Essay Examples

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<p>How important is it to have examples from literature or history? I ask, in part, because this seems easier with some of the prompts from the recent years than others. </p>

<p>Reading examples from the CollegeBoard (the official blue book and the website), it seems that you can score a 12/12 with no examples from history or literature if the essay is very well written and the examples are very fitting. The personal examples might be from one's life or from someone else's (akin to a brief biographical description).</p>

<p>However, reading this website, it sounds like you are absolutely doomed if you do not have 3 examples from literature and/or history. That maybe, just maybe you could do 1 example that is not history and/or literature and still come out with a decent score. But without history and/or literature examples, we are looking at an 8 or 9 tops, but probably something below a 7. </p>

<p>I do agree that all else equal that 3 different examples from history would probably read better than 3 examples all about one's brother, or even one for three different family members. I would imagine that with three scholarly examples, the readers might be more lenient with other aspects of the essay, such as the reader's vocabulary. </p>

<p>But from the rubric, I do not see anywhere it implies that a 12/12 (or a 6 point score per reader) requires 3 history or literature examples. </p>

<p>I just wanted to open this topic up for discussion. Are the examples on the webpage and in the blue book absolutely misleading?</p>

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<p>The point of the essay is to argue your point, and use examples only as supporting evidence. You can score a 12 with two well-thought out examples. You don’t need to restrict literature to works of fiction either. For example, if you are writing an essay about whether increased technology in the classroom is beneficial or harmful, and you reference a paper from a scientific journal on the topic, that’s totally fine.</p>

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<p>MITer94: Your example is exactly spot on with what I was getting at. Thank you very much for the affirmation. As you wrote, some prompts just make more sense for me to reference a study, for example. (I enjoy keeping up with studies in scientific journals.) I concede that some prompts might make sense to include fiction or history. As I stated in my original post, I think your post is the first one I found on this board that is consistent with my perspective that we are not doomed if we are not writing about literature and/or history. Thank you again.</p>