When I write an issue, I take a good start but after two or three small paragraph my thought and writing get dry and end up with essay with limited arguments and with few paragraphs usually 2 or 3 paragraphs. I want to write fluently and an essay with at-least 500-words. Can some one tell how I can improve? Or some one from staff, please.

Do you have OG 11th edition? You can see sample essays in there and try to model yourself after those. In general, you need to have:

1) intro paragraph that summarizes the Issue (you mentioned issue explicitly, so I'm only addressing the Analysis of an Issue type here), acknowledges the complexity of the issue (that is, discusses the "other side" a little bit) and presents a clear thesis (whatever side you want to take).

2) body paragraph with ONE example - give enough detail for the example so that the reader understands why the examples is relevant to your thesis. Make very clear how your examples supports your thesis.

3) another body paragraph with one different example - do the same thing as paragraph two.

4) conclusion paragraph that restates everything from paragraph 1 (acknowledge the complexity, restate your thesis), with the additional assertion that your examples have shown your thesis to be valid.

That's it. :) The logic and coherency of your essay is more important than the length (though, obviously, length is somewhat important - you can't develop your case very well if your essay is very short).

_________________
Stacey Koprince
Instructor
Director of Online Community
ManhattanGMAT

Thanks Stacey,
Appreciate it. :)

The thing is that I worry too much about the length of my essay. I see people posting very good essays on this site and these essays have great lengths. Most of the essays here are about 500 or more words and my essays are about 300 words. I do not know how they manage to write so much in 30 minutes! Do you think that it is a norm to write an essay about 500 or more words in 30 minutes?

I guess however that, it is not about the length, it is about the quality of the essay. Am I right?

Thank you very much again for your kind feed back.

It is mostly about the quality - within reason, of course. If the essay is really short, then the meaning won't get across properly!

I'm not sure how many words I write. I write 4 paragraphs, with 3-4 sentences in the first and last paras, and 4-6 sentences in the two middle paras. I would guess my sentences probably tend to average 15-20 words (but this is really just a guess). I know I don't write as much as I could (I don't usually take more than about 20 minutes per) and I still get 6's... :)

_________________
Stacey Koprince
Instructor
Director of Online Community
ManhattanGMAT