Daniel Kies Department of English College of DuPage
Composition English 1101		Contact Form

General Advice on Essay Writing

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In the 14th century, English borrowed the word essay from the Middle French word essai. In Middle French, the word meant "to try"; it was a verb, something we do. The word's origins ultimately go back to the Late Latin word exagium, the act of weighing, evaluating, judging. The history of this word is instructive, I think, for in its history we see everything that writers hope to achieve when they compose an essay. More than that, even, we can see in the history of the word what we — as writers — should do ourselves.

What essay writers are trying to do is nothing short of a miracle — the sort of minor miracle that language enables and that we take for granted every day. Writers attempt to convey an idea from one head into another head (from the writer's to the reader's). Writers are attempting to make meaning. When we write, we can do things that will either help or hinder this process of making meaning and conveying it to another mind. Part of the craft of writing is learning to try those techniques that enable us to making meaning for our readers successfully. Remember at least that an essay is to try.

Toward that end, we can improve our practice — our craft — if we remember some important general concepts of (academic) writing:

1. Academic writing has a goal (to try to make meaning and convey it to the reader's mind). Therefore, miscellaneous, random collections of ideas, quotes, details, facts, statistics, etc., will not make for an effective vehicle to convey your idea as a writer. Academic essays often have an argument — explicit or implicit. Even a narrative essay about an important moment in the life of a child can have an implied argument of demonstrating the truth of Wordsworth's line "the Child is the Father of the Man." Miscellaneous, random bits of information really do not prove anything, no matter how suggestive those "factoids" are. The information must be organized and related logically to your thesis, your point, your main idea. That is what we do when we write.

2. When — as is often the case — an assigned topic does not provide you with an obvious thesis, you should first think of possible question(s) you can use to answer the "problem" presented in your essay's assignment. Asking the right questions can lead you toward collecting relevant information and ultimately formulating an interesting, worthwhile thesis.

3. Don't wait till "everything is ready" before you begin to write.
   Essays may present an argument differently, but an essay's organization — how it begins, develops, and ends — should be designed to present your argument clearly and persuasively. (The order in which you discovered the parts of your argument is seldom an effective order for presenting it to a reader.)

4. Successful methods of composing an essay are various, but some practices of good writers are almost invariable:

   Keep your essay's overall purpose and organization in mind. Give yourself the freedom to adapt and change your outline as you are in the process of discovering ideas.

   Don't wait till "everything is ready" before you begin to write. Give yourself the liberty of starting to write even before you have "the whole picture" in your head. As an undergraduate, I suffered from writer's block very often because I felt that I couldn't starting writing my papers until I had read and understood everything I needed to know about my subject. However, since there is always more to know, I could never feel ready to begin writing my papers. It was a mistake, a trap, and eventually I learned that writing itself is the process of learning and discovering all on its own. Writing itself is a way of knowing. A gnostic act, to use a truly old-fashioned word. Give yourself the liberty of writing what you know as you learn it, as you develop those ideas. Feel free later to reorganize and revise those ideas too, which leads us nicely to our next point...

   Revise extensively. The computer can be an excellent tool to help with revision. Revise with special attention to transitions between your ideas. Lastly, proofread your final copy, attending to teh tpyos and errors that can lessen the impact of an otherwise well-written piece.

Last revision: Wednesday, May 15, 2002 21:57:08

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