How to Write A”Truck-Stop Burrito” Written Piece and Ace Your Midterm Essay

Essay writing is hard and annoying.

To make it easier to understand, we can divide essays into two types: the “filet mignon” essay and the “truck-stop burrito” essay (these labels can be credited to my role model and high school philosophy teacher, Mr. Dollimore).

The “filet mignon” essay is the type of essay you write for an assignment. This requires you to make it all nice and pretty, add all the extra creative details that make professors sleep easy at night, and doll it up with a fancy cover page. You can fill it with fluff and still get a decent mark. Teacher expectations: HIGH.

The “truck-stop burrito” essay is the type of essay you write on a test. Picture writing a test like being on a road trip. After a long, tiring journey, you find your stomach grumbling. Do you head for the fancy filet mignon, or do you feel satisfied with the oily, week-old truck-stop burrito? In that moment, even the cheap, no effort food tastes delicious. That’s the level your test essay should be at. You just have to nab the points and add enough words to make full sentences, but be careful: every point counts. Teacher expectations: LOW.

Each type requires different tips and tricks. To ace a test essay, here’s some advice you should take with a grain of salt follow:

1. Brainstorm…LIKE CRAZY.

No, seriously. Just dump words everywhere. Every little relevant point you can think of, every small jot you can think of, any pieces of a definition, just vomit it all down on the paper. When it’s there, you can use it. When it’s in your head…not so much.

For example, let’s say you’re given the question:

To what extent is morality a matter of context? How important are circumstances in determining what is moral?

Your paper might look something like this:

Immediately, what I did was TAKE A POSITION/STANCE THAT DIRECTLY ADDRESSES THE QUESTION (in this case, I said morality IS based on context). If you’re struggling to find a position, use the one you can think of more points for.

Another notable point: I wrote down some EXAMPLES. This will form the chunk of your paragraph. If you can think of examples, even just regurgitating those examples will cover the point for you.

Another notable point: after writing a whole bunch of stuff, I identified some things I could define. Definitions eat up word count, directly confront material, and make you look super smart and knowledgeable. Checkmate.

Lastly, if you don’t understand the question, write stuff down anyways. I saw the word morality and context, so I wrote down “moral realism vs. moral relativism” which I know deals with that. Didn’t even think about it. Once you’ve written some initial ideas down, you can reread the question to see if you can take something away or add something else.

2. ORGANIZE your brainstorming.

This will help you form actual paragraphs. It helps here to know the general structure of an essay, which is an incredibly guiding tool during a test (though don’t feel too stuck to it):

You know out of all that junk you just made, you need to somehow materialize three paragraphs, and those three paragraphs all have to connect back to some unifying topic you haven’t thought of yet. How do you do that? By grouping similar ideas. For example, let me take my garbage jots and turn it into something a little more organized:

That’s a lot of illegible scribbles, so let’s turn it into actual paragraph points:

3. Write your THESIS.

Now I’ve got my paragraphs! But…what was the question asking again? What’s my thesis? Don’t I have to have a thesis?

Exactamundo, my friend! And this is the prime time to write one! How can you write a general statement without any points? Using your organized brainstorming, write down your thesis. Now, here’s the secret formula to the perfect truck-stop burrito thesis:

Yada yada, you get the point. Basically, just stick your three points together, address the question with your chosen position, and add enough words to make it make sense and line up with your argument.

In this case, we might write:

Moral Realists, deontologists, and those who follow virtue ethics would all agree that circumstances as well as concrete principles determine what is moral.

Note: when you’re done writing your essay, REREAD THE THESIS! I’ve gotten marks off many times for silly reasons, because I changed my point midway and my thesis and essay didn’t agree anymore.  (In this specific example, I didn’t realize that deontologists and virtue ethics were practically the same thing, so I lost marks there).

4. Start writing your BODY PARAGRAPHS.

If you’re like me, the introductory paragraph will elude you. You’ll sit there trying to think of something witty, and when nothing comes up you’ll scratch your head as time is ticking. What do you do?

