Using Their Voice In College Writing By Driscoll

Driscoll firmly asserts the importance of critical thinking in the attempt of constructing a powerful essay. He also argues that students regularly tend to fall into two unjustified modes of presenting their essays: first, they gratuitously generalize truths that are subjective instead of emphasizing on specific and original interpretations of the texts they read. They are often taught in high school to simply present facts and make general claims without corroborating evidence and support. This is not bound to work within the context of college writing. College writing operates based on the significance of critical thinking, as Driscoll suggested, “In college-level academic writing, the professor doesn’t want an essay that is just a plot summary
He also outlines that, “However, while conversation utilizes this strategy all the time, we have trained students in high school to avoid this use of their voice. ( Driscoll 6 )” He claims that high school teachers don’t care about hearing your critical thinking commentaries but they’d rather just see that you understand the concept. Driscoll emphasizes the of the usage of I within the essay gives personality and declares where you stand on the issue. In other words, voice and position are always required in a thesis and the best way to make sure that you have a VP is by using the word “I”. Driscoll comprehends that it’s hard for students to use the word I after many years of being told not to use it, but now it's time to erase what we’ve learned in high school and learn how to think about a topic or an issue. Driscoll himself writes that if you are to do a good job on an essay, you need to think about it properly first, and to think ‘properly’ will mean using the right side of your page and not the left. In actuality, the left side of the brain works in a very linear and, focused mindset, but the right side doesn’t need the same precision to understand the subject and due to that reason it makes more useful for essays. Driscoll states that students must do a spider diagram because it stimulates your brain to stay on the right side and that it helps you to focus on your paper. Driscoll’s also concedes that if you got every point down there is no excuse to just start writing because you have copied down the template that was given to you. He also asserts that the biggest issue students have is the tendencies that they tend to forget that the thesis is the map for their essay, or they just decide to leave their essay for last minute and the whole experience will end up being extremely frustrating. The main focus of an essay isn’t writing down the theme you're job is to make an argument out