Before I give you my notes on the essay itself, Id like to give you some guidelines for writing

the essays which will follow.

1. The first thing I notice when I look at your essay is that it is too long. This usually
happens for two reasons: a) unnecessary information has been included it should be
located and paraphrased, or simply deleted; b) repetition has occurred the same ideas
have been unnecessarily restated twice or several times throughout the essay. When you
finish your essay, you may notice that it is too long after you count the words, or maybe it
is apparent immediately. Whichever the case, the word count can be adjusted by reading
your essay again and checking whether it is in accordance with the skeleton of the essay.
2. The skeleton of the essay is the basic structure of the essay which we discussed in class
how the introduction, the body paragraphs and the conclusion should be organised. You
should always keep this in mind, because if this is disrupted, it becomes difficult for the
reader to follow the flow of the essay and to capture the essence of what the writer wants
to achieve with his writing. Therefore, the essay may lose its value. This is particularly
important for the introduction (when we introduce the reader to our essay topic and to
what the essay will be about) and the conclusion of the essay (when we summarise the
points made in the essay in order to show why it is our opinion that they are in
accordance with the arguments we provided).
3. Clarity in the body paragraphs the chosen topic of your paragraph should be the main
idea and it should be stated in the first sentence of your paragraph (the topic sentence);
dont include anything else in it, afterwards just provide examples and arguments to
support that one idea. Other ideas should be discussed in other body paragraphs.
4. Conclusion helps the reader understand why the writer wrote what he did, and clearly
states the writers opinion. No new ideas or solutions to the problem discussed should be
included if they havent been mentioned in the body paragraphs. Always keep in mind the
following (at least I found this tip helpful when I learnt about essays years ago, and I still
remember it today): if somebody wanted to know what we wrote about, without reading
the entire essay, the introduction and the conclusion should provide the necessary
information. The introduction gives a short statement of the topic and presents the ideas
which we will develop in the body paragraphs; the conclusion summarises the body
paragraphs and clearly shows our standpoint as authors of the essay.
5. Last but not least, we must ask ourselves did we answer the question from the essay
title? If we miss the topic, all efforts are for nothing. Also, all the arguments, details, and
examples from the essay should relate to the title of the essay if they dont, we should
omit them (this is helpful with the word count as well).
6. Apart from the structure, it is necessary to use complex tenses correctly and to show off
the vocabulary knowledge. When you write the essay, keep in mind who your reader is, it
is all for him/her (in this case, imagine that you are writing for the FCE examiners, and
not your teacher as she is not very strict )
p.s. Did you notice how I used the passive above? I intentionally included some complex
vocabulary as well; hopefully it will be useful to you

And finally, here are your essay notes:

- Vocabulary I saw many words which I was pleased to see you used (soil, funds,
residents, crowded, benefits, personal risk, according to, terrain, dehydration,
furthermore, raise, put to the test, seek ,equipment, adrenaline rush, survival instinct,
etc.). On the other hand, we learned about travel and tourism, and this was a good
opportunity to mention some of the vocabulary from that lesson.
- Grammar the present perfect continuous in the first sentence was excellent. Other
tenses you used were not complex, but were mostly used correctly. There is one thing I
would like to stress out subject-verb agreement searching for a new places, what
people search for is new parts, there is a few positive things, treat nature like we depends
on her.
- You did use linking words which is great, only bear in mind what initially means = in the
beginning and in this case it sounds a bit strange.
- Most of the time, the word include is not used correctly, we will discuss in class.
- The arguments are excellent, the only thing is practicing the organization and focus, but
dont worry, this is your first essay, and so far so good!
- The rest of the notes I will give you in class. Make sure you write at least one more essay
for our next class, and remember to use a separate piece of paper.