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essay , an analytic , interpretative, or critical literary composition usually much shorter and less systematic and formal than a dissertation or thesis and usually dealing with its subject from a limited and often personal point of view.

Some early treatises—such as those of Cicero on the pleasantness of old age or on the art of “divination,” Seneca on anger or clemency , and Plutarch on the passing of oracles—presage to a certain degree the form and tone of the essay, but not until the late 16th century was the flexible and deliberately nonchalant and versatile form of the essay perfected by the French writer Michel de Montaigne . Choosing the name essai to emphasize that his compositions were attempts or endeavours, a groping toward the expression of his personal thoughts and experiences, Montaigne used the essay as a means of self-discovery. His Essais , published in their final form in 1588, are still considered among the finest of their kind. Later writers who most nearly recall the charm of Montaigne include, in England, Robert Burton , though his whimsicality is more erudite , Sir Thomas Browne , and Laurence Sterne , and in France, with more self-consciousness and pose, André Gide and Jean Cocteau .

At the beginning of the 17th century, social manners, the cultivation of politeness, and the training of an accomplished gentleman became the theme of many essayists. This theme was first exploited by the Italian Baldassare Castiglione in his Il libro del cortegiano (1528; The Book of the Courtier ). The influence of the essay and of genres allied to it, such as maxims, portraits, and sketches, proved second to none in molding the behavior of the cultured classes, first in Italy, then in France, and, through French influence, in most of Europe in the 17th century. Among those who pursued this theme was the 17th-century Spanish Jesuit Baltasar Gracián in his essays on the art of worldly wisdom.

Keener political awareness in the 18th century, the age of Enlightenment , made the essay an all-important vehicle for the criticism of society and religion. Because of its flexibility, its brevity , and its potential both for ambiguity and for allusions to current events and conditions, it was an ideal tool for philosophical reformers. The Federalist Papers in America and the tracts of the French Revolutionaries are among the countless examples of attempts during this period to improve the human condition through the essay.

The genre also became the favoured tool of traditionalists of the 18th and 19th centuries, such as Edmund Burke and Samuel Taylor Coleridge , who looked to the short, provocative essay as the most potent means of educating the masses. Essays such as Paul Elmer More’s long series of Shelburne Essays (published between 1904 and 1935), T.S. Eliot ’s After Strange Gods (1934) and Notes Towards the Definition of Culture (1948), and others that attempted to reinterpret and redefine culture , established the genre as the most fitting to express the genteel tradition at odds with the democracy of the new world.

Whereas in several countries the essay became the chosen vehicle of literary and social criticism, in other countries the genre became semipolitical, earnestly nationalistic, and often polemical, playful, or bitter. Essayists such as Robert Louis Stevenson and Willa Cather wrote with grace on several lighter subjects, and many writers—including Virginia Woolf , Edmund Wilson , and Charles du Bos —mastered the essay as a form of literary criticism .

What Essays Are, and What Essayists Do

T here are no good books about essays, only essays. The first practitioner of the form, the 16th-century French politician and minor aristocrat Michel de Montaigne, never said what an essay was. He just said what he was doing. And he did it. Likewise, the Irish writer Brian Dillon, in his new book Essayism: On Form, Feeling, and Nonfiction , wisely declines to offer a potted history of the form. Instead he shows us glimpses of his subject from all sides, uncovering bit by bit what this way of writing is all about: he essays the essay itself.

Sensitivity, tenderness, and a measure of slyness characterize Dillon’s opening essay, “On Essays and Essayists,” in which he writes, in one of the most astute observations on the form, that essayists “perform a combination of exactitude and evasion that seems to me to define what writing ought to be.” Summing up his own method and, in a way, Essayism itself, he identifies the essay as “a form that would instruct, seduce and mystify in equal measure.” An essay tells the truth, but it tells it “slantwise,” with a difference—sometimes subtle, sometimes extreme.

Diversity is the essay’s reason for being, and its principal theme. Every essay has something original in its approach, paradoxical in the root sense of going at least slightly against the grain of popular opinion, showing the way a single person thinks and a single person writes. One of the founding fictions of the form, in Montaigne’s Essais , is that the essayist simply can’t write in any other way: his form is necessarily as idiosyncratic as his mind and his body, and to write a different kind of book would be not only dishonest to himself and to the reader but also on some level impossible.

An essay tells the truth, but it tells it “slantwise,” with a difference—sometimes subtle, sometimes extreme.

Like Montaigne, Dillon writes essays because he has to. It’s somehow in his literary DNA: “I will have to write, can only write, in fits and starts,” he admits. Recounting his abysmal performance in a required logic course at university, Dillon admits that, like Musil’s protagonist, “I was and remain quite incapable of mounting in writing a reasoned and coherent argument, never mind describing to myself, as the study of logic required, the parts and processes, more or less persuasive, of that argument.”

