An essay is usually a short piece of writing which is often written from an author's personal point of view. Essays can consist of a number of elements, including: literary criticism, political manifestos, learned arguments, observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of the author. The definition of an essay is vague, overlapping with those of an article and a short story. Almost all modern essays are written in prose, but works in verse have been dubbed essays (e.g. Alexander Pope's An Essay on Criticism and An Essay on Man). While brevity usually defines an essay, voluminous works like John Locke's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding and Thomas Malthus's An Essay on the Principle of Population provide counterexamples.

Essays have become a major part of a formal education. Secondary students are taught structured essay formats to improve their writing skills, and essays are often used by universities in selecting applicants (see admissions essay) and, in the humanities and social sciences, as a way of assessing the performance of students during final exams. The concept of an "essay" has been extended to other mediums beyond writing. A film essays is a movie that often incorporates documentary filmmaking styles and which focuses more on the evolution of a theme or an idea. A photographic essay is an attempt to cover a topic with a linked series of photographs; it may or may not have an accompanying text or captions.

Definitions

An essay has been defined in a variety of ways. One definition is a "prose composition with a focused subject of discussion" or a "long, systematic discourse".

It is difficult to define the genre into which essays fall. Aldous Huxley, a leading essayist, gives guidance on the subject. He notes that "Like the novel, the essay is a literary device for saying almost everything about almost anything, usually on a certain topic. By tradition, almost by definition, the essay is a short piece, and it is therefore impossible to give all things full play within the limits of a single essay". He points out that "a collection of essays can cover almost as much ground, and cover it almost as thoroughly, as can a long novel"--he gives Montaigne's Third Book as an example. Huxley argues that "essays belong to a literary species whose extreme variability can be studied most effectively within a three-poled frame of reference".

The three poles are:

• Personal and the autobiographical essays: these use "fragments of reflective autobiography" to "look at the world through the keyhole of anecdote and description".

• Objective and factual: in these essays, the authors "do not speak directly of themselves, but turn their attention outward to some literary or scientific or political theme".

• Abstract-universal: these essays "make the best...of all the three worlds in which it is possible for the essay to exist".

Etymology

The word essay derives from the French infinitive essayer, "to try" or "to attempt". In English essay first meant "a trial" or "an attempt", and this is still an alternative meaning. The Frenchman Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) was the first author to describe his work as essays; he used the term to characterise these as "attempts" to put his thoughts adequately into writing. Inspired in particular by the works of Plutarch, a translation of whose Oeuvres morales (Moral works) into French had just been published by Jacques Amyot, Montaigne began to compose his essays in 1572; the first edition, entitled Essais, was published in two volumes in 1580. For the rest of his life he continued revising previously published essays and composing new ones. Francis Bacon's essays, published in book form in 1597, 1612, and 1625, were the first works in English that described themselves as essays. Ben Jonson first used the word essayist in English in 1609, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

History

Other English essayists included Robert Burton (1577-1640) and Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682). In Italy, Baldassare Castiglione wrote about courtly manners in his essay Il libro del cortegiano. In the 1600s, the Jesuit Baltasar Gracián wrote about the theme of wisdom. During the Age of Enlightenment, essays were a favoured tool of polemicists who aimed at convincing readers of their position. In the 1700s and 1800s, Edmund Burke and Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote essays for the general public. In the 20th century, a number of essayists tried to explain the new movements in art and culture by using essays (e.g., T.S. Eliot). Whereas some essayists used essays for strident political themes, Robert Louis Stevenson and Willa Cather wrote lighter essays. Virginia Woolf, Edmund Wilson, and Charles du Bos wrote literary criticism essays.

As a pedagogical tool

Essays have become a major part of a formal education. Secondary students are taught structured essay formats to improve their writing skills, and essays are often used by universities in selecting applicants (see admissions essay). In both secondary and tertiary education, essays are used to judge the mastery and comprehension of material. Students are asked to explain, comment on, or assess a topic of study in the form of an essay. During a course, university students will often be required to complete one or more essays that are prepared over several weeks or months. In addition, in fields such as the humanities and social sciences, mid-term and end of term examinations often require students to write a short essay in two or three hours.

