Essay: Types, Features & Basic Principles

Basically, theis a piece of writing in prose on any subject-matter in which the author purpose to give an individual interpretation of material. The term 'essay' is derived from a French word meaning 'act of weighing' and came to denote 'attempt, effort or its product'. Thus, the essay signifies a trial or endeavor of a writer to present in writing any point containing general ideas of a writer on a certain subject. Essays are believed to be endevors of authors to understand their own ideas and to express their thoughts to others. Every day a great number of essays on various subjects appear in newspapers and magazines worldwide. Moreover, the essay is a preferable type of advanced writing practice at school.

Essays differ in size. But a school essay commonly contains five hundred words on average. In accordance with the style in which the topic is treated, essays may be classified into the following types: reasoning, narration and description.

The argumentative essay is a piece of creative writing in which authors express their thoughts and provide arguments for or against a specified idea.

The narrative essay is a description of events as they follow one another. Facts are organized in keeping with the actual course of happenings.

The descriptive essay is different from the narrative type in the order in which ideas and facts are arranged. It is not determined by the actual succession of events but rather by characteristics of happenings or the writer's pattern of the presentation.

The essay is made up by three main compulsory structural parts: the introduction, the main body and the conclusion. It is worth remembering that coherence, clarity, consistence and logic are features of a perfectly arranged essay.

Here are a few tips on how to create a good essay. Before you get down to writing an essay it is of importance to find, observe, analyse and combine facts relevant to the subject of an essay. In other words, data-base and a good pattern of the future work are the prerequisites for an excellent essay.

Given a topic, arrange facts in an order appropriate for the goals of your essay and decide on the type of your data arrangement (comparison, contrast, analogy on facts, classification). Make a complete outline that will help you stick to your scheme as you write. Keep to the specified limits of space and learn not to exceed them. Define your aims in the written form by making a thesis statement that expresses a topic. Write a preliminary draft to insure that you have ordered your essay logically and that your introduction and conclusion are clear-cut to make your piece of creative writing more effective. Your final draft should be formatted in accordance with the specified requirements.

As seen from the above mentioned, to acquire the skill of creating an essay a writer should be well aware of its basic principles, features and types and keep practising, because practice makes perfect.