One of the most essential steps of writing is ensuring that you fully understand what you are being asked to write about.
Verbs
The verb used in the prompt is an important signal to you. It will tell you how you need to write your essay. If you think carefully about the meaning of the verb, it will help you decide on an organizational structure.
Verbs Often Used in Writing Prompts
- Describe your home city.
- The verb describe indicates that you will need to use details to help your reader understand your topic. Sometimes it is helpful to write as if your reader has never heard of your topic before. Remember to use many adjectives and characteristics when you see this verb.
- Popular tourist sites in the city (parks, restaurants, and beaches).
- The types of people who live in your city (students, foreigners, and longtime residents).
- Historical influence (colonial impact, indigenous roots)
- Compare and contrast your home city and Provo, UT.
- The verbs compare and contrast tell you that you will need to explain the similarities and differences between two things. Choose two things that will be easy to find similarities between.
- Population differences between Provo and Kinshasa
- The people that live in Provo and Kinshasa
- The similarities in the Provo and Kinshasa's histories.
- Summarize the speaker's thoughts about Provo, UT.
- The verb summarize tells you that you will not be writing your own opinion. Instead, you will read or listen to something written by someone else. Put the most important details of what you read or hear into your writing.
- Provo has many interesting activities for young adults to do.
- Provo is only a fun city to visit if you like outdoor activities like hiking.
- Provo is a great city to live in as an international student because so many locals speak more than one language.
- As the use of technology increases, there is a growing expectation that students have access to reliable high-speed internet for homework. However, homes and apartments nationwide have varying degrees of accessible internet (both in terms of infrastructure and cost). How do you think we should respond to this as a society? Support your position on this issue with reasons and examples.
- The verb support tells you that you will need to add many examples and outside sources to supplement your opinion. You should find sources that will convince the reader that your opinion is correct.
- What examples are there of government responses to internet access concerns?
- How many students are actually impacted by limited internet access in the United States?
- What are the strong opposing arguments that you need to address after choosing a position on this topic?
Content
Next, you will need to know what content you are expected to include. In some cases, you will only be able to write about a limited number of things because the prompt may be very narrow. In other cases, the prompt may be very general and allow you space to make personal decisions about which supporting ideas to include as your write.
Always remember to review the prompt throughout the writing process to make sure that the focus of your essay matches the same scope as the prompt.
Example Content Breakdowns
- Describe your home city.
- This topic is more general. You could approach it by describing the people who live in your city, history, architecture, popular tourist sites, or even urban planning. If you have the opportunity, ask your teacher if there is a more specific explanation of what aspect of your city should be described.
- Compare and contrast your home city and Provo, UT.
- Again, this topic is relatively broad. You know you need to talk about similarities and differences; You must include both in order to completely respond to the prompt. This prompt requires you to do more than describe the characteristics of the two places; you also need to make some judgments about them.
- Summarize the speaker's opinion about Provo, UT.
- In this response, your supporting ideas should be limited to the content in the original source. You should not have any of your own ideas mixed into this answer. It should also be limited to the speaker's opinion about the city, not about any other area in Utah.
- As the use of technology increases, there is a growing expectation that students will have access to reliable high-speed internet for homework. However, homes and apartments nationwide have varying degrees of internet accessibility (both in terms of infrastructure and cost). How do you think we should respond to this as a society? Support your position on this issue with reasons and examples.
- The content of this essay is restricted to internet accessibility for students specifically. Your focus should only be on the student population, not on others who also face challenges with internet access. Additionally, you need both reasons and examples to support your argument. Excluding one of those types of support would result in an incomplete response.
Constraints
Finally, you should also look at any limitations included in the prompt. Constraints could include
- time limits
- characters (letters, punctuation, and spaces)
- words
- revision tools (dictionaries, thesaurus, spell check)
- sources (required or no access)
- teacher, tutor, or peer review (required or no access)
Exercises
Exercise 1: Prompt Analysis
- Take a look at these TOEFL Writing practice items from ETS
- Identify the prompt for each writing task.
- Discuss what the prompt verb requires the writer to do. How would a successful response be organized?
Exercise 2: Writing Prompts
- Choose a topic for your partner to write about.
- Choose a verb that identifies a specific task. You can use this resource (UARK Verb chart) to help select an appropriate verb for your prompt.
- Write a prompt and exchange it with a partner.
- Analyze your partner's prompt for the task and content that the writer should target.