ARE YOU READY FOR AN ESSAY WRITING?

Semester 2, 2010

Granville TAFE

Lily

Essay writing

Think about what you want to write about and what you want to say.

Pre-writing Set your purpose for writing (show cause/effect,

compare/contrast, etc.). Identify your audience (academic readers). Brainstorm ideas that support your topic. List your

ideas. Limit your topic (scope). Draft a thesis statement that contains the topic and

controlling idea (name the aspects your essay is going to cover).

Select three to five main ideas to use to support the thesis statement (grouping).

Draft a preliminary outline or map that logically organizes the main ideas in a skeleton manner.

Gather any information you need to begin to write (document sources).

To process your writing

You’ll need to Put your thoughts on paper. Use the logical structure you have

determined in the outlining process. Edit, and Revise, revise and revise.

Warning

The real art of writing is rewriting. Essay writing is not a linear process.

You might return to the reading and note-taking stage if you find another useful text, or that perhaps you need to re-read to locate specific information.

You may find that drafting and planning are more about deciding what not to write, rather than what you are going to write.

To prepare

An important point is to start writing early, as it is during the process of writing that you begin to develop and structure your ideas into an essay. Once you have a working draft, the writing becomes easier and less stressful, and is often just a question of refining and improving y0ur essay into the final produce.

Essay in a broad sense

By tradition, almost by definition, the essay is a short piece of text. According to Aldous Huxley (26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963) , a leading essayist, the essay, like the novel, “is a literary device for saying almost everything about almost anything, usually on a certain topic.”

Aldous Huxley, 2009, Essay, Wikipedia, viewed 25 July 2009http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essay

Essay in wikis sense

An essay is usually a short piece of writing. It is often written from an author's personal point of view. Essays can be literary criticism, political manifestos, learned arguments, observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of the author.

Wikipedia, 2009, Essay, viewed 25 July 2009http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essay

Essay in EFS sense

The essay is a formal, structured piece of writing which makes a statement on a topic or question, and which supports this statement throughout with information and ideas.

Why do we write essays?I. You write an essay to say “This is the way I

see it.”

II. You write an essay to show your teacher:1. What you think about a topic (your ideas and

opinions)2. What you know about the topic (facts and

other people’s opinions)3. That you can use what you know to support

and develop your ideas and opinions4. That you understand the essay question and

that you know how to organize the content

Are all essays the same?

There e are many different kinds of essays.

Sometimes students are asked to argue for one side of a case or the other without shouting and getting emotional.

Sometimes students are asked to explain something, to discuss ideas, to describe something, to compare and contrast two things, or trace the history of something.

Types of essays Describe

Comparison & contrast (usually both together)

Explain

Argue

Trace or recount

Discuss

Analyse

Give detail about the features or characteristics of something

Identify and discuss the similarities between two or more things (compare) and the differences between them (contrast).

Make plain, examine reasons, causes and/or effects

Argue for one side of a given point of view (but show some awareness of the other side)

Give a chronological account of events (say what happened first, second, third etc).

Give points for and against a point of view an come to a conclusion at the end of your essay based on these points.

Cause and effect of a particular issue

To establish an essay “case” The purpose of an essay is to establish a

“case” and prove it as fully and convincingly as possible.

The essay is nothing but ideas, supported by evidence.

An essay is a sustained argument developing or weighing the evidence about an idea or question, and creating a full and satisfying conclusion.

Essay language use

It is best to avoid repeating the exact words of the topic. It is a good idea to paraphrase (use different words to explain). In Introductions the tense normally used is present (simple, continuous, perfect) in its active or passive form.

To avoid over-generalization (general statements which may not always be true) in your essay, it is a good idea to use modifiers such as:

1. Adjectives or adverbs to express a quantity (eg many people may), frequency (eg widely used) or degree of emphasis (eg nearly everyone)

2. Expressions of possibility, desirability or probability including modal verbs (eg will probably, may, could , would ).

3. Avoid phrases such as “it is obvious”, etc.

 

Various expressions

In order to link ideas cohesively and logically, it is helpful to use connectives both between paragraphs and between sentences (e.g. however, moreover)

Various expressions of implications (e.g. It is felt that…) or predictions (It is likely that…) are used to summarize the main argument or proposition of the essay.

 

An essay without an argument and an organized structure is a “pile of junk”. Teachers don’t like them. SORRY!

Structure

Overworked markers don’t like to sift through random piles of words, trying to piece together what the student’s trying to say; it’s your job to put it together for them.

You must not only present all the relevant information, but also show how it “proves” your case, by means of an argument: a line of discussion.

What is the basic essay structure?The structure of most essays – no matter

how long they are – is quite straightforward. The very simplest way to think about it is this:

The Introduction – you tell your reader what you are going to write about. Guess what?

The Body – you write about it. Prove it!

The Conclusion – you tell your reader what you have just written about. So what?

Essay introductionThe introductory paragraph, or

introduction, is the first paragraph of an essay. It has two functions:

(1) It attracts the reader’s interest. An essay introduction stimulates the reader’s interest.

(2) It introduces the topic of the essay, or it tells what the essay is about.

(3) It ends with a thesis statement. It is a “road map” to both the writer and

the reader.

Thesis statement

The last sentence of an introduction is the thesis statement. A thesis statement, like the topic sentence of a paragraph, names the specific topic of the essay.

Build an essay statement

What is the argument/statement of comparing and contrasting the education systems in Australia and the one in my country I would like to make in this essay?

Is this argument valid? Is it sound? Is it persuasive?

Argument (line of discussion/the body of an essay

The body consists of paragraphs. Each paragraph develops a subdivision of the topic.

An essay, like a tree can grow from one simple source into a tall, thick trunk. A line of proposition, an idea, a theme you are developing in an essay is the backbone of the essay.

The body paragraphs usually have

A topic sentence in each paragraph and several supporting sentences

A topic sentence with a controlling idea Unity Coherence within a paragraph and between

paragraphs Transition signals to link the paragraphs into a

cohesive whole

Each body paragraph supports the thesis statement.

The beauty of a topic sentenceA very common, and important

student weakness is the lack of topic sentences. Topic sentences:

Give shape and purpose to your writing;

Help create order within the paragraph;

Allow the reader to follow the argument;

Demonstrate an understanding of formal writing.

The conclusionThe concluding paragraph is the last

paragraph of an essay. The conclusion, like the concluding sentence in a paragraph, is a summary or review of the main points discussed in the body. It has three purposes:

It signals the end of the essay. It reminds the reader of the writer’s

main points. It leaves the reader with the writer’s

final thoughts on the topic.

Full conclusion

In the best essays, conclusions “bear fruit”: they go beyond a mere summary of the discussion and look at the implications and significance more fully.

Good essay

What makes a good essay? The good essay is: Relevant Complete Cohesive Sustained Well-organized Concise “signposted” Specific Explanatory

Self editing and revising

Macro-editingTake away what does not belong to the

essay. Work on your line of discussion.

Micro-editingWork on your language, spelling,

grammar and typos. Fine tuning.

Rework your data to present it forcibly and clearly.  Make sure your discussion flows

logically from the evidence.

Write the final copy, eliminating any repetition and recasting any sentences/sections where meaning is unclear.

Read what you have written, preferably aloud. If anything is unclear to you it will be unclear to the reader.

References

McLaren, S, (2006) Essay Writing Made Easy, Green Giant Press, Singpore