ESSAY WRITING GUIDELINES
WHAT IS AN ESSAY
The word "essay" came into Russian from French and historically goes back to the Latin word exagium (weighing). French essay can be translated by the words experience, trial, attempt, sketch, essay.
An essay is a prose essay of a small volume and free composition, expressing individual impressions and considerations on a specific occasion or issue and does not pretend to be a definitive or exhaustive interpretation of the subject and write my essay.
In the "Explanatory Dictionary of Foreign Words" by L.P. Rat essay is defined as "an essay that treats some problems not in a systematic scientific form, but a free form."
The Big Encyclopedic Dictionary gives the following definition: "Essays are a genre of philosophical, literary-critical, historical-biographical, journalistic prose, combining the author's emphasized individual position with a relaxed, often paradoxical presentation focused on colloquial speech."
"The Brief Literary Encyclopedia" clarifies: "An essay is a prose work of a small volume and free composition, treating a particular topic and representing an attempt to convey individual impressions and considerations, one way or another connected with it."
Some signs of an essay:
- the presence of a specific topic or question. A work devoted to the analysis of a wide range of problems, by definition, cannot be performed in the essay genre and write essay for me.
- the essay expresses individual impressions and considerations on a specific occasion or issue and certainly does not pretend to be a definitive or exhaustive interpretation of the subject.
- as a rule, an essay presupposes a new, subjectively colored word about something, such a work can have a philosophical, historical, and biographical, journalistic, literary-critical, popular science, or purely fictional character.
- in the content of the essay, first of all, the personality of the author is assessed - his worldview, thoughts, and feelings.
This genre has become popular in recent years. M. Montaigne is considered the creator of the essay genre ("Experiments", 1580). Today, the essay is offered as an assignment quite often. It is one of the main components of the package of documents (for admission to an educational institution or employment). The essay competition helps you choose the best from the variety of the best!
The purpose of the essay is to develop skills such as independent creative thinking and writing your thoughts.
Writing an essay is extremely useful because it allows the author to learn how to clearly and competently formulate thoughts, structure information, use basic concepts, highlight cause-and-effect relationships, illustrate the experience with relevant examples, and argue their conclusions, and write my essay for me.
STRUCTURE AND OUTLINE OF THE ESSAY
The structure of the essay is determined by the requirements for it:
- the thoughts of the author of the essay on the problem are presented in the form of short theses (T).
- the thought must be supported by evidence - therefore the thesis is followed by arguments (A).
Arguments are facts, phenomena of social life, events, life situations and life experience, scientific evidence, references to the opinion of scientists, etc. It is better to give two arguments in favor of each thesis: one argument seems unconvincing, three arguments can "overload" the presentation made in a genre focused on brevity and imagery.
Thus, the essay acquires a circular structure (the number of theses and arguments depends on the topic, the chosen plan, the logic of the development of thought):
- introduction
- thesis, arguments
- thesis, arguments
- thesis, arguments
- conclusion.
When writing an essay, it is also important to consider the following points:
The introduction and conclusion should focus on the problem (in the introduction it is posed, in the conclusion - the author's opinion is summarized).
It is necessary to highlight paragraphs, red lines, establish a logical connection between paragraphs: this is how the integrity of the work is achieved.
The type of essay for this nomination is analytical.
ESSAY SIGNS
There are some common features (features) of the genre, which are usually listed in encyclopedias and dictionaries:
Small volume.
A specific topic and its highly subjective interpretation.
The topic of the essay is always specific. An essay cannot contain many topics or ideas (thoughts). It reflects only one option, one thought. And develops it. This is the answer to one question.
Free composition is an important feature of the essay.
Ease of storytelling. The author of the essay needs to establish a confidential style of communication with the reader; to be understood, he avoids deliberately complicated, unclear, unnecessarily strict constructions. Researchers note that a good essay can only be written by someone fluent in the topic, sees it from various angles, and is ready to present the reader with a non-exhaustive, but multifaceted view of the phenomenon that became the starting point of his reflections.
Tendency to paradox. The essay is designed to surprise the reader (listener) - this, according to many researchers, is its indispensable quality. The starting point for reflections embodied in an essay is often an aphoristic, vivid statement or a paradoxical definition, literally colliding at first glance indisputable, but mutually exclusive statements, characteristics, theses.
Internal semantic unity. Perhaps this is one of the paradoxes of the genre. Free in composition, focused on subjectivity, the essay, at the same time, has an internal semantic unity, i.e. the consistency of key theses and statements, the inner harmony of arguments and associations, the consistency of those judgments in which the author's position is expressed.
