Essay: Types, Features & Basic Principles
Essentially, the essay is a piece of creative writing in prose on any subject-matter in which the writer aims to give his or her personal outlook on a
subject. The term 'essay' is derived from a French word meaning 'act of weighing' and denotes 'attempt, effort or its product'. Hence, the essay is a
trial or effort of a writer to express in the written form any point of view containing general ideas of an author on a subject-matter. Essays are thought
to be endevours of authors to digest their own thoughts and to share their ideas with others. A great number of essays have been published on every
certain subject in the press. More than that, the essay is a preferable type of advanced writing practice at school.
Essays may vary in size. nonetheless, the average size of a school essay is approximately five hundred words. In accordance with the manner in
which the topic is presented, essays can be classified into the following types: argumentative, narrative and descriptive.
The argumentative essay is a piece of writing in which writers communicate their opinions or views and argue for or against a particular idea.
The narrative essay is a description of happenings sequencing one another. The material is organized in keeping with the real sequence of
happenings.
The descriptive essay differs from the narrative essay in the order in which facts and ideas follow one another. It does not depend upon the actual
succession of events but rather upon features of events or the author's pattern of the presentation.
The essay contains three main compulsory structural parts: the introduction, the main body and the conclusion. It is worth remembering that a perfect
essay is characterised by coherence, clarity, logic and consistence.
Here are several tips on how to create a clear-cut essay. Before you start writing an essay it is important to gather, observe, analyze and combine
facts relevant to the subject-matter of an essay. In other words, data-base and a good scheme of the future wo