Essays with different tastes. What are Essay cigarettes: detailed description and types. What are the differences between Esse types?

In connection with the introduction of the Unified State Exam in all schools in our country in the 2006-2007 academic year, students were offered new forms of passing final exams. Now, for a successful final certification in the Russian language, you must have not only theoretical knowledge of this subject, but also the ability to give a detailed answer in the essay genre. Also, all the tasks that are offered in part C - determine the main idea of the text, do a language analysis and write your own essay in response to the main topic - must be logically arranged and compositionally correctly structured. After all, the difference between written and oral speech is that written speech is always purposeful.

An open-type task with a detailed answer is an essay based on the proposed text. It checks the development of students’ individual communication skills:

analyze the content and problems of the text read;
comment on the problems of the source text, the author’s position;
express and argue your own opinion;
express your thoughts consistently and logically;
use a variety of grammatical forms and lexical richness of the language in speech;
practical literacy - formatting statements in accordance with the spelling, punctuation, grammatical and lexical norms of the modern Russian literary language.

Thus, the third part of the examination test checks the state of practical speech skills and gives an idea of whether school graduates have monologue speech and are able to competently express their point of view, which is important not only for successful educational activities, but also for further professional education and growth.

Often students either retell the text or try to give a full linguistic analysis of it. In fact, you need to understand the main idea of the source text, because the disclosure of the topic of the essay depends on this. The graduate must also agree or disagree with the opinion of the author of the text and provide a number of arguments proving his position. In the text of the essay there should be a place for the formulation of the main idea of the source text, an analysis with an explanation of the use of these linguistic means and an explanation of how the student understands these shades of meaning. There should be a place for the student’s own opinion, the introduction and conclusion of the essay.

This is not the first year that students of our school have been engaged in project activities.

Since the school curriculum does not provide the required number of hours for studying and practicing essay writing skills, I advised my students to choose a topic to defend their project at the Ideas Fair "How to Write an Essay" and together create an algorithm for writing part C. The guys worked on this topic with interest, believing that this work would help them successfully pass the Unified State Exam in the Russian language.

In their work, graduates considered next questions:

The history of the birth of the literary genre of essays.
Essay definitions.
Features of the essay as a literary genre.
Types of essays.
Preparing to write an essay.
Essay structure.
How to write an essay. Essay examples.
A reminder for students when writing an essay.
Requirements for the essay.
Essay writing algorithm .

The purpose of this project:

Create an essay writing algorithm.
Help graduates successfully pass exams in the form of the Unified State Exam.

Secondary target : reveal your individual characteristics: the ability to think independently, compare, compare – readiness to write.

Project objectives:

study the essay genre;
show how you can express your personal perception of the text;
independently reflect on what you heard, read, watched;
develop reading and creative activity.

Preparatory stage for writing an essay

Carefully read the text proposed for writing the essay.
Remember what you know about the author.
Find keywords.
Write down objective keywords by group.
Use arrows to indicate the relationship or contrast between the objective keywords.
Next to the objective ones, write down the subjective keywords, classifying them according to their meaning.
Find unfamiliar or unclear words and determine their meaning.
Determine the main idea of the statement (what is it about?).
Formulate the problem of the text in the form of a question.
Outline the arguments for and/or against this statement.
Think about what literary devices you will use to make the language of your essay more interesting and lively (comparisons, analogies, epithets, etc.).
Arrange the selected arguments and/or counterarguments in sequence. This will be your conditional plan.
State your point of view in the sequence that you have outlined.
Formulate the general conclusion of the work and, if necessary, edit it.

Essay writing algorithm:

Formulation of the source text problem.
Commentary on the formulated problem of the source text.
Reflection of the position of the author of the source text.
The student’s own opinion, arguments (1-2 arguments).
Conclusion.

Comments on the algorithm:

1. Formulation of the source text problem.

The examinee must formulate one of the problems in the source text. To do this, he can answer the following questions: What is the text about? What issues does the author address? What problems does it raise? What questions concern the writer? etc.

(What) the problem is ANALYZED; problem (of); range of (some) problems; An interpretation is GIVEN (of what); description (of what); criticism (of what); critical assessment (of what); characteristics of the main features (what); The history is presented (emergence, formation, origin, development, creation (of something)); A complex of (what) issues is being RESEARCHED; process (what); influence (of what); dependence (from what); application (of what)

2. Commentary on the formulated problem of the source text.

This part of the essay sets out one’s own position on the issues raised by the author of the source text. A commentary on a formulated problem is a necessary part of a reasoning essay, in which the student shows how deeply and fully he understood this problem.

The comment could be:

textual, i.e. explain the text, follow the author in revealing the problem;
conceptual, those. present your own opinion based on the proposed text.

