”

“In her argument with Jem, Scout has a rebellious mindset.”

Instead, write like this:

“Scout’s rebellious nature comes out when she questions her brother’s ‘maddening superiority’ (150).”

As with all things psychological and mind-related, you don’t want to merely describe the thought or feeling. It’ll make your writing dry and overly technical. Instead, aim to showcase the thought or feeling in action. If the “mindset” you’re getting at is aggression, just use the word aggression, and then show an example of the aggression coming out in behaviour. That’s all it takes – you do that and you’re good.

“In line #”/ ”on page #”

This is a huge amateur mistake. Never do this! Your goal in writing is to help your reader visualize an idea or an argument or a feeling – to use words to help them see a scene. If this is the goal, then why are you throwing arbitrary line and page numbers in your prose? Save these for your in-text citations – otherwise you risk not getting taken seriously by your grader.

Don’t write like this:

“In line 56 of Act I, scene 1, Hamlet utters his famous words, ‘To be, or not to be?’”

“In Chapter 3, Scout gets in a fight with Walter Cunningham.”

“Scout’s commitment to non-violence, which is mentioned on page 89, …”

Instead, write like this:

“Hamlet’s famous words, “To be, or not to be,” (3.1.56) are iconic because….”

“Scout’s fight with Walter Cunningham demonstrates …. (include page # here)”

“Scout’s commitment to non-violence, which she describes as a ‘policy of cowardice,’ (89)…”

“Used,” as in “the rhetorical device used above”

This is another passive voice sin you’ll want to avoid. I see it when students are in analysis mode, and they’ve described how an author is using a rhetorical device, and they’re trying to reference it again. Like the other examples, it shows hesitation, reluctance, lack of awareness – all undesirable traits when you’re trying to impress someone, including a grader.

Don’t write like this:

 “The rhetorical device used above suggests ….”

Instead, write like this:

“Lee’s symbolism in this passage suggests…”

You’ll notice also, if we consider the objective we have as writers (which is to use words to help the reader visualize something), then we can also view the word “above” as an arbitrary phrase about the position of text on your literal paper or digital document – and if this is the kind of thing you’re trying to get your reader to visualize, you’re going to put them to sleep!

“Relates”

Here’s one of those phrases that is purely functional in writing – and to a fault. This one can be particularly frustrating for graders because the whole point of analysis in an essay is to describe the nature of the relationship between things. So if all you say is “this thing relates to this other thing,” it means you’re not describing the relationship, which goes against the whole purpose of an essay. And, like I said, it’ll frustrate the grader. And you don’t want a frustrated grader grading your essay.

Don’t write like this:

“Scout’s inability to sympathize with Walter Cunningham’s table manners relates to the theme of childhood innocence in To Kill a Mockingbird.”

Instead, write like this:

“Scout’s inability to sympathize with Walter Cunningham’s table manners presents us with one possible argument about the theme of childhood innocence in To Kill a Mockingbird: that yes, we should look to children to scrutinize our society’s morals, but we need to guide their thinking too (the way Calpurnia does) in order to get the most from their insights.”

You’ll notice the corrected example above is significantly longer, and that’s the way it should be in this case. It’s the nature of the relationship that you want to dig into. This is the thing that’s supposed to make your essay interesting, so describe it.

And a quick side note: you’ll notice I mentioned a thing Calpurnia does in the corrected example – I’ve written it based on the premise that I’ve described the thing she’s done (which is scolding Scout) in the essay already. So keep that in mind too. Make sure the reader understands every little thing you’re referencing.

There are more bad phrases out there

These are not the only examples of words to avoid – there are many more out there, and you don’t need to memorize them all (memorizing things to avoid would probably be a little strange, anyways).

Think instead of your key takeaways:

• Avoid phrases that give you passive voice.
• Avoid phrases that make you look like a robot rather than a unique individual.
• Avoid phrases that disengage the reader from the scene or idea you’re building.

Alright fine, those are still things to avoid, and I’m telling you to memorize them… don’t worry, I’ll come up with a more POSITIVE conclusion for my next article.

The post Don’t Use These Phrases in your AP English Essay (or any essay, for that matter) appeared first on O.B. Chip's Writing Tips.

A couple things you can do that might bump you up to a level 4 or 5.

You can’t really cram for the AP English Language exam. Despite all the fancy terminology and resources The College Board might have in their database (such as videos like this), it’s a skill-based exam at the end of the day. The way it works is you go in on exam day and get your exam package and that’s it – those are your “study” materials, so to speak, right there in the package. You study them on the spot and apply your skills. So there’s no point in memorizing all the readings you may (or may not) have done in your AP course throughout the year, because you’ll be applying your skills to the writing samples you end up with on the exam.  And I’m not gonna lie to you – if you don’t have the skills by now, you’re kind of screwed.

I’m talking about your reading comprehension ability, your ability to synthesize other writers’ arguments, to write good sentences under pressure – these, among others, are the skills that have to be mastered before exam day. And it takes months if not years of training to build these skills.

