What is an essay?
Althoug there is no satisfactory definition for the term essay due to the wide range of applications and classifications, it is usually considered as a moderately short prose composition on a restricted topic. Essays usually attempt to show the writer's opinion or point of view on a specific subject of his or her own interest.
What are the most common patterns of essays?
Keeping in mind the seriousness of the essay, it can be classified as formal or academic and informal. The formal essay is characterised by the seriousness of purpose, the dignity of the topic, the strictness of the structure, the logic of the organisation, the adequate length and the formality of the language. On the other hand, the informal essay is characterised by the author´s personal affections concerning style, tone, structure, taste, simplicity, unconventionality, confidentiality, and freedom of construction. However, a (p.109) very strict distinction between these two kinds of essays can not always be maintained because they are usually combined.
According to the purposes of essays, they can be clasified as narrations, descriptions, comparison-contrasts, argumentations, processes, definitions, problem-solutions, classifications, analysis, opinions and causation. Other divisions are the critical, literary, historical, periodical, letter, biographical, anecdotal and personal essays. Here, we will refer to the most commonly used modalities of essays such as description, comparison-contrast, narration, problem-solution, process, argumentation, persuasion, and others.
What are the parts of a formal essay?
Most essays usually have three clearly identifiable parts: introduction, development or body and conclusión. In order to enable you to write good essays, each part will be thoroughly studied.
Introduction
This is the first paragraph in an essay and it works like a door of a house:
it lets you go in. In brief, the introduction of an essay is the entrance to it. However, like in a house , if the entrance is ugly, dirty, and non-attractive, you will surelly not want to enter. In an essay , if the introduction is not interesting, attractive, and well built, the reader will not continue reading your paper, and its final place will probably be the trashcan. The introduction must be effective, interesting, and clear because it creates the first impression on the reader. It usually goes from general to specific. It is said, the writer first makes a general reference to the theme, and progessively this theme is narrowed to a more precise and specific topic which will be the central subject of your paper.
Writing on The Problem of Drugs is too extensive a topic and you would need months or even years to write effectively on it. You would have to investigate a lot about the topic in order to produce a trustworthy paper. Then, you will not be writing an essay but a book or maybe several books. You would probably be able to write a better paper on The Problem of(p.110) Drugs in Colombia, but this is stille a very complex and extensive topic. Maybe you do not know what this problem is like in cities, provinces and states located far away from the place you have been living for a long time; then, you would have to look for sources containing or providing the information you need. It would be too demanding and expensive for you, unless you expect some financial profits from you writing. Again, you final product would be, at least, a book rather than an essay.
If you decide to write on The Problem of Drugs in my Hometown, you would be capable to produce a complete and meaningful paper that fulfils both your expectations and the reader´s. Surely you Know a lot about the problem; if not, it is easier for you to get all the necessary information. Even easier would be for you to write an excellent essay on My Best Friend´s Problem with Drugs because you know exactly what the problem is, when it started, what its causes were, its consequences and many other aspects that your best friend has surely told you. The only thing you would have to do is to do is to organise ideas, write and rewrite the paper until you have a good essay.
This process is called narrowing the topic. It is a very useful strategy that you will need to apply if you want to produce good quality papers.
The introduction usually has two principal parts: a general background that is a global reference to the topic, and a thesis statement that contains the controlling ideas for the paper and tells the reader what the essay is about. The thesis statement usually consists of a single sentence that refers to the narrowed topic and it is advisable to be writen at the end ot the introduction. The purpose of writing the thesis statement in this position is to make sure that the reader´s brain is conscious of the activity it is carrying out. The human brain takes several seconds and even minutes to reach a high concentration when it starts a new activity.
The following paragraph is a good sample of an introduction:
One must always be prepared to face some unexpected experiences when travelling by plane. Sometimes it is impossible to know when to depart, what the flight will be like, and when you you will arrive at your final destination. In addition to these (p.111) uncertainties there are many steps a passenger must go through before boarding the plane: long lines, payment of taxes, revision of passport and tickets, revision of luggage, and then, possible transfers. When the flight is international, things become even more complicated because of the strictness of authorities at the airports. All these circumstances demand passengers to be patient and not to give up. I had to live this experience ten years ago when I traveled to the United States, and this is what my trip was like.
As you can see, the author starts the essay by making general reference to experiences a person has to face when traveling by plane. Then, the topic is narrowed to the experiences when the flight is international, and finally, the topic becomes more specific when it refers to a personal experience during a trip to the United States, ten years ago. This sentence is at the same time the thesis statement that tells the reader what is coming next in the paper. Then , you start writing the paragraphs of the body in wich you expand on what has been stated in the thesis statement. (p.112).
Body
Also called development, this is the part of the eassy in which you explain, support, expand, analyse or defend the thesis statement. Depending on the topic, it may consist of a single paragraph or several paragraphs properly organised.
It is essential to realise that writing paragraphs correctly demands some techniques and strategies that the writer must know. For example, a good paragraph must have a topic sentence and several expanding sentences. The topic sentence containts the controlling ideas for each paragraph. In other words, it tells the reader what the paragraph is about.
The function of the expanding sentences is to explain, support, defend, or expand what has been introduced in the topic sentence. It is essential that all the expanding sentences are related to the topic sentence and all the topic sentences are related to the thesis statement. This is called unity and coherence in writing.
The following sample will illustrate how to write paragraphs effectively.
"One day before the wedding, all was a chaos at Aunt Betty´s house. Presents wrapped in pastel paper and decorated
(En espera de terminar la copia del texto p. Sichacá Barahona, Jesús Salvador. Progressive Writing: An easy approach to composition. Magisterio.2007)
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