The graduate must correctly formulate the author’s position on the commented problem, as well as name the linguistic means of expression that help the author express his thoughts, evaluate the use of linguistic means from the point of view of motivation in the context, i.e. explain their role in the text, and give examples of their use in the analyzed text.

Possible supporting expressions:

The author evaluates (what)
The author reveals the essence (of what)
The author sets out his approach (to what)
The author proceeds from the fact that
The author shows his own understanding of (what)
The author considers it legitimate (that)
The author differentiates the concepts of (what)
The author draws attention to the fact that
The author characterizes the given examples as
According to the author
The author convincingly proves (that)
Defining the essence and place (of what is in what), the author believes that
Emphasizing the relevance of (what), the author draws attention to (what)
According to the author, it is important (that)

4. The student’s own opinion, arguments (1-2 arguments).

The examinee must express his own opinion on the formulated problem posed by the author of the text, agreeing or disagreeing with the author’s position (I agree with the author’s opinion..., I share the author’s point of view..., the author’s position is close to me, quite understandable...) and argue for his position. The student can use the following argument types:

I. brain teaser

Data
Conclusions of science (theories, hypotheses, axioms, etc.)
Statistics (quantitative indicators of the development of production and society)
Nature laws.
Mandatory provisions of legal laws, official documents, regulations and other regulations.
Data from experiments and examinations.
Eyewitness accounts.

II. Illustrative

A specific example taken from life tells about an incident that actually took place.
A literary example from a well-known work.
A conjectural example (tells what could have happened under certain conditions).

Opinion of a famous person - scientist, philosopher, public figure, etc.
Quote from an authoritative source.
Opinion of a specialist, expert.
Eyewitnesses' opinions.
Public opinion, reflecting the way it is customary to speak, act, and evaluate something in society .

Possible supporting expressions:

One cannot but agree with the author that...
It is difficult to disagree with the author’s point of view on the problem...
In my opinion, the urgency of this problem is that...
It seems to me that the author is wrong when he claims that...
In my opinion, the author’s assessment of (what) is not entirely accurate

5. Conclusion.

In conclusion, the student must summarize what has been said and draw conclusions.

Possible Key words: In conclusion, I would like to note (emphasize, draw attention to); So; Thus).

Reminder for students when writing an essay

Structure element	% to the total amount of work
1. Source text problem.
2. Commentary on the formulated problem of the source text.

4. The student’s own opinion, arguments. 2 reasoned evidence (refutations), theses expressing your personal opinion (your position) and based on a scientific approach.

Essay - what is it, how to write, essay writing, examples

What is an essay

Essay structure

Classification of essays

Features of an essay

Essay writing rules

Mistakes when writing an essay

Essay check

Essay Examples

What is an essay

The word "essay" came into Russian from French and historically goes back to the Latin word exagium (weighing). The French ézai can literally be translated by the words experience, trial, attempt, sketch, essay.

An essay is a prose composition of small volume and free composition, expressing individual impressions and considerations on a specific occasion or issue and obviously does not claim to be a defining or exhaustive interpretation of the subject.

In the “Explanatory Dictionary of Foreign Words” by L.P. A Rat essay is defined as “an essay that treats some problem not in a systematic scientific form, but in a free form.”

The “Large Encyclopedic Dictionary” gives the following definition: “Essay is a genre of philosophical, literary-critical, historical-biographical, journalistic prose, combining the emphatically individual position of the author with a relaxed, often paradoxical presentation, focused on colloquial speech.”

The “Concise Literary Encyclopedia” clarifies: “An essay is a prose work of small volume and free composition, treating a particular topic and representing an attempt to convey individual impressions and considerations, one way or another connected with it.”

Some features of an essay:

presence of a specific topic or question. A work devoted to the analysis of a wide range of problems, by definition, cannot be written in the essay genre.

the essay expresses individual impressions and considerations on a specific occasion or issue and obviously does not pretend to be a definitive or exhaustive interpretation of the subject.

As a rule, an essay involves a new, subjectively colored word about something; such a work can be of a philosophical, historical-biographical, journalistic, literary-critical, popular science or purely fictional nature.

This genre has become popular in recent years. M. Montaigne ("Experiences", 1580) is considered the creator of the essay genre. Today, an essay is offered as an assignment quite often. It is one of the main components of the package of documents (upon admission to an educational institution or employment). An essay competition helps you choose the best from a variety of best!

Essay writing is also important for a young specialist.

The way the candidate was able to present himself, how he described his achievements and failures, allows the employer to determine whether this person is good enough for business, whether his work experience is sufficient to meet expectations in the future and benefit the company (organization, enterprise).

The purpose of the essay is to develop skills such as independent creative thinking and writing your own thoughts.

Writing an essay is extremely useful because it allows the author to learn how to clearly and competently formulate thoughts, structure information, use basic concepts, highlight cause-and-effect relationships, illustrate experience with relevant examples, and justify their conclusions.

