PROCESS ESSAY SAMPLES

 

                                 Preparing for the university entrance exam

 

    In Turkey, getting accepted to the university you want requires a difficult and serious preparation period, as you have to take a 3-hour difficult exam in which you are competing with about one million eight hundred thousand people. Although such a huge number of people are taking the exam, only three hundred thousand of them can be admitted to a university. It means that preparing for this exam, which is called the OSS, involves a number of important steps that you must be careful about.

 

   The first step of the OSS preparation marathon is choosing your division in high school. There are four divisions called “science studies”, ”social studies”, ”Turkish and math” and “languages”. Making a decision of your division is very important because your choice of division in high school determines which fields of study are open to you in college. For example, the “science studies” division gives you the chance of choosing many engineering departments and medicine, whereas the “Turkish and math” division has the options like economics and administrative sciences, international trade etc. Also your decision determines which lessons you will take in your second and third year of high school. For instance, you won’t take any geography lessons in school if you are a science studies student. If you want, you can change your department in the last year of high school but then you will have to pass the exams of the other lessons, which you didn’t take in your ex-division. So it is absolutely vital that you make the right decision. You’d better talk with a counselor in the second term of your first year. And you should follow the system changes very carefully. You ought to listen to the ideas of your family and counselor but you must make your own decision in the end.

 

   The second step is enrolling in an OSS course. I advise you not to think very much about which course you will enroll in because in general they actually are the same. So you can choose one according to your location and income. Another decision to make is in which year of high school you should start to go to a course. I went to “Fen Bilimleri Merkezi” in both second and the last year of high school. It was boring to go to a course for two years but on the other hand it was good for me to plan my study program. In fact, it is a good idea to decide it according to your personal circumstances.

 

   The third step is studying for both OSS and school. In OSS there aren’t any questions from the second and the last year of high school. But you shouldn’t give up studying for school lessons because your high school grade in Turkey also has a big effect on your OSS scores. You shouldn’t give up studying for school completely. Just listen to your teachers carefully. They will be giving you the clues for the exams. Also I can add, “studying at home” stage to the studying step. You continue to study at home. These days are very important because you have more time to study and the exam day is coming. So you should always study according to your program.

 
   The next step is finally taking the exam. Although I went out on the day before the exam, I couldn’t sleep all night. I was excited. So I advise you to overcome your excitement if you can. A good sleep is going to be an advantage to you. You should have breakfast and check the documents necessary for the exam. Also you’d better see your exam building a few days before so as not to get lost and panic on the exam day. During the exam you must try to be as calm as possible. You can take a deep breath and start answering the questions. After the exam you should at least be able to say that you have done your best.
 

   The last step is making your choice. You get an exam score and you’ll make choices. You must be realistic according to your score but also you shouldn’t lose sight of your aims. You ought to consider all the conditions while you are making your choices. You should answer questions like “Can I stay in a dormitory?” or “Can I be happy if I choose this department?” I believe this is one of the hardest steps so you should talk with your family and counselors before you make a decision. After making your choice, you start to wait for the news from ÖSYM. During this waiting period it’s a good idea to go on a holiday if you can. Finally, you get the results.

 

   In conclusion, after following all these steps, luckily all my efforts had a happy end. I reached one of the most important goals in my life. And I believe that by following these steps in the OSS marathon you can make one of your dreams come true too!

THE PRODUCTION OF CHOCOLATE

 

Chocolate is a key ingredient in many foods such as milk shakes, candy bars, cookies and cereals. It is ranked as one of the most favorite flavors in North America and Europe. Despite its popularity, most people do not know the unique origins of this popular treat. Chocolate is a product that requires complex procedures to produce. The process involves harvesting cocoa, refining cocoa to cocoa beans, and shipping the cocoa beans to the manufacturing factory for cleaning, coaching and grinding.

 

        Chocolate production starts with harvesting cocoa in a forest. Cocoa comes from tropical evergreen Cocoa trees, such as Theobroma Cocoa, which grow in the wet lowland tropics of Central and South America, West Africa and Southeast Asia. Cocoa needs to be harvested manually in the forest. The seedpods of cocoa will first be collected. After the cocoa pods are collected into baskets, the pods are taken to a processing house. Here they are split open and the cocoa beans are removed. Pods can contain upwards of 50 cocoa beans each.

