Sample essay. Writing and Designing an Essay

The essay is a unique literary genre. In essence, this is any short work, an essay written privately on any subject. The key feature of the essay is its author's design - in contrast to the styles of scientific and journalistic, with a strict specification of stylistics. At the same time, the essay stands at the rank below the works of art.

Terminology

Briefly, it is possible to formulate such a definition of an essay - it is a substantiation of a person's personal point of view in writing. Nevertheless, it should be borne in mind that the work of this literary genre does not pretend to be the basis of the question under consideration or its exhaustive information source. This work contains author's inferences and conclusions. Therefore, how to write an essay, a sample of its writing and requirements - are only recommendations or a set of rules (refers to the latter), and the bulk should take their thoughts.

Historical reference

The essay comes from the French "attempt", "trial", "essay." And this genre originated also in this beautiful country, even in the Renaissance. The French writer and philosopher Michel de Montaigne first attempted to write "about everything and about anything, without having a preliminary theme and plan of action." He argued that he likes to soften the boldness of his thoughts, adding to the proposals moderately questioning speculation "maybe" and "probably." So "it is possible" - became an expression of the formula of essays in principle. Epstein, in turn, defined this genre as a meta-hypothesis, with its original reality and a way of depicting this reality.

Differences from the novel

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

Unlike the novel, the essay is monologic and represents the individuality of the author. This narrows its scope as a genre, and the picture of the world is presented in a highly subjective way. At the same time, the essay is inevitably interesting in that it reveals the inner world of a particular person, not a fictitious, but entirely real - with its merits and demerits. The stylistics of such a literary work always contains an imprint of the human soul. The novel also reveals the characters of all the characters and characters that came from the pen of the author, not less interesting, but virtually, unreal.

Why write an essay?

Students and applicants in the threshold of exams often have a question about how to write an essay. A sample of writing this kind of work is also searched often, and, it is worth saying, it is not difficult to find it. But why write it in principle? This question also has an answer.

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

Usually essays are devoted to philosophical, intellectual and moral-ethical issues. The latter is often used for assigning essays to schoolchildren - they are not presented with strict requirements, citing lack of erudition and informal design of the work.

Classification

Conditionally, the essays are divided according to these criteria:

• By content. This includes artistic and artistic-plycic, historical and philosophical, spiritual and religious, etc.
• According to the literary form. Among them there can be letters or a diary, notes or reviews, lyrical miniatures.
• In form. Such as: descriptive, narrative, reflexive, analytical, compositional and critical.
• According to the form of description, there are subjective and objective differences. The first reflect the personality of the author, the latter is aimed at describing the subject, phenomenon, process, and so on.

Distinctive features

The essay can be "identified" on the following grounds:

• Small volume. Usually up to seven pages of printed text, although different educational institutions may have their own requirements in this regard. In some universities, the essay is a full-fledged work of 10 pages, while in others they value the summary of all their thoughts on two pages.
• Specificity. The essay usually answers one specific question, which is often formulated in the topic of the assignment. The interpretation of the same answer is subjective and contains author's conclusions. Again, depending on the specification of the essay, it may be necessary to consider the problem from all angles, even if half of the opinions described do not in any way directly apply to the author.
• Free composition. The essay is characterized by an associative narrative. Logical connections are thought out by the author, following his thinking. Recall, the essay opens his inner world.
• Paradoxes. And 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 it is represented in a free narrative, is obliged to have a semantic integrity.
• Consistency of theses and author's statements. Even if the author is a contradictory nature, he is obliged to explain why he can not choose one point of view, and not lose the thread of the narrative, then cutting it off, then starting again. In the end, even the pages of the diary, altered under the essay, 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 mislead the beginner: one or a couple of examples will not help much the author, who can not understand what is actually required of him.

First of all, it is worth mentioning that for writing the so-called essay, you need to freely own the topic. If you have to write for information to many sources, the essay ceases to be so. This rule comes out of the fact that the author expresses his point of view in his "trial", although, of course, he can emphasize it with quotations from great people, etc. Of course, to ensure that the data is reliable, it is necessary to verify them. But the essay is written not on the basis of the material, but based on it, coming to its conclusions and results.

Why are there problems with writing?

Many students try to find a sample of the essay, because there is not enough time in schools to write this type of work. School essays, although ranked in this genre, and some teachers formulate the task using this particular terminology, still do not have a specific specification. As already mentioned earlier, school essays do not even always sound like that. In secondary schools, children are just beginning to learn how to formulate their thoughts in a literary format. That's why many come to take the Unified State Exam with fear - they have to express their point of view in a short time, while they do not know how.

Structure of the essay

Subjects of the composition are usually given in the form of quotations of famous people, with whom the writer can agree or disagree, arguing his opinion.

That's why it is recommended to start an essay with the words "I am in agreement with this opinion" or "I can not say that I think the same as the author" or "this statement seems to me controversial, although on some points I subscribe to this opinion" .

The second sentence should contain an explanation of how the statement was understood. You need to write from yourself - which, according to 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 believe so, because ...". You can ask for help to other quotes and aphorisms with which the writer is in solidarity.

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

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

Social Studies

Social studies is an academic discipline, the subject of study of which is a complex of social sciences. The close interrelation of social doctrines is considered, and not each of them separately.

So, the course of social studies can include:

• sociology;
• political science;
• philosophy;
• psychology;
• economy.

The basics of these disciplines are being studied.