The essay, according to Dillon, isn’t simply a means to an end, even though, without an end (usually stated in terse titles—“Of Practice,” “On Consolation”—that gesture toward the Greco-Roman precursors of the form), an essay has no motion. Unlike an instruction manual or a polemic or a speech, the essay isn’t merely a technology for informing or persuading an audience. It has much more to do, at least at first glance, with the writer; the work it may do on the reader is secondary to the intellectual or emotional itch it scratches for the essayist.

In its independence, it’s something closer to a poem—or, to use a metaphor Dillon hints at, a photograph. The presence of Roland Barthes, like that of Joan Didion and Elizabeth Hardwick, suffuses Essayism, and in the chapter “On Vulnerability,” Dillon dwells on Barthes’s distinction, in Camera Lucida , between two planes of the photograph: the studium , which is the explicit subject of the image, the information we learn from it; and the punctum , “that aspect (often a detail) of a photograph that holds our gaze without condescending to mere meaning or beauty.” The punctum exists only in the gaze of the viewer; it may change, as it does for Barthes, and as it does for Dillon in his rereading of Barthes.

Any given essay has some theme—a Borgesian catalog of which opens Essayism —but also some distinct, idiosyncratic, and often changing view of that theme. To use one of Dillon’s examples, we read Thomas Browne’s Pseudodoxia Epidemica , a point-by-point refutation of commonly held misconceptions, not because it’s fascinating to consider, for example, the widespread belief that a badger’s legs are shorter on one side than the other or that a dead kingfisher can be used as a weathervane, though these things are entertaining. We read Browne because we want to know how he thinks about these curiosities. We read for the punctum : that peculiar way of seeing, or writing—in a word, the writer’s style.

Are Sharp Women Enough?

If something seems quaint about Essayism, it’s Dillon’s emphasis on style, the part of writing that, in contemporary conversations about literature, may seem to be the most superficial. But essayistic writing begins, as Adorno once noted, not with the simplest thing but with the most complicated: the richest form of reality explored by, and within, the essayist. 3 This concern for the concrete, for realistic complexity rather than rationalistic reduction, is why an essay, like a poem, ultimately is its style—and why essayism is itself a style.

In one of several Whitmanesque moments, Dillon writes that the essay “is diverse and several—it teems ” with topics and perspectives as various as the people who write about them. We read to experience, and sometimes, as in the case of Dillon’s melancholy, to be reminded of the teeming diversity of the world and, at the same time, of human experience, “the halo of affinities and correspondences” that surrounds everything; to be reminded, quite simply, that there are others out there who are as particular and peculiar and strange as ourselves, whose feelings are as motile and contradictory as our own, each with her own style—the way she reshapes the world through her language. He writes, “‘I like your style’ means: I admire, dear human, what you have clawed back from sickness and pain and madness.” We read an essay not simply to learn something but to see through someone’s eyes, to follow the traces of their mind on the page as they come to terms with a theme or an idea or an experience.

It’s impossible not to like Dillon’s style. His essays are a remarkable mixture of fine-grained criticism and literary memoir, much of which is not only beautiful but also genuinely useful for the study of a form that, because of its non- or even antigeneric nature, falls between the cracks of literary criticism. It should be read by all critics examining nonfiction writing. That said, a book like this is neither scholarly nor comprehensive, and doesn’t set out to be.

The absence a historically minded reader will feel the most is antiquity. Except for one allusion to Augustine, there is no mention of classical literature, which, in its polymathic variety, forms the foundation of the tradition in which Dillon inscribes himself. The motley histories of Herodotus, the philosophical life writing of Plutarch, the essayistic letters of Cicero and Seneca, the lyrical prose of Apuleius, the encylopedism of Pliny the Elder, and the vivid letters of Pliny the Younger—all of these, and more, are the roots of the essay’s family tree. Montaigne, its trunk, does get a few good pages: Dillon homes in on “Of Practice,” the story of Montaigne’s nearly fatal fall from a horse, which is in itself a kind of allegory of how the writer’s “‘I’ travels out from the seat of consciousness and dissipates itself at the extremities” of thought and feeling.

Dillon is best on the authors he knows well, namely 20th-century writers like Virginia Woolf, Elizabeth Hardwick, Maeve Brennan, Cyril Connolly, and Roland Barthes, though he also offers some startlingly insightful commentary on Robert Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy and on Thomas Browne’s “idea of the essay as collection or repository—or an idea of the museum as essay.” His short chapters on fragments (“spines or quills whose owner evades us and attacks at the same time”) and aphorisms (a form of “sublime ambition that is at present in a kind of disgrace”) would interest and instruct even a seasoned literary historian.

Essayistic writing shows what is at stake when we say “you”: another “I.”