 

As a second step, the beans undergo the fermentation processing. They are either placed in large, shallow, heated trays or covered with large banana leaves. If the climate is right, they may be simply heated by the sun. Workers come along periodically and stir them up so that all of the beans come out equally fermented. During fermentation is when the beans turn brown. This process may take five or eight days.  Afterwards, farmers simply spread the fermented seeds on trays and leave them in the sun to dry. The drying process usually takes about a week and results in seeds that are about half of their original weight.

 

Once the cocoa beans have reached the machinery of chocolate factories, they are ready to be refined into chocolate. Generally, manufacturing processes differ slightly due to the different species of cocoa trees, but most factories use similar machines to break down the cocoa beans into cocoa butter and chocolate. Firstly, fermented and dried cocoa beans will be refined to a roasted nib by winnowing and roasting. Then, they will be heated and will melt into chocolate liquor. Lastly, manufacturers blend chocolate liquor with sugar and milk to add flavor. After the blending process, the liquid chocolate will be stored or delivered to the molding factory in tanks and will be poured into molds for sale. Finally, wrapping and packaging machines will pack the chocolates and then they will be ready to transport.

 

            To sum up, in order to turn cocoa pods into well-processed chocolate, one needs to collect the pods, refine them into cocoa beans and process them at chocolate factories. Thanks to the people who work in this industry, we are able to have this delight whenever we want some.

 

                                                               HOW TO WRITE AN ESSAY?

 

Many students immediately panic when they are faced with the task of writing an essay. While they may have many ideas when they discuss a topic, picking up pen and paper seems to dry up all ideas. Some students aren't even sure what an essay is. Basically, an essay is an organized way to express an opinion and prove that it's valid. This can take a variety of forms, but the standard format starts with an introduction, has a body, and ends with a conclusion. There are a few simple steps to writing an essay.  First, students must generate ideas. They have to think about what they know about a topic and what they want to write. Students do this in different ways. Some students do brainstorming. That is, they sit with a piece of paper and write words and try to relate them to other words. Some students just make a list of ideas. Other students find they need to do some prewriting because they think better when they are writing out their ideas. Some students just sit and think and get the ideas sorted out in their minds. One way is not better than another way. Everyone is different, so everyone writes in a different way. For example, my friend Susan likes to do prewriting. She sets her timer for 15 minutes and then she writes everything she can think of about the topic for that time. When the buzzer goes off, she stops and looks at what she has written. She underlines the ideas that she thinks are Good. This works very well for her, but it doesn't work well for me at all because I hate to do prewriting. I just sit and think about what I want to write until an idea comes to me. The important thing is not the method but the results. Sometimes, students think that the ideas have to be perfect from the beginning, but this isn't true. Sometimes they might find that their ideas need revision or that some can be eliminated. That's ok. Once they have generated ideas, they have a starting point so they can begin to write, and that is what is important.  Next, students need to organize their ideas. They need to make sure that they have a statement of opinion, and then they need to put their supporting ideas into some kind of order. That is, they need to decide what will come first and so forth. For example, if students are writing about history, most of the time they will organize their ideas chronologically because that's the way that people usually think about history--from past to present, But, it's not always that simple. John wrote a paper about the problems adoptive children have. He made a list of four problems, but then he had to decide which problem was the most serious and which the least. Then, he had to make another decision. Should he put the biggest problem first or last? Sometimes a writer wants to build up to something big, and other times a writer wants to hit the reader right away with something important. John decided to put his biggest problem last. Students need to look carefully at their ideas and think about what will make the strongest paper--and the most interesting paper.  Last, students need to write. This seems easy enough, but many students delay this part of the paper until the last minute. When I say write, I mean write the first draft because, whenever possible, it's good to save time to write, look at it and make corrections, and then write it again. Students need to give themselves time--especially in the beginning--to learn from their writing. If they wait until an hour before class, the paper becomes a burden instead of an opportunity to learn and share ideas. Sally, for example, had a 1000 word essay due at 11:00 in her English 101 class. She waited until 9:00 PM the night before to begin. By then, she was so nervous about getting the paper finished on time that she couldn't think of anything to write about. She kept thinking about the F she was going to get and what it would do to her grade point average. Students should just start writing and not expect a perfect product the first time, but even an imperfect paper is better than no paper.  In conclusion, writing an essay is really not so difficult. Students simply need to have a plan for writing. First, they need to find a way to generate ideas, and then they need to organize these ideas in some way that makes sense to them. Lastly, but most importantly, the students have to sit down and pick up their pencils and begin to write. The more students practice writing, the easier it will become because it's really only thinking and sharing ideas—something they do all of the time.

