Writing Blog Number 2

20240222 How To Write An Essay (In General)

How To Write An Essay

So, a few people seem to want to know how to write a decent essay. While most of my experience has been academic essays, I have had 5 essays published in a more informal context.

However, the rules are still the same.

This also goes for opinion pieces, but does not cover memoir. Memoir is a beast all its own with no hard and fast rules. It’s too personal. Memoir is whatever you want it to be.

Back to the essay form. And this is very general. Make sure you know your audience before starting, I guess.

There are three parts to an essay – introduction, body, conclusion.

The introduction introduces the topic of the essay. It is either one or two paragraphs generally, where paragraph one tells the reader what idea, concept or opinion you are putting forth, and paragraph two (if needed) defines terms that may need clarification, either because the terms are technical or because general vernacular has made the actual meanings muddied.

This section is vital, as it hooks the reader and sets out the aims of your essay.

The body is the largest section. By far. Each new paragraph is a new idea to support the essay’s central theme, or a new idea that supports your opinion. The opening sentence is the “topic sentence,” telling the reader what you are going to be looking at, and then the rest gives support to this claim. In an academic essay, the support is all referenced (by whatever method you use); in other essays, it should be supported by facts, figures and quotes.

Quick note on quotes: if you have 2 quotes from 2 different people supporting one topic sentence, they stay in the same paragraph. The rules of new speaker, new paragraph do not follow here.

Next topic, or idea, whatever, is a new paragraph with its own support sentences. And so on. How many is too many? Depends. For a general opinion piece of essay, three is seen as about right, so pick your best three ideas you can write about. I know a few magazines put the number at 5. Our local paper asks for 4 to 7. So, again, there are no hard and fast rules, but if you want a reader to actually read it, then I would say 100 is too many.

Finally comes the conclusion. This should be a very brief summary of the facts you have put forward in the body. No new information is introduced in a conclusion. The conclusion is also where the writer puts their opinion, if doing so is warranted. In an opinion piece, the opinion is emphasized throughout the entire work, so the conclusion just reiterates this.

As for language, formal is necessary for an academic essay, otherwise, it depends entirely upon your audience or the publication you are aiming for. Check first, and then write how you feel comfortable.

So, that’s essay writing. In general.