Isn’t it tricky that you can feel disoriented or clueless when all you are facing is a neat, blank sheet of paper?
Filling it with words is not as easy as jumping into a pool, where everything that follows seems fun and predictable. Writing has become part of our daily lives—in our relationships, careers, community work, and artistic expression. In fact, history would be incomplete without writing. We would never fully understand ourselves or our surroundings without records of our past.
On the other hand, writing in the fields of science and business means exploring the future and laying out a roadmap of events and possibilities. Humans are naturally inclined to discover new things and seek progress. For those who work in advertising, journalism, or teaching, writing is a livelihood. For novelists and poets, writing is part of who they are. For everyone else, writing is often a requirement. Everyone can write, and everyone has to write at some point in life.
Do not be overwhelmed.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, an 18th-century philosopher and writer, once said, “However great a person’s natural talent may be, the art of writing cannot be learned all at once.” This guide will serve as your introduction to a series of articles on writing, starting with its most basic form: essay writing.
What Is an Essay?
- Definition
- How an essay differs from other types of papers
Steps for Writing an Essay
- Determine your purpose
- Know your audience
- Use brainstorming techniques
Basic Structure of an Essay
The Role of Research in Writing
Writer’s Block and Where to Get Inspiration
Stephen King, in his book On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, wrote, “The scariest moment is always just before you start. After that, things can only get better.” So, let us begin making things better.
What Is an Essay?
An essay is a piece of writing that focuses on one subject and serves a particular purpose. In educational institutions, essays are assigned to students to develop and test their writing skills, comprehension, and creativity.
An essay differs from a research paper, which requires extensive research, a strict methodology, and a more formal structure, tone, and style. An essay allows for a more creative approach, may include the author’s personal insights, and often requires only an outline and a simple paragraph structure.
An essay is also different from a report. According to Southampton Solent University, a report presents and analyzes findings from practical research. It begins with an aim, such as investigating or exploring a subject, and may also include a hypothesis—a proposition that the research will test. Depending on its guidelines or purpose, a report may make recommendations. An essay, meanwhile, may answer a question and use the results of practical research only insofar as they help support the writer’s conclusions.
An essay is also different from a journal. In one of its writing resources, RMIT University notes that a journal focuses primarily on your ideas and insights, reflections on the subject matter and your own learning process, and, in an educational setting, your analysis of subjects and issues covered in classwork or readings.
Steps for Writing an Essay
Determine Your Purpose
Usually, your purpose comes from the writing assignment or your instructor’s requirements. It should help determine the appropriate design and content of your essay.
According to the University of Canberra, an essay question typically contains two elements:
- Information about the content you are expected to cover. For example: Vygotsky’s theories on child development or systems of governance in Europe.
- One or more verbs, or direction words, that tell you what to do with that content. For example: analyze, explain, discuss, or describe it.
The NSW Department of Education and Communities emphasizes the importance of carefully studying the keywords in an assignment question.
Its suggestions include identifying the topic words that indicate the particular subject of an essay—for example, the character of Juliet in Shakespeare’s play; recognizing limiting words that define the scope of what must be discussed—for example, “Chapters 1–3”; and noting the task words, or direction words.
Meanwhile, some essays have no assigned topic or purpose. The Missouri University of Science and Technology presents six general purposes of writing based on the different parts of Russian linguist Roman Jakobson’s model of the communication situation: writer, reader, context, message, contact, and code.
- Writer: Expressive purposes. A person may write simply to express feelings, attitudes, ideas, and so on. This type of writing does not necessarily take the reader into consideration; instead, it focuses on the writer’s feelings, experiences, and needs. Expressive writing may take the form of poetry, journals, letters, and especially free writing.
- Reader: Conative purposes. Conative writing seeks to affect the reader. Persuasive writing is conative, as is writing intended to entertain the reader. Writing designed to arouse the reader’s feelings is also conative. Conative writing can take almost any form as long as its intention is to persuade or emotionally affect the reader.
