– ABOUT THE ANALYTICAL WRITING ASSESSMENT– 228 ■ Forms a thesis statement that shows a basic understanding of the issue or argument and the task pre- sented in the prompt. ■ Presents a rea- sonable analy- sis, often of the most obvi- ous aspects of the issue or argument. ■ Develops some ideas more fully than others. ■ Provides some specific and rel- evant evidence to support the thesis statement. ■ Maintains a clear and appro- priate focus throughout most of the essay. ■ Uses a logical sequence of ideas but may lack consis- tency. ■ Uses appropri- ate language. ■ Shows some awareness of audience and purpose. ■ Occasionally varies the sen- tence structure and length. ■ Shows incom- plete control of standard English. ■ Has some errors but they do not interfere with comprehension. 4 3 ■ Forms a thesis statement that shows a basic understanding of the issue or argument and the task pre- sented in the prompt. ■ Presents an incomplete analysis of the issue or argu- ment or neg- lects important aspects of the analysis. ■ Develops ideas briefly. ■ Provides some evidence and support material to support the thesis statement. ■ Creates, but does not main- tain an appro- priate focus. ■ Uses a basic structure but may include some inconsis- tencies or irrele- vancies. ■ Uses very basic vocabulary. ■ Demonstrates little sense of audience or pur- pose. ■ Attempts to vary the sentence structure or length but has uneven success. ■ Attempts to control standard English but has some errors that interfere with comprehension. – ABOUT THE ANALYTICAL WRITING ASSESSMENT– 229 2 ■ Expresses a confused or incomplete understanding of the issue or argument and the task pre- sented in the prompt. ■ Makes little attempt to analyze the issue or argu- ment or pres- ents a fundamentally flawed analysis. ■ Is a combination of incomplete or undeveloped ideas. ■ Uses references that are vague, irrelevant, repet- itive, or unsubstantiated. ■ Suggests some organization but lacks an appro- priate focus. ■ Suggests a focus but lacks organization. ■ Uses language that is often simple and imprecise or that may be unsuitable for the audience or purpose. ■ Shows little awareness of how to use sen- tences to achieve a rhyth- mic effect. ■ Shows little control of stan- dard English. ■ Has frequent errors that inter- fere with comprehension. 1 ■ Gives minimal or no evidence of understand- ing of the issue or argument. ■ Makes little or no attempt to analyze the issue or argu- ment. ■ Has minimal evi- dence of devel- opment. ■ Shows no focus or organization. ■ Uses language that is very lim- ited, incoherent, and/or inappro- priate. ■ Shows little or no ability to vary the sentence structure or length. ■ Is limited, mak- ing the assess- ment of conventions unreliable. ■ Is illegible or not recognized as English. 0 ■ If response is totally unre- lated to the topic, incoher- ent, or blank, the essay will be given a 0. Get Real Scores for Your Practice Essays For a fee of $20, you can complete an official practice AWA and have it scored by the GMAC in the same way your GMAT AWA will be scored. For more information, visit the GMAC website at www.mba.com/mba/Store/ products/EssayInsight.htm. 230 How Long Should the Essays Be? Although length is not a guarantee of a high score — you could write 500 words of fluff — the length of the essay and the score are related. In general, longer essays are more effective because they take the time to suf- ficiently develop and support their ideas. As a general guide, you will need to write at least four or five paragraphs to have a strong, sufficiently developed essay. This includes an introductory paragraph that states your main idea, two or three paragraphs developing and supporting that main idea, and a brief concluding paragraph. Your essay should run approx- imately 400 to 600 words with an average of three to five sentences per paragraph. But remember, this is just a general guide. An essay with seven or eight shorter paragraphs might be just as effective as an essay with four longer ones. Keep these paragraph suggestions in mind, but focus on developing and supporting your ideas. You have probably written dozens, maybe even hundreds, of essays in your academic career, so you might feel that you have already heard all there is to say about writing effective essays. In a way, you are right. Most of what you read in the rest of this section will probably not be new to you. However, good writers are always returning to the fundamental elements of effective writing. Sometimes a subject that you didn’t quite under- stand before will suddenly make sense because it is explained in a different way or presented in a new con- text. So read the rest of this chapter with an open mind. At the least, you will review the fundamentals of effective analytical writing and get some specific tips for doing well on the AWA. At the most, you will learn new strategies and techniques that will dramatically improve your writing skills.  