Spoken language orientation. At the same time, it is necessary to avoid using slang, formulaic phrases, abbreviations of words, and an overly frivolous tone in the essay. The language used when writing an essay should be taken seriously.
So, when writing an essay, it is important to define (understand) its topic, determine the desired volume and goals of each paragraph.
Start with a main idea or catchphrase. The task is to immediately grab the attention of the reader (listener). A comparative allegory is often used here when an unexpected fact or event is associated with the main topic of the essay.
ESSAY WRITING RULES
Of the formal rules for writing an essay, only one can be named - the presence of a title.
The internal structure of the essay can be arbitrary. Since this is a small form of written work, it is not necessary to repeat the conclusions at the end, they can be included in the main text or the heading.
Argumentation can precede the formulation of the problem. The wording of the problem may match the conclusion.
Unlike an essay, which is addressed to any reader, so it starts with "I want to talk about ..." and ends with "I came to the following conclusions ...", an essay is a remark addressed to a prepared reader (listener). That is a person who already has a general idea of what will be discussed. This allows the author of the essay to focus on the disclosure of something new and not clutter up the presentation with service details.
ERRORS WHEN WRITING AN ESSAY
Unlike tests, essays do not assume a multiple-choice format (when you are offered several answers to choose from). Essay writing is not limited in time, you can rewrite it many times, ask friends to read your essay. Take advantage of all the opportunities and try to avoid common mistakes and creative writing.
Bad check.
Don't feel like you can just check your spelling. Reread your essays and make sure that there are no ambiguous expressions, bad phrases, etc. Examples that should not be "noted":
"I am proud to be able to resist the use of drugs, alcohol, tobacco."
"Working for your firm (organization) located in a wonderful place with a lot of Gothic architecture will be an exciting challenge for me."
Tedious prefaces. Not enough parts.
Too often, an interesting essay fails in listing statements without illustrating them with examples. Essays are characterized by the usual clichés: the importance of hard work and perseverance, learning from mistakes, etc.
Verbosity.
Essays are limited to a certain number of words, so you need to use this volume wisely. Sometimes this means giving up some ideas or details, especially if they have already been mentioned somewhere or are not directly related to the case. Such things only distract the attention of the reader (listener) and obscure the main topic of the essay.
Long phrases.
The longer the sentence, the better, according to some candidates. However, this is far from the truth. Long phrases do not yet prove the author is right, and short sentences are often more effective. It is best when in the essay long phrases alternate with short ones. Try reading the essay aloud. If you feel that you are holding your breath, break the paragraph into smaller paragraphs.
When you're done writing your essay, do this exercise. Give each paragraph a letter: either S (short), M (medium), or L (long). S - less than 10 words, M - less than 20 words, L - 20 or more words.
The correct essay has the following or similar letter order - MSMLM S.
An incorrect essay characterizes such a sequence of letters - SSSMLL L.
Don't overload your essay.
When writing an essay, discard words from encyclopedias. The incorrect use of such words distracts the reader's attention and diminishes the meaning of the essay.
ESSAY CHECK
When writing an essay, it is of great importance to check the first version of it. When writing a draft, your main task is to develop the argumentation, polish the main thoughts and arrange them in a strict sequence, accompanied by illustrative materials or supporting data, etc. After writing the first draft, let it rest for a day or two, and then return to the work of checking and improving, with a fresh mind.
When reviewing your essay, first of all, pay attention to the following important points:
First of all, it is important to remember that an essay is a subjective genre, therefore its assessment can be subjective.
Data presented:
No matter what question you answer, you need to achieve certain goals. You are expected to keep the following in mind when writing your essay:
Did I answer the question asked?
How clearly and accurately did I express my thoughts?
Does what I wrote sound natural, are there any mistakes?
Details.
Everything that you write in the essay must be supported by examples, make references to your experience. Details will make your essays interesting, unique, and specific.
Distinctive features / Uniqueness / Something interesting, funny.
According to experts, “you shouldn't be afraid that they will go beyond what is permissible, it is better to be yourself. alumni's view, essays are quite tedious to read. "
You don't have to joke around in your essays to make them interesting. However, try to use every means at your disposal to make your essays memorable.
Useful Resources
https://articles.abilogic.com/433966/how-write-narrative-essay.html
https://penzu.com/public/61bda1d4
https://talkmarkets.com/member/angrezijohn/blog/a-thesis-work-plan-where-to-start?post=264123
https://www.tumblr.com/blog/angrezijohn