An Essay Is a Short Piece of Writing
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An essay is a short piece of writing which is often written from an authors personal point of view. Essays can consist of a number of elements, including: literary criticism, political manifestos, learned arguments, observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of the author. The definition of an essay is vague, overlapping with those of an article and a short story. Almost all modern essays are written in prose, but works in verse have been dubbed essays (e.g. Alexander Popes An Essay on Criticism and An Essay on Man). While brevity usually defines an essay, voluminous works like John Lockes An Essay Concerning Human Understanding and Thomas Malthuss An Essay on the Principle of Population provide counterexamples.
In some countries (e.g., in the United States), essays have become a major part of formal education. Secondary students are taught structured essay formats to improve their writing skills, and admission essays are often used by universities in selecting applicants and, in the humanities and social sciences, as a way of assessing the performance of students during final exams. The concept of an “essay” has been extended to other mediums beyond writing. A film essay is a movie that often incorporates documentary film making styles and which focuses more on the evolution of a theme or an idea. A photographic essay is an attempt to cover a topic with a linked series of photographs; it may or may not have an accompanying text or captions.
Definition
Definition essays explain a terms meaning. Some are written about concrete terms, such as trees, oceans, and dogs, while others talk about more abstract and hard-to-define terms, such as liberty, happiness, and virtue.[10]
[edit] Descriptive
Descriptive writing is characterized by sensory details, which appeal to the physical senses, and details that appeal to a readers emotional, physical, or intellectual sensibilities. Determining the purpose, considering the audience, creating a dominant impression, using descriptive language, and organizing the description are the rhetorical choices to be considered when using a description. A description is usually arranged spatially but can also be chronological or emphatic. The focus of a description is the scene. Description uses tools such as denotative language, connotative language, figurative language, metaphor, and simile to arrive at a dominant impression.[11] One university essay guide states that “descriptive writing says what happened or what another author has discussed; it provides an account of the topic”.[12]
[edit] Dialectic
In the dialectic form of essay, which is commonly used in Philosophy, the writer makes a thesis and argument, then objects to their own argument (with a counterargument), but