1st PLACE NATIONAL ESSAY WINNER (Writer's Digest)
HOW TO WRITE A BAD ESSAY FOR ALL THE RIGHT REASONS
By Lynne M. Smelser, Ph.D.
Bad writing seems like it should be a pretty easy process…grab some clichés, fail to support points, misjudge the appropriate tone, and, oh, yes, pile on the grammatical errors. Those are all good, but if you truly want to write the worst essay of your career, well, that takes some effort.
It takes effort because you’re not going for a mediocre essay that just kind of lays on the page. You’re going for something that eats up the reader and makes him/her sick at the thought. Just like the best, the worst is memorable.
STEP 1: PREWRITING
Begin anywhere…perhaps in a chair next to your father as a man in a white coat across the desk from him is saying, “There’s nothing else we can do. Your wife’s life support should be ended.” Let every cliché swirl around mixing with the confusion, anger.
Next, sit in a dark room, pen in hand, and stare at the medical form they “need” you to sign so that a living person can be removed from machines. Draw angry X’s across it all because this isn’t what you planned to write and no one should ever put words like this in front of an author trying to write the perfect essay. Use this all important form to jot down memories of Christmas morning when your mother gave you the most God-awful stuffed animal, ugly even in her eyes, but she bought it so it wouldn’t be alone on Christmas. Draw little hearts that remind you of the time she walked to your school amidst swirling snow in frigid temperature to bring you your first real box of Valentine candy, velvet and pink, so that you could share it with all of your friends.
Or perhaps close your eyes and listen to the beeping of a machine, the one keeping your mother alive. Do a freewrite of all the things you forgot to tell her during your last visit before she went into a coma and then realize that the last hour you would ever spend with her was spent talking about baseball, which meant nothing to you, but everything to her.
Research what it means to take someone off of life support and then shred every bit of information because what you’ll eventually write has nothing to do with science. Your poorly constructed essay will have no logic....
By Lynne M. Smelser, Ph.D.
Bad writing seems like it should be a pretty easy process…grab some clichés, fail to support points, misjudge the appropriate tone, and, oh, yes, pile on the grammatical errors. Those are all good, but if you truly want to write the worst essay of your career, well, that takes some effort.
It takes effort because you’re not going for a mediocre essay that just kind of lays on the page. You’re going for something that eats up the reader and makes him/her sick at the thought. Just like the best, the worst is memorable.
STEP 1: PREWRITING
Begin anywhere…perhaps in a chair next to your father as a man in a white coat across the desk from him is saying, “There’s nothing else we can do. Your wife’s life support should be ended.” Let every cliché swirl around mixing with the confusion, anger.
Next, sit in a dark room, pen in hand, and stare at the medical form they “need” you to sign so that a living person can be removed from machines. Draw angry X’s across it all because this isn’t what you planned to write and no one should ever put words like this in front of an author trying to write the perfect essay. Use this all important form to jot down memories of Christmas morning when your mother gave you the most God-awful stuffed animal, ugly even in her eyes, but she bought it so it wouldn’t be alone on Christmas. Draw little hearts that remind you of the time she walked to your school amidst swirling snow in frigid temperature to bring you your first real box of Valentine candy, velvet and pink, so that you could share it with all of your friends.
Or perhaps close your eyes and listen to the beeping of a machine, the one keeping your mother alive. Do a freewrite of all the things you forgot to tell her during your last visit before she went into a coma and then realize that the last hour you would ever spend with her was spent talking about baseball, which meant nothing to you, but everything to her.
Research what it means to take someone off of life support and then shred every bit of information because what you’ll eventually write has nothing to do with science. Your poorly constructed essay will have no logic....
