Credit, Agência Brasil
The weight it has on the Enem grade and the difficulties many students have with writing make writing one of the most feared parts for students preparing for the first day of the National High School Exam, scheduled for this Sunday (8/11).
In general terms, it is good to remember that it is evaluated under five competencies, each worth between zero and 200 points:
BBC News Brasil spoke to three people who correct essay simulations in courses and preparatory projects aimed at young people in public schools, hearing from them about the common errors in structure (in addition to spelling, grammar and punctuation errors) that lead to the loss of points in texts.
See also some precautions to help you write an essay that reaches a thousand marks.
Mistake 1: Not building a line of argument
It is very common for essays to get "lost" throughout the text, without following the line required by Enem — introduction, text development and conclusion, says Eva Albuquerque, writing teacher at Cursinho da Poli, in São Paulo.
In these cases, what she calls a "text project" is missing: the student is not clear on how they will approach the topic, what arguments they will use and what intervention proposal (that is, how they think the problem needs to be attacked).
How to protect yourself: First, remember that the essay must have a beginning, middle and end, interconnected with each other — in other words, an introduction that presents a well-developed thesis, a good argument with factual data and references, and a conclusion, based on the data presented in the text itself, says Fabiano Gonçalves, educational operations manager at Instituto Proa.
Eva Albuquerque also suggests dedicating a few minutes, before even starting the draft, to planning the skeleton of your text — just like an architect plans the house he is going to build:
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A great difficulty for young people is precisely having the repertoire to construct a good argument, interpret data and put information into context, says Fabiano Gonçalves.
This repertoire comes from our personal and cultural experiences: the books we read, films, trips to museums, the news we follow, the debates we have with friends, family and teachers. And also, our knowledge of other subjects, such as history, geography and even mathematics.
The more the young person has of this "baggage", the easier it will be to access information in their head to construct a coherent and relevant argument in the Enem essay.
Gonçalves also suggests training in the use of time beforehand, timing yourself to write about a certain topic within an hour, which is more or less the time dedicated to writing on the day of the Enem.
The ideal, for those who can, is to do simulations that are corrected by people who understand the skills required in Enem.
Mistake 2: Writing in first person
Writing in the first person ("I"), writing "I think" or "I think", or making conclusions that have no relation to the arguments cited in the text, is a common reason for losing points in the essay.
"This is seen as evidence that the student does not understand the structure of the essays required by Enem, which must be based on data and facts", explains Gonçalves.
How to protect yourself: Differentiating facts from opinions is a good start to avoid getting lost, says Albuquerque.
"The intervention proposal (i.e., the conclusion) is something personal, but it cannot be written in the first person, because it is supported by the references (argument) in the text. If my conclusion is that 'I am against the Army in the streets', I have to say that this could be bad for such and such reasons, but not 'because I think so'."
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Mistake 3: Avoiding the proposed topic
When the student does not fully understand the topic proposed by Enem or when the student is dispersed throughout the text, it is common for the conclusions to not be consistent with what the correctors expect.
Albuquerque says that, in the 2017 Enem, whose essay theme was the "challenges for the educational training of deaf people in Brazil", some students got lost in related but different subjects, such as the education of wheelchair users.
How to protect yourself: The trick is to stay very attentive throughout the text and "pull yourself" towards the central theme if you see that you are starting to stray from it.
"Be careful not to get tangent, which is to be close to the topic, but not talking about the topic itself", warns Daniely do Nascimento, who was a former Enem broker and a volunteer broker in the Safeguarda project, which serves young people from public schools in Ribeirão Preto, in the interior of São Paulo.
Mistake 4: Repeating phrases and 'stuffing sausage'
Correctors state that many simulations contain many repeated phrases, words and arguments, which add little information to the text.
"Many students try to fill up, create volume of written lines, with generic sentences that don't say anything", says Fabiano Gonçalves, from Instituto Proa.
How to protect yourself: Look at each word and phrase and ask yourself: does it add information to the text? If you remove it and it makes little difference to the text, it is a sign that it does not add value to your writing.
"Remember that the space provided by Enem is enough to present the topic, talk about it and then present a conclusion", says Gonçalves.
Mistake 5: Using informal language
The first skill required by Enem is mastery of formal writing. Even so, this is one of the items most frequently ignored by students, says Daniely do Nascimento.
"It's very common for young people to write abbreviations, like 'vc' and 'pq', because they are used to writing like that on the internet," she says. But slang and expressions that we only use in oral language (and on social media) are a guarantee of lost points in the essay.
How to protect yourself: No abbreviations, and also avoid words used in oral language, such as "stay tuned", "well", "you", and variant expressions, "well, to begin with", "suddenly you see that…".
But be careful: this doesn't mean using difficult words, just using the standard.
"Students who try to be very elaborate in the text end up getting even more confused, because they don't master that language", says Eva Albuquerque. "The ideal is to be objective and clear."
Mistake 6: Writing disorganized text
Incomplete sentences, in which the information is not clear to the corrector, or loose paragraphs, which have no connection with what came before or after, can lead to loss of points in two of the five skills required by Enem, warns Nascimento.
This is because the writing ends up lacking cohesion.
How to protect yourself: Preparing a "text project", like the one suggested in item 1 by Eva Albuquerque, can help avoid this disorganization.
The Cursinho da Poli teacher also states that, for students who have difficulty starting a text, a good strategy is to cite a historical reference or cultural work related to the topic of the essay.
For example, if the topic is urban violence, you can open by citing a recent episode of a stray bullet that caused commotion, a historical case in Brazil or even a relevant phrase from a book, film or series that addresses the same subject.
But you have to be careful not to get into a "trouble", says Nascimento. "Sometimes students cite authors just for the sake of citing them, without having any connection with the argument of the text."
For the teacher, the best way to have an organized text is to practice beforehand. "You can't go a year without writing and only do it on the day of the Enem. Writing is training — it's writing and reading a lot beyond social media", says Nascimento.
This report was originally published on October 10, 2019.
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