The most relevant topic for a young specialist’s essay is the topic “Me and my career.” The topic of the essay is given to make it easy for the commission (employer) to assess the characteristics of your thinking, creativity, enthusiasm and potential. The best way to achieve this result is to write directly and frankly, while remaining honest with yourself. If you are not honest, there is a good chance that your essay will be considered unnatural.

Essay structure and plan

The structure of the essay is determined by the requirements for it:

the idea must be supported by evidence - therefore the thesis is followed by arguments (A).

Arguments are facts, phenomena of social life, events, life situations and life experiences, scientific evidence, references to the opinions of scientists, etc. It is better to give two arguments in favor of each thesis: one argument seems unconvincing, three arguments can “overload” the presentation made in a genre focused on brevity and imagery.

Thus, the essay acquires a circular structure (the number of theses and arguments depends on the topic, the chosen plan, and the logic of the development of thought):

introduction

thesis, arguments

conclusion.

When writing an essay, it is also important to consider the following points:

The introduction and conclusion should focus attention on the problem (in the introduction it is posed, in the conclusion the author’s opinion is summarized).

It is necessary to highlight paragraphs, red lines, and establish a logical connection between paragraphs: this is how the integrity of the work is achieved.

Presentation style: the essay is characterized by emotionality, expressiveness, and artistry. Experts believe that the desired effect is ensured by short, simple, varied intonation sentences, and the skillful use of the “most modern” punctuation mark - the dash. However, style reflects personality characteristics, it is also useful to remember this.

Before you start writing your essay, consider the following questions. The answers to them will allow you to more clearly determine what what to write in an essay:

When touching on your personal qualities or abilities in an essay, ask yourself:

Am I different in one way or another from those I know?

How did this quality manifest itself?

About the activities you were (are) involved in:

What made me take up this type of activity?
Why did I keep doing this?

For each event in your life that you mentioned:

Why do I remember this particular event?
did it change me as a person?
How did I react to this?
was it a revelation for me; something I had no idea about before?

About each person you mentioned:

Why did I name this particular person?
Do I strive to become like him?
What qualities do I admire in him?
Was there something they said that I would remember for the rest of my life?
Have I reconsidered my views?

About each of your likes and dislikes:

Why do I like it or not like it?
Did this circumstance significantly influence my life?

About each of your failures:

What did I learn as a result?
What useful did I learn from this situation?

Classification of essays

In terms of content, essays are:

philosophical,

literary-critical,

historical,

artistic,

artistic and journalistic,

spiritual and religious, etc.

In literary form, essays appear as:

reviews,

lyrical miniature,

diary pages,
letters, etc.

There are also essays:

descriptive,

narrative,

reflective,

critical,

analytical, etc.

In this case, the basis is the compositional features of the work performed in the essay genre.

Finally, a classification of essays into two large groups is proposed:

personal, subjective essay, where the main element is the disclosure of one or another side of the author’s personality,

an objective essay, where the personal element is subordinated to the subject of description or some idea.

An essay by a young specialist on a specific topic belongs to the second group.

Features of an essay

We can identify some general characteristics (features) of the genre, which are usually listed in encyclopedias and dictionaries:

Small volume.

Of course, there are no hard boundaries. The volume of the essay is from three to seven pages of computer text. For example, at Harvard Business School, essays are often written in just two pages. At Russian universities, essays of up to ten pages are allowed, albeit in typewritten text.

A specific topic and an emphatically subjective interpretation of it.

The topic of the essay is always specific. An essay cannot contain many topics or ideas (thoughts). It reflects only one option, one thought. And develops it. This is the answer to one question.

Free composition is an important feature of an essay.

Researchers note that the essay, by its nature, is structured in such a way that it does not tolerate any formal framework. It is often constructed contrary to the laws of logic, is subject to arbitrary associations, and is guided by the principle “Everything is the other way around.”

Ease of storytelling.

It is important for the essay writer to establish a trusting style of communication with the reader; in order to be understood, he avoids deliberately complicated, unclear, and overly strict constructions. Researchers note that a good essay can only be written by someone who is fluent in the topic, sees it from different angles and is ready to present the reader with a not exhaustive, but multi-dimensional view of the phenomenon that became the starting point of his thoughts.

Tendency to paradoxes.

The essay is designed to surprise the reader (listener) - this, according to many researchers, is its mandatory quality. The starting point for reflections embodied in an essay is often an aphoristic, vivid statement or a paradoxical definition, literally confronting at first glance indisputable, but mutually exclusive statements, characteristics, theses.

Internal semantic unity

Perhaps this is one of the paradoxes of the genre. Free in composition, focused on subjectivity, the essay at the same time has an internal semantic unity, i.e. consistency of key theses and statements, internal harmony of arguments and associations, consistency of those judgments in which the author’s personal position is expressed.