Although it’s almost perversely Anglocentric (all writers are referenced in English, with no allusions to the originals or the problems of translation so relevant to questions of style), Essayism ’s bibliography alone is almost worth the price of the book—fitting since, as Dillon teaches us, essays are like encyclopedias, existing in and around other texts, and essayists bring things together in lists, channeling the associative impulse. It’s only a shame the book is so short. Dillon’s take on contemporary writers like Teju Cole and Rebecca Solnit, Karl Ove Knausgaard and Leslie Jamison, as well as writing in the digital age, would be fascinating. But of course Dillon can only write the way he writes.

Yet there is one blind spot in Essayism that is harder to explain away and harder to forgive: politics. Early on, Dillon excuses himself from the subject.

I find myself allergic to polemics, and so in the pages that follow some partisans of political essaying, or boisterous critical opinion, may find that their exemplars are absent. It’s not that I dislike a certain violence in the essay, but I can’t believe in a writing that is forcefully only itself—I want obliquity, essays that approach their targets, for there must be targets, slantwise, or with a hail of conflicted attitudes. This too may be political, even radical. It will often look like something else: what used to be called formalism, or dismissed as aestheticism.

I don’t mean to dismiss Dillon’s welcome book as formalism or mere aestheticism. These are in fact virtues, even necessities, when writing about a literature that is constantly reminding the reader of its own status as writing and of its difference, its peculiarity—Montaigne’s musings on the transience of pain and sexual desire, Brennan’s microscopic attention to the “tiny, interstitial moments” of the city, Barthes’s punctum . But, as Dillon himself begins to say, formalism and aestheticism are also the basis of an ethical stance toward the other, in which difference—in writing style; in politics, the historical, situational aspects of our lives that inform each of our identities and complicate mutual understanding—is a primary characteristic of human life. In a community of infinitely particular members, communication is the central problem of living together. Witness the way identity influences our contemporary political conversations: it is often unclear who can and should speak for whom.

Great Liberations: Writing Beyond the Academy

The essay is a marginal, even trivial form, yet it is also deeply and seriously engaged with the weightiest questions of how a philosophical and political subject can be constituted out of a particular body and mind. Essayistic writing—as opposed to strict autobiography, which may simplify and explain a life through narrative—shows what is at stake when we say “you”: another “I.” If the essay has a politics, it’s nothing so ideological as conservatism or radicalism, or any other ideology. In fact, it’s a kind of anti-ideology, couching politics in human terms: since I’m a black box and you’re a black box, how can we live together?

In its last chapter, “On Starting Again,” Essayism seems to know this, even if its author never makes it explicit. Dillon ends by turning away from himself and his “melancholy essayism,” toward another person. “Do you remember when you quoted The Waste Land— ‘These fragments I have shored against my ruins’—and I was absolutely sure, without checking, that it ought to be ‘ruin’? That is how I have heard the line in my head for more than half my life, and I was awfully sure of myself. I was wrong, of course—it is ‘ruins.’” That “you,” quoting the lines of yet someone else, saves Dillon from his solitary and self-destructive misreading and brings him back into a community of language and thought. And then Dillon invites the reader to join him, calling her “Dear essayist” and asking her to remember a curious metaphor from William Carlos Williams and consider it with him. Both see themselves and the other reflected on the page. Reader and writer essay together; they rely upon each other. The sociability of the essay, its civility, means something in these troubled times, and we have something to learn from this humane book.

• Robert Musil, The Man Without Qualities , vol. 1, translated from the German by Eithne Wilkins and Ernst Kaiser (Picador, 1982), p. 301. ↩
• Ibid., p. 297. ↩
• Theodor Adorno, “The Essay as Form,” translated from the German by Shierry Weber Nicholsen, in Notes to Literature (Columbia University Press, 1991), p. 14. ↩
• The classic exposition of the Renaissance crisis of skepticism is Richard H. Popkin’s The History of Scepticism: From Savonarola to Bayle . ↩

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• Academic writing

What Is Academic Writing? | Dos and Don’ts for Students

Academic writing is a formal style of writing used in universities and scholarly publications. You’ll encounter it in journal articles and books on academic topics, and you’ll be expected to write your essays , research papers , and dissertation in academic style.

Academic writing follows the same writing process as other types of texts, but it has specific conventions in terms of content, structure and style.

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Table of contents

Types of academic writing, academic writing is…, academic writing is not…, useful tools for academic writing, academic writing checklist.

Academics mostly write texts intended for publication, such as journal articles, reports, books, and chapters in edited collections. For students, the most common types of academic writing assignments are listed below.

Different fields of study have different priorities in terms of the writing they produce. For example, in scientific writing it’s crucial to clearly and accurately report methods and results; in the humanities, the focus is on constructing convincing arguments through the use of textual evidence. However, most academic writing shares certain key principles intended to help convey information as effectively as possible.

