If you are a university student and you are looking for information about what are the parts of an essay, in this post, we are going to explain everything you need to know.
First of all, we will talk about a type of writing “the essay” considered within the literary genre in the same way as theater, poetry, and other styles. It is possible that you still do not know exactly what is the difference between one type of work and another, and with the reliable professionals from Essayassistant.net, you will be able to write completely different types of essays.
It should be noted that, like any other type of written work, the essay has a structure or format that we must respect for its elaboration. Have you been asked to write an essay for one of your subjects at the university and you do not know where to start? Read on, this post will be of great help to you.
Definition
Let’s start by defining the concept of essay, an essay is:
“A piece of writing in which an author develops his ideas without the need to show scholarly apparatus”.
In other words, an essay is a type of written text that aims to allow the author to present his own thoughts and arguments on a particular topic. Its purpose is to express his or her own opinion based on personal research and knowledge and, depending on the type of essay, may also seek to convince the reader.
Among all the types of writing that exist, the essay is one of the most personal and free since as an author you can choose for yourself a topic of your interest.
In turn, it is one of the most used types of academic projects since the essay allows the student the possibility to express his ideas, opinions and reach a reflection by himself. However, if you are here looking for more information about what the structure of an essay looks like, it is because the essay has a format.
The structure of an essay is not rigid like that of a comprehensive research paper such as an undergraduate thesis or a monograph.
There are three different types of essays, however, they all have the same objective:
- Expository
- Argumentative
- Critical
The same happens with the parts of the essay, although as we mentioned it is free writing which is not subject to a rigid structure for its writing, it is important to respect the classic structure for the development of written texts.
What are the parts of an essay?
- Introduction
- Development
- Conclusion
- Annexes
Introduction
One of the most important parts of an essay is the introduction, which should be written taking into account two factors:
- The topic in question
- Annexes
Generally, for any type of academic text, the introduction is very important since it is the section in charge of catching the reader in the first instance. For this reason, it must present the topic in such a way that it captures the reader’s attention until the end.
To start writing this section, bear in mind that empathizing with the reader is essential. Therefore, a good idea is to begin by presenting not only the topic to be addressed but also your own position.
Development or body
Once the introduction is ready and we have our reader’s attention 100%, it is time to express the arguments and ideas related to the topic with the bibliography we have chosen. You can rely on different sources such as books, magazines, articles, digital repositories, interviews, etc.
This section will be the key content of the essay since it aims to support the main ideas presented in the introduction.
It is the longest section of the paper and the one in which the author should reflect on the topic and expose his assessments. We recommend you pay full attention to the coherence between your ideas since all your ideas should be related.
Examples:
In a scientific essay, the development should expose the evidence that validates the hypothesis presented in the introduction and at the same time the different theories and evidence that allow to prove or disprove it.
Conclusion
Finally, the conclusion section is where the most relevant points of the text and the main ideas that we want the reader to remember should be summarized. But fundamentally, it should state the author’s final position concerning the topic.
It is important not to be repetitive, but rather that the conclusion be brief and concise. The objective is to reaffirm all the ideas of the development.
Finally, the section of annexes or bibliography, although optional, gives validity and authorship to our work. In addition to being a resource for the reader who wants more information.
Example of table of contents:
- Introduction
- Development
- #Argument 1
- #Argument 2
- #Argument 3
- Conclusion
- Annexes, bibliography (optional)
Steps to write an essay
At this point of the text, you should already have a clear idea of the structure of an essay, so now we are going to explain the step by steps.
The first step is to define the topic to be addressed, it is possible that it is a free or free choice or you have a syllabus proposed by your teacher. If it is free, you may have many ideas and have doubts about which one to choose, in this situation we recommend you do your own brainstorming to select a good topic.
- Write down all the ideas that come to your mind, do not discard any of them beforehand. After this, review everything you wrote down and reflect on the relevance of each topic for you.
- Evaluate your knowledge of each topic in question. It will be much easier for you to choose one that you know enough about.
Finally, all types of essays have a general structure that allows you to approach your type of writing. The structure is developed taking into account the thread of the topic since the reader will have to perceive the relationship of the content as he/she advances in the reading.