Conversational orientation

At the same time, it is necessary to avoid using slang, cliched phrases, abbreviation of words, and an overly frivolous tone in the essay. The language used in essay writing should be taken seriously.

So, when writing an essay it is important determine (understand) its topic, determine the desired volume and goals of each paragraph.

Start with a main idea or catchy phrase. The task is to immediately capture the attention of the reader (listener). Comparative allegory is often used here, linking an unexpected fact or event to the main theme of the essay.

Essay writing rules

Of the formal rules for writing an essay, only one can be named - the presence of a title.

The internal structure of the essay can be arbitrary. Since this is a short form of written work, it is not necessary to repeat the conclusions at the end; they can be included in the main text or in the title.

Argumentation may precede the formulation of the problem. The formulation of the problem may coincide with the final conclusion.

Unlike an abstract, which is addressed to any reader, therefore it begins with “I want to talk about...” and ends with “I have come to the following conclusions...”, essay isreplica, addressed to a prepared reader (listener). That is, a person who already has a general idea of what will be discussed. This allows the essay author to focus on revealing something new and not clutter the presentation with official details.

Mistakes when writing an essay

Unlike tests, essays do not have a multiple-choice format (when you are offered several answer options to choose from). Writing an essay is not limited in time, you can rewrite it many times, ask friends to read your essay. Take advantage of all the opportunities and try to avoid common mistakes.

Bad check.

Don't think that you can limit yourself to just checking spelling. Re-read your essays and make sure that there are no ambiguous expressions, unfortunate phrases, etc. Examples that should not be “taken note”:

“I am proud that I was able to resist the use of drugs, alcohol, tobacco.”

“Working for your firm (organization), located in a wonderful place with a lot of Gothic architecture, will be an exciting challenge for me.”

Tiring prefaces. Insufficient number of details.

Too often, an interesting essay fails by listing statements without illustrating them with examples. The essays are filled with the usual clichés: the importance of hard work and perseverance, learning from mistakes, etc.

Verbosity.

Essays are limited to a certain number of words, so you need to manage this amount wisely. Sometimes this means abandoning some ideas or details, especially if they have already been mentioned somewhere or are not directly related to the matter. Such things only distract the attention of the reader (listener) and overshadow the main topic of the essay.

Long phrases.

The longer the sentence, the better - this is what some candidates think. However, this is far from the truth. Long phrases do not prove the author is right, and short sentences often have a greater effect. It is best when the essay alternates long phrases with short ones. Try reading the essay out loud. If you feel like you're running out of breath, break the paragraph into smaller paragraphs.

When you finish writing your essay, do this exercise. Assign a letter to each paragraph: either S (short), M (medium), or L (long). S - less than 10 words, M - less than 20 words, L - 20 or more words.

A correct essay has the following or similar letter order - M S M L M S.

An incorrect essay is characterized by the following sequence of letters - S S S M L L L.

An essay is a special type of composition, and every applicant/student will have to write one more than once. will help you understand the distinctive features of the genre and give some tips on how to make the text meaningful.

How is an essay different from other types of written work?

Essentially, an essay is a small piece of free composition that expresses the author’s personal impressions and thoughts on some occasion or issue. The text can touch upon philosophical, journalistic, historical, literary, and popular science topics.

What's the point?

University teachers and organizers of competitions and olympiads love essays because they are an excellent way to develop creative thinking and practice writing skills. The work shows how a person identifies cause-and-effect relationships, structures information and argues conclusions.

How to write?

The topic must be specific. In an essay you answer only one question. It does not have a strict structure, but it is advisable to present thoughts in the form of brief theses and support them with arguments [facts, social events, phenomena, your experience, scientific justifications, references to the opinions of authoritative individuals - approx. ed.]. In order for the evidence in favor of the theses to be convincing, it is worth giving two arguments; more will “overload” the text.

In the introduction and conclusion, focus on the problem: identify it in the first paragraph, and draw a conclusion in the last paragraph. To make the essay coherent, try to logically connect the fragments with each other.

Make the most of the benefits of artistic and journalistic style. Don't be afraid to be emotional, expressive, and show a sense of humor. This is how you show your individuality. If we are talking about personal qualities or abilities, you can, for example, answer the question: “How does this distinguish me from others?” When making references to the words of authoritative people, explain why you chose them.

Try to impress the reader with vivid statements and aphorisms. Don’t be afraid to argue with yourself, confront contradictory statements. Then the text will seem interesting and memorable.

What should you not do?

Ignore the norms of language

The text must be written correctly. Clean it not only from spelling and punctuation errors, but also from ambiguous expressions, unjustified repetitions, tautologies, and unsuccessful turns of phrase. Try not to use slang, cliches, or abbreviations so that the essay is taken seriously by the reader.