So, assuming you’ve at least built these skills up to a borderline level 3 level, what else can you do to prepare for the exam, and possibly bump yourself up to a 4, or even 5?

Get out from under your rock and read the news

In his treatise on rhetoric, Aristotle told his students to “see the available means of persuasion in each case.” What does this mean? Basically Aristotle wanted his students to get good at recognizing debate situations and topics. He wanted them to recognize the arguments of all sides in a debate, to the point that they (his students) knew all the weaknesses and strengths that come with those sides. The goal was not to become invested in an issue; it was to recognize all available persuasive opportunities within it.

Aristotle’s advice to his students still applies to the AP Language exam today. It’s particularly useful for the “argument essay” you’ll have to write – this is the one where you get a broad prompt and no accompanying text. You’ll have to rely on your own life experience and awareness of different debate topics to answer it.

So read the news. What are the debate topics and issues of the day, and what are people saying about them? You can even check in on those political panels that happen on the major news networks, where these big shot official-looking people show up to offer insightful comments on issues at hand. Maybe it’s how to respond to climate change. Maybe it’s about international trade deals affecting local workers. Whatever it is, listen to what they’re saying and see the different points and counter-points they make against one another. Soak it all in with a sense of neutrality – remember, your goal is to be good at rhetoric aka persuasion, not to be an advocate for any of these issues. Of course you can personally take a side on a debate topic if you want – just don’t let it get in the way of “seeing the available means of persuasion.”

Once you know a situation, you can take a stance on it. And your stance will be all the stronger because you know what all the sides are saying, so you can respond with counterpoints accordingly.

IMPORTANT NOTE: I’m gonna say, and this is an unofficial, unscientific statistic, that 95% of the time it’s a bad idea to go looking for quality arguments in YouTube comments (and comments sections in general). So maybe don’t bother with that.

Do a mock exam (if you haven’t already) and readjust your time gauge

Hopefully by now you’ve done a mock exam to prepare for the real exam. What was the section on the exam that took you the longest? The suggested time allotments are outlined on the College Board’s website. As of the time of this posting, it should take you 40 minutes for the rhetorical analysis essay, 40 minutes for the open response essay (or “argument” essay, as the College Board calls it), 55 minutes for the synthesis essay (this includes a 15 min reading time), and 60 minutes to complete the 45 questions in the multiple choice section. Focus on the section you struggled with most – maybe you didn’t complete it or maybe it became a big time sink. Reflect on what happened – where in your question-answering process did you get blocked up?

This might come across as very obvious advice, but I’ve known many students that didn’t bother going back to the drawing board after they struggled with a section, even though they knew they had struggles! So try it again, maybe with a different approach. And maybe also communicate your struggles to your teacher, and see what they have to say.

Get serious about rhetorical devices

It’s not enough to merely identify a rhetorical device. Nor is it enough to identify it and say that the device “emphasizes” a writer’s point. This is obvious, and will make your exam grader sad, mad, or sad and mad combined. What your grader (and also just people in general) care about is the actual tangible experience that takes place when this emphasis happens. How the heck is the emphasis working??? Your grader wants to know.

For example, let’s say you’re talking about Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have a Dream” speech, and you want to talk about the line where he says, “With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope.” Do not say Martin Luther King’s mining imagery emphasizes his point. Instead, talk about how his mining imagery conveys a tedious, workman-like approach to rebuilding race relations in America.

Revisit a text you’ve already read

Hopefully you’ve taken an AP course, or maybe self-studied for one, or maybe you think you’re a scholastic baller who’s got the skills already, so why not go for the exam? Whichever of these categories you fall in, revisit a text you’ve read before, preferably something non-fiction, or just something where you know (through your prior work with the text) what the author’s argument is. Revisit it and check out the rhetorical strategies the author uses (whether it is a specific moment of logic, or a specific moment in his language, like a rhetorical device). Check out what the author did in that moment (pick just one moment! And make sure it’s specific! This is my teacher voice talking!), and practice describing the specific technique you see on the page, how the author uses it in the moment, and also how it ties to the author’s overall argument. In other words, get comfortable with shifting your scale from micro to macro – this is a skill you’ll need on the exam because it demonstrates your ability to work with a specific rhetorical strategy, as well as your ability to apply that strategy to a broader point, where the stakes of the argument matter.

It might be nice if you understand the way an ironic comment is working – but your understanding won’t carry much weight if you can’t tie that moment of irony to a larger point the author is making.

There’s gotta be more tips out there, but these are my four go-to strategies – I tell them to my students when our course ends. I now must include an obligatory line saying, “what last minute strategies do you have? Are they different from the ones above? Post them in the comments below!” so there you have it, go ahead and post them.

The post Last Minute Study Tips for the AP English Language and Composition Exam appeared first on O.B. Chip's Writing Tips.

It’s pretty hard. You will have to write 3 essays and answer 45 multiple choice questions in one sitting. One essay alone is enough to tire a writer out so yeah, it’s hard.

Obviously it’s not impossible though, and people do score level 3 and above every year (290, 071 students did in 2022). So how about I, an AP Language teacher, explain to you what exactly makes it a tough exam.

