HOW TO HUNT WILD BOAR! How to Hunt, Kill, Dress, and Serve Your Very Own Wild Boar or The Process of Writing an Effective Essay When it comes to writing an essay, the experience should be active and exciting, just like stalking and killing a wild boar. The steps to writing an essay, as laid out here, are by no means the only way to developing an analytical and argumentative paper, but they may provide a framework for those who don’t spend their free time writing essays for fun (the no-good psychopaths!). If you find yourself baffled and confused by essay-writing, well, this guide may only baffle and confuse you some more. Hopefully, though, at the end of it, you will have at least a rough game plan with which to approach future papers. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me. --Greg Hunting the Wild Boar The key to hunting a wild boar is location, location, location. For example, if you choose to hunt wild boar in your backyard, chances are you will go hungry. On the other hand, if you slip quietly into a forest where the wild boars are running wild, then you’ll have much better chances at snagging one. Getting started on your essay is pretty darned similar. If you know where to look for your research, you are already in much better shape than the poor, hapless schmoe who’s spending his time at his computer taking wild stabs at Internet searches. Looking on-line can sometimes be effective, but research does mean more than just seeing what your search engine can find for you. Check out the library. When it comes to finding juicy evidence to support your point, nothing beats reading what else is already out there. It might sound like a daunting task, but once you find some books related to your topic, the material will almost present itself. How do you know what you’re looking for in the books? Well, part of that skill comes with time and practice, so keep with it! The rest of the roadmap to finding what you’re looking for comes with developing an argument, covered in the following section. Killing the Wild Boar Okay, so once you figure out where the wild boars like to party and you’re knee-deep in their snorting, churning masses, you’ve got to figure out how to slay one of the terrible beasts. Find your target. I must warn you, though, that you should not pick the fattest behemoth in the bunch, as that pig might take too much time and effort to wrangle, and you want to avoid the runt of the litter, too, since piglets are too wimpy and make for an unsatisfying warrior feast. You best bet is to find the boar that can challenge you without becoming too much for you to handle. Now you’re ready to attack. This is no time for a squirt gun! You cannot subdue the mighty creature with a feather duster! You need an honest-to-goodness, full-on, old-fashioned spear. And, more than that, you bloodthirsty savage, you need to thrust and chop and hack and stab with that spear until your wicked enemy is lying dead at your feet like a bundle of hairy bacon with tusks. This battle is not for the faint of heart! You’ve surrounded yourself with research, know the key topics and central themes of the material, and you’re ready to get started. But where to begin? You need to single out which topic appeals most to you; in other words, figure out what you feel would be interesting to argue. Narrowing down on a single, manageable topic can be difficult. If your scope is too broad, the essay quickly becomes unmanageable and sloppy. You’re not writing a dissertation, just a simple essay. On the other hand, if your range is too narrow and simple, your essay will sound too basic, like a junior-high composition. Find your own personal median by selecting a topic that is challenging, yet not so sprawling that you are only able to skim the surface. What is the best way to penetrate this topic to its very center? Come up with a strong thesis. An essay with a clear, cogent thesis invites its own analytical structure. On the other hand, without a definitive central argument, a paper typically falls apart into meaningless, plodding mush. A solid thesis should give an adequate sense of scope, invite analytical subtopics, and gesture toward that rock-hard evidence you’ve picked up along the way in your research. But, wait, there’s more! You can get far with a thesis, but you still need the rest of your writing to tie back into that thesis. Your argument can’t speak for itself unless you support it. That’s the rest of the essay. If we didn’t need argumentation, evidence, and analysis, writers would simply be thesis-producing monkeys, chattering and flinging theses at each other. It wouldn’t be a pretty sight. In any case, the best way to anchor your supporting points to that humdinger of a thesis is to toss out some topic sentences at the beginnings of your paragraphs. That way your reader has handholds to follow through the argument. Think of these topic sentences as the connective tissue in the body of your essay. All of the topics need to link back to the thesis, and the thesis needs to link to all of the topics. Your thesis is a great way to pierce to the center of what you want to say, but you’ll still need multiple points of attack to make certain your idea is adequately and intelligently skewered. Dressing the Wild Boar Good God, you’ve got a dead boar on your hands. What do you do now? Watch out, things are about to get messy. It’s time to get up close and personal with Mr. Piggly-Wiggly’s innards. That’s right, you need to skin your wild boar, make sure the meat is in good condition, and trim the fat. After all, nobody wants to bite into a wild boar sandwich that’s all hairy skin and meatless fat. It’s gruesome, hard work taking care of dressing you hog carcass, but hunting wild boar isn’t solely about the thrill of the chase. How the hell do you start your essay? The best way to get your reader oriented to what you want to say is to introduce your topic appropriately. Strip that skin off of it, exposing all the relevant points. Give us a sense of context and background, let us know what we’re in store for, and define the terms and ideas you plan to use. All this material gets your essay prepared for stating your thesis. Why should you write your thesis before your introduction? Hey, how else do you know what you’re introducing? As for those topic sentences, those are the meat of what you want to say. If those babies aren’t in good working order, solidly fleshed out with evidence and analysis, there’s nothing for your readers to sink their teeth into, no primary food for thought. Make sure you get those paragraphs developed, since they provide the bulk of what