Elements of the Academic Papers Genre - Essay Example

Essential Elements of the Essay Genre Essential Elements of the Essay Genre Every in academia encounters various forms of writing that are assigned by their educators in the form of essays. Assignments are given out in many forms depending on the level and the department the student is in. Essays are done both in the class and as homework. Whether done as homework or as class work; essays require prior preparation, practice, and also planning. In addition, essay writing requires a student to have some degree of creativity to avoid essays that are crafted poorly. This essay aims at discussing various forms of the essay genre and their essential characteristics, to help students write essays that are free from essay writing problems and discomforts. Most of the time in the writing classes, students encounter various forms of essay genres, and most of them follow under expository, narratives, descriptive, and argumentative approaches. Before pointing out and discussing these elements, it is important to understand first of all what an essay is. What is an essay? The origin of the word essay can be traced back to the French influence on Middle English. In Latin, the word is a form of a verb known as exigent, and it literally meaning is to drive out, while other meanings are to test and examine. Thus, from these meanings, students are able to understand the importance of writing academic essays, which enables them to examine and test their own ideas about a particular topic. Essay writing requires a student to learn various skills that are significant in writing excellent essays. Some of these skills are like persuasion, analysis, close reading, exposition, contrast and comparison, and also clarity. By nature, essays should be written in a way that depicts clarity in direction and purpose, should be interesting, and also should be deliberate. When students understand various essay genres, they are able to familiarize themselves with the process of writing essays, and as a result, they become confident in writing any form of an essay. Essay writing also involves some essential elements that dominate in all kinds of academic writing assignment. Failure to use one or any important element might make the essay inadequate. Some elements are weighed more heavily than others depending on either the assignment, specific course or the academic discipline one is pursuing. These elements include; Focus This part forms the point of the paper, and it gives the purpose of the essay. It gives the main focus of the paper, its significance, originality, and gives a clue of the expected academic audience. The thesis statement and argument fall under this element. A good essay writer ensures that his or her argument or thesis is clear, and the academic reader is able to determine the paper’s point quickly. Also, everything that is written on that paper should relate to the main argument or thesis, and it is directed to its primary focus. Moreover, the content of the paper should explore and explain various concepts that were previously discussed, and it should reflect the ability of the writer to apply different course materials. An essay with a proper part of focus not only gives its reader a better understanding or insight into it, but also it keeps the attention of the reader and he or she yearns to read more. For example, the article by Jonathans Swifts states precisely the thesis statement, “a model that aims at preventing poor people’s children from being a burden to the country and parents, and makes them to become beneficial to the entire public” (Swift, 1997). From such a clear thesis, we are able to get a picture of what the article is discussing, without reading the whole essay. Development This element involves the capability of the student to expand his or her thesis statement or argument with appropriate details. A good developed essay ensures that its focus is supported by evidence. These details are well controlled in such a manner that they do not become exaggerated by variety of examples, or become underdeveloped due to too little points. In addition, all paragraphs are unified in purpose and topic; all claims and topics are well explained, and development of the paragraphs is done appropriately. Equal Support and emphasis should be reflected by the points of the essay. Different varieties of view points are included in the paper, to argue against or for the argument or thesis. Such viewpoints should aim at making the thesis look convincing. Furthermore, developing a thesis statement or argument should involve the use of appropriate and reputable sources, and introduction and explanation of quotations. Woolf describes life and death in a most developed way, in such that, her descriptions about the moth are unified in purpose and topic. She says “the moth flew from one side to the other, of his square of the windowpane. Nothing remained for him but this, while the possibilities of pleasure” (Wolf, 1942) Organization An essay should be organized in a manner that the focus of the paper is moved forward logically to a comprehensive conclusion. Clear transitions are essential in a well organized paper, and these transitions help the reader to feel more attracted to the content, thus gets the mood to read further. For example, the introductory part of the essay provides the thesis or argument, giving the necessary context and background while the concluding part of the essay gives the reader a signal that the discussion is over. On the other, hand, the body ensures that it gives detailed information about the topic and why it is important to discuss it, and why arguments about it are significant. How paragraphs are also structured reflects the element of the organization in essay writing. How the points of the paper are being developed dictate how the paragraphs follow one another. Well organized paragraphs move the understanding of the reader forward, because the details in it are structured in a way that connect thesis or argument to the point of the essay. Style Style in essay writing involves the paper meeting the level of formality as per the requirements, and the choice of word relates well with the topic under discussion. Most of the times, the style demonstrated by a paper depends on the course discipline. For example, different styles are demonstrated depending on whether the class discipline is biology, art, business, psychology, history, English or mathematics. Moreover, the title should be specific, unique, and convey the focus of the paper, and voice and tone should be consistent to show that it was written by one person. Otherwise, if the paper was written by a group, its tone should be uniform. Conventions This is not a significant element, but most academic assignments require the student to format their work properly according to the stipulated formatting guidelines given by instructors. Therefore, the element of convention ensures that essays have the appropriate spacing, reference format, font size, indentations, title page, headings, and citations. Also, all paraphrases, concepts, quotations, statistics, and conclusions are referenced and cited in a proper manner. All these five elements work together to produce an excellent essay paper regardless of its genre. Each essay genre contains all or some of these elements. These types of the essay genre are narrative, argumentative, descriptive, and expository. An expository essay structure involves a concise and clear thesis in the first paragraph, logical and clear transitions, paragraphs supported by evidence, creativity, and a conclusion supported by evidential support. The descriptive essay follows these guidelines, brainstorming, use of concise and clear language, organized descriptions, creativity, reflects clear impression to the reader, and is appealing. A narrative essay has the following characteristics, all parts of a story should be include if this type is written as a story, should have a purpose and written clearly and concisely, first person pronoun is allowed, should be well organized. An argumentative essay genre is characterized by elements like concise and clear thesis in the first paragraph, logical and clear transitions, evidential supported paragraphs, evidential support, and an evidential supported conclusion. Most of the characteristics observed above in different types of essay style forms part of the essential elements that were discussed previously. I would choose the element of focus because it gives a clear direction of the purpose of the essay. If the argument or thesis statement of the paper is not clear and concise, other elements will not work out well since all details relate to the focus of the essay. To me, the element of focus is important as it is the one that determines how the rest of the paper will be organized, developed, the style to be used, and how conventions will be used. In conclusion, it is important for students to understand various essential elements of the essay genre, as this will help them to conquer all challenges that come with writing different forms of the essay genre. The elements of the essay genre like focus, organization, development, style, and convention work together to produce an excellent essay paper. References Swift, J. (1997). A Modest Proposal. A Publication of The Pennsylvania State University. Retrived from a_modest_proposal_.pdf(104,22 KiB). Woolf, V. (1942).The Death of the Moth.Retrieved from the_death_of_moth.pdf (29,89 KiB) Read More