The most annoying thing about most middle school kids my age is that their English essays DON'T sound ORIGINAL. They sounded more like they took a generic topic sentence and filled in the blanks.

"The first reason why I think abortion is wrong is because it takes away the baby's life."

"The ____ reason why I think _____________ is because ____________."

See what I mean by fill-in-the-blank? And then they get high grades, even though their essays sound exactly like half the class's essays, except about different topics. IT's really kind of stupid, because little creativity goes into the essay at all. I like to make sure that my topic sentences are unique and not fill-in-the-blank.

"That brings us to the ability to attract a wide audience."

There, a more original sentence. Actually, The author of the abortion sentence criticised this by telling me that my sentences should sound more like fill-in-the-blank sentences*, and gave an example. I responded by telling her that that sentence has allready been written thousands of times, and that I wanted my sentences to sound original, not as if someone else wrote it.

* My words.

I also hate it when people use the word "finally" when they state their last reason, because it just sounds... retarded. "Finally, my third reason why I think abortion is wrong is because it can cause problems for the mother." Doesn't it just sound stupid? It sounds like that word should not be there.

Conclusions also usually suck. The point of a conclusion according to English class is to restate your opinion and your three reasons, which leaves you with another fill-in-the-blank paragraph, and a superflous one at that. Yeah! I know that the essay is about how wrong abortion is! I don't need another paragraph at the end telling me that. I've just read the whole essay, I should know that! Even without repeating crap, I still suck at conclusions, so I like to avoid making them if possible. Leaving your article on a cliffhanger makes them think more, and makes them wonder what else you have to say. So, if you write another essay, they will read it, because the first essay obviously didn't cover all of your thoughts, maybe the second one will.

I agree with you, even with the trouble with writing conclusions. One of my friends/former teacher taught me a better way to write a conclusion: You don't summarize what the essay is about (that's more for what the introduction is about), but instead you relate the subject of your essay to how it effects the world in general, why it is important, and what further studies can be carried on from it.

I just keep that in mind when I write conclusions, and they now tend to be a lot stronger than when I was just summarizing information. Also, it makes everyone else's conclusions look like crap to mine, because just about everyone sucks at writing conclusions. They are an important part of the essay, though. This will become apparent when you go to college and need to write more significant essays about stuff that actually matters, and include your own research (doing your own research in and of itself makes conclusions a lot easier).

Hope that helps.

Sounds like my conclusion stragety I used in my autism essay. I ended it with why this topic was important and giving whats one could call for action.

Also, ever since JK Rowling said that hte last word of her last book is "scar", I got the idea that the last word was important, and made a large pang. I've noticed that the last word of my autism essay is "Homo Sapiens", and I'm happy about that.