Do not support statements with examples

An essay looks like a failure if the text contains only dry facts. Illustrate statements with examples from life. Otherwise, reading the work will become a tedious task.

Pull the wool over someone's eyes

No one will like excessive embellishment of the real state of affairs. Be honest but positive in your essay.

Don't check facts

Incorrect interpretation of data, errors in dates and names will have a bad effect on the assessment of the essay. Don’t be too lazy to review everything again.

Go overboard with volume

Avoid complex syntactic structures. Long phrases are not an indicator of expertise. Don't make paragraphs unwieldy. After completing the essay, assign the letters S-short (up to 10 words), M-medium (up to 20 words), L-long (more than 20 words) to each passage. Optimal MSMLMS scheme.

After you finish your essay, ask yourself a few questions: “Did I cover the topic well? and Will my thoughts be clear to the reader?” If everything is in order, then you have completed the task!

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4. Features of an essay

5. Essay writing rules

What is an essay

Essay is a genre of philosophical prose that combines the individual position of the author with a relaxed presentation focused on colloquial speech. This is a prose work of small volume and free composition, treating a particular topic and representing an attempt to convey individual impressions and considerations, one way or another connected with it.

Some features of an essay:

presence of a specific topic or question. A work devoted to the analysis of a wide range of problems, by definition, cannot be written in the essay genre.
the essay expresses individual impressions and considerations on a specific occasion or issue and obviously does not pretend to be a definitive or exhaustive interpretation of the subject.
As a rule, an essay involves a new, subjectively colored word about something; such a work can be of a philosophical, historical-biographical, journalistic, literary-critical, popular science or purely fictional nature.
in the content of the essay, the personality of the author is assessed primarily - his worldview, thoughts and feelings.

The purpose of the essay is to develop skills such as independent thinking and writing your own thoughts.

The best way to write an essay is to write directly and frankly, being honest with yourself. If you are not honest, there is a good chance that your essay will be considered unnatural.

Essay structure and plan

The structure of the essay is determined by the requirements for it:

the essay author's thoughts on the issue are presented in the form of brief abstracts (T).
the idea must be supported by evidence - therefore the thesis is followed by arguments (A).

Thus, the essay acquires a circular structure (the number of theses and arguments depends on the topic, the chosen plan, and the logic of the development of thought):

introduction
thesis, arguments
thesis, arguments
thesis, arguments
conclusion.

When writing an essay, it is also important to consider the following points:

The introduction and conclusion should focus attention on the problem (in the introduction it is posed, in the conclusion the author’s opinion is summarized).
It is necessary to highlight paragraphs, red lines, and establish a logical connection between paragraphs: this is how the integrity of the work is achieved.
Presentation style: the essay is characterized by emotionality, expressiveness, and artistry. Experts believe that the desired effect is ensured by short, simple, varied intonation sentences, and the skillful use of the “most modern” punctuation mark - the dash. However, style reflects personality characteristics, it is also useful to remember this.

Before you start writing your essay, consider the following questions. The answers to them will allow you to more clearly determine what what to write in an essay:

When touching on your personal qualities or abilities in an essay, ask yourself:

Am I different in one way or another from those I know?

How did this quality manifest itself?

About the activities you were (are) involved in:

What made me take up this type of activity?

Why did I keep doing this?

For each event in your life that you mentioned:

Why do I remember this particular event?

Has it changed me as a person?

How did I react to this?

Was this a revelation for me; something I had no idea about before?

About each person you mentioned:

Why did I name this particular person?

Do I strive to become like him?

What qualities do I admire in him?

Was there something they said that I would remember for the rest of my life?

Have I reconsidered my views?

About each of your likes and dislikes:

Why do I like or dislike this?

Has this circumstance significantly affected my life?

About each of your failures:

What did I learn as a result?

What useful things did I learn from this situation?

Classification of essays

In terms of content, essays are:

philosophical,
literary-critical,
historical,
artistic,
artistic and journalistic,
spiritual and religious, etc.

In literary form, essays appear as:

reviews,
lyrical miniature,
notes,
diary pages,
letters, etc.

There are also essays:

descriptive,
narrative,
reflective,
critical,
analytical, etc.

In this case, the basis is the compositional features of the work performed in the essay genre.

Finally, a classification of essays into two large groups is proposed:

a personal, subjective essay, where the main element is the disclosure of one or another side of the author’s personality,
an objective essay, where the personal element is subordinated to the subject of description or some idea.

Features of an essay

General features (features) of the genre:

1. Small volume.

2. A specific topic and a distinctly subjective interpretation of it.

The topic of the essay is always specific. An essay cannot contain many topics or ideas (thoughts). It reflects only one option, one thought. And develops it. This is the answer to one question.

3. Free composition is an important feature of the essay.

4. Ease of storytelling.

5. Tendency to paradoxes.

6. Internal semantic unity

7. Focus on spoken language

When writing an essay it is important determine its topic, determine the desired length and purpose of each paragraph.