you’re saying to get your thesis across. Call it fluff, call it fat, call it essay-swelling filler. Every essay has some garbage in it. Your job once you’ve got the body in working order is to eliminate all the crap. What I mean by crap is the irrelevant information, the repetitive redundancies, and the puffy stuff that distracts from the main topic without saying much. Believe me, there’s nothing that will annoy your reader more than being able to identify all those spots where you have nothing to say but are saying it anyway. Your essay needs some solid flesh to it, but you still want to make it as lean and hard-hitting as possible. Pretend that every word costs you money or, better yet, creates physical pain. If you’ve ever read an unnecessarily long essay with no point to it, you’re familiar with boring words causing discomfort. Help stop that painful cycle! Serving the Wild Boar You’re in the home stretch now, swine-lovers. But don’t start salivating yet! That critter still needs to be cooked. The world is waiting to gobble up that fine, tasty boar-meat you’ve got your hands on, but they’ll just have to wait a little longer. Oinkers need time to soak in the marinade (not too spicy, not too bland). And they need time to cook. Stick an apple in its mouth and you’re just about done. But before you pass out the wild boar chops to everyone waiting at your victory banquet, it’s essential that you taste the thing yourself and have some honest friends try it and tell you if it’s decent, too. The more taste-testers, the better your chances are of a successful feast. Sadly, just writing that essay isn’t enough. You need to coat it in formal, academic language; the whole thing needs to be saturated to its center with good grammar, solid sentence structure, and precisely polished writing mechanics. This formal writing style might feel awkward and artificial to you, but that doesn’t make it any less important. People will judge you based on your writing. Let me step in to intervene before they get to you: "proper grammar and writing mechanics" are unfair, racist, elitist, sexist, and all-around intolerant. That’s why it’s all the more important that you learn the specifics of how such power structures influence communication, so that one day you will hopefully have the influence to change how people think about discourse. In the meantime, live the system, learn the system, and then change the system. Find your own personal way to stick it to The Man with good grammar and writing mechanics. Or just bitch about how you hate grammar. I don’t care. But whatever you do, remember that poor writing skills just won’t fly with me. Am I arrogant for reinforcing common assumptions about writing and power? Probably, but learn the conventions anyway. Some schools of thought dictate that your conclusion should restate what you said in your introduction, but this dangerous line of thinking often leads to chaotic cutting-and-pasting or, still worse, circular reasoning, a paper that ends where it started with no real development. Yes, it is the final cherry on top, the apple plugged into the boar’s mouth, and, as such, you can get away with telling your audience what you just told them. At the same time, however, a skilled conclusion touches on the implications of what has just been said, weighing its own significance a little bit. Why is it important that you wrote what you wrote? Synthesize your points. Revisit your thesis. Reinforce how your argument ties to all the topic sentences, why it concludes the way it does, and why it matters. Your readers will remember the last part most vividly, so you ought to make it something worth remembering. Sure, it’s hard, but it’s not impossible. Who has time these days? Whoever it is, beat them up and steal their time because all writing demands a hefty amount of it. Give yourself enough time to write clearly and coherently, and then give yourself enough time to leave it alone to simmer in its own juices. That way, when you return, hopefully you have a fresh perspective, new ideas, and a clear head for spotting problems that eluded you before. Read it out loud, as this method is pretty reliable for figuring out what "sounds" bad. Writing is a process, and honest writers will tell you that there is only "the most recent draft," never "the final draft." Give yourself the time for overtime. Just like you need time alone with your paper, you also need time for getting as many friends as you can to taste-test the essay. Pick your critics wisely, though, as friends can be too friendly ("Everything is perfect just the way it is."), and enemies can be too unfriendly ("The whole thing sucks, and there’s no way to fix it."). Rather, aim to have your readers provide as much constructive criticism as you can squeeze out of them. Make them write on the copy you give them. Promise them rewards of good karma, foot rubs, or, hell, even some roasted wild boar. Just get as many folks as you can to read (and re-read) your writing. The Big Payoff In the sunny days of yore, mighty warriors gathered in hunting lodges to devour their spoils together, drinking grog and smashing everything in sight. In today’s culture, we’re a little more restrained, but that doesn’t mean there should be any less festivity. The hunting, killing, dressing, and serving of wild boar is still a cause for celebration. In an ideal situation, all of the elements of the process are pleasurable: the method of getting and preparing the wild boar, having a tasty, boar-based pot-luck afterwards, and the relief of completing a difficult task. But, in the eventuality that you’re a vegetarian, or you avoid boar because it’s not kosher, or you just flat-out hate the taste of barbecued boar, then pat yourself on the back by enjoying what the rest of the hunting lodge has to offer. Happy feasting! Don’t forget to reward yourself for your own writing. Hopefully, when you’ve put in enough time, research, revision, and rewriting into a project, you’ll have a sense of satisfaction for accomplishing as much as you did. At the end of it all, you always at least have the benefits of the process (and what you learned in it) and the product (most likely a solid, well-polished essay). If the gratification of a job well done isn’t enough of a prize, promise yourself something else for your hard work: a little ice cream, a fun movie, a good run, or … whatever. How would I know what you want, anyway? Whatever you do, enjoy!  © All material found on www.gregwright.info is copyright protected by Greg Wright and may not be reproduced or used in any way without his express, written permission. Thank you.