Whether your goal is to pass your degree, apply to graduate school , or build an academic career, effective writing is an essential skill.

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Formal and unbiased

Academic writing aims to convey information in an impartial way. The goal is to base arguments on the evidence under consideration, not the author’s preconceptions. All claims should be supported with relevant evidence, not just asserted.

To avoid bias, it’s important to represent the work of other researchers and the results of your own research fairly and accurately. This means clearly outlining your methodology  and being honest about the limitations of your research.

The formal style used in academic writing ensures that research is presented consistently across different texts, so that studies can be objectively assessed and compared with other research.

Because of this, it’s important to strike the right tone with your language choices. Avoid informal language , including slang, contractions , clichés, and conversational phrases:

• Also , a lot of the findings are a little unreliable.
• Moreover , many of the findings are somewhat unreliable.

Clear and precise

It’s important to use clear and precise language to ensure that your reader knows exactly what you mean. This means being as specific as possible and avoiding vague language :

• People have been interested in this thing for a long time .
• Researchers have been interested in this phenomenon for at least 10 years .

Avoid hedging your claims with words like “perhaps,” as this can give the impression that you lack confidence in your arguments. Reflect on your word choice to ensure it accurately and directly conveys your meaning:

• This could perhaps suggest that…
• This suggests that…

Specialist language or jargon is common and often necessary in academic writing, which generally targets an audience of other academics in related fields.

However, jargon should be used to make your writing more concise and accurate, not to make it more complicated. A specialist term should be used when:

• It conveys information more precisely than a comparable non-specialist term.
• Your reader is likely to be familiar with the term.
• The term is commonly used by other researchers in your field.

The best way to familiarize yourself with the kind of jargon used in your field is to read papers by other researchers and pay attention to their language.

Focused and well structured

An academic text is not just a collection of ideas about a topic—it needs to have a clear purpose. Start with a relevant research question or thesis statement , and use it to develop a focused argument. Only include information that is relevant to your overall purpose.

A coherent structure is crucial to organize your ideas. Pay attention to structure at three levels: the structure of the whole text, paragraph structure, and sentence structure.

Well sourced

Academic writing uses sources to support its claims. Sources are other texts (or media objects like photographs or films) that the author analyzes or uses as evidence. Many of your sources will be written by other academics; academic writing is collaborative and builds on previous research.

It’s important to consider which sources are credible and appropriate to use in academic writing. For example, citing Wikipedia is typically discouraged. Don’t rely on websites for information; instead, use academic databases and your university library to find credible sources.

You must always cite your sources in academic writing. This means acknowledging whenever you quote or paraphrase someone else’s work by including a citation in the text and a reference list at the end.

There are many different citation styles with different rules. The most common styles are APA , MLA , and Chicago . Make sure to consistently follow whatever style your institution requires. If you don’t cite correctly, you may get in trouble for plagiarism . A good plagiarism checker can help you catch any issues before it’s too late.

You can easily create accurate citations in APA or MLA style using our Citation Generators.

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Correct and consistent

As well as following the rules of grammar, punctuation, and citation, it’s important to consistently apply stylistic conventions regarding:

• How to write numbers
• Introducing abbreviations
• Using verb tenses in different sections
• Capitalization of terms and headings
• Spelling and punctuation differences between UK and US English

In some cases there are several acceptable approaches that you can choose between—the most important thing is to apply the same rules consistently and to carefully proofread your text before you submit. If you don’t feel confident in your own proofreading abilities, you can get help from Scribbr’s professional proofreading services or Grammar Checker .

Academic writing generally tries to avoid being too personal. Information about the author may come in at some points—for example in the acknowledgements or in a personal reflection—but for the most part the text should focus on the research itself.

Always avoid addressing the reader directly with the second-person pronoun “you.” Use the impersonal pronoun “one” or an alternate phrasing instead for generalizations:

• As a teacher, you must treat your students fairly.
• As a teacher, one must treat one’s students fairly.
• Teachers must treat their students fairly.

The use of the first-person pronoun “I” used to be similarly discouraged in academic writing, but it is increasingly accepted in many fields. If you’re unsure whether to use the first person, pay attention to conventions in your field or ask your instructor.

When you refer to yourself, it should be for good reason. You can position yourself and describe what you did during the research, but avoid arbitrarily inserting your personal thoughts and feelings:

• In my opinion…
• I think that…
• I like/dislike…
• I conducted interviews with…
• I argue that…
• I hope to achieve…

Long-winded

Many students think their writing isn’t academic unless it’s over-complicated and long-winded. This isn’t a good approach—instead, aim to be as concise and direct as possible.

If a term can be cut or replaced with a more straightforward one without affecting your meaning, it should be. Avoid redundant phrasings in your text, and try replacing phrasal verbs with their one-word equivalents where possible:

• Interest in this phenomenon carried on in the year 2018 .
• Interest in this phenomenon continued in 2018 .