A sample of essay on social studies is often needed for graduates when writing the USE. The structure of this work completely corresponds to the structure given above. On the verification of knowledge, students can be given as a topic of statements by well-known philosophers, sociologists and other figures in the social sciences.

Below is a sample of writing an essay on social studies (in brief form).

Theme: "During the war, the laws are silent." Lukan "

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

With Lucan's statement, I associate another notorious aphorism - "In love and in war, all means are good." Probably, because many unconditionally follow this rule, considering it to be correct, and it turns out that in wartime all laws prefer to keep quiet.

But there is another side to the coin: during the war the law of war itself acts. "Kill or you will be killed". And the 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 peaceful time.

Of course, I can understand Lukan: all his quotes suggest that this person adhered to the pacifist point of view. I consider myself a peace-loving person. But this statement does not go through a logical check on my part, so I can not say that I agree with him. "

On the very EGE put a limit on the number of words in the interval form. It is very important to adhere to them, otherwise even a clearly verified structure of the essay will not pass the verification of the examiner.

History

History is ranked among the sciences of society and nature. Despite the fact that in the curriculum the disciplines are divided into two separate: the world and the country in which the training takes place, the basics of writing essays for both subjects are similar to each other.

In the election, topics for writing essays on history, can often depart from aphorisms and quotes. With equal success it can be a reflection on the global consequences of wars, an assessment of the actions of the notorious Decembrists or dissidents, the author's opinion on any historical personality or phenomenon. To write an essay on the history of a student (or an applicant, or a student) you need to have a solid knowledge of the topic. At the same time, an example of an essay on social studies is not suitable as an example, because this discipline often considers moral and ethical issues. Although to write an essay on this subject requires sufficient erudition in many areas.

But the question of how to issue an essay is important. A sample of the historical essay in its structure, again, does not depart from the set rules. However, additional requirements may be imposed on him in the form of the used list of literature and title page.

Write an essay on the history

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

• To start looking for information on a given topic: even if it is well-known, do not interfere with the repeat material.
• Further it needs to be structured, to reveal cause-effect relations, approximately to outline the plan, on which the reasoning will advance.
• It is important to think over arguments and counterarguments.
• Concerning the style: it is better to ask the teacher what is recommended to use. In rare, but available 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 told in the description of the structure of the essay).

Russian language

The essay on the Russian language is somewhat like a school essay-reasoning, but on such knowledge checks as the USE, includes more rules of writing. This is its complexity.

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

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

Apparently, the usual structure of the essay adds clarification: the topic (in this case - the problematics) is revealed by the writer and formulated by him. In addition, when checking the composition of 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 inspector are added and when using literary arguments, known examples and so on. The sequence in this case also plays an important role. The sample of the essay on the Russian language should clearly follow all the above requirements.

English

In an essay on English in post-Soviet countries, where he is not native, completely depart from the rule of giving as a topic a statement or a quotation. Translated into Russian, they are often very simple, and the writing of the essay itself is aimed at checking the use of a foreign language in presenting your thoughts.

Much attention should be given to grammar, different times, complex constructions, synonyms for simple words.

Essays on English: classification

Works in English are divided into three types:

• "For" and "against" a phenomenon that is a topic of the essay;
• An essay-opinion, in which it is very important to look at the topic from different angles;
• Proposing solutions to some problem (often giving something global).

Writing essays in English

And now a specific task is given: to write an essay on English. A sample of how this can be done is presented below.

• Use the introductory words: addition, indeed, generally, mostly, usually, recently, besides.
• Insert the template phrases from which you can begin the paragraph: to begin with, doubtless, one argument is support of.
• Use English cliches, stable phrases, idioms, phraseology and sayings: long story short, one can not deny, one does not simply, nail drives out nail.
• Do not forget about how you can formulate the conclusion in English: in conclusion, I can say that although, so it's up to everybody to decide whether ... or not.

Decor

Above it was detailed how to write an essay correctly. The sample, formally though it was provided only one, reflects the essence of what is happening and what the examiner wants to see in the opus he has been given.

But after the composition was written, there is a problem with its design.

Usually such specification is specified by the teacher. And the obstacle lies specifically in how to formalize the title page in the essay.

The 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 a higher education institution,

Faculty,

Department.

In the center of the sheet:

discipline,

Theme essay.

On the right side of the page:

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

Full Name.

Below the page, in the middle:

City, year of writing.

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

For example, if you review the sample of the essay on the history, you can be sure that in this case, the work is written based on the sources used. So sometimes you need a bibliography. But even this does not bring particular difficulties in how the essay is formalized. A sample of writing a list of used literature is the same as that of reports, abstracts and other similar works.

For example:

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

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

SM Kegor "Horror and Awe". - К: Republic, 1983 - 183 with.

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

Conclusion

At the beginning of the article, a detailed classification of the essay types was provided. Summing up, you can identify its simplified section, taking into account all mentioned here. So, let us select conditionally:

• Essays that are written when passing the USE (have clear boundaries of the volume, up to the number of words, are written in exactly the specified terms, measured in hours or even minutes, do not have a specification in the form of a title page and a bibliography, in turn, are divided according to the subject, depending From the academic discipline).
• The essays written by students of various universities (the volume is determined in the pages, from two to seven, the terms are allocated based on the frequency of classes, seminars, lectures, drawn up according to the above information together with the title page and the list of sources used).

The article contains: terminology, history, essay design, work pattern, structure and requirements. All this will help to successfully write and complete this work.