1. Preparation for the Midterm and Ohio Graduation Test
Writing Improvements
Preparation for the Midterm and Ohio Graduation Test

2. Follow the Directions! Consider:
When you take the OGT, ACT, and/or SAT, you are SOLELY responsible for reading and following the directions. The teacher is not there to provide you with a second chance.
You do not meet the grader of your standardized test to justify why you did what you did.
The grader will not be able to give you a high score because you “kind of” followed the instructions!

3. What Do You Think About This?

4. Check Out the Teacher’s Response!

5. The Demon Sheet! Please take out your Demon Sheet: “Get” “You” “A lot”
“One way to get the audience more interested…”
“You”
“If you practice more, then…”
“A lot”
“I need to practice a lot more”
“Thing”
“The one thing that I need to improve is…”

6. How Can I Avoid Demons? Proofread Use the Microsoft “Find” Option
Click on “Edit” at the top of the screen
Click on “Find”
Type the word that you want to find in your paper
- For example, if I want to make sure that I did not use “get,” then I would type it in the “Find” box.

7. The Microsoft “Find” Option Can Help You Avoid Demons

8. Demons in the Real World
If you find a demon displayed in public and take a picture of it, then I will give you extra credit!

9. Transitions
Writing can become choppy if you do not use transition words!
Fix the sentence:
“I know that I am confident in front of an audience I need to demonstrate more eye contact. Eye contact is important because it creates a connection between the speaker and the audience.”

10. Use Consistent Tense
What tense is your paper? Past, present, or future?
What’s wrong with this?
“In Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, the narrator is one of the few truly successful characters in terms of moral development. However, she was also seriously flawed in some ways.”
Look at the verbs in your paper…
Are these verbs all the same tense?

11. Some Problems and an Example of Irony

12. Use Repetition Effectively
Overusing a word or phrase becomes distracting to your audience
Although repetition is beneficial in speeches, it can become monotonous when writing an essay
Some solutions:
Try reading your paper out loud
Pull out a thesaurus
Right click the word and use Microsoft Word’s thesaurus option
Think of sentence variety

13. Use Repetition Effectively
Can You Offer Some Ideas for the Following Sentences?
“Strong speakers have strong eye contact. Strong speakers know how to create a connection with the audience. Speakers should not stare at their PowerPoint presentation when giving a speech. I need to practice eye contact more in order to receive a better grade on my speech.”

14. Strong Concluding Statement
You can reverse your topic sentence
State the most important idea of your paragraph in a succinct way
Make this insightful
Example from a tenth grader:
“…with this new trait, I shall then forge my future.”

15. Look at this Student’s Concluding Sentences

16. Pronoun / Antecedent Agreement
“Strong gestures forces the speaker to appear more confident in themselves, thus making the speech more effective.”
Pronouns and Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement

17. Effective Use of Adjectives
Strong adjectives can help the audience better understand the arguments that you are trying to convey in your essay!
“Good” and “Bad” are on the Demon Sheet – find better adjectives!
This can also make your essay sound more mature