Repetition is a part of academic writing—for example, summarizing earlier information in the conclusion—but it’s important to avoid unnecessary repetition. Make sure that none of your sentences are repeating a point you’ve already made in different words.

Emotive and grandiose

An academic text is not the same thing as a literary, journalistic, or marketing text. Though you’re still trying to be persuasive, a lot of techniques from these styles are not appropriate in an academic context. Specifically, you should avoid appeals to emotion and inflated claims.

Though you may be writing about a topic that’s sensitive or important to you, the point of academic writing is to clearly communicate ideas, information, and arguments, not to inspire an emotional response. Avoid using emotive or subjective language :

• This horrible tragedy was obviously one of the worst catastrophes in construction history.
• The injury and mortality rates of this accident were among the highest in construction history.

Students are sometimes tempted to make the case for their topic with exaggerated , unsupported claims and flowery language. Stick to specific, grounded arguments that you can support with evidence, and don’t overstate your point:

• Charles Dickens is the greatest writer of the Victorian period, and his influence on all subsequent literature is enormous.
• Charles Dickens is one of the best-known writers of the Victorian period and has had a significant influence on the development of the English novel.

There are a a lot of writing tools that will make your writing process faster and easier. We’ll highlight three of them below.

Paraphrasing tool

AI writing tools like ChatGPT and a paraphrasing tool can help you rewrite text so that your ideas are clearer, you don’t repeat yourself, and your writing has a consistent tone.

They can also help you write more clearly about sources without having to quote them directly. Be warned, though: it’s still crucial to give credit to all sources in the right way to prevent plagiarism .

Grammar checker

Writing tools that scan your text for punctuation, spelling, and grammar mistakes. When it detects a mistake the grammar checke r will give instant feedback and suggest corrections. Helping you write clearly and avoid common mistakes .

You can use a summarizer if you want to condense text into its most important and useful ideas. With a summarizer tool, you can make it easier to understand complicated sources. You can also use the tool to make your research question clearer and summarize your main argument.

Check for common mistakes

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Use the checklist below to assess whether you have followed the rules of effective academic writing.

• Checklist: Academic writing

I avoid informal terms and contractions .

I avoid second-person pronouns (“you”).

I avoid emotive or exaggerated language.

I avoid redundant words and phrases.

I avoid unnecessary jargon and define terms where needed.

I present information as precisely and accurately as possible.

I use appropriate transitions to show the connections between my ideas.

My text is logically organized using paragraphs .

Each paragraph is focused on a single idea, expressed in a clear topic sentence .

Every part of the text relates to my central thesis or research question .

I support my claims with evidence.

I use the appropriate verb tenses in each section.

I consistently use either UK or US English .

I format numbers consistently.

I cite my sources using a consistent citation style .

Your text follows the most important rules of academic style. Make sure it's perfect with the help of a Scribbr editor!

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Welcome to the new OASIS website! We have academic skills, library skills, math and statistics support, and writing resources all together in one new home.

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Scholarly Writing: Scholarly Writing

Introduction.

Scholarly writing is also known as academic writing. It is the genre of writing used in all academic fields. Scholarly writing is not better than journalism, fiction, or poetry; it is just a different category. Because most of us are not used to scholarly writing, it can feel unfamiliar and intimidating, but it is a skill that can be learned by immersing yourself in scholarly literature. During your studies at Walden, you will be reading, discussing, and producing scholarly writing in everything from discussion posts to dissertations. For Walden students, there are plenty of opportunities to practice this skill in a writing intensive environment.

The resources in the Grammar & Composition tab provide important foundations for scholarly writing, so please refer to those pages as well for help on scholarly writing. Similarly, scholarly writing can differ depending on style guide. Our resources follow the general guidelines of the APA manual, and you can find more APA help in the APA Style tab.

Read on to learn about a few characteristics of scholarly writing!

HIDE GUIDE LEVEL BREADCRUMB

Writing at the Graduate Level

Writing at the graduate level can appear to be confusing and intimidating. It can be difficult to determine exactly what the scholarly voice is and how to transition to graduate-level writing. There are some elements of writing to consider when writing to a scholarly audience: word choice, tone, and effective use of evidence . If you understand and employ scholarly voice rules, you will master writing at the doctoral level.

Before you write something, ask yourself the following: 

• Is this objective?
• Am I speaking as a social scientist? Am I using the literature to support my assertions?
• Could this be offensive to someone?
• Could this limit my readership?

Employing these rules when writing will help ensure that you are speaking as a social scientist. Your writing will be clear and concise, and this approach will allow your content to shine through.

Specialized Vocabulary

Scholarly authors assume that their audience is familiar with fundamental ideas and terms in their field, and they do not typically define them for the reader. Thus, the wording in scholarly writing is specialized, requiring previous knowledge on the part of the reader. You might not be able to pick up a scholarly journal in another field and easily understand its contents (although you should be able to follow the writing itself).

