Essay Structure

Essay Structure To start you off, and to minimise the likelihood of writer’s block, a useful exercise is to do a ‘brainstorm’ of all your ideas in connection with the essay title. It can be a way of making a lot of progress quite quickly. There are many kinds of essays, but some of the common major categories are narrative, descriptive, expository, compare and contrast, and persuasive. A college essay is a formal writing assignment that can take many forms. Persuasive, descriptive, analytical, expository, and personal are examples of types of college essays. Your essay will flow better if you build connections or smooth transitions between your arguments. Try to find logical ways to link each paragraph or topic to the one before or after. Try to show how the arguments in each paragraph link back to the main thesis of your essay. From there, introduce the question about the work you'd like to address and present your thesis. Write an outline to help organize your main points. Questions can be really effective for an introduction. Aim for an introduction that has an explicit relation to the topic/title of your essay, and avoid analyzing the topic in your first paragraph. Start with a great fact, story, or compelling idea, then grow from there. If you're stuck, many writers save their intro until the end, once they know the actual direction and evidence in the rest of the essay. It is your task to present your argument in a way that your audience can follow; it is not your audience’s job to launch an investigation to detect the points you are trying to make. Underpinning the structure will be the ‘argument’ your essay is making. Again this may be strong and obvious, or it may be almost invisible, but it needs to be there. In different subject areas, and with different styles of writing, the term ‘argument’ may seem more or less relevant. However, even in those essays that appear to be highly creative, unscientific, or personal, an argument of some kind is being made. The paragraph begins with an introductory sentence which carries the main idea. Supporting ideas follow suit in sentence format backed with relevant information and examples. Don’t forget to cite every reference materials used. Direct quotes must also be cited using the required format style. Try to start with something intriguing and promising. After you've created a clear thesis, briefly list the major points you will be making in your essay. You don't need to include a lot of detailâ€"just write 1-2 sentences, or even a few words, outlining what each point or argument will be. Include sub-points addressing the evidence and examples you'll be using to back up each point. As you're researching your topic, keep detailed notes about relevant information, ideas that interest you, and questions that you need to explore further. However, this type of essay is not description for description’s sake. The descriptive essay strives to communicate a deeper meaning through the description. This is the part of the essay that you are supposed to explain, describe or argue the topic. The main ideas you wrote down on your outline becomes separate paragraphs. If you make your argument hard to follow, so that they need to re-read a paragraph to try to make sense of what you have written, you will cause irritation, and make their job slower. Realistically, it is possible that they may even decide not to make that effort. In a descriptive essay, the writer should show, not tell, through the use of colorful words and sensory details. The best descriptive essays appeal to the reader’s emotions, with a result that is highly evocative. The tutors reading and marking your essays deserve your consideration. They will be reading and marking many, many student essays.