MS. OLSON Writing an Academic Essay

Types of Essays Inquiry/Exploration Essay: summarizes a topic, gives an overview of a controversy, or explores a subject you know little about. Write objectively rather than take a stance.  Example: An essay exploring the history of migrant farm workers in the American West. Essay to Convince: the goal is to argue a position or make a claim and get readers to both listen to and agree with you. Build your case through rational presentation of reasons and evidence.  Example: An essay arguing that migrant labor has led to loss of jobs for Americans.

Types of Essays (cont.) Persuasive Essay: involves arguing a position using reasons and evidence. Your goal is for your readers to agree with you and, as a result, change their attitudes or behaviors in some way. Think of it being a call to action, and your goal will be to reach your audience on a deeper, more emotional level. Appropriate when you’re addressing topics such as social issues, public policy, or values.  Example: An essay arguing that migrant labor is exploitative and immoral.

Types of Essays (cont.) Analysis Essay: Separate a selected text into parts and study them. Ultimately, you attempt to make a discovery about the text as a whole. An analysis essay will always answer a question about a text. To answer the question, use thoughtful interpretation of one or more textual elements.  Your purpose is to illuminate and explain a writer’s strategies. Evaluate the writer’s purpose, style, and/or rhetoric, as well as the effect, intended or actual, that the text has on readers.  It’s essential that you back up your claims with specific examples from the text.

Types of Essays (cont.) Personal Essay: In a personal essay, you’ll write about your own experiences and observations as they relate to a particular theme or subject. You might write a personal essay to reflect on something, or you might use your personal experiences to argue a point, in the manner of an essay to convince or persuade.  Be sure to select your material carefully—each anecdote you include in a personal essay should in some way illuminate the purpose of the essay as a whole.  Example: An essay discussing your trip to Florida orange groves and how it shaped your views of migrant labor.

Developing an Argument

Find a Topic If you have to choose your own essay topic or find a specific topic on a general subject, consider making these options: 1) Go back to your sources. 2) Go back to your class notes. 3) Do some research.  Your idea will become more specific as you begin to develop a thesis statement.

Understand the Assignment If you are assigned a topic, figure out exactly what the questions is asking. In the prompt:  Underline each important part of the question.  Look at the way the questions begin to get an idea of what information you have to include: Which objects or ideas in the text, specifically? How do they work? What do they ultimately suggest?  Now it’s clear that you must first identify specific symbols, then analyze how they operate in the novel.

Develop a Purpose for Writing Just as important as coming up with what to write is pinpointing why you’re writing it. What do you want your essay to accomplish? Your purpose for writing usually is determined by your audience  What the audience already thinks, knows, or believes will make a difference in why you write. Their positions will determine your purpose. Figuring out who your essay should or will reach will be important in shaping your audience. The purpose should tell your readers why your argument is interesting or important. A statement of purpose usually appears in your introduction, before your thesis statement.  Example: Many people– both farm owners and migrant workers themselves– support migrant labor, but in the past few years there have been too many alarming stories about exploitation and abuse to ignore.

Develop a Position Before you can create a thesis statement, you have to have a position– an opinion or judgment of your subject. Knowing where you stand on an issue is vital before you can construct a thesis. A thesis should always be more specific than a position and should appeal to readers. Ask yourself some questions to zero in on your position:  What are some possible positions?  What are the strengths and weaknesses of these positions?  What evidence is given to support these positions?

Identify Your Audience Essay to convince: What are some responses readers might have to your argument? What kinds of readers will be most likely to agree or disagree with you? Which group can you most effectively reach? Persuasive essay: Whom do you want to persuade? What group is it possible to persuade? What do you want to persuade them to do? Who among your possible readers can themselves influence opinion and behavior?

Identify Your Audience (cont.) Avoid defining your audience superficially, such as by age, race, or gender. In some cases, however, demographic details may in fact be relevant. Figure out where your audience stands on the position Next, figure out which positions you’re able to address and which readers you have the best chance of reaching

Thesis Statements

Develop a Thesis Statement A thesis statement notifies your reader of your original idea regarding a topic. Your thesis should not be obvious or vague. It must be controversial or arguable. It should be possible for someone to come up with a reasonable argument contradicting or resisting your own. If your ideas offer no room for resistance or contradiction, your essay probably isn’t worth writing or reading.

