Introduction to Super Amazing Essays
This is a review of the Super Amazing Essays series of books.
There is an expression that a wise person learns from his or her mistakes. These days, most people understand that the truly wise person learns from the mistakes of others. This is the concept behind some interesting books that aim to improve writing.
I’m adding a review here because most online courses and resources focus on the receptive skills (reading and listening) and tend to gloss over (or completely ignore) the productive skills, namely writing and speaking.
It is clear to see why this is the case.
Listening and reading require an initial input from the teacher and can then be tested using a variety of methods, for example, multiple choice. For writing and speaking, assessment is very hard without the teacher present.
What is Super Amazing Essays?
Super Amazing Essays is a series of books that are organised into 24 units, with each unit having three sections. These sections are:
- the original essay, as written by the student
- the corrected version of the essay
- a detailed look at the corrections, together with the teacher’s explanation and comments
How does Super Amazing Essays work?
(Product screenshots used with kind permission of the author, Danny Ding)
The first part shows the original essay, as written by the student.
The idea here is to read the essay and see if you can spot the mistakes. Can you correct them or improve on what you see? Could you express the same ideas in another way? Some of the mistakes are funny, so you’re allowed to laugh. This isn’t as mean as it sounds.
The second section shows the corrected essay.
Read and understand the corrected version. If there are any words or phrases that are unfamiliar to you, look them up before proceeding to the last section.
The last section has the full corrections with all the teacher’s comments (in red).
Read and understand the explanations and suggestions. Can you now (re)write the essay without mistakes?
The recommendation is to do no more than one unit a day.
Who benefits from Super Amazing Essays?
Basically, anyone who is learning English as a second language and wants to improve their English writing ability. I wouldn’t recommend this for absolute beginners, but once you have the basics under your belt, you should benefit from this.
The teacher’s comments are particularly helpful.
What does Super Amazing Essays cost?
At the time of writing, each PDF book costs $6.95 but you can get both together in a combined edition for $9.95, which also include three additional bonus essays. The bonus essays are at a more advanced level and are roughly five times longer than the first 48 units.
Summary
The Super Amazing Essays books are very useful resources in an area that is sorely lacking in decent material.
The only thing I don’t like about them is the name. In my subjective and humble opinion, it deserves a name with a bit more gravitas. If you can think of a better name, please use the comments section below to make your suggestion.
The price is very reasonable and with the combined edition, you get over 50 corrected essays for under $10.
I can safely recommend this product.
Have you used this product before? I’m sure that other readers would be very interested in hearing about your experience and reading your feedback. Please use the comments section below to tell us all about it. Especially whether or not you feel that your writing skills have improved as a result of doing the exercises in these books.
Wow, very informative. I have a brother who is preparing to take his SAT. This program seems very useful an versatile. Thanks for the great review.
Hi Luis,
Thanks for your comment. Hope all goes well for your brother.