Take for example, the terms "EMRs" and "end-stage renal disease" in the medical field or the keywords scaffolding and differentiation in teaching. Perhaps readers outside of these fields may not be familiar with these terms. However, a reader of an article that contains these terms should still be able to understand the general flow of the writing itself.

Original Thought

Scholarly writing communicates original thought, whether through primary research or synthesis, that presents a unique perspective on previous research. In a scholarly work, the author is expected to have insights on the issue at hand, but those insights must be grounded in research, critical reading , and analysis rather than personal experience or opinion. Take a look at some examples below:

Needs Improvement: I think that childhood obesity needs to be prevented because it is bad and it causes health problems.

Better: I believe that childhood obesity must be prevented because it is linked to health problems and deaths in adults (McMillan, 2010).

Good: Georges (2002) explained that there "has never been a disease so devastating and yet so preventable as obesity" (p. 35). In fact, the number of deaths that can be linked to obesity are astounding. According to McMillan (2010), there is a direct correlation between childhood obesity and heart attacks later in their adult lives, and the American Heart Association's 2010 statistic sheet shows similar statistics: 49% of all heart attacks are preventable (AHA, 2010). Because of this correlation, childhood obesity is an issue that must be addressed and prevented to ensure the health of both children and adults.

Notice that the first example gives a personal opinion but cites no sources or research. The second example gives a bit of research but still emphasizes the personal opinion. The third example, however, still gives the writer's opinion (that childhood obesity must be addressed), but it does so by synthesizing the information from multiple sources to help persuade the reader.

Careful Citation

Scholarly writing includes careful citation of sources and the presence of a bibliography or reference list. The writing is informed by and shows engagement with the larger body of literature on the topic at hand, and all assertions are supported by relevant sources.

Crash Course in Scholarly Writing Video

Note that this video was created while APA 6 was the style guide edition in use. There may be some examples of writing that have not been updated to APA 7 guidelines.

• Crash Course in Scholarly Writing (video transcript)

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What is an Essay?

10 May, 2020

11 minutes read

Author:  Tomas White

Well, beyond a jumble of words usually around 2,000 words or so - what is an essay, exactly? Whether you’re taking English, sociology, history, biology, art, or a speech class, it’s likely you’ll have to write an essay or two. So how is an essay different than a research paper or a review? Let’s find out!

Defining the Term – What is an Essay?

The essay is a written piece that is designed to present an idea, propose an argument, express the emotion or initiate debate. It is a tool that is used to present writer’s ideas in a non-fictional way. Multiple applications of this type of writing go way beyond, providing political manifestos and art criticism as well as personal observations and reflections of the author.

An essay can be as short as 500 words, it can also be 5000 words or more.  However, most essays fall somewhere around 1000 to 3000 words ; this word range provides the writer enough space to thoroughly develop an argument and work to convince the reader of the author’s perspective regarding a particular issue.  The topics of essays are boundless: they can range from the best form of government to the benefits of eating peppermint leaves daily. As a professional provider of custom writing, our service has helped thousands of customers to turn in essays in various forms and disciplines.

Origins of the Essay

Over the course of more than six centuries essays were used to question assumptions, argue trivial opinions and to initiate global discussions. Let’s have a closer look into historical progress and various applications of this literary phenomenon to find out exactly what it is.

Today’s modern word “essay” can trace its roots back to the French “essayer” which translates closely to mean “to attempt” .  This is an apt name for this writing form because the essay’s ultimate purpose is to attempt to convince the audience of something.  An essay’s topic can range broadly and include everything from the best of Shakespeare’s plays to the joys of April.

The essay comes in many shapes and sizes; it can focus on a personal experience or a purely academic exploration of a topic.  Essays are classified as a subjective writing form because while they include expository elements, they can rely on personal narratives to support the writer’s viewpoint.  The essay genre includes a diverse array of academic writings ranging from literary criticism to meditations on the natural world.  Most typically, the essay exists as a shorter writing form; essays are rarely the length of a novel.  However, several historic examples, such as John Locke’s seminal work “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding” just shows that a well-organized essay can be as long as a novel.

The Essay in Literature

The essay enjoys a long and renowned history in literature.  They first began gaining in popularity in the early 16 th century, and their popularity has continued today both with original writers and ghost writers.  Many readers prefer this short form in which the writer seems to speak directly to the reader, presenting a particular claim and working to defend it through a variety of means.  Not sure if you’ve ever read a great essay? You wouldn’t believe how many pieces of literature are actually nothing less than essays, or evolved into more complex structures from the essay. Check out this list of literary favorites:

• The Book of My Lives by Aleksandar Hemon
• Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin
• Against Interpretation by Susan Sontag
• High-Tide in Tucson: Essays from Now and Never by Barbara Kingsolver
• Slouching Toward Bethlehem by Joan Didion
• Naked by David Sedaris
• Walden; or, Life in the Woods by Henry David Thoreau

Pretty much as long as writers have had something to say, they’ve created essays to communicate their viewpoint on pretty much any topic you can think of!

