Essays

Introduction

• The purpose of this PowerPoint is to assist students in developing and refining their essay writing skills. Many students find essay writing to be the most difficult aspect of their preparation for exams.

What is an essay• Essays are short written works, usually in prose in which a particular

issue is addressed and assessed. • An essay is normally a testing or weighing of a proposition,

therefore it nearly always has a structure of an argument. • If you are writing an essay on a simple topic such as, ‘a day at the

beach’, you would probably bring certain evidence ( such as the condition of the waves, the mood of the crowd ) to your account to justify an evaluation of the experience based on these elements. The day at the beach would be evaluated, not only described.

• In English courses we are asked to write essays about texts, assessing the accuracy and adequacy of statements made about them.

• The development of a good essay style is vital in conveying our knowledge and responding adequately to its testing.

The challenge

Writing essays under exam conditions in fact has a number of advantages, which should be exploited:

• Psychological and intellectual concentration, millions of students have sat for exams have not only survived but actually did justice to themselves.

the 10 essential points:

1. Keep essays short and to the point, and legible.

2. Make sure that spelling and grammar are correct and write in

lucid, full sentences and paragraphs of proper length.

3. Focus on answering the question, not just regurgitating

prepared material.

4. In writing essays on literary text, concentrate on HOW the writer

writes, not only on WHAT the writer says.

5. In describing a writers style, use the appropriate and conventional

technical terms

6. When closely analysing a text, do not go through it laboriously, line by line, stanza by stanza, chapter by chapter, but concentrate on its

main features relevant to the question

7. Make sure that the names of writers and the titles of texts and

any quotations from texts are spelt and punctuated correctly and are word perfect, near enough is not

good enough.

8. Learn some key phrases from the text you are studying, which are

central to the themes, ideas and / or prose for use in an essay.

9. In your essay, try to show the breadth as well as the depth of your

reading.

10. Remember that you don’t need to agree with a proposition in an

essay question, nor do you need to praise a writer or topic you are

studying unreservedly.

Essay structure

1. Read the topic at least twice, slowly and carefully underlining

key points and key phrases

2. Scrutinize key words which require special attention in

discussions.

3. The topic requires a class discussion, we need to think

about the kind of essay styles we will be using to fulfill this

requirements.

4. We must think about structure of the essay, in terms of what it must contain and the sequence in which we deal with

these components.

5. Variation of terminology

6. Introduce your particular angle on the topic

7. An innovative approach, to stimulate examiners interest

8. Demonstrating breadth of reading while remaining focused

on the topic.

9. The concluding paragraph

10. Review the essay

Preface (optional)______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Introduction______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Thesis Statement______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

1st Major Point1.____________________________________________________________2.____________________________________________________________3.____________________________________________________________

Conclusion & Lead-In ____________________________________________2nd Major Point

1.____________________________________________________________2.____________________________________________________________3.____________________________________________________________

Conclusion & Lead-In ____________________________________________3rd Major Point

1.____________________________________________________________2.____________________________________________________________3.____________________________________________________________

Conclusion _____________________________________________________Conclusion

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Postscript (optional)______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Essay template: