Organization of This Course

The videos in this course are assembled from two distinct sources.

Back in 2011 I created a short video course titled "How to Write a Good Argumentative Essay", and an accompanying short video course titled "How to Cite Sources and Avoid Plagiarism".

These videos were aimed squarely at students in high school, college or university with little instruction in argumentative essay writing, or principles for citing sources in essays.

Several of these videos proved to be quite popular on YouTube and were widely linked by library resource sites and other online sources.

In 2014 I was inspired to return to this topic, but I wanted to give it a wider and more philosophical treatment. I wanted to talk about the nature of writing, the role of structure in good writing, the distinction between style and structure, the nature of the writing process, the tools and workflow I use when I write, and so on.

In this course I've grouped the videos into three parts:

Part 1: A Structured Approach to Successful Essay Writing. These are the more recent videos created in 2014.

Part 2: How to Write a Good Argumentative Essay. This is the first part of the video series I created in 2011.

Part 3: How to Cite Sources and Avoid Plagiarism. This is the second part of the video series I created in 2011. 

In Parts 1 and 2 I give examples that walk through the process of writing and rewriting real student essays. 

In these videos you'll find a mix of theoretical discussions and practical writing demonstrations. Feel free to skip around to suit your preferences and interests!