A short guide to essay planning and structure

Posted by Destiny on June 17th, 2021

How to write an essay

An essay is a kind of creative task; a genre (philosophical, literary-critical, historical-biographical, journalistic) of prose, combining the emphatically individual position of the author with a relaxed, often paradoxical presentation focused on colloquial speech.

Composition - a type of creative task, written independent work of students; statement of their own thoughts, experiences, judgments, intentions. Essays differ in genre or way of expressing thoughts:

• description,

• narration,

• explanation,

• reasoning.

An essay or essay is a type of exercise that completes preparation for the independent presentation of thoughts, ideas. The writing of an essay or essay is preceded by: a plan, a synopsis, a summary of the read text, a presentation of the content, an abstract, an abstract of a series of texts.

The main features of an essay are a specific topic (problem, question) and the expression of individual impressions, the author's thoughts on the topic (problem, issue) with an emphasis on the author's personality (his feelings, worldview), a relaxed manner of storytelling (colloquial speech), attention to detail.

The purpose of the essay is to develop independent creative thinking and the ability to express one's own thoughts. A high-quality essay should consist of an introduction, where the problem is posed, abstracts (the author's ideas on the topic), and each thesis should be supported by evidence confirming the author's point of view, and a conclusion - once again fixing the problem and summarizing the essay.

How to write a good essay is a question I will try to answer in about 2 minutes. There will be something more related to this question, an explanation of how to use quoting correctly. An essay is a presentation not only of your ideas, but also of the ideas that are needed to prove, to understand the issue. When we think about an essay, we recall those small essays of three paragraphs that were written in exams in one hour. The principle is, of course, the same, but you need to increase the volume of these paragraphs.

How to write 5 paragraphs essay

So, the essay consists of several parts, say, 5 paragraphs. Let's write them down - 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. And we have to name these parts.

The first part will be an introduction. Fifth - conclusion.

Parts 2 and 3, paragraphs 2 and 3 are the parts where you must show the reader that you understand what you are talking about. Here you need to show that everything is balanced. For example, in an essay-proof (arguing essay) in the second part there will be reasons for the fact that in part 4, and in the third part there will be reasons against the following statement. This is https://www.hockeyfights.com/most-anticipated-hockey-matches-2020 just a conventional division. In the second part, you may have the most important, strong reasons for and against, and in the third part, additional reasons.

In the meantime, there is no need to worry about it. ”

The main way to write a good essay is to write it according to plan. But the plan should not be too detailed - I saw plans where everything is written "from and to", but the essays were not the best.

A plan is your understanding of what you are not (and should not be) saying in the beginning.

The plan is the ability to leave your main, central idea for the denouement - for the 4th part!

The denouement is what you state, state very clearly, something from part 2 or 3. Add some information from yourself, information that is important specifically for your essay, for your approval. Information to help you get an excellent grade at the end.

Point 4 is the denouement. This should be your biggest paragraph. The part where you re-enumerate facts supported by good quotes is clear (simple), logical (developing ideas) and in order (only what is relevant to the question).

In short: paragraphs 1 and 5 should be short. In the first, it is enough to indicate how you are going to solve the problem. Paragraph 5 logically follows from paragraph 4. What exactly is said above is a conclusion from all that has been said above. If in part 5 you start a new discussion, a new idea appears, then you need to write a new essay. This is a waste of your time. Do not add anything new to paragraph 5. This is the part that follows from everything that has already been written before it.

Paragraph 4 is proof. This is what you have been waiting for. It's like a street situation that you and your friends are in. There is no point in trying to mumble something, childish or funny. You need to listen carefully to what they are trying to tell you - yes, I understand - and then state your arguments. Convince how accurately you all understand how wise your position is. And this is paragraph 4. The first, second, third - these are the reasons that the opponent is wrong. And "bang" is your argument. He killed him, he destroyed him. You are affirming your own point of view. Very clear, very simple, recognizing that there are other points of view, but they are wrong.

I will add something to this story. We have 5 paragraphs - an essay system. But we also need to decide how to defend ourselves, how to build an argument. And we do it with quotes. Something that has been misused in the past. Today it is often said that plagiarism should not be used. This would have been absurd for the ancient Greeks or Romans. After all, they constantly took other people's thoughts in order to add impressiveness to their texts. This is not something that cannot be done, on the contrary. You just need to indicate where you got it from. This is normal. It is legal. You need to use quotes correctly. Imagine you have 6 great quotes. And there are 35-45 minutes to write an essay. You may not have enough time to use all of these 6 quotes, so choose very carefully.

Because a quote always requires three sentences: first, a statement, then a quote, and then an explanation.

The quote is like a gem in a ring, you look at the ring and say, "Oh my God! What a wonderful ring, how bright, how it glitters." Then you take a gem from the ring, if you are a jeweler, and look at it, turn it, examine its facets. And your essay is the same - you are only interested in a few facets, not everything in general. You must apply the quote, insert the gem back into the correct setting.

If the quote is used correctly, then you will benefit from it. You cannot use every quote in your head. You can use not only quotes, you can make references to different events, characters, it is not necessary to quote something. It's also helpful. But a quote requires these three points - a statement, the quote itself, and an explanation. It makes no sense to quote longer than your own text. I have seen works where there are twice as many citations than everything that the student himself wrote. This is absurd. Keep your quote short and add weight to what you say.