[This is the 3rd installment of a series. Click here to view Part I and Part II]
In Part II of this series, I discussed the thesis statement as the core of a term paper. This is the central thought upon which you anchor everything else. Now that you know how to form a thesis statement, you can proceed to fleshing out your paper’s skeleton.
The introduction is, of course, the first part of your paper. Please do not make the mistake of writing the words “introduction” as …

Most students turn green in the face when they hear the words “book review”. In reality, however, there really isn’t much to fear when it comes to writing a book review.  The two words say it all: you just read a book, process it and then write down what you think about it.
That’s what you do when you review a book.
But then teachers start mentioning these guidelines that include terms like synopsis, exposition, plot, structure and students start going wild with fear.  What should’ve been a simple and straightforward opinion …

Previously, I discussed the “skeleton” of the term paper: the outline. Knowing the outline, though, can only get you so far.

Writing term papers is one of the greatest joys of my life.
It’s not that I’m a masochist and I like to punish myself with endless research work; it’s just that I’m a nerd and I love the rush I get whenever I finish a term paper. I get some sort of high whenever I figure out how to write a particularly complex research paper.
It’s just, well, incredibly wonderful.
For those of you who find writing term papers and other academic whatnot a chore, fear not. I hereby present to …

I’ve been out of touch this past weekend thanks to a combination of back pain and the installation of the entire Sims 2 collection on my Mac. It took me weeks to finally get the installation done (thanks to a random list of things I’d rather not discuss), and back pain had rendered me completely immobile for days.
Anyway, I’ll leave you with this strip from xkcd.com to think about. I’ve said time and again that writing is not a science. There’s no point forcing it to conform …

One thing that stumps most writers trying to eke out a living in the field of academic writing is the plethora of citation styles available. One only has to google “citation style” and out will come all these weird acronyms and terms that seem more suited to aged librarians than modern writers.
Rest assured, however, that these styles are lot less complicated than they seem.
I never had a problem with citation styles simply because I took up a course in college that would put a little too much emphasis on …

Previously, I mentioned working for a few essay writing (or academic writing) companies online. Almost always, I faced late payments and convoluted pay methods.
Both companies (Allwriting and EssayWriters) paid me, although AW owes me a bit and hasn’t responded yet and EW lacks projects. Unfortunately, I always get some sort of paranoid feeling in my gut when working for these companies, because you can find complaints against them all over the internet.
I’ve talked to people who have very good experiences with AW and EW; however, this doesn’t negate …

I’ll let you in on a little secret.

Yesterday, I went back to some of my old posts and started editing. I wasn’t just hunting for run of the mill errors; I was looking for something specific that — if not corrected — could ruin me. We could call it the Holy Grail of the Written Word.

I was looking for “i.e.” and replacing it with “e.g.”.

As a young student, I was taught early on that both “i.e.” and “e.g.” are used prior to giving examples. The only difference is that “i.e.” is used to give examples in sentence form, while “e.g.” is used when you enumerate.

I want my money back, school. That’s not how “i.e.” and “e.g.” are used.

Yesterday, I received shocking news from someone I didn’t know.
I received notification via Yahoo Messenger that someone wanted to speak to me. Normally, I reject these invitations; yesterday, however, the woman’s YM handle mentioned writing. I was both interested and curious, hence my willingness to chuck the usual paranoia. I accepted the invite and had a short yet shocking chat with the woman.
Did I know a Steve Park? I said, yes, because I had previously worked for him as an academic writer. I found Steve …

I promised here that I will inform you immediately once I confirm that Essaywriters.Net actually pays. If you conduct a brief Google search of the company, you’ll see that there are entire threads and forums devoted to discrediting Essaywriters.Net, labeling it a major scam.
I’m not saying that these complainants are faking or lying about their experience with Essaywriters.Net. I just think that the experience of different writers will never be exactly similar, due to differences in style and performance. As such, despite the negative feedback online, I sought out the …