Guides
Place essay guide: landscape, history, people, and point of view
A place essay explains how a location works and what it means, using boundary, evidence, sensory detail, and a narrator who states their own limits.
Desk
Practice Desk
Method, sequence and the decisions that shape anok yais before anyone spends money.
Features
Building a craftsperson profile from two interviews and observation case
Craftsperson profile case showing how two interviews, one workshop observation, artifacts, source checks, and a process structure become a bounded portrait.
Maintenance
Interview consent, recording, quotation, and fact-check checklist
Interview consent and fact-check checklist covering identity, purpose, recording, ground rules, sensitive details, quotation review, records, and corrections.
Guides
How to prepare and conduct an essay interview
Essay interview method for setting goals, researching a guest, securing consent, asking neutral questions, recording clean audio, and verifying quotations.
Guides
Profile essay guide: access, observation, interviews, and structure
Profile essay guide to choosing a subject, negotiating access, observing work, interviewing other people, verifying scenes, and shaping a fair portrait.
Guides
Public-domain and archival research at the Library of Congress for essay evidence
Library of Congress research for essay evidence means using the catalog, Chronicling America, datasets and rights checks to build a citable archive trail.
Features
New York City submission paths: literary magazines, essay prizes, and publishers
New York City essay submission paths: literary magazines, essay prizes, and publishers, with reading periods, fees, and rights clauses explained.
Features
Iowa City essay community, the Writers' Workshop and its affiliated festivals
Iowa City essay community: how the Writers' Workshop, its nonfiction track, festivals, readings and residencies shape a national essay scene.
Guides
US university writing programs for essay craft: degree models and AWP
US university writing programs for essay craft vary by degree and residency model; this overview explains workshops, theses, reading lists, and AWP.
Features
Boston essay craft options from university writing programs to nonfiction imprints
Boston essay craft programs and journals span university MFA tracks, local magazines, small presses, workshops, and Boston.gov arts funding for writers.
Features
Rewriting a misleading energy comparison as a clear explainer: a case
Energy comparison rewrite case fixing power-energy confusion, mismatched time periods, hidden assumptions, conversion precision, system boundaries, and uncertainty.
Maintenance
Technical Explainer Checklist
Technical explainer checklist for science writing, with practical checks for quantities, uncertainty, analogies, sources, visuals, accessibility, and review.
Guides
How to explain a technical mechanism without distorting it
Explaining a mechanism means choosing a boundary, naming what sits inside it, and tracing cause honestly enough that a reader can predict failure.
Guides
Explanatory essay guide for science and technology topics
A working guide to writing science and technology explainers that give readers a usable mental model, honest numbers, clear context, and stated limits.
Features
Revising a family story while protecting a private person: a case
Family story revision case showing how necessity, identifiability, consent, shared facts, source limits, and narrative focus can protect a private person.
Features
Rebuilding a shapeless first draft into a focused essay: a worked case
Essay revision case showing how a night-bus draft gained a focused question, qualified thesis, evidence map, section logic, fair counterargument, and earned ending.
Features
Verifying a disputed historical anecdote for an essay: a worked case
Historical verification case tracing a bridge-opening anecdote through newspapers, minutes, a diary, date conflicts, OCR errors, source roles, and a corrected claim.
Features
Turning a popular-film reaction into a cultural argument: a case
Film criticism case turning a personal reaction into a cultural argument through scene evidence, formal analysis, context, rival readings, and bounded stakes.
Features
Revising an absolute claim into a defensible argument: a case
Absolute claim revision case showing how scope, definitions, evidence, counterarguments, warrants, and conclusion language turn certainty into defensible prose.
Guides
Lyric essay vs prose poem: four tests for writers and teachers
Lyric essay vs prose poem: a criteria table, four tests, and where each form wins. Use it to place a hybrid manuscript or to teach the difference.
Guides
How to pitch a reported essay to US editors
Pitch a reported essay to US editors in the right order, from the one-paragraph note to the signed contract, with the fact-checking stage built in.
Maintenance
Argument map and claim-strength checklist
Argument map and claim-strength checklist for testing questions, thesis scope, reasons, evidence, warrants, objections, causal language, and conclusions.
Guides
Argumentative essay guide: claims, reasons, warrants, and limits
How to build an argumentative essay from an arguable question, scoped claims, connected reasons, exposed warrants, and limits the evidence earns.
Guides
How to build a personal essay from one consequential moment
Build a personal essay from one consequential moment by testing the scene, inventorying sensory details, and letting honest reflection earn the ending.
Guides
How to build a claim-evidence-source note system
A working claim-evidence-source note system ties every draft sentence to a source ID, a page locator, and a status label, so attribution survives every revision.
Guides
How to close-read an image, scene, song, or designed object
Learn how to close read an image, film scene, song, or designed object by recording details, finding patterns, and testing claims against the work.
Maintenance
Cultural criticism evidence and context checklist
Cultural criticism checklist for object identification, close observation, context, reception, creator claims, comparison, permissions, and calibrated stakes.
Guides
Cultural criticism guide: object, context, interpretation, and stakes
Cultural criticism guide to observing form, researching context, building interpretations, testing alternatives, and explaining social and political stakes.
Maintenance
Essay planning, drafting, and structural review checklist
Essay checklist for defining the question, audience, thesis, evidence, section order, paragraph jobs, counterarguments, source gaps, revision, and proofing.
Guides
Essay research guide: questions, search paths, notes, and source judgment
Essay research guide covering question-led searches, source roles, evaluation, claim notes, contradiction logs, stopping rules, attribution, and fact checks.
Guides
Essay writing fundamentals: question, thesis, structure, and evidence
A working question, a thesis that survives evidence, and body paragraphs with clear jobs show how an essay moves from first doubt to finished argument.
Guides
Personal essay guide: scene, reflection, memory, and ethical limits
A personal essay turns lived experience into inquiry, using scene, reflection, memory, and ethical limits while respecting the privacy of real people.
Maintenance
Memoir Privacy Consent Checklist for Personal Essays
A memoir privacy consent checklist for personal essays, covering fact-checking, interviews, identification, harm reduction, and when to seek legal review.
Maintenance
Source use checklist: research trail, quotation, paraphrase and citation
Source-use checklist for research trails, verifying quotations, writing faithful paraphrases, matching evidence to claims, citing locators, and checking rights.
Guides
How to turn a broad topic into a workable essay question
Learn how to develop an essay question by narrowing a broad topic, testing its scope, and checking whether available evidence can support an answer.
Guides
How to Write a Counterargument and Answer It Fairly
Learn how to write a counterargument by choosing a fair objection, stating its strongest case, matching your response to its target, and revising your claim.