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Date Posted: 18:31:30 05/28/07 Mon
Author: Marina Morena
Subject: Task 03 - Marina Morena

How to write an essay

An essay is, according to Smalley et al., “A group of paragraphs that develops one central idea”(105). An essay is similar to a paragraph but, as a topic for an essay is often more complex than a topic for a paragraph, the idea needs to be discussed in many paragraphs. Each paragraph discusses only one point and they are tied to an introduction and a conclusion. Writing an essay seems to be something quite difficult; however, according to Oshima & Hogue, “Is no more difficult than writing a paragraph except that an essay is longer”(101). In order to write a good essay, some steps need to be followed. These steps are easy to be understood and carried out.

First of all, you need to decide what you are going to talk about in your essay. It is important that the topic attracts your attention and that it be interesting. This way, you will feel more comfortable, the work will be more pleasant, and you will motivate people to read your essay. Another important thing, that sometimes is a great problem among students, is to narrow the topic. Students often come up with general ideas and the result is uninterested and vague essays. Thus, the topic should be something specific. In order to narrow your topic, you can divide it in smaller topics and choose that one that you think it is the most interesting and debatable.

Next, you should research into your topic, and you should also use some techniques to make your ideas be clear and organized. First, you should do brainstorming, which is an activity where you write down as many ideas on the topic chosen as possible. You can also write possible problems and solutions concerning the subject of your essay. You write freely and without any kind of preoccupation about how good your writing is. This activity will help you present clearly your ideas and understand better what you intend to say. Then, you should do a research on your topic. It is important that you choose good references because to support your ideas it is important you use academic texts or good sources. Besides, you also need to evaluate what you have found. Not all the information will be important to you, try to select what is really relevant and try to use academic sources since they often guarantee reliability and objectiveness. After that, it is important to produce an outline, that is, according to Smalley et al., “The skeleton of the essay; it is the structure around which details and explanations are organized”(124). It can be presented in form of a diagram or in the point form. An outline must have your thesis statement, the most important points and sub-points of your developmental paragraphs, and your conclusion. Outlining help you determine if your essay is well organized and if the paragraphs discuss and support your thesis statement.

After that, you are able to start writing. You should write an introduction, paragraphs to support your ideas (developmental paragraphs), and a conclusion. In your introduction, you need to introduce your topic in a clear, precise and interesting way. Smalley et al. said that an introductory paragraph should indicate generally how the topic is going to be developed and it should also contain a thesis statement. Thesis statement is the most important sentence since it contains the central idea of the essay. The thesis often needs to be debatable and well structured. It generally comes at the end of the introduction. In your developmental paragraphs, you should develop your ideas (each one developed in one paragraph) supporting them with good arguments and using transitional signals to make your essay coherent and cohesive. It is good that each paragraph have one topic sentence, which brings the main idea of the paragraph, and one concluding sentence. In your conclusion, you should summarize the main points. It should correspond to your introduction since it seems a paraphrase of your thesis with your final comments.

Last, you need to edit your essay. Editing or not a text can determine if it is good or poor. Your essay can be excellent if you revise it carefully. Pay attention to spelling, grammar and punctuation mistakes, if your thesis is appropriated, if you supported your ideas, if there is more than one idea in each paragraph, and if your conclusion is good. In case of having time, ask someone to help you with the revision, it is a nice idea.

In conclusion, writing an essay is not so difficult as it seems to be. You just need to follow some steps and pay attention to the aim of your essay. Thus, you will be able to do a good job and produce an excellent text. Some steps could be more difficult than others, but all of them are quite important and essential in writing an essay.

References:

OSHIMA, Alice & HOGUE, Ann. Writing academic English. Third edition. Longman, 1998.

SMALLEY, Regina et al. Refining composition skills. Boston: Heinle & Heinle, 2001.

< http://www.bestessaytips.com/process_essay.php > available on May 20, 2007.

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