Academic essays, which may be called "papers", are usually more formal than literary ones. They may still allow the presentation of the writer's own views, but this is done in a logical and factual manner, with the use of the first person often discouraged. Longer academic essays (often with a word limit of between 2,000 and 5,000 words) are often more discursive. They sometimes begin with a short summary analysis of what has previously been written on a topic, which is often called a literature review.

Longer essays may also contain an introductory page in which words and phrases from the title are tightly defined. Most academic institutions will require that all substantial facts, quotations, and other supporting material used in an essay be referenced in a bibliography or works cited page at the end of the text. This scholarly convention allows others (whether teachers or fellow scholars) to understand the basis of the facts and quotations used to support the essay's argument, and thereby help to evaluate to what extent the argument is supported by evidence, and to evaluate the quality of that evidence. The academic essay tests the student's ability to present their thoughts in an organized way and tests their intellectual capabilities.

One university essay guide makes the distinction between research papers and discussion papers. The guide states that a "research paper is intended to uncover a wide variety of sources on a given topic". As such, research papers "tend to be longer and more inclusive in their scope and with the amount of information they deal with." While discussion papers "also include research, ...they tend to be shorter and more selective in their approach...and more analytical and critical". Whereas a research paper would typically quote "a wide variety of sources", a discussion paper aims to integrate the material in a broader fashion.

One of the challenges facing universities is that in some cases, students may submit essays which have been purchased from an essay mill (or "paper mill") as their own work. An "essay mill" is a ghostwriting service that sells pre-written essays to university and college students. Since plagiarism is a form of academic dishonesty or academic fraud, universities and colleges may investigate papers suspected to be from an essay mill by using Internet plagiarism detection software, which compares essays against a database of known essay mill essays and by orally testing students on the contents of their papers.

Forms and styles

This section describes the different forms and styles of essay writing. These forms and styles are used by a range of authors, including university students and professional essayists.

Descriptive

Descriptive writing is characterized by sensory details, which appeal to the physical senses, and details that appeal to a reader’s emotional, physical, or intellectual sensibilities. Determining the purpose, considering the audience, creating a dominant impression, using descriptive language, and organizing the description are the rhetorical choices to be considered when using a description. A description is usually arranged spatially but can also be chronological or emphatic. The focus of a description is the scene. Description uses tools such as denotative language, connotative language, figurative language, metaphor, and simile to arrive at a dominant impression. One univerity essay guide states that "descriptive writing says what happened or what another author has discussed; it provides an account of the topic".

Narrative

A narrative uses tools such as flashbacks, flash-forwards, and transitions that often build to a climax. The focus of a narrative is the plot. When creating a narrative, authors must determine their purpose, consider their audience, establish their point of view, use dialogue, and organize the narrative. A narrative is usually arranged chronologically.

Exemplification

An exemplification essay is characterized by a generalization and relevant, representative, and believable examples including anecdotes. Writers need to consider their subject, determine their purpose, consider their audience, decide on specific examples, and arrange all the parts together when writing an exemplification essay.

Compare and contrast

Compare and contrast essays are characterized by a basis for comparison, points of comparison, and analogies. It is grouped by object (chunking) or by point (sequential). Comparison highlights the similarities between two or more similar objects while contrasting highlights the differences between two or more objects. When writing a compare/contrast essay, writers need to determine their purpose, consider their audience, consider the basis and points of comparison, consider their thesis statement, arrange and develop the comparison, and reach a conclusion. Compare and contrast is arranged emphatically.

Cause and effect

The defining features of a "cause and effect" essay are causal chains, careful language, and chronological or emphatic order. A writer using this rhetorical method must consider the subject, determine the purpose, consider the audience, think critically about different causes or consequences, consider a thesis statement, arrange the parts, consider the language, and decide on a conclusion.

Classification and division

Classification is the categorization of objects into a larger whole while division is the breaking of a larger whole into smaller parts.

Definition

Definition essays explain a term's meaning. Some are written about concrete terms, such as trees, oceans, and dogs, while others talk about more abstract and hard-to-define terms, such as liberty, happiness, and virtue.

Dialectic

In the dialectic form of essay, which is commonly used commonly in Philosophy makes a thesis and argument, then objects to their own argument (with a counterargument), but then counters the counterargument with a final and novel argument. This form benefits from being more open-minded while countering a possible flaw that some may present.

