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Guide the reader

I am currently “stuck” in the B grade bracket and my teacher says it is due to my lack of “guiding the reader”. However she is unable to tell me how to improve this.....please help
Sezdoh
Original post by Sezdoh
I am currently “stuck” in the B grade bracket and my teacher says it is due to my lack of “guiding the reader”. However she is unable to tell me how to improve this.....please help
Sezdoh

I think I might understand what your teacher means by "guiding the reader", at least in essay work.

When you write an essay, you need to imagine that your reader does not know the question you are answering. So your introduction must tell the reader what you are going to write about (effectively reformulating the question) and also tell your reader how you are going to set about answering the question.

In order to do this effectively, you need to plan your essay carefully. At the planning stage, the first thing to do is to decide what your conclusion is going to be - just jot down a single sentence as an answer to the question. Then make a note of the arguments / references / examples you are going to use to back up your answer. Organise these ideas into a logical sequence, remembering that the reader is not in your head and will not necessarily understand your logic, so you will need to be able to explain why your points are important and how they are linked. You are then ready to write your introduction.

By doing essays this way, you have a guiding line going throughout your work leading logically to your conclusion, thus "guiding the reader".

Similar comments apply to answering comprehension questions and doing summaries.

I hope this helps; re-post here if anything needs clarification.

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