Essay writing rules

Of the formal rules for writing an essay, only one can be named - the presence of a title.
The internal structure of the essay can be arbitrary. Since this is a short form of written work, it is not necessary to repeat the conclusions at the end; they can be included in the main text or in the title.
Argumentation may precede the formulation of the problem. The formulation of the problem may coincide with the final conclusion.
Unlike an abstract, which is addressed to any reader, therefore it begins with “I want to talk about...” and ends with “I have come to the following conclusions...”, essay isreplica, addressed to a prepared reader (listener). That is, a person who already has a general idea of what will be discussed. This allows the essay author to focus on revealing something new and not clutter the presentation with official details.

Mistakes when writing an essay

1. Bad check.

“I am proud that I was able to resist the use of drugs, alcohol, tobacco.”

“Working for your firm (organization), located in a wonderful place with a lot of Gothic architecture, will be an exciting challenge for me.”

2. Tiring prefaces. Insufficient number of details.

3. Verbosity.

4. Long phrases.

5. Don't overload your essay.

When writing an essay, discard words from encyclopedias. Incorrect use of such words distracts the reader's attention and diminishes the importance of the essay.

6. When you finish writing your essay, do this exercise. Assign a letter to each paragraph: either S (short), M (medium), or L (long). S - less than 10 words, M - less than 20 words, L - 20 or more words.

A correct essay has the following or similar letter order - M S M L M S.

An incorrect essay is characterized by the following sequence of letters - S S S M L L L.

The essay is a unique literary genre. Essentially, this is any short work written privately on any issue. The key feature of the essay is its author’s design - in contrast to scientific and journalistic styles, which have strict stylistic specifications. At the same time, essays are ranked lower than works of art.

Terminology

We can briefly formulate the following definition of an essay: it is a substantiation of a person’s personal point of view in writing. Nevertheless, it is worth considering that a work of this literary genre does not pretend to be the basis of the issue under consideration or its exhaustive information source. Such an essay contains the author's conclusions and conclusions. Therefore, the sample of its writing and requirements are only recommendations or a set of rules (applies to the latter), and the main part should be occupied by your thoughts.

Historical reference

Essay comes from the French "attempt", "trial", "essay". And this genre also originated in this beautiful country, back in the Renaissance. The French writer and philosopher first tried to write “about everything and nothing, without having a preliminary topic or plan of action.” He claimed that he liked to temper the boldness of his thoughts by adding mildly questioning "maybes" and "probably" to his sentences. So “possibly” became an expression of the formula of essay writing in principle. Epstein, in turn, defined this genre as a kind of meta-hypothesis, with its own original reality and way of depicting this reality.

Differences from the novel

The essay genre developed in parallel with the novel genre. The latter, however, is more familiar to Russian literature, especially classical literature. The essay, in turn, had a huge influence on Western prose.

Unlike a novel, an essay is monologue and represents the individuality of the author. This narrows its scope as a genre, and the picture of the world is presented in an extremely subjective way. At the same time, the essay is inevitably interesting because it reveals the inner world of a specific person, not fictional, but entirely real - with his advantages and disadvantages. The style of such a literary work always contains the imprint of the human soul. The novel reveals the characters of all the characters and heroes who came from the pen of the author, no less interesting, but virtual, unreal.

Why write essays?

On the eve of exams, students and applicants often have the question of how to write an essay. A sample of writing this type of work is also often searched for, and it is worth saying that finding it is not difficult. But why write it in principle? There is also an answer to this question.

Essay writing develops creative thinking and written expression skills. A person learns to identify cause-and-effect relationships, structure information, formulate what he would like to express, argue his point of view, illustrating it with various examples, and summarize the material presented.

Typically, essays are devoted to philosophical, intellectual, moral and ethical issues. The latter is often used to assign essays to schoolchildren - they are not subject to strict requirements, citing insufficient erudition and unofficial presentation of the work.

Classification

Conventionally, essays are divided according to the following criteria:

By content. This includes artistic and artistic-publicistic, historical and philosophical, spiritual and religious, etc.
According to literary form. Among them may be letters or a diary, notes or reviews, lyrical miniatures.
According to the form. Such as: descriptive, narrative, reflective, analytical, compositional and critical.
According to the form of description, they distinguish between subjective and objective. The first reflect the personality characteristics of the author, the second are aimed at describing an object, phenomenon, process, and so on.

