What Is An Essay?
An essay is not merely a string of paragraphs. It is a series of paragraphs oriented around a central theme, carrying a consistent tone, attitude and perspective. The word ‘essay’ comes from French and denotes “a short literary composition on a particular theme or subject, usually in prose”. An essay is a written composition in which the author shares his/her knowledge about certain topic, reveals to the reader his/her perspective on the issue being discussed, and offers criticism and comments on the situation. The writing of an essay, therefore, requires the author to display not only his/her knowledge of the subject but also the maturity of vision, clarity of thought, and felicity of expression. Besides these, the author should also be able to weave together the different parts of an idea into a thread unity.
Stages In Essay Writing
➤ Read the Topic Carefully: First you should understand the topic well and then brainstorm what are the things you can include in your essay.
➤ Collecting the material: A good essay is the result of careful research. Therefore, before writing an essay on a topic we need to collect the relevant material required to be studied so that the essay we compose is authentic, substantial and convincing. Without proper data and understanding of the relevant details we are likely to produce a perspective that would seem subjective, trivial and prejudiced.
➤ Making an outline: The outline of an essay relates to its skeletal form. It consists of the main and sub points of our essay. An outline is always helpful as it keeps us focused and systematic in taking up the various issues involved in an essay. A good outline helps us to express ourselves in a coherent way.
➤ Making the first draft: Since essay is a detailed composition, it is generally best produced after revision and editing. However, in competitive exams it is not possible for us to write a draft fully. Even then, it is always handy to jot down the sequence in which we plan to take up the different ideas that are going to form the fulcrum of the essay.
➤ Revising and editing: While revising the essay we must pay careful attention to maintaining logical development of the idea. Besides the content and style, the natural evolution of the thesis is what makes an essay eminently readable.
Components Of An Essay
- Introduction
- Body – Development of an idea
- Conclusion
Introduction
While writing the introductory part of the essay, keep in mind the following points:
- Keep your introduction brief and effective.
- Avoid starting abruptly or too philosophically.
- Define or explain the title in a precise, specific way.
- Use quotations, dictionary meanings or sayings to introduce the reader to the main idea.
- Don’t take sides on an issue or sound prejudiced in your approach.
- Avoid jargons, clichés and bombastic beginnings.
Body
This part of the essay runs into several paragraphs with each of those consisting of a topic sentence, a set of developers and a terminator. To be able to come out well in this part of the essay, we need to keep in mind the following ideas:
- Evaluate all the possible aspects of a problem, topic or issue.
- Give due importance to each aspects; don’t appear prejudiced or biased in your approach.
- Relate all your ideas to one another.
- Connect this part to the hopes raised or promises made in the introduction.
- Avoid a miscellany of too long or too short paragraphs in this part of the essay; let there be a semblance of equality in the length and size of different paragraphs.
- It is in this section that the author attempts to convince the reader of his/her perspective on the issue; therefore, analyze the different aspects of the problem exhaustively and leave nothing to chance.
- Use supporting material to argue and develop ideas. Or carrying conviction, use brief or extended examples, facts, comparisons, contrasts, expert testimony and other such devices to make the text look comprehensive and authentic.
- Let the main body lead the reader automatically to the conclusion of the essay.
Conclusion
In order to come up with a good conclusion, bear in mind the following suggestions:
- A conclusion is meant to reinforce the idea already illustrated and established in the main body; therefore avoid developing any new idea in the concluding part of the essay.
- Avoid feeble endings; pack it with a punch of force and vigor.
- An unrelated or irrelevant ending makes an essay ludicrous at times; hence, let the conclusion naturally emerge out of the decision.
- Keep your conclusion crisp and in cohesion with other parts of the essay.
Sample of an Essay:
Deforestation
Deforestation is the removal of forests on a big level by cutting down plants or burning of forests for fulfilling the personal means. It is endangering the wild life, human health and environment. Increasing human population, increasing crowd, increasing competition in the world force human beings to cut the forests and establish well developed cities or farms or land for harvesting.
Deforestation results in many effects like loss of animal home, animals are dying, environment change, seasonal change, increasing temperature, rising environmental heat, global warming, increasing greenhouse gas effect, melting ice caps and glaciers, increasing sea level, weakening ozone layer, hole in the Ozone layer, increasing risks of natural disasters like storm, cyclone, typhoon, flood, drought and many more negative changes which are enough to last the existence of life on the earth. Deforestation disturbs the human lives by causing several imbalances ecologically and environmentally. Deforestation is alarming continuously and indicating the needs to stop cutting plants for the safety of human lives. Some people are doing deforestation to fulfil their greediness of earning money from wood. People are cutting plants for their agricultural activities, logging (to make papers, matchsticks, furniture etc.), urbanization (road construction, housing, etc.), the certification of lands, mining (oil and coal mining), fires (to get heat), etc.
Deforestation leads to air pollution, increasing level of poisonous gases in the environment, increasing soil and water pollutions, increasing environmental heat and many more. All the negative effects of deforestation cause many health disorders and most importantly lungs and respiratory problems.
