How to Write an Essay

An essay must be well structured (ie organised) and presented in a way that the reader finds easy to follow and clear: it must look tidy and not present any obstacles to the reader. It must have a clear readable interesting style. But, above all, it must consist of your ideas

An essay can have many purposes, but the basic structure is the same no matter what. You may be writing an essay to argue for a particular point of view or to explain the steps necessary to complete a task.

Either way, your essay will have the same basic format.

If you follow a few simple steps, you will find that the essay almost writes itself. You will be responsible only for supplying ideas, which are the important part of the essay anyway.

Essay Writing

When writing an essay, it is important to take your time and give your writing a lot of consideration. Even though writing an essay is much simpler than writing a research paper, it is still a very challenging task in itself. These simple steps will guide you through the essay writing process:

1. Decide on your topic.

Brainstorm about the general topic that was chosen to show an even more specific topic. Write down any key words or phrases that can be associated with the topic. One of the key words or phrases could lead to a more specific idea for an essay.

2. Prepare an outline or diagram of your ideas.

Once a topic has been chosen, the six basic questions can be asked to help supply information that will be given in the essay and could possibly even help discover an even more detailed topic for the essay.

The basic questions are: WHO? WHAT? WHEN? WHERE? WHY? HOW?

Now that the basic questions have been asked, they will need to be answered. Reading about the chosen topic and finding answers to the questions is the next step. Write down notes or summarize the information. If direct quotes or paraphrases are used, the source will have to be cited in the essay.

3. Write the introduction.

The introduction consists of the thesis statement and ideas. It should clearly show the position of the paper without giving too much information. .

4. Write the body.

The body of the essay is next which provides the information and support that was gathered. The body gives the answers to the basic questions.

Write the main points.

Write the subpoints.

Elaborate on the subpoints.

5. Write the conclusion.

The conclusion summarizes the information, reiterates the thesis and closes the essay.

6. Add the finishing touches.

After the essay is completely written, it is time to proofread and edit the paper. Read through the essay carefully, checking for spelling mistakes or grammar and sentence structure errors. Check to see that each of the basic questions about the topic was answered and that the sequence and structure of the essay are well written and complete. Once satisfied with the essay as written, it can be typed up and completed. Look over the essay as many times as it needs to be perfect.

Types of Essays

There are four main types of essays:

Narrative - When you write a narrative essay, you are telling a story. Narrative essays are told from from a defined point of view, often the author's, so there is feeling as well as specific and often sensory details provided to get the reader involved in the elements and sequence of the story. The verbs are vivid and precise. The narrative essay makes a point and that point is often defined in the opening sentence, but can also be found as the last sentence in the opening paragraph.

Descriptive - In a descriptive essay, the purpose is to produce a mood or a dominant impression of a person, place, or object. The writer tries to make the reader see, hear, or feel what the writer saw, heard, or felt.

The Expository Essay - Expository essays require that the the writer give information, explain the topic or define something. To accomplish that, they are best developed by the use of facts and statistical information, cause and effect relationships, or examples. Since they are factual, they are written without emotion and usually written in the third person. That means that the use of the pronoun "I" is not usually found within the essay.

The Persuasive Essay - Persuasive writing attempts to convince the reader that the point of view or course of action recommended by the writer is valid. To accomplish this, the writer must develop a limited topic which is well defined and debatable, that is has more than one side. In the essay, only one side of the issue is presented.

 source: http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Atrium/1437/pers.html