The Writing Process Experienced writers know that good writing doesn’t happen all at once; rather, it develops in stages. That’s because writing is a process, not just a product — a process of determining how to best communicate ideas to an audience for a purpose. It is difficult to produce good writing without going through each step in the process. CHAPTER Guide to Effective Writing 15 231 A Word about Essays The word essay has its roots in the Old French word essai, meaning trial or attempt, and the Latin exagium, meaning weighing. Thus, essay can be defined as follows: • a trial or attempt to accomplish or perform something, an undertaking • a short prose composition on any subject Essays—those short prose compositions—are really attempts to accomplish something: to convey ideas to an audience for a specific purpose. In the process, the writer weighs his or her ideas and explores different pos- sibilities. Over the centuries, essay styles may have changed, but the standard form of the essay remains the same: • an introduction that presents the topic and thesis • a body that develops and supports that thesis • a conclusion that restates the main idea This standard structure has many variations, and these variations can be highly effective and make the read- ing process more interesting. But remember, because of the time constraint and the fact that one of your read- ers is a computer, it’s best to stick to the old standard. 232 The writing process can be divided into four steps: 1. Planning 2. Drafting 3. Revising 4. Editing When you are under pressure to write a winning essay in just 30 minutes, you may be tempted to skip these steps and just write your essay in one shot. You might end up with a successful essay with this approach, but your chances of doing well on the AWA — indeed, on any writing task — will increase dramatically if you take the time to work through each step. Even though you only have 30 minutes, the 10 to 15 minutes you spend planning and proofreading your essay will be time well-spent. In fact, for essay exams, the planning stage is so important that the stage is divided into four separate steps, which are discussed in this section. Planning Good writing requires preparation. The planning stage (often called prewriting) includes all of the steps that writers take to prepare for their writing task. These include incubation, brainstorming, and outlining. Incubation is perhaps an unconventional term to describe the process of mulling over ideas without actually writing anything down. It’s the back-burner thinking that often takes place even without your full awareness. For example, you might have read an essay assignment and set it aside to complete later. While you were out running errands, doing the dishes, or waiting for the train, you suddenly came up with ideas for your essay because part of your brain had been thinking about this topic. Unfortunately, on the AWA, you do not have the time to incubate. As soon as you get your prompt, you will have to start brainstorming ideas. Brainstorming refers to the process of coming up with ideas, such as support for an essay, solutions to a problem, or gifts for a birthday. The key to a successful brainstorm is to be open to all ideas. At this impor- tant stage, don’t censor yourself. Write down whatever comes to mind. The more freedom you give yourself to think, the more ideas will come to you. The more ideas you get on paper, the more freedom you will have to pick the best (strongest) support for your thesis. Several brainstorming techniques can help you generate ideas and examples to support your thesis, including freewriting, listing, and mapping. Freewriting is a technique that is useful any time you are having trouble coming up with ideas and is particularly helpful if you are having trouble getting started. This brainstorming technique is exactly what it says: free writing. Write down whatever comes to mind about the question or topic. Don’t worry about gram- mar or structure; write in your native language or your personal shorthand if you like. Just write. If you keep your hands moving for even two or three minutes, you are bound to come up with some good ideas. Here’s a freewriting example for the Analysis of an Argument essay from the pretest: Location location location they say but that’s not the only thing that matters. I go out of my way to a place if it has food I like (ex, Carmello’s). Maybe there are other factors keeping customers away (food, cost, service, atmosphere, other competition) maybe they just need to be more aggres- sive in getting customers to their door. Maybe too pricey for mediocre food, so moving won’t mat- ter. Moving — expenses — especially for closing down during the move. Listing is probably the most common brainstorming technique and particularly useful if you are a lin- ear thinker. Simply list on a piece of paper (or on the computer screen) all of the ideas that come to mind in relation to your topic. Here’s how the writer of the Analysis of an Argument essay used listing to brainstorm ideas: New location: near hub ؍ convenience near stores ؍ people eat after shopping higher rent maybe more competition moving costs – GUIDE TO EFFECTIVE WRITING– 233 . – ABOUT THE ANALYTICAL WRITING ASSESSMENT– 228 ■ Forms a thesis statement that shows a basic understanding of the issue or argument and the task. control of standard English. ■ Has some errors but they do not interfere with comprehension. 4 3 ■ Forms a thesis statement that shows a basic understanding of the issue or argument and the task. has some errors that interfere with comprehension. – ABOUT THE ANALYTICAL WRITING ASSESSMENT– 2 29 2 ■ Expresses a confused or incomplete understanding of the issue or argument and the task pre- sented