- Context: Informative purposes. Informative writing refers to something outside the writing itself and aims to inform the reader. Today, informative writing usually takes the form of prose, although poetry was sometimes used for informative purposes in earlier periods.
- Message: Poetic purposes. Poetic—or literary or stylistic—purposes focus on the message itself: its language, how elements of language are used, and its structure and patterns. Poetic writing can take the form of prose as well as verse. Whenever someone writes with an emphasis on the way language is used, the writing has a poetic purpose.
- Contact: Phatic purposes. Phatic language establishes and maintains contact between speakers or between a writer and a reader. In conversation, someone may greet another person by saying, “How are you doing?” or “How’s it going?” Such questions are often intended simply to establish or maintain friendly contact. Greetings and closings in letters are examples of phatic communication in writing.
- Code: Metalinguistic purposes. Comments about a piece of writing are metalinguistic. If a student attaches a note to an essay explaining why the essay is late, for example, the note is metalinguistic in relation to the essay. An author’s preface to a book is another example.
Know Your Audience
Dr. Steven Hale defined an audience as anyone who reads, sees, or hears a message, such as a story, essay, speech, or painting.
He explained that there are two types of audiences:
- The real audience — the people who actually receive or read the message, such as a teacher, friend, or tutor in a writing lab.
- The intended audience — the target group the sender has in mind, such as young, middle-aged, or older people; men or women; politicians or voters; or members of particular cultural or geographic groups.
Knowing your audience helps you decide which writing strategy to use. If your audience belongs to a formal group, such as a group of professors, your writing should not be overly casual.
If your audience consists of creative individuals, you may be able to use a freer or more conversational approach.
Apply an Invention or Inquiry Strategy
Rise B. Axelrod and Charles R. Cooper, authors of The St. Martin’s Guide to Writing, explain that invention and inquiry strategies, also known as heuristics, are useful tools for building a framework for an essay and can be applied in almost any writing situation.
These strategies can help writers explore, study, and scrutinize a topic.
The first category of these strategies is called mapping.
Mapping refers to visual organizational techniques. Maps may consist of words and phrases that are circled and connected by lines to show relationships, or they may take the form of structured outlines.
Mapping strategies include clustering, listing, and outlining.
Clustering
Clustering explores possible connections among facts and ideas and requires a tentative division of the topic into subtopics or main ideas.
The steps are:
- Write your topic as a word or phrase in the center of a piece of paper and circle it.
- Write down the main parts or central ideas of your topic, also using words or phrases. Circle them and connect them with lines to the topic in the center.
- Think of facts, details, examples, or ideas related to these main parts and cluster them around the appropriate sections.
Listing
Listing begins by creating a title for a list that expresses your main idea or topic.
You are encouraged to write as quickly as possible and include anything that appears useful.
After you have finished—or even while you are writing—reflect on the list and organize it in the following ways:
- Put an asterisk next to the most promising items.
- Number key items in order of importance.
- Place related items into groups.
- Cross out items that do not seem promising.
- Add new items.
Outlining
Outlining can help determine where an essay’s strengths and weaknesses lie.
Two common types of outlines are:
Informal Scratch Outline
A scratch outline is informal because it resembles a simple list of the essay’s main points.
A sample outline for an argumentative essay might include:
- Presentation of the issue
- Concession of some aspect of an opposing position
- Thesis statement
- First reason with supporting evidence
- Second reason with supporting evidence
- Conclusion
Topic or Sentence Outline
This type of outline follows a conventional format using numbered and lettered headings and subheadings.
Although both topic and sentence outlines are formal, they differ in how information is presented.
Topic Outline
I. Main topic
A. Subtopic of I
B. Another subtopic of I
- Subtopic of I.B
- And so on
C. Another subtopic of I
- Subtopic of I.C
Sentence Outline
I. Highly organized competitive sports such as Peewee Football and Little League Baseball can be physically and psychologically harmful to children, as well as counterproductive to the development of future players.