Thesis Statement for an Essay To Convince Again, your thesis should be specific and controversial and should present your position clearly and simply. When arguing to convince, you must also consider what your audience may be willing to accept. Does your argument stand a chance?  If it seems unlikely that your audience will be convinced, consider how you might revise or redirect your thesis statement so that it has more of a chance of reaching– and convincing– your audience.

Thesis Statement for an Essay To Convince (cont.) Qualify your thesis: Proving that something is always true all of the time is difficult, if not impossible.  Often, you can make your thesis more convincing by acknowledging that it might not always be true—in other words, qualify your thesis.  Effective qualifiers include words like usually, in most cases and generally. Keep in mind that you might sometimes find it worthwhile to get your ideas “on the table” even if it’s unlikely that your argument will win anyone over.  Example: Migrant labor, despite its flaws, keeps farms running smoothly and profitably.

Thesis for a Persuasive Essay In a persuasive essay, you want to reach your audience on a deeper, more emotional level. You should make surer your thesis appeals to your readers on more than just a rational level. You should get them to think– but also to feel Thesis should get the readers to agree and act.  Example: Migrant labor often keeps farms running profitably– but the detriment to our country’s integrity is irreversible, and it is the duty of any concerned American to raise awareness of problems within this system.

Thesis for a Personal Essay A personal essay will also have a thesis of sorts, which usually involves a life change or a newly acquired perspective. However, the thesis in a personal essay may be more implicit. Presenting a slowly unfolding process of discovery is one thing a personal essay can do that others often can’t.  Example: Visiting the orange groves in Florida and n talking to the workers there changed the way I define “success.”

Placement of the Thesis Statement In general, a thesis statement should be the last sentence of the first paragraph of your essay. Positioning it here gives you a few advantages:  You have time to present some background information and let readers know why the topic is important.  It steers the rest of your essay in a clear direction. If you decide to put your thesis elsewhere, you should have a good reason for doing so. For example, you might need to present two or more paragraphs of background or contextual information before your thesis statement logically fits. Wherever you choose to put your thesis, you should never just drop it in without any introduction. You must include some information on why your topic is important and where your essay fits in the scheme of your topic in general.

Find Reasons to Support Your Thesis To make a case for your thesis, you must come up with reasons why your argument makes sense. Reasons to support thesis:  Audience’s values and beliefs  Tradition and custom  Special rules  Expert opinion  Hard Evidence  Comparison  Definition  Likelihood or probability  Cause and Effect

Selecting Reasons When deciding what reasons to include in your essay, you first should think about the type of essay you’re writing.  For an essay to convince: use reasons based on expert opinion, hard evidence, comparison, definition, likelihood or probability, and cause and effect. These appeal most to logic and rationality of your audience.  For a persuasive essay: reasons based on values and beliefs, special rules, and tradition and custom. These appeal to the “whole person” of your readers, not just their intellect. Not all reasons will work all the time.

Find Evidence to Support Your Reasons Evidence can be facts, figures, quotations from the text, expert opinions, anecdotes, illustrations, or anything else that offers convincing proof for why your reasons are true. You should have at least one piece of evidence for each reason you give. Your most important reasons will probably require several pieces of evidence. When searching for evidence, stay organized. On note cards, in a notebook, or on your computer, keep track of quotations, paraphrases, and the like– including titles of your sources and page numbers. When it’s time to incorporate your evidence into your essay, you’ll have it at the ready.

Forms of Appeal Logical appeal: Use a thesis, reasons, and evidence to convince your readers.  Have a strategically formulated thesis: strong, relevant reasons, and evidence that shows you take the opposing side seriously.  Use in essays both to convince and to persuade. Ethical appeal: Establish your own good character and expertise in order to persuade readers to listen to you.  Part of creating a positive impression of yourself as a writer includes formulating good reasons and evidence.  May be implicit in an essay to convince, and stretched out over the course of an argument.  May be more explicit in a persuasive essay. In certain sections, a writer’s character may be addressed directly.

