How to Write an Essay: Rules and Examples

Easy Rules for Writing Academic Papers

By Jana RooheartPublished 2 years ago • 5 min read

And what not to mess with students’ heads. One of the teachers’ tricks is essays. It seems simple but perplexing, don’t you agree? If so, we propose to work out together what, where, how, and why. Let’s start with the concept of an essay.

Essay: concept and characteristics

Such an interesting and beautiful word takes its origins from the French language, which is not surprising. Essay is an attempt, an essay, an experience, a sample. However, one should not take the meaning literally. Students are still expected to produce a finished work, not a draft.

What is an essay? An essay is a critical, subjective story, description, or narrative devoted to a particular scientific issue. If we draw a parallel with life, it is a business meeting in a “no tie” format. It is a kind of science but also a freestyle.

In such a universal combination lies the whole essence of the essay. The main characteristics are:

small volume — up to 10 printed pages;
the simplicity of exposition — the absence of complex sentence structures, abstruse phrases, boring scientific statements;
saturation with epithets, metaphors, and bright emotional coloring;
high uniqueness — 85% and higher;
own structure — title page, introduction, main part, conclusion;

Author’s position, subjective judgments, own opinion, supported by a theoretical basis.

The essay is all about paradox and openness. It is these components that are sorely lacking for maximalist students, who have almost nowhere in the format of an educational program to splash out their position. Everywhere there is a frame, a burden of responsibility, and boring requirements. And here — a whole field for realization.

Interesting thoughts! “To write well is at the same time to think well, to feel well, and to transmit well. It is to have intelligence, soul, and taste.” Jean-Louis Buffon.

Classification of essays

An author’s position can be stated in different ways. If in the form of arguments and justifications — the essay argument. When the format involves describing the perception of a subject or phenomenon, we are talking about essays-descriptions.

There are also essay illustrations — such as visual arguments on a particular issue or aspect. The presentation of an author’s judgment in the form of a story, description of a life situation, or biography is called a narrative essay. In this free (relatively) genre, comparisons, comparisons of similar and opposite features are allowed — it is an essay comparison.

Students can state their author’s thoughts using classification and gradation. Then the work will be called a classification essay. And also, essays can analyze reasons and build logical inferences.

Generally speaking, there are as many opinions as there are types of essays. The main thing is not to get tangled up in your own thoughts and give the material a certain concept, consistency, logicality consistency to the material.

To fully understand the structure of the essay, I suggest you read the examples:

Tips for choosing a topic and writing an essay

You can’t describe ten problematic aspects at once in a paper like this. You have to focus on one problematic aspect. But such a formulation is very strict for this format. It would be more correct to say problematics framed in a subjective, emotional coloring.

Before finally approving the topic of the essay, it is important to answer a number of questions:

Is it clear what the author wanted to convey? How clear is the meaning of the statement?
What basic requirements does the topic imply?
How does the author feel about the given statements? Does he/she agree with them?
What will scientific and social science terms be needed to justify the author’s position?
What can pertinent examples from real life, history, and life experiences be cited?

The essay is written easily and at ease. But this does not mean that you can write anything you want in layman’s terms. The secrets of skill — veiled use of scientific style and give it a subjective coloring, clarity, emotionality. You can use colorful adjectives, for example, to write admirably about admirable things.

Plagiarism is forbidden. The essay is also required to be unique. A minimum of 85%. This is not difficult to achieve if one’s own thoughts, vision, and position are stated. As many people — as many opinions.

Important! It is forbidden to use slang, jargon, and swearing in an essay. As they say, speak but do not talk. Your thoughts are necessary and vital, but they need to be “filtered.

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About the Creator

Jana Rooheart

I'm a writer with tremendous experience writing various papers, articles, and other types of documents. I specialize in areas such as psychology, creative writing, and digital learning fields. I help WowEssays write educational articles.

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