Outline

I. Introduction

Thesis: Ingestion, digestion, and absorption are the three major steps involved in the digestive process.

 II. Food is ingested.

    A. Food enters the mouth.

    B. Food is chewed.

    C. Food is ready to travel to the stomach.

 III. Food is digested.

    A. Food is mixed with acidic gastric juices in the stomach.

    B. The partially liquid food moves from the stomach to the small intestine.
    C. Enzymes are secreted.

 IV. Absorption

     A. The digested food passes through the walls of the small intestine.

     B. The digested food is absorbed into the bloodstream.

 V. Conclusion

Paraphrased Thesis: The digestion process involves three major steps: ingestion, digestion, and absorption.

Process Essay Pattern of Organization

 INTRODUCTION

 1. State what the process is and why it is important.

The digestive  process is important in maintaining the lives of living organisms and in providing them with needed energy.

2. Give background information, and define the process.

Groups of organs, such as the mouth, esophagus, stomach, and intestines, work together to perform this complex task. Digestion is the process of breaking down food from large molecules into small ones to make it easier for absorption.

3. State the thesis sentence to include the purpose and the main idea of the essay.

The three major steps involved in the digestive process are ingestion, digestion, and absorption.

 Body Paragraphs

Topic sentence

Ingestion, which occurs in the mouth, is the first step in the digestive process.

Major supporting sentence(s)

After food enters the mouth, the teeth chew it.

AND

Saliva, which is produced by the salivary glands, plays a major role in breaking down the food into smaller pieces.

 Minor supporting sentence(s)

These small pieces travel to the stomach through the esophagus.

When you write an essay body paragraph, you need to remember two points. First, each topic sentence must not only contain the main idea of the paragraph, but also that main idea must be a main point of the thesis sentence. Furthermore, the body paragraphs must be written in the order that the main points are listed in the thesis sentence. For example, if you write that the three major steps involved in the digestive process are ingestion, digestion, and absorption  , then your first body paragraph must be about ingestion, the second about digestion, and the final body paragraph about absorption.

Concluding Paragraph

 1. Paraphrase the thesis sentence.

2. Summarize the main steps of the process.

 The Completed Essay

A PROCESS OF DIGESTION

    The digestive process is important in maintaining the lives of living organisms and in providing them with needed energy. Groups of organs, such as the mouth, esophagus, stomach, and intestines, work together to perform this complex task. Digestion is the process of breaking down food from large molecules into small ones to make it easier for absorption. The three major steps involved in the digestive process are ingestion, digestion, and absorption.

    Ingestion, which occurs in the mouth, is the first step of the digestive process. After food enters the mouth, the teeth chew it. Saliva, which is produced by the salivary glands, plays a major role in breaking down the food into smaller pieces. These small pieces travel to the stomach through the esophagus.

    In the stomach, the second step of the digestive process begins. When the chewed food reaches the bottom of the esophagus, a valve lets the food enter the stomach. Contraction of the stomach wall mixes the food. Acidic gastric juices, which are secreted by the gastric glands in the stomach, help in mixing the food and in turning it into a partial liquid so it will have the ability to move into the small intestine. In the small intestine, enzymes are secreted, and digestion is completed.

   The last step in the digestive process is absorption. Absorption takes place in the small intestine. The wall of the small intestine is lined with small, finger like projections called villi. Small molecules of food are absorbed by the huge number of villi. Some of these absorbed molecules enter the bloodstream to be distributed throughout the whole body.

    In conclusion, the digestive process involves three major steps: ingestion, digestion, and absorption. Ingestion, which occurs in the mouth, helps to increase the surface area of the food particles and prepares them for digestion. In the stomach, digestion begins, and it continues until it reaches the small intestine, where absorption takes place. The digestive process maintains organisms' lives by providing them with energy needed for different functions.