Hi there Azka,
I really like IMM250 (immunology), but there is this one essay we have to write on diabetes and the word “essay” basically drives me crazy cause this is gonna be wroth 30% of our mark, and I don’t know how to even write an essay. Should I still take the course? is there any help available at uoft st.george? and the outline for tho essay is so vague, all we are given are headings. thats is.
———————————————
Heyo!
I totally think you should take the course — granted, I’m biased since I’m almost certain that essays are what have been keeping me in university… But really, don’t let the prospect of an essay prevent you from taking something you like!
Anyhow, even if you’re not confident in your essay-writing skills, UofT offers tons of extra resources to help out. For starter’s, you have your college writing centre. Essentially, you’re given about an hour to work one-on-one with a writing instructor who helps you structure your paragraphs, properly conjugate your verbs, and even play devil’s advocate to your possibly shaky arguments. But if you can’t get an appointment at your college’s writing centre, the Academic Success Centre sometimes offers some workshops on writing as well.
Likewise, you’ve got the Writing Plus workshops held over at Woodsworth that might help you. There’s “Thesis Statements,” “Organizing an Essay,” and “Revising the Essay,” so I think those could really help you out.
But aside from those, the university’s writing website also offers a bunch of tips on going about your research and writing. St. George has a ton of extra writing help, so don’t worry about a lack of services.
And if your essay prompts are pretty vague, that’s a good thing! That means you can really work with the question and research almost anything as long as it works within the massive confines of that prompt. Essays are a great way of practicing your research skills and critical thinking.
Good luck!
aska