Other logical structures

The logical progression and organisational structure of an essay can take many forms. Understanding how the movement of thought is managed through an essay has a profound impact on its overall cogency and ability to impress. A number of alternative logical structures for essays have been visualized as diagrams, making them easy to implement or adapt in the construction of an argument.

Magazine or newspaper

Essays often appear in magazines, especially magazines with a more intellectual bent, such as The Atlantic and Harpers. Magazine and newspaper essays use many of the same types of essays as those described above in the section on academic essays (e.g., descriptive essays, narrative essays, etc.). Some newspapers also print essays, often in the "Op-Ed" (Opinion and Editorial) section of the paper.

Employment

Employment essays detailing your experience in a certain occupational field are required when applying for some jobs, especially government jobs. Essays known as KSAs and ECQs are required when applying to many US federal government positions.

A KSA, or Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities, is a series of narrative statements that are required when applying to Federal government job openings. KSA’s are used to determine, along with resumes, who the best applicants are when several candidates qualify for a job. The knowledge, skills and abilities (KSA's) necessary for the successful performance of a position are contained on each job vacancy announcement. KSA's are brief and focused essays about one's career and educational background that presumably qualify one to perform the duties of the position being applied for.

An Executive Core Qualification or ECQ is a narrative statement that is required when applying to Senior Executive Service (SES) positions within the US Federal government. ECQ’s are used to determine, along with resumes, who the best applicants are when several candidates qualify for a job. The Office of Personnel Management has established five executive core qualifications that all applicants seeking to enter the Senior Executive Service must demonstrate.

Non-literary types

Visual Arts

In the visual arts, an essay is a preliminary drawing or sketch upon which a final painting or sculpture is based, made as a test of the work's composition (this meaning of the term, like several of those following, comes from the word essay's meaning of "attempt" or "trial").

Music

In the realm of music, composer Samuel Barber wrote a set of "Essays for Orchestra," relying on the form and content of the music to guide the listener's ear, rather than any extra-musical plot or story.

Film

Film essays (or "cinematic essays") consist of the evolution of a theme or an idea rather than a plot per se; or the film literally being a cinematic accompaniment to a narrator reading an essay. From another perspective, an essay film could be defined as a documentary film visual basis combined with a form of commentary that contains elements of self-portrait (rather than autobiography), where the signature (rather than the life-story) of the filmmaker is apparent. The cinematic essay often blends documentary, fiction, and experimental filmmaking using a tones and editing styles.

The genre is not well-defined but might include works of early Soviet documentarians like Dziga Vertov, present-day filmmakers like Chris Marker, Agnes Varda, Michael Moore (Roger and Me, Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11), Errol Morris (The Thin Blue Line), or Morgan Spurlock (Supersize Me: A Film of Epic Proportions). Jean-Luc Godard describes his recent work as "film-essays". Two filmmakers whose work was the antecedent to the cinematic essay include George Melies and Bertolt Brecht. Georges Melies did a film about the coronation of Edward VII in 1902 which mixes actual footage with shots of a recreation of the event. Bertolt Brecht was a playright who experimented with film and aincorporated film projections into some of his plays.

David Winks Gray's article "The essay film in action" states that the "essay film became an identifiable form of filmmaking in the 1950s and ’60s". He states that since that time, essay films have tended to be "on the margins" of the filmmaking world. Essay films have a "peculiar searching, questioning tone" which is "between documentary and fiction" but without "fitting comfortably" into either genre. Gray notes that just like written essays, essay films "tend to marry the personal voice of a guiding narrator (often the director) with a wide swath of other voices". The University of Wisconsin Cinematheque website echoes some of Gray's comments; it calls film essays an "intimate and allusive" genre that "catches filmmakers in a pensive mood, ruminating on the margins between fiction and documentary" in a manner that is "refreshingly inventive, playful, and idiosyncratic".

Photography

A photographic essay is an attempt to cover a topic with a linked series of photographs. Photo essays range from purely photographic works to photographs with captions or small notes to full text essays with a few or many accompanying photographs. Photo essays can be sequential in nature, intended to be viewed in a particular order, or they may consist of non-ordered photographs which may be viewed all at once or in an order chosen by the viewer. All photo essays are collections of photographs, but not all collections of photographs are photo essays. Photo essays often address a certain issue or attempt to capture the character of places and events.