The Essay in Academics

Not only are students required to read a variety of essays during their academic education, but they will likely be required to write several different kinds of essays throughout their scholastic career.  Don’t love to write?  Then consider working with a ghost essay writer !  While all essays require an introduction, body paragraphs in support of the argumentative thesis statement, and a conclusion, academic essays can take several different formats in the way they approach a topic.  Common essays required in high school, college, and post-graduate classes include:

Five paragraph essay

This is the most common type of a formal essay. The type of paper that students are usually exposed to when they first hear about the concept of the essay itself. It follows easy outline structure – an opening introduction paragraph; three body paragraphs to expand the thesis; and conclusion to sum it up.

Argumentative essay

These essays are commonly assigned to explore a controversial issue.  The goal is to identify the major positions on either side and work to support the side the writer agrees with while refuting the opposing side’s potential arguments.

Compare and Contrast essay

This essay compares two items, such as two poems, and works to identify similarities and differences, discussing the strength and weaknesses of each.  This essay can focus on more than just two items, however.  The point of this essay is to reveal new connections the reader may not have considered previously.

Definition essay

This essay has a sole purpose – defining a term or a concept in as much detail as possible. Sounds pretty simple, right? Well, not quite. The most important part of the process is picking up the word. Before zooming it up under the microscope, make sure to choose something roomy so you can define it under multiple angles. The definition essay outline will reflect those angles and scopes.

Descriptive essay

Perhaps the most fun to write, this essay focuses on describing its subject using all five of the senses.  The writer aims to fully describe the topic; for example, a descriptive essay could aim to describe the ocean to someone who’s never seen it or the job of a teacher.  Descriptive essays rely heavily on detail and the paragraphs can be organized by sense.

Illustration essay

The purpose of this essay is to describe an idea, occasion or a concept with the help of clear and vocal examples. “Illustration” itself is handled in the body paragraphs section. Each of the statements, presented in the essay needs to be supported with several examples. Illustration essay helps the author to connect with his audience by breaking the barriers with real-life examples – clear and indisputable.

Informative Essay

Being one the basic essay types, the informative essay is as easy as it sounds from a technical standpoint. High school is where students usually encounter with informative essay first time. The purpose of this paper is to describe an idea, concept or any other abstract subject with the help of proper research and a generous amount of storytelling.

Narrative essay

This type of essay focuses on describing a certain event or experience, most often chronologically.  It could be a historic event or an ordinary day or month in a regular person’s life. Narrative essay proclaims a free approach to writing it, therefore it does not always require conventional attributes, like the outline. The narrative itself typically unfolds through a personal lens, and is thus considered to be a subjective form of writing.

Persuasive essay

The purpose of the persuasive essay is to provide the audience with a 360-view on the concept idea or certain topic – to persuade the reader to adopt a certain viewpoint. The viewpoints can range widely from why visiting the dentist is important to why dogs make the best pets to why blue is the best color.  Strong, persuasive language is a defining characteristic of this essay type.

The Essay in Art

Several other artistic mediums have adopted the essay as a means of communicating with their audience.  In the visual arts, such as painting or sculpting, the rough sketches of the final product are sometimes deemed essays.  Likewise, directors may opt to create a film essay which is similar to a documentary in that it offers a personal reflection on a relevant issue.  Finally, photographers often create photographic essays in which they use a series of photographs to tell a story, similar to a narrative or a descriptive essay.

Drawing the line – question answered

“What is an Essay?” is quite a polarizing question. On one hand, it can easily be answered in a couple of words. On the other, it is surely the most profound and self-established type of content there ever was. Going back through the history of the last five-six centuries helps us understand where did it come from and how it is being applied ever since.

If you must write an essay, follow these five important steps to works towards earning the “A” you want:

• Understand and review the kind of essay you must write
• Brainstorm your argument
• Find research from reliable sources to support your perspective
• Cite all sources parenthetically within the paper and on the Works Cited page
• Follow all grammatical rules

Generally speaking, when you must write any type of essay, start sooner rather than later!  Don’t procrastinate – give yourself time to develop your perspective and work on crafting a unique and original approach to the topic.  Remember: it’s always a good idea to have another set of eyes (or three) look over your essay before handing in the final draft to your teacher or professor.  Don’t trust your fellow classmates?  Consider hiring an editor or a ghostwriter to help out!

If you are still unsure on whether you can cope with your task – you are in the right place to get help. HandMadeWriting is the perfect answer to the question “Who can write my essay?”