Write down what you know. What’s that? Your body paragraphs!

Remember: you can leave a space for your intro and get back to it once you’ve written the rest of it. Don’t try to waste time writing something perfect. This is TRUCK-STOP BURRITO people, not the filet mignon.

For your intro: a few relevant sentences and your thesis is enough. It’s enough.

Your body paragraphs can be structured using this wonderfully efficient formula:

Convenient and easy! What’s hard is actually writing it, but this little structure does the bulk of the work for you. Take notice of the guiding questions!

5. Piece everything TOGETHER.

Ergo: WRITE IT. JUST WRITE IT.

You’d better sharpen that pencil and crack those knuckles, because time is ticking and you need to start writing. For the pen users. I recommend a smooth pen with black ink. Beautiful and therapeutic. For the pencil users, sharpen that thing until it makes a satisfying scratch against that paper (because dull pencils are the abomination of this world).

There’s no way around this, but now that you’ve gotten a little organized, you can piece things together easily. That’s about all I can say.

Strategies for Keeping Your Cool

Neck aching? Fingers throbbing? Make sure to take breathers so you’re not losing your point and losing your mind:

• Look up, straighten your shoulders, breathe. This’ll help you gather your bearings and keep a clear head.
• Stop writing and skim over your paragraph. If it makes sense, read the end of the previous paragraph and then read your paragraph. Still make sense? Read your thesis and reread the topic sentence of your paragraph. Still good? Then you’re doing great!
• Keep extra pencils and pens. Not for if one breaks or runs out of ink, but for a nice, smooth replacement when your current utensil becomes a little hard to use. Keeping a smooth flow really helps.
• Drink water (but not too much). Taking a sip is like taking a mental breather.
• As much as you can, flex your fingers! They deserve a break, too.

Do these, and you’ll be on your way to acing that essay question!

“Learning to Fail” Story 1: Perseverance

I’ll begin this multi-part journey with a simple story about rejection and perseverance.

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As I said in the introductory piece to this series, I was a perfectionist and overachiever who beat herself up over even the smallest failures, like a single red X amidst my hundred green check marks. Obviously, this mindset is never good if one wants to improve, but I wasn’t interesting in improving. I just wanted everything to be perfect.

Of course, life has a way of taking your biggest fears and shoving them down your throat, and that’s exactly what it did to me.

One of the biggest experiences that changed this destructive mindset of mine was my experience in research, participating in the Sanofi Biogenius Canada Competition in grade 12.

This was a competition in which high school students designed and executed real world research projects with mentors from universities and hospitals. I had a project, but without a mentor I couldn’t enter the competition. So, I had to suck in my gut, stand tall, and email hundreds of professors begging to let me into their lab.

After a few days of constant researching, emailing, and telephoning, my email sent folder looked like this. LITERALLY THIS WASN’T EVEN ALL OF IT:

Over the course of a month, I had sent hundreds and hundreds of emails and painfully waited for the responses to pour in.

After 1 week: nothing.
The second week: nothing.
The third week, some emails trickled in. Excited and filled with hope (chanting the mantra “I definitely got it, they totally loved my proposal, that was so easy), I clicked on them.All of these emails were filled with the same disheartening responses:

“Unfortunately, my lab isn’t taking any undergrads at this time.”
“Unfortunately, this isn’t my area of expertise.”
“Unfortunately, we do not have the materials you need.”

The weeks passed. Literally every single email I received had the same harsh rejection.

This went on for a while. The moment an email would start with the short preview “Unfort–” I would immediately put my phone down and re-evaluate whether I wanted to do this at all. There was even one moment where a professor had completely destroyed my proposal. This was his response to my proposal:

“Let me first say that the last thing I would want to do is to discourage someone interested in science…but there are several issues with your proposal.  First, although cancer is a really important issue, and I would never dismiss its importance and even though I am not a cancer specialist, I am pretty sure that the statement that “the incidences of cancers have been rising steadily in North America” is false.  …More important is the implied hypothesis of your proposal…”

He then proceeded to comment on every sentence of my proposal in one massive paragraph, then wrote at the end:

“As much as I hate to discourage people interested in doing research, and I have had one high school student do research in my lab, there are several reasons why I will have to decline this request.”

