Essay Writing Revisiting the basics before you create A quick tutorial with Professor Camisha Broussard, Houston Community College

The Essay Different from a novel, a written speech, a poem, you name it the essay is a personal form of expression. However, it has different purposes and those different purposes suggest a number of different essay modes. The purpose of 1302 is to teach you effective Argumentative Essay writing. Although our ultimate goal is to perfect the Argumentative Essay, we will also reflect on our classroom experiences, our independent readings, and our group discussions. Towards that goal, we will also write at least two Reflective Essays. Let’s explore the difference.

The Reflective Essay . . . Easy Peasy! The Reflective Essay shares your thoughts, your feelings, your ideas, your purpose, etc. Hope you get it, the Reflective Essay is all about . . . Well . . . YOU! Therefore you can absolutely write it in first person. “I”, “we”, “us” and to a certain extent, “you” is perfectly fine for this essay. As it suggests, the Reflective essay is an essay that allows you to outwardly express your own personal experience with the reading. It takes on a Expository form and doesn’t seek to accomplish anything other than sharing.

The Argumentative Essay Unlike the Reflective Essay, the Argumentative Essay is not about you at all. Tricky, because you’re the one that has to write it. Weird huh! The purpose of the Argumentative Essay is to argue a strongly presented thesis statement. The essay accomplishes this goal by bringing in outside sources (borrowed material) to support the claim. The Argumentative Essay also incorporates specific elements of Rhetoric and or Literary Elements, to demonstrate a mastery of the writer’s knowledge and craft. Since this essay is NOT about you, is it NOT appropriate to use second person or first person. Only third person POV writing is appropriate for a good argument. Now let’s look at format

Paragraphs While you may be familiar with the term “five paragraph essay” become unfamiliar with it! Instead, get to know this paragraphs: Introduction Where you hook your audience Where you include your thesis Where you do NOT include any borrowed material Where you prepare your reader for what’s to come, but you do so in a creative, not direct manner

Paragraphs Body As many paragraphs as needed Each paragraph has it’s own main idea, but each main idea supports the thesis in the introductory paragraph As much borrowed material as possible, the more the better, to support your argument. Smooth transition into and out of ideals Smooth transition from the introductory paragraph (sequencing) Smooth transition toward the conclusion (sequencing)

Paragraphs 3. Conclusion – wraps up your ideas, does NOT introduce any new ideas Finishes strong Avoids quotes (borrowed material) Is more three sentences Drives home the theme of the essay

What you need to know, NOW In order to do well in this course, you NEED the following: You must really understand the difference between the two essays. You must write according to the guidelines of each type of essay. You must review and master MLA format. You must communicate what you do not understand. You must take the initiative to research terms that you do not understand. You must review the feedback given to your graded essay. You must have fun!

Resources How to write an effective Argumentative essay Examples of Reflective essays MLA format Thesis  POV Rhetoric and Rhetorical Devices Literary Devices Transitions!