Essay Writing
Before you write
• • • Being Aware of Your Audience Awareness of the audience is a crucial part of the writing process. Who is going to read the essay and why are they reading it Being Aware Of The Purpose Of The Piece of Writing The purpose of this piece is to persuade. This is also likely to be the purpose of the piece you will write in the exam at the end of the year. Readers usually find writing persuasive when it explores at least two perspectives, or points of view. This creates a balanced argument and can convince readers that the writer has thought through the issue carefully. Plan the Essay and Mind Mapping Idea Plan what you are going to write about Use a Spider Map or a star diagram to identify key ideas and points of the essay. Selecting Material Look at your original mind map of the points. Remember you are aiming to have some points that agree with the topic and some that disagree with it. This is all part of creating a balanced perspective. The 3 -4 points you've circled will become paragraphs. The exam requires you to write about 250 words. This means you'll write: – – – an introduction 2 -3 paragraphs a conclusion
Essay outline
Think of a Hamburger
The Introduction • An introduction should attract the reader's attention. Very often just raising the interesting issue that your essay explores is enough to pull your reader in. • An introduction should tell the reader explicitly what the essay is. After having read the introduction, the reader should have no doubt about what the central point of your essay is. • An introduction should establish the significance of your point to the reader. You should convince your audience that it should care about what you have to say. An introduction can give a preview of how you are going to demonstrate your ideas. Writers often summarize in a brief list of three or so points how you are going to back up your thesis, so as to prepare the reader and improve the reader's recognition and retention of those points. • • Here are some things to watch out for in your introduction: An introduction is not the place to introduce background or factual information. Unless some brief information is necessary to understand the terms within or significance of the essay, save the background for your next paragraph. An introduction should not be too long. An introduction should be a single paragraph. Don't start your introduction with a dictionary definition. We're not interested in how Webster's defines something
Conclusions A good conclusion will: rephrase the question summarize the main ideas give your opinion, if you haven’t given it already • look to the future (say what will happen if the situation continues or changes) • but will NEVER add new information. • •