Well then. I was completely discouraged after this.

But no! Out of all the emails I sent, there was NO WAY I would let one silly email destroy my goals. This was a respectable competition with thousands of dollars in prizes, and I wasn’t about to let a few rejections get in the way of that. In fact, I forced myself to take the step I hated the most, the step I didn’t want to do at all, the step that I was sure would crush my flimsy pride:

I emailed him a thank you letter and accepted the criticism.

Of course, it crushed my soul. I wrote that email feeling worse than I did before, but even so, I began to feel my shattered ego start piecing itself together again.

It was okay. People get rejections all the time, and yet they’ve been able to pick themselves up and move on. Why couldn’t I?

Then a few days and some more emails later, a sliver of hope, peeking out from behind the mass of rejections. An email titled with words that made my heart beat a little faster:

“Interested in your proposal.”

This was someone who had complimented my advances, expressed interest in my research proposal, and asked to set up an interview.

And so I learned an incredibly important lesson about perseverance: if it had not been for those 999 failures, I would never have gotten that single position at the St. Michael’s lab.

Stay tuned for part 3: HONESTY.

“Learning to Fail”: How An Odd Paradox Can Help You Succeed

Failure is a hard concept to swallow.

Back in early high school, I used to be a high 90s student. I was at the top of the class, was close friends with my teachers, made honour roll every year, and lived the good life. I was that kid that went, “Oh, another 100? Meh, whatever,” and tossed it on the ever-growing pile of high marks. People looked to me for help with schoolwork, and I loved giving it. Needless to say, when you’re in that position, you feel like you can conquer anything.

I FEEL INVINCIBLE!

When a person in a situation like mine finally hits a roadblock, it’s tough. Your ego takes a couple of hits, your self-esteem turns down a few notches, your future looks a little dimmer and it’s really, really, really tough to recover.

That feeling of failure…is a hard one to describe. Your stomach is churning, your eyes get blurry, your chest tightens a bit, and you begin an endless mantra of “I could have done better, I could have gotten a 90, if only I hadn’t slept so late, if only I wasn’t so stupid, if only…!“

What’s sad to me is that people think this is a normal attitude towards failure. “Of course it’s natural!” one person might argue. “With an attitude like that, you’ll be able to improve your weaknesses.”

“How else will you be motivated to study?” another person might say. “If you’re not driven to correct your failures, you’ll never study.”

All legitimate arguments, but there’s a bit of a problem: endurance.

These attitudes, these opinions, this widespread idea that you’re just not good enough or that you’re lazy or unintelligent…these things prevent you from being able to overcome the next challenge. These thoughts cloud your vision so your eyes are set not on a potential solution to your problem, but instead on attacking yourself. How can someone with this mindset survive the obstacles that will inevitably happen in university?

When one approaches failure with fear in their chest, they can be likened to a branch being shaken by strong winds. With every storm it endures, the branch bends and cracks, until it eventually breaks off. This is the branch’s breaking point.

When one approaches failure with courage in their heart, they can be likened to a worker’s hands being scratched by heavy blocks. With every block the worker lifts, the hands become wounded and then are given time to heal, until the hand forms callouses. This is endurance.

When you learn how to fail, you’re able to conquer bigger, tougher, scarier obstacles …and succeed. You’re able to appreciate yourself and your talents and can gauge your weaknesses without the cloud of self-doubt.

It took a long time for me to learn how to fail properly. Countless experiences with this scary “F-word” forced me to come to terms with it. I’ll be sharing these stories with you in order to help you understand the importance of learning how to fail.

Each story will have a motif, a trait that will help you build your tolerance to failure.

The first part will touch on PERSEVERANCE. Stay tuned!