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Julian Spencer

Professor Jan Rieman

English 1101x

26 October 2009

Composing the Perfect Essay

Writing an essay can be a very daunting task. Composing a thesis statement, developing

main points, and correct grammar, are all little things that compile and create an essay. Min-

Zhan Lu and Bruce Horner's essay bring many writing practices together in one place. They

pose that there isn't just one way to compose an essay, there are many. Often essay writing can

become quite chaotic. While writing an essay, always make sure to compose drafts, revise until

satisfaction is obtained, don't hesitate to change your ideas or opinions, and also don't be afraid

to ask others for help. Getting someone who is of the audience you are writing for to look over

your document can prove to be very beneficial. It's not cheating!

The research Lu and Horner conducted in this essay is very helpful for a college student

like me. I enjoyed their usage of the phrase posing-composing, but also at the same time didn't

understand it in its entirety. What was meant by the phrase in my opinion is that posing is the

plan, and composing is actually writing the paper. This is a very good technique because it's

always more efficient to plan out an essay before jumping right into it. Taking your time, and

"posing," will most likely always conclude with better results than a rushed essay.

Though this piece was helpful, it was also difficult to understand. Lu and Horner's style

of writing is of no other style I've seen before. They make a lot of use comma's, and word

repetition. I was often confused about what the author was trying to convey throughout. The
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other pieces that we've read thus far felt like a breeze compared to what I faced when reading this

essay. For example, while pose-compose was being explained, I came across this sentence,

"Writers pose - in the sense of presenting as a possibility to themselves - and re-pose their

processes as they compose, and in turn, the process they pose shapes what they compose in turn,

and both of these are reconceived and refashioned in response to specific contexts"(4). That was

a sentence that forced to me go back several times for clarification, and I eventually grasped the

concept. Later in the text I learned the meaning of pose-compose, but if this in fact had been the

only definition, I would have no idea what half of this text was about.

Reading this text was difficult, but by reading it, I've learned greatly about composing an

essay. Lu and Horner give a lot of helpful tips, and also include examples to look at throughout

the text. One of my favorite items that was in Lu and Horner’s text was "What to say, how, and

What to do, When"(8). Even though it felt like I already came across those terms in a sense, they

put it down in words that made it a lot easier to remember. In my opinion, every college

freshman should have a look just for extra assistance.

Self Assessment

-I didn't really enjoy writing this paper too much. Today has been a very busy and stressful

week. What I like most about my paper is the first two paragraphs. I feel like that is the most

structured section of my essay, and because of that it's my favorite.

- If I had more time, I would probably revise the whole entire paper. I don't think it was written

to the best of my abilities, and I think if more time was permitted my paper would be a lot better.

- Specifically I'd like you to read the introduction paragraph, to see if it needs work. I really

didn't know how to begin any of the paragraphs in this essay, which is another thing that should

be looked at.
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Works Cited
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Lu, Min-Zhan. Horner, Bruce. Writing Conventions. New York: Longman Pearson, 2008. Print.