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Synthesising Rather Than Listing

I was sitting in my small study last Tuesday, marking a stack of postgraduate essays, when I saw it again: the same “encyclopedia” approach to a literature review. One student had written forty pages of dense, disconnected summaries, treating the task like a mere shopping list of who said what. It’s a common trap, and

Cohesion Without Linker Overload

I’ve spent nineteen years sitting across from exhausted adults, watching them pour their hearts into essays only to see their scores stall. Most textbooks will tell you that learning how to improve cohesion in writing is about memorizing a massive list of fancy transition words like “furthermore” or “nevertheless.” Honestly? That is a lie that

Examples That Support the Point

I was sitting in a cramped, windowless exam hall last Tuesday, staring at a stack of papers that all felt painfully identical. The smell of stale coffee and nervous sweat was thick in the air, but what really stung was the repetition. I saw student after student making the same fundamental error: they would drop

Signposting So People Follow

I remember sitting in the back of a drafty examination hall fifteen years ago, watching a bright, capable student completely unravel during her oral component. She had the vocabulary, she had the technical knowledge, but she had no map. She drifted from one point to the next like a ship lost in a fog, and

Evidence That Supports the Claim Made

I was sitting in a cramped exam hall last Tuesday, marking a stack of essays that looked identical to the hundreds I’ve graded over the last nineteen years. One student had clearly done the reading; their research was impeccable. But then I saw it: the “quote dump.” They had dropped a massive block of text

Paraphrasing Without Changing Meaning

I remember sitting in a cramped, dimly lit classroom in Johannesburg, staring at a stack of exam papers that felt more like a graveyard of wasted potential than a collection of essays. One student, a brilliant man who could discuss economics with ease, had failed his writing component because he simply copied the prompt word-for-word.

Problems and Solutions, Paired

I remember sitting in a cramped, dimly lit classroom ten years ago, watching a brilliant student—a man in his forties who worked two jobs—break down in tears because his essay felt like a disorganized mess of ideas. He had the vocabulary, and he certainly had the intellect, but he was drowning in the “fluff” that

A Presentation With Clear Signposts

By Anneke MbathaApril 25, 2026Speaking

I’ve sat in countless exam rooms, watching brilliant professionals—people who are absolute masters of their fields—completely crumble because they were taught the wrong way to handle a slide deck. They spend months obsessing over complex vocabulary and “sophisticated” idioms, thinking that’s the secret to success. But let me tell you something: if you want to

Discussing Both Sides Fairly

I can still see the face of a student from five years ago, sitting in my classroom under the hum of the fluorescent lights, staring in absolute disbelief at a returned exam paper. He was brilliant, a sharp thinker, but he had treated his writing like a frantic brain dump rather than a controlled argument.

An Opinion Essay That Takes a Position

I was sitting in a cramped exam hall last Tuesday, watching a student stare at a blank page with pure, unadulterated panic, when it hit me again. They weren’t struggling with English; they were struggling with the myth that they needed a complex, architectural masterpiece to succeed. Most textbooks will tell you that you need