The Four Major Types Of Essays

The Four Major Types Of Essays Planning your essay makes the writing process quicker and easier. You'll be able to focus on expressing your ideas while remaining within the word count, rather than having to organise your thoughts as you write, which often leads to waffling. We've asked two academic experts for their recommendations on how to plan and write a first-class essay. Mastering how to write an essay early on will help you prepare for writing your dissertation in your final year. Taking the time to properly plan an essay can lead to higher grades, with lecturers welcoming a logical structure that clearly demonstrates your understanding of the subject. The thesis is a succinct statement of your overall argument. If you introduction is multiple paragraphs long you have more flexibility where you place the thesis. Writing Essays does not cover every type of writing you will do at university but it does cover the principal types. So you will find guides to essay writing, dissertation writing, and report writing. Here you should summarize what it is that you have said in your essay, stating what your answer to the question is and why. Often, there is no simple answer (which is why you are writing an essay, and not a two-mark answer on a class test), so you should state what the complexities of the issue are. You may feel that you are repeating yourself, as the body of your essay should have made your argument clear already, but the reader will appreciate a good summary. Remember that good essays don’t just give evidence for their point of view, but also demonstrate why opposing views are flawed. Linear plans are useful for essays requiring a rigid structure. They provide a chronological breakdown of the key points you're going to address. Approaches vary from person to person and will depend on one’s experience in essay writing, almost to the point where a style of writing will be as individual as a signature. Michael recommends that you begin writing your essay by expanding your plan. 'You may find it helpful to write the conclusion first, especially if you know exactly what it is you want to argue,' he adds. 'This can help you to clarify your ideas and also give you something to work towards. This means that, when writing your essay, you can progress through these points. It's up to you to decide which essay writing strategy to adopt but pick the one that works best for you. Even if you do come across a lot of interesting material when researching for your essay, be selective. Interesting material won’t gain you extra marks unless it is relevant. Good essay writing is a skill acquired rather than learnt. Just make sure you paragraphs transition nicely from one to the next. Some teachers advice their students to come up with three points for their thesis. What invariably ends up happening is that you end up writing three mini-essays that are only loosely connected. Imagine a reader, then try to predict their objections to your argument, and then demonstrate why they are wrong. A well-structured essay should consist of a series of paragraphs that progress logically through the series of points that you intend to cover. The trick with writing paragraphs is to remind your reader of the general argument. However, there’s no need to conclude every paragraph with a summary of what came before. Obviously, the difficult part is working out what that order should be. In essence, an essay is an argument, so your structure should be based on the particulars of your argument. Although this may sound obvious, a lot of essays lose marks for containing material that is simply irrelevant. Make sure that you read the assignment sheet thoroughly and are sure about what it asks for before you start reading for the essay. While you are reading, bear in mind what sort of material you are looking for in order to address the assigned topic.