Distinctive features

An essay can be “identified” by the following characteristics:

Small volume. Typically up to seven pages of printed text, although different schools may have their own requirements for this. In some universities, an essay is a full-fledged work of 10 pages, while others value a brief summary of all your thoughts on two pages.
Specifics. An essay usually answers one specific question, which is often formulated in the topic of the assignment. The interpretation of the answer is subjective and contains the author’s conclusions. Again, depending on the specification of the essay, it may be necessary to consider the issue from all angles, even if half of the opinions described are in no way directly related to the author.
Free composition. The essay is distinguished by its associative narrative. The author thinks through logical connections, following his own thinking. Let us remember that the essay reveals his inner world.
Paradoxes. Moreover, the phenomenon of paradoxes takes place not only in the text itself, but also in the principles of the essay itself: after all, this literary genre, although presented in a free narrative, must have semantic integrity.
The consistency of the author's theses and statements. Even if the author is a contradictory person, he is obliged to explain why he cannot choose one point of view, and not lose the thread of the narrative, either breaking it off or starting again. Ultimately, even diary pages converted into essays are framed by literary norms. After all, the final essay will be read not only by the author himself.

How to write an essay?

A sample of work can be confusing to a beginner: one or a couple of examples will be of little help to the author who cannot understand what is actually required of him.

First of all, it is worth mentioning that to write a so-called essay, you must be fluent in the topic. If, when writing, you have to turn to many sources for information, the essay ceases to be such. This rule comes from the fact that in his “test” the author expresses his true point of view, although, of course, he can emphasize it with quotes from great people, etc. Of course, for the data to be reliable, it is necessary to check it. But the essay is written not on the basis of the material, but starting from it, arriving at its own conclusions and results.

Why do you have problems with writing?

Many students struggle to find a sample essay due to the fact that schools do not devote enough time to writing this type of work. School essays, although classified as this genre, and some teachers formulate assignments using this particular terminology, still do not have a specific specification. As mentioned earlier, school essays are not even always labeled as such. In secondary schools, children are just beginning to learn to formulate their thoughts in a literary format. This is why many people come to take the test with fear - they have to express their point of view in a short time, while they are completely unable to do so.

Essay structure

Essay topics are usually presented in the form of quotes from famous people, with whom the writer can agree or disagree, arguing his opinion.

That is why it is recommended to start an essay with the words “I agree with this opinion” or “I cannot say that I think the same as the author”, or “this statement seems controversial to me, although on some points I join this opinion” .

The second sentence should contain an explanation of how the statement was understood. You need to write from yourself - what, in the opinion of the writer, the author wanted to say and why he thinks so.

The main part of the essay is a detailed presentation of the author’s point of view, according to the principle “I think so because...”. You can seek help from other quotes and aphorisms with which the writer agrees.

Conclusion of the essay - results of the work. This is a mandatory item that makes the work complete.

Let's look at the main subjects on which essays are written.

Social science

Social science - the subject of study of which is a complex of social sciences. The close relationship of social teachings is considered, and not each of them separately.

So, a social studies course may include:

sociology;
political science;
philosophy;
psychology;
economy.

The basics of these disciplines are studied.

A sample essay on social studies is often necessary for graduates when writing the Unified State Examination. The structure of this essay fully corresponds to the structure given above. When testing their knowledge, students can be given as a topic statements by famous philosophers, sociologists and other figures in the social sciences.

Below is a sample essay on social studies (in brief).

Topic: "Laws are silent during war. Lucan"

“After reading this statement for the first time, I decided that I absolutely agreed with this statement. But a little later it occurred to me that this quote, like almost everything in our world, is not so simple.

I associate with Lucan’s statement another well-known aphorism - “In love and in war, all means are fair.” Probably because many unconditionally follow this rule, considering it true, and it turns out that in wartime all laws prefer to remain silent.

But there is another side to the coin: during war, the very law of war applies. "Kill or be killed." And glorious heroes follow the laws that their hearts tell them. In the name of loved ones, relatives and friends.

So it turns out that war creates new laws. Tougher and more uncompromising than peacetime.

Of course, I can understand Lucan: all his quotes suggest that this man had a pacifist point of view. I also consider myself peace-loving. But this particular statement does not pass logical verification on my part, so I cannot say that I agree with it."

On the Unified State Examination itself there is a limit on the number of words in interval form. It is very important to adhere to them, otherwise even a clearly verified essay structure will not pass the examiner’s verification.

Story

History is considered one of the sciences about society and nature. Despite the fact that they adhere to the division of this discipline into two separate ones: the world one and the country in which they are studying, the basics of writing essays for both subjects are similar to each other.

When choosing topics for writing an essay on history, they can often deviate from aphorisms and quotes. With equal success, this could be reflections on the global consequences of wars, an assessment of the actions of the notorious Decembrists or dissidents, or the author’s opinion on any historical figure or phenomenon. To write an essay on history, a student (or applicant, or student) must have solid knowledge on a given topic. At the same time, a sample essay on social studies is not suitable as an example, because this discipline often examines moral and ethical issues. Although writing an essay on this subject requires sufficient erudition in many areas.