A. They can be physically harmful because these sports may encourage children to perform physical actions that are harmful to growing bodies.
- Koppett claims that throwing a curveball may place abnormal strain on developing arm and shoulder muscles.
- And so on.
The second category of invention and inquiry strategies is simply called writing.
This approach involves making complete statements that may help writers explore ideas and define relationships, bring ideas together or show how they differ, and identify causes and effects.
Writing techniques include cubing, dialoguing, dramatizing, keeping a journal, looping, questioning, and quick drafting.
Cubing
Cubing involves approaching each subject or topic as if it were a six-sided cube, with each side representing a different perspective.
The six sides of cubing are:
- Describe it: How can the topic or issue be described?
- Compare it: What is the topic or issue similar to, and how is it different from other topics or issues?
- Associate it: What does it make you think of? What can it be related to? How can the topic or issue be connected to other topics or issues?
- Analyze it: How can the topic or issue be separated or broken down into smaller parts?
- Apply it: How does the topic or issue help you understand or define other topics or issues?
- Argue for or against it: What arguments can be made for or against it? Why does it work or not work?
Dialoguing
Dialoguing refers to a conversation between two or more people.
To perform this exercise, write a conversation between two people, Speaker A and Speaker B. If one speaker becomes stuck, the other can ask a question to keep the discussion moving.
Keep the responses brief so that the conversation progresses quickly.
This technique can be especially useful when developing personal-experience and persuasive essays.
Dramatizing
Dramatizing, a method developed by philosopher Kenneth Burke, involves thinking about human behavior in dramatic terms.
Five elements can help writers apply this approach:
Action: An action is anything that happens, has happened, will happen, or could happen. Examples may be physical, such as running a marathon; mental, such as reading a book; or emotional, such as falling in love.
Actor: The actor is involved in the action—either responsible for it or affected by it. The actor may also be a force or factor that causes an action.
Setting: The setting is the situation or background of the action. It may include the place and time of an event, the historical background of an event, or a person’s childhood and circumstances.
Motive: The motive is the purpose or reason for an action—the actor’s intention.
Method: The method explains how an action takes place, including the techniques used by the actor.
Keeping a Journal
Among the famous writers who kept substantial journals were Sylvia Plath, Franz Kafka, Joan Didion, and C. S. Lewis.
You can use a journal to:
- Keep a list of new words and concepts you learn in your courses.
- Record reflections, reactions, or evaluations about the things you read.
- Recall the main ideas you have learned from assigned readings and consider how these new ideas relate to other ideas in the course.
- Record observations and overheard conversations.
- Write for 10 or 15 minutes each day about whatever is on your mind.
- Write sketches of people who catch your attention.
- Reflect on your goals and priorities, or list specific things you want to accomplish and how you plan to do them.
- Keep a log over several days or weeks about a particular event unfolding in the news.
Looping
Looping is a technique that involves writing quickly to explore one aspect of a topic and then returning to your original starting point—or choosing a new starting point—to explore another aspect.
The process includes the following steps:
- Write down your area of interest.
- Write nonstop for 10 minutes.
- Pause and reread what you have written.
- Summarize what you have written in one sentence and use that sentence as the starting point for another 10 minutes of nonstop writing.
- Summarize the second round of writing in one sentence to complete the second loop.
- Continue looping until one of your summary sentences produces a clear focus or thesis.
Questioning
Questioning is useful because it provides a systematic way to explore a subject.
Sample questions include:
- What is your subject?
- What parts or features does your subject have, and how are they related?
- How is your subject similar to and different from other subjects?
- How much can your subject change and still remain the same?
- Where does your subject fit in the world?
Quick Drafting
Quick drafting has no special rules and is based on what the writer already knows about the subject.
It can also help the writer determine what information still needs to be researched or discovered.