Pushes your writing stamina to the limit

Back in my undergrad days, I’d have to write these end-of-term in-class exams, which were always hectic. They would involve short answer questions, long answer questions, and usually one essay question at the end. I remember saving my thinking strength for that final essay question because I knew it would take the most brainpower, the most amount of critical thinking and connection-making between concepts. I hated in-class exams and I always felt dead after them. I also always had to use the bathroom very badly afterwards.

When I learned that the AP Language exam had not one, not two, but three essay questions, I immediately felt bad for my students and wondered how The College Board could be so sadistic.

But we don’t have time to lament the sadistic world we live in so why don’t I tell you about the three essays you’ll have to write.

You’ll have to:

1.  write a synthesis essay that incorporates other writers’ ideas into your own unique idea (this essay includes a collection of readings you’ll have to research and consider),
2. write a rhetorical analysis essay that makes an argument about the language choices in a given passage,
3.  and write an open-response essay that answers a broad prompt (with examples).

All three essays will need to have intros, conclusions, body paragraphs, theses, etc. etc. That’s a lot of brainpower.

So if you’re like me and you’re one of those kids who never manages to finish an in-class essay early, who always milks every second they can to do the best job they can, and who always has to use the bathroom very badly afterwards because the test is so dang long and maybe you drank too much water to keep yourself hydrated, then you’re in for a tough time.

But it’s doable as long as you pace yourself and keep your cool – as long as you practice writing and arguing until it feels innate. If you feel yourself struggling to write every time you’re tasked with writing an essay (especially in-class, under time pressure), then it means you’re not ready. You need more practice before you take on the exam.

Multiple choice section will try to trick you

Many of the multiple choice questions will offer multiple true answers. So if, in a given question, all possible answer options are truthful, how do you know which one to pick? This dilemma is what makes the multiple choice section so hard.

The key is in finding the most correct answer. And to find the most correct answer, you need to be aware of the overall tone or vibe or argument of the reading passage. Let that tone or vibe or argument inform your choice of answer.

You may encounter some multiple choice questions where only one answer is true, but the other selections are so broad, vague, and confusing that it leaves your brain in a bored jumble. You may zone out and think about inappropriate hormonal things, or even faraway memories like the time your friend roofed a soccer ball.

In either scenario (whether it’s multiple true answers or the zone out), the multiple choice section is trying to trick you. And if you let it trick you, it will drain out your time and your brainpower, which you’ll need for the essay-writing section. So obviously drained out brainpower = bad score.

Graders won’t tolerate your BS

This is going to make me sound like an egomaniac, but AP Language teachers and graders really are cut from a different cloth. They are writing and prose fanatics, so you won’t have any luck BSing your way through the essays. I’m not sure if you have an English teacher who might give you a B even though you BS in your essays – but if you do this on the exam, you’ll fail.

What is BSing (bullshitting) exactly? It comes in many forms. One of the most common examples is using jargony, multi-syllabic language, like “render inoperative” rather than something more real and in-your-face, like “kill.”

Other times it may take the form of using broad, vague phrases that show a reluctance, on the writer’s part, to engage with the subject. Like let’s say you’re subject is supposed to be about the impact that a tough-on-crime policy might have on poorer neighborhoods. If the student is BSing, they might say something like “aspects of government policy can have impacts on certain neighborhoods.”

What aspects??? What policy??? What impacts???? Which neighborhoods???

If you write like this, your grader will actually get visibly upset and might even question their role in the universe itself, like what poor life choices did they make to end up with such bogus writing in front of them?

If you are a chronic BSer in your English classes, don’t even think about taking the exam until you kick the habit (or at least take an oath to kick the habit – this is commendable too).

No time to write good copies

Last of all, you can say goodbye to the luxury of the rough copy-good copy process that students often get in their English classes. This is where basically you get some time to write a rough copy of an essay, you give it to your teacher or a fellow student for an edit, you get the edited essay back and make some corrections and voila, you’ve got your good copy. The AP English Language and Composition exam is rough draft only! So you’ll have to write a good rough draft. It will need to be composed, well-written, fully argumentative, and brimming with potential.

So yes, on the one hand, this is tough to do. On the other, it does give you some allowance – the graders know you are writing a rough draft and will grade your essay according. A couple grammar or spelling mistakes or a one-off awkward sentence won’t really bring your score down. A big flaw in logic or a lack of argumentativeness, however, could be your downfall. So this goes back to the writing stamina issue – get a lot of writing practice in and get good at writing. Keep practicing until your rough drafts are good enough to stand on their own. Do not write sketchy rough drafts any more!

From what I’ve seen as an AP English Language and Composition teacher, these four reasons are what make the exam so difficult. Many students get this misconception that English is easy (due to lower standards in their regular English class), or that essays can be BSed, and these misconceptions often lead to their downfall. Get your practice in and increase both the amount you read and the difficulty level of your readings (and also, get a good AP Language teacher), and you may have a shot at a level four or five.

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