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Ethical Research Paper Topics

Writing a research paper on ethics is not an easy task, especially if you do not possess excellent writing skills and do not like to contemplate controversial questions. But an ethics course is obligatory in all higher education institutions, and students have to look for a way out and be creative. When you find an […]

Art Research Paper Topics

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TEN SCHOLARLY DEFINITIONS OF THEORY WITH RELEVANT CITATIONS

Keyword: definitions of theory.

Introduction

Theories and Models are concepts without a universal definition or meaning, rather scholars, experts, and researchers have tried to define and explain theory based on their perceptions, and background among others. No doubt, a theory is one of the essential ingredients in explaining communication matters/events.

Thus, understanding theory helps in a great number of ways to under communication, research, and many other human bahaviours because theory depends on research to provide proof of the theory’s correctness. Anaeto, Onabajo, and Osifeso (2008) when stating the importance of theory, opined that theory is what gives studies a required footing. Also, going by the position of Earl Barbie (1987) cited in Anaeto, et. al. (2008) stresses the three elements of social science research as theory, research, and statistic s. These constructs are based on the fact that theory generates research and research generates and refines theory.

Although there are differing opinions as to what constitutes a theory, comparison and contrast of the diversity of opinions on what constitutes the virtues of a good theory is important. Daniel (2012) in Wacker (1998) stated, “Operationalization of the definition of theory should directly be tied to the necessary components of theory ”.

According to him, a theory is composed of four components:

(a) definitions,

(b) a domain of applicability,

(c) a set of relationships of variables, and

(d) specific predictions or factual claims.

It is against the above assertion that some definitions of a theory are examined in order to understand what theory meant to each of the scholars.

SCHOLARS : McQuail, Kurt Lewin, Wilbur Schramm, Earl Babbie, Severin and Tankard, Daramola, Abrah and Kaplan, Rychlak, Sutherland, Bacharach and Kerlinger.

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 OTHER DEFINITIONS OF THEORY

• A set of interrelated concepts and ideas that are used to explain or describe a phenomenon or set of phenomena.
• A systematic explanation of observed events or phenomena that is supported by evidence.
• A general explanation for a broad range of events or observations.
• A model that provides a framework for understanding the relationships between different variables.
• An overarching framework or model that integrates and explains a range of existing ideas or theories.
• A hypothesis or explanation that has been widely accepted or supported by evidence.
• A systematic explanation of a particular phenomenon or set of phenomena that is based on empirical data and observation.
• A body of knowledge or understanding that is used to guide future research or inform practical applications.
• An explanation or interpretation of a particular phenomenon that is based on scientific investigation and critical analysis.
• An explanatory framework or perspective that helps to make sense of complex data, observations, or experiences.

FUNCTIONS OF THEORY

The functions of theory can vary depending on the discipline or field of study. Generally, theory serves to:

• Explain phenomena: Theories aim to provide an understanding of how or why things work the way they do. They explain patterns or regularities in a given field of study and provide a framework for organizing and interpreting data.
• Predict outcomes: Theories can be used to make predictions about future events or behaviors based on observed patterns in the past or present. Predictive theories are useful for decision-making and planning.
• Provide a basis for research : Theories provide a starting point for research by identifying key concepts and relationships between them. They help researchers formulate research questions and hypotheses.
• Facilitate communication : Theories provide a shared language and conceptual framework for researchers and practitioners in a given field. They enable individuals to communicate more effectively and collaborate towards a common goal.
• Guide practice : Theories can inform practical applications in a given field, such as developing interventions or policies based on empirical evidence.
• Generate new knowledge: Theories can generate new knowledge by identifying gaps in understanding or inconsistencies in existing theories. They can inspire new research questions and directions for future research.

Overall, theories serve as a foundation for knowledge in a given field, shaping how individuals approach and understand phenomena within that field.

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Gender Equality

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• Anja-Kristin Abendroth 3  

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Gender equity

Gender equality refers to the equal participation of women and men in different life domains (e.g., the economy, social life, politics, education). Women’s rights movements linked to the first and second wave of feminism fought to establish gender equality as a fundamental human right. The gender-related development index (GDI) , the gender gap index , and the gender equity index are measures of overall gender equality in different countries.

Description

Gender equality in the economy refers to the equal integration of men and women into the labor market and is one of the most researched aspects of gender equality. Even though women have made great progress in labor market integration in recent decades, their participation rate is still lower than that of men, they are less likely to move into management positions, and they are paid less for similar work (European Commission, 2008 ). These are also causes of higher poverty rates among women, especially...

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Abendroth, A.-K. (2012). Working women in Europe. How the country, workplace, and family context matter. ICS Dissertation Series, Utrecht University.

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Abendroth, AK. (2014). Gender Equality. In: Michalos, A.C. (eds) Encyclopedia of Quality of Life and Well-Being Research. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0753-5_1129

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