But an important question is how to format the essay. A sample historical essay in its structure, again, does not deviate from the given rules. However, additional requirements may be imposed on it in the form of a list of references and a title page.

Writing an essay on history

Even if a sample history essay is not at hand at the moment, you can write an excellent essay by following these rules:

To begin with, information is sought on a given topic: even if it is familiar, it does not hurt to repeat the material.
Next, you need to structure it, identify cause-and-effect relationships, and roughly outline a plan according to which the reasoning will move forward.
It is important to think through arguments and counterarguments.
Regarding the style: it is better to ask the teacher which one is recommended to use. In rare but possible cases, it is necessary to write in a scientific style.
Do not forget about the conclusion (the importance of the results of the work is described in the description of the essay structure).

Russian language

An essay in the Russian language is somewhat similar to a school argumentative essay, but on knowledge tests such as the Unified State Exam, it includes a larger number of writing rules. This is where its complexity lies.

The essay must be written according to the text proposed by the examiners, therefore it is necessary:

Identify the problems of this text.
Describe aspects of this problem.
Argue your point of view about what the author wanted to say.
Draw conclusions.

As you can see, a clarification is added to the usual structure of the essay: the topic (in this case, the problematic) is identified by the writer and formulated by him. In addition, when checking an essay in the Russian language, more attention is paid to speech, grammatical and punctuation errors. Additional points in favor of the author in the eyes of the examiner are added when using literary arguments, well-known examples, and so on. Consistency also plays an important role in this case. The Russian language essay sample must strictly follow all the above requirements.

English language

In the language in post-Soviet countries where it is not native, they completely deviate from the rule of giving a statement or quotation as a topic. When translated into Russian, they are often very simple, and the writing of the essay itself is aimed at testing the use of a foreign language when expressing your thoughts.

Much attention should be paid to grammar, different tenses, complex constructions, and synonymization of simple words.

Essay in English: classification

Essays in English are usually divided into three types:

“for” and “against” any phenomenon that represents the topic of the essay;
an opinion essay, in which it is very important to look at the topic from different angles;
proposal for a solution to a problem (often they give something global).

Writing an essay in English

And so I was given a specific task: to write an essay in English. An example of how this can be done is provided below.

Use introductory words: moreover, indeed, generally, mostly, usually, recently, besides.
Insert template phrases with which you can start a paragraph: to begin with, doubtless, one argument is support of.
Use English clichés, set phrases, idioms, phraseological units and sayings: long story short, one cannot deny, one does not simply, nail drives out nail.
Don’t forget how you can formulate a conclusion in English: in conclusion, I can say that although , so it’s up to everyone to decide whether … or not.

Decor

Above we outlined in detail how to write an essay correctly. The sample, although formally only one was provided, reflects the essence of what is happening and what the inspector wants to see in the opus handed over to him.

But after the essay has been written, a problem arises with its design.

Typically, this specification is clarified by the teacher. And the obstacle lies specifically in how to design the title page of the essay.

A sample is presented below.

At the top of the page, in the middle, line by line:

Ministry of Education and Science (country name),

full name of the higher educational institution,

faculty,

In the center of the sheet:

discipline,

essay topic.

On the right side of the page:

student(s) of the group (group name),

Full Name.

Bottom of the page, middle:

city, year the work was written.

From which it follows that it is not difficult to design a title page in an essay (the sample shows this very well). The requirements are close to the same abstract specification.

For example, if you look at a sample history essay, you can make sure that in this case the work is written on the basis of the sources used. So sometimes a bibliography is required. But even this does not bring particularly difficulties in the way the essay is formatted. The sample for writing a list of used literature is the same as for reports, abstracts and other similar works.

For example:

Ratus L. G. "Philosophy in the New Age." - 1980, No. 3. - P. 19-26.

Mishevsky M. O. "Historical influence of psychology." - P.: Mysl, 1965. - 776 p.

Kegor S. M. "Horror and Awe." - K.: Republic, 1983 - 183 p.

Yarosh D. "Personality in the concept of society." - M.: Roslit, 1983. - 343 p. (All sources provided are fictitious and represent only an example of their design.)

Conclusion

At the beginning of the article, a detailed classification of essay types was provided. To summarize, we can identify its simplified section, taking into account all those mentioned here. So, let’s conditionally highlight:

Essays that are written when passing the Unified State Exam (have clear boundaries of volume, up to the number of words, are written within a strictly specified time frame, measured in hours or even minutes, do not have a specification in the form of a title page and bibliography, in turn, are divided by subject, depending from the academic discipline).
Essays written by students of various universities (the volume is determined in pages, from two to seven, the deadlines are allocated based on the frequency of classes, seminars, lectures, and are drawn up in accordance with the above information along with a title page and a list of sources used).

The article contains: terminology, history, essay design, sample work, structure and requirements. All this will help you successfully write and format this work.