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Petersons technique for a top-notch essay Digest the essay prompt and jot down ideas that could possibly go into your essay. Make a rough list, outline, or web to organize your ideas. Spend the bulk of your time writing the essay. Use a four or five paragraph format with a clear introduction, supporting paragraphs, and a conclusion. Use the last two minutes or so to proofread your essay. Scoring: Two trained scorers will take about one minute to read and evaluate your essay. Clearly, this isnt enough time for a detailed examination of each essay. Instead, essays are scored holistically, meaning that scorers base their evaluation on the overall impression of the essay. But what exactly do scorers look for? They certainly dont expect perfect essays. Essay scorers are very aware of the limitations under which the essays are written, so they really only expect quality first drafts. In other words, even the highest scoring essays can have a few mistakes. The Guide that scorers use to assess the essays lists the five following categories. Development and Support This relates to how the writer responds to the question in the prompt and develops ideas. Of the five categories, this one is the most important. Here are excerpts from the first two paragraphs of a well-developed essay written to answer the question. Is it more important to be true to yourself than to conform to the expectations of others? Notice how the first paragraph directly answers the question, and then the second paragraph offers ample support for the answer. | 