Forms of Appeal Emotional appeal: Rouse your readers’ emotions to get them to agree with you.  An emotional appeal is especially important in a persuasive essay— emotions will move people to act.  Emotional appeals should supplement, not replace, an argument. Avoid substituting emotion for logic.  Use emotional appeal to draw readers together and create sympathy when appropriate.  Avoid rousing emotions by appeal to stereotypes. Appeal through style: Construct a strong argument by carefully choosing words and putting sentences together deliberately.  Vital to all kinds of essays and inseparable from writing of any kind.  Style varies from essay to essay (and from section to section) within an essay.

Writing Your Essay

Planning Your Paper Once you know your purpose for writing, your thesis, and your argument, plan out your paper, by writing your thesis paragraph and organizing your reasons and evidence. It is always useful to outline your essay first. Map out your argument! It should show the sequence of your reasons. You should include your purpose and thesis at the top of the outline and include the evidence you plan to use for each of your reasons. If you run into problems while planning your paper or writing an outline, you’ll know you should do additional research or thinking before you begin to write.

Introduction: Thesis Paragraph The first paragraph of your essay is the most important. It should include:  Background material and context: give only the most relevant information, not an exhaustive summary of your subject. Assume your reader is well-educated and well-read and can understand your subject without extensive background.  Purpose for writing and thesis: Tell your reader why your essay is relevant and important. In most cases, your thesis statement should be the last sentence in the paragraph. Get right into your subject, without throat- clearing. Many writers make the mistake of approaching their subject from a wildly distant perspective that they can’t possibly know about or support. Readers will be instantly suspicious if the first thing they read is a generality like “From the dawn of mankind…”

Body Paragraphs Use the body paragraphs of your paper to present your reasons and evidence and to develop your argument.  In most cases, you should use as many body paragraphs as necessary to develop your points.  Each paragraph should begin with a topic sentence that develops your thesis statement and should include evidence to support your sentence.  Besides just presenting the evidence, you should also include analysis sentences that explain why the evidence supports your argument.

Body Paragraphs Avoid having every body paragraph play the same role.  Although some paragraphs may indeed operate independently, they don’t have to, and you can explore an idea over multiple paragraphs.  Body paragraphs may be used to:  Introduce the opposing side of your argument.  Explore the opposite side to reach a conclusion.  Explore a reason further.  Introduce evidence not organically related to your reasons.

Body Paragraphs Use transitions to guide your readers through your body paragraphs.  Body paragraphs should follow one another logically. Each paragraph should be linked in some way to the preceding and following paragraphs—you shouldn’t be able to shuffle your paragraphs around.  Avoid weak transitions like Also, In addition, or We should also note that. These are empty phrases that fail to explain the relationship between successive paragraphs.

Body Paragraphs Present information within each paragraph in a logical sequence.  The sequence in which you present ideas within a paragraph can explain, complicate, or develop the idea in the topic sentence.  Transitional words within a paragraph help readers understand how you’re developing your idea. These words indicate contrast, provide examples, explain results, or establish a sequence.  Useful transitions include furthermore, however, in contrast, for example, as a result and soon after.  Avoid weak transitions like also or and, since these suggest but do not explain connections.  If every sentence begins with a transition word, chances are you’re forcing connections to make your writing sound better. Eliminate unnecessary transition words.

Conclusion Your conclusion should explain the significance of your thesis in a larger context. This is your chance to synthesize the points you’ve made in order to make a more global statement about your topic. Do not simply summarize the essay or repeat your thesis statement. The conclusion should be a culmination of your reasons and your evidence.

Techniques for concluding:  Ask yourself: Why is my topic important? How does it connect to issues beyond this essay? What can readers take away from my argument and apply to their lives in difference ways?  Cite a relevant quotation from the text and explain how to interpret that quotation using your argument.  Explain a term you brought up in your thesis statement.  Show that your argument can be applied to a related topic to reiterate the relevance of your ideas of your ideas.  Avoid generalities. Your conclusion, though it should push your ideas into a more general direction, should not be vague that you could tack it onto the end of an essay. The point(s) you raise in your conclusion should be rooted in your particular argument.