Essay is a creative work, the author of which can be anyone. We will tell you how to write an essay and not make typical mistakes. In this article you will find all the necessary information about the features of the genre, as well as useful tips for beginners.
What is an essay
What is an essay as a genre? The word itself, having a Latin origin, came to the Russian language from French. Literally, "essay" is translated as an attempt, experience, sketch.
An essay is a small prose story in which the author expresses his impressions, thoughts or thoughts. To write a story correctly, you need to learn about its genre characteristics.
Features of the genre
- Free composition, ease of narration.
- The topic is one and it is defined specifically, but the problem is disclosed in its framework in detail.
- Feels the author's position, subjective assessment.
- Thoughts and feelings come to the fore.
- The text style is colloquial. The essence of the terms is not disclosed, long formulations are absent.
- Relatively small volume (certain standards for the number of pages do not exist).
Those who want to learn how to write a story correctly need to take into account that many people confuse an essay with an essay. But these are different genres. The writing does not provide for the expression of the author's position and requires neutrality. The essay, on the contrary, based on the author's impressions, should surprise readers with paradoxes, frankness, vivid imagery.
Essay structure, writing style
Although this is a free genre, it has several requirements and a certain structure. Writers who know all about how to write stories, advised to listen to the following theses, regardless of the chosen topic.
- Form of presentation of thoughts - concise theses, followed by arguments.
- The word "arguments" sounds serious, but it refers to the usual elements of the story - examples from life, personal experience, the opinions of scientists, historical or scientific facts. The optimal number of such evidence is two. One, to convince, is not enough, but three can be "squeezed".
The plan of the essay looks like this:
Introductory part
The task of entry is to give an emotional attitude, to engage in reading, to interest. To do this, use rhetorical questions, quotes, a clear wording of the topic.
Main part:
Thesis + Arguments
Thesis + arguments, etc.
It is welcomed if the author touches on the history of the issue, citing different (sometimes opposite) points of view regarding the problem.
Conclusion
In fact, these are the conclusions of the foregoing. The final sentences are valuable because they add integrity to the work. Their function is to push the reader to think, to make the work memorable. Sometimes it seems that it was because of the closing lines that it was worth writing a story.
The style of the text can be emotional, contrasting, artistic — the author himself chooses a tone.
How to write an essay: useful tips for beginners
- The text should be easy to read. This can be achieved by alternating short and long sentences, as well as using punctuation marks (dashes, colon) instead of unions.
- Do not abuse complex words, slang, narrow vocabulary.
- Avoid cliches, hackneyed phrases, empty expressions. They "rob" the author's individuality from the work.
- Do not forget about humor and irony, but do not abuse them.
- Stick to the chosen topic, be consistent in its disclosure. Do not deviate from the main idea.
- Dilute the story with memories, impressions, stories from your life experience.
How to choose a topic to write a story
When deciding on a topic that is most often offered to choose from, you need to look two steps ahead. Namely, what skills the text should demonstrate. That is, it is better to take the topic where you can show all your knowledge, strengths, professional qualities. For example, singers come to the castings of modern music competitions not with those compositions that they like. They teach those who will best reveal their vocals, charisma, theatrical skills.
How to start an essay: 3 tips
- You can start an essay using the technique of free writing (freeriting). The essence of the method is that a person writes down all the thoughts that come to his head. No filter, edits or revisions. At first, this process may seem like a stream of consciousness. But in the future, these thoughts can help a lot with what, for example, to answer the question about what and how to write an essay.
That is, do not need to think what to fix on paper or text document. You just need to start doing it, and the phrases will come themselves, otherwise you can never take the first step.
- Paradox, but the entry is best written at the end of the work. You always want it to be interesting, so you can get stuck on the first lines. It is better to return to it when the main part is ready. Then it will become clearer what the reader should be led to.
- How to write a story without hitches? Start the story with a question. And the entire subsequent text is stated in the form of an answer.
Typical mistakes
All authors, working with the text, make similar mistakes. We give the most common.
- The fear that the words seem incomprehensible, makes you delete the most interesting fragments of the text. As a result, after such edits, there may remain a nondescript work, which is not unlike other similar ones.
- A long uninteresting preface or lack of conclusion.
- Verbosity, excessive length of the text.
- Relocation of other people's opinions without analysis or reflection on them.
- Thesis overload, lack of arguments - the text seems inconsistent.
- Misunderstanding of the topic or its incorrect interpretation.
How to check the essay
Much can be said about the author of the essay. For example, to determine the level of development of his creative thinking, the ability to express thoughts in writing, to create a general idea of the person.
There are several criteria by which it is customary to evaluate works written in this genre.
- Knowledge of the theory, features of the genre.
- The ability to work with information - which are the arguments, whether the facts are reliable, and the data - relevant.
- General erudition - knowledge of factual material, the vocabulary used.
- Meaning - whether the topic is fully disclosed, whether the main problem is solved.
- The construction of the text - clarity of sayings, literacy of arguments, logic.
This article is a real cheat sheet for those who want to quickly learn how to write an essay, following all the laws of the genre. Having saved our advice, tips and warnings, you can not only write the story perfectly well, but also help others.