See also

• Abstract
• Admissions essay
• Body
• Book report
• Introduction
• List of essayists
• Plagiarism
• SAT Essay
• Writing

References

1. http://www.gale.cengage.com/free_resources/glossary/glossary_de.htm
2. Collected Essays, "Preface"
3. Collected Essays, "Preface"
4. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/192869/essay
5. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/192869/essay
6. Sections 3.1 through 3.3. of the Simon Fraser University CNS Essay Handbook. Available online at: http://www.sfu.ca/cns/PDF/CNS_Essay_Handbook.pdf
7. Chapter 2: Description in Glenn, Cheryl. Making Sense: A Real World Rhetorical Reader. Ed. Denise B. Wydra, et al. Second ed. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2005.
8. Section 2.1 of the Simon Fraser University CNS Essay Handbook. Available online at: http://www.sfu.ca/cns/PDF/CNS_Essay_Handbook.pdf
9. Chapter 3 Narration in Glenn, Cheryl. Making Sense: A Real World Rhetorical Reader. Ed. Denise B. Wydra, et al. Second ed. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2005.
10. Chapter 4: Exemplification in Glenn, Cheryl. Making Sense: A Real World Rhetorical Reader. Ed. Denise B. Wydra, et al. Second ed. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2005.
11. Chapter 6: Comparison and Contrast in Glenn, Cheryl. Making Sense: A Real World Rhetorical Reader. Ed. Denise B. Wydra, et al. Second ed. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2005.
12. Chapter 7: Cause and Effect in Glenn, Cheryl. Making Sense: A Real World Rhetorical Reader. Ed. Denise B. Wydra, et al. Second ed. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2005.
13. Chapter 5: Classification and Division in Glenn, Cheryl. Making Sense: A Real World Rhetorical Reader. Ed. Denise B. Wydra, et al. Second ed. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2005.
14. Chapter 9: Definition Glenn, Cheryl. Making Sense: A Real World Rhetorical Reader. Ed. Denise B. Wydra, et al. Second ed. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2005.
15. PHIL 101: Dialectic Essay Assignment
16. 'Mission Possible' by Dr. Mario Petrucci
17. http://www.chicagomediaworks.com/2instructworks/3editing_doc/3editing_docinematicessay.html
18. Discussion of film essays
19. http://www.chicagomediaworks.com/2instructworks/3editing_doc/3editing_docinematicessay.html
20. http://www.sf360.org/features/the-essay-film-in-action
21. http://cinema.wisc.edu/series/2009_spring/essay.htm

Further reading

• Theodor W. Adorno, The Essay as Form in: Theodor W. Adorno, The Adorno Reader, Blackwell Publishers 2000.

• Beaujour, Michel. Miroirs d'encre: Rhétorique de l'autoportrait'. Paris: Seuil, 1980. [Poetics of the Literary Self-Portrait. Trans. Yara Milos. New York: NYU Press, 1991].

• Bensmaïa, Reda. The Barthes Effect: The Essay as Reflective Text. Trans. Pat Fedkiew. Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press, 1987.

• D'Agata, John (Editor), The Lost Origins of the Essay. St Paul: Graywolf Press, 2009.
• Giamatti, Louis. “The Cinematic Essay”, in Godard and the Others: Essays in Cinematic Form. London, Tantivy Press, 1975.

• Lopate, Phillip. “In Search of the Centaur: The Essay-Film”, in Beyond Document: Essays on Nonfiction Film. Edited by Charles Warren, Wesleyan University Press, 1998. pages 243-270.
• Warburton, Nigel. The basics of essay writing. Routledge, 2006. ISBN 041524000X, ISBN 9780415240000

External links

• Essay eTexts at Project Gutenberg
• The New Student's Reference Work/Essay
• The Dialectic Essay -- Mount Holyoke College
• The Dialectical Essay: A detailed writing guide -- Sewanee University
• English Tutoring and Writing Center — different kinds of essays
• In Praise of the Undergraduate Essay