Every essay must have:
1. A Beginning;
2. A Middle; and
3. An End.
(a) If your beginning is poor, you prejudice the reader against you.
(b) If your conclusion is weak, the last impression you make upon him is bad.
Take some pains, therefore, to find a striking opening.
(c) The body of the essay is easier to manage. The main points to bear in mind are the necessity of:
(¡) Relevance. Do not let a word or an idea side-track you. Here the great essay-writers are bad models. They can disgress gracefully, so that the digression is an added beauty; but that is an art beyond the reach of the learner and the inexperienced writer or the examination candidate.
(¡¡) Proportion.
(¡¡¡) A sufficiently detailed treatment of each idea.
This involves limitation of the number of ideas.
(iv) Careful division into paragraphs, each dealing with one idea.
(v) A smooth and natural transition from one paragraph to the next.
To make this easy transition requires some practice.
Here, you must study a selection of the best essays, and note the different ways in which it can be effected.
Perhaps the detailed treatment of each idea is, after the linking of paragraphs, the matter in which most students find themselves at a loss. This is because they do not realise the value of detail and illustration. They do not expand their ideas, working out their implications.
When, then, you are writing of the rival merits of the cinema and the theatre, and have mentioned that the film can present realistically scenes which can never be shown at all on the stage, do not drop the point and pass on to the next paragraph. Give examples from your own experience, if possible.
So, too, when you are writing on "Historica Novels as pictures of Life in the past,"
you must not be content to say that some authors give vivid pictures of the life of the common people, or even that Scott does this. You must give as many examples as your alloted space will allow, drawn from as many different books as possible.
A mere catalogue, however, will not do. You must, here again, add sufficient detail---a skilful phrase will often be enough---to individualise the people or vivify the scenes which you include.
Not only will this device make your essay attractive instead of unreadable, it will also show the examiner that you have intellectual interests and that you can relate your amusements to your work, instead of merely regarding essay-writing as a mechanical and unpleasant reproduction of other peoples' ideas on a stereotyped plan.
Imagination may, in some subjects, supply your details. Do not be afraid to invent. You are the creator of a small work of art, not a witness on oath. If you put into your country lane flowers and insects which were not there but might have been, if you provide your Aunt Jane with a hooked nose or an interest in snakes that she does not possess, nobody will be the wiser and nobody will be the worse, but your essay may be much the better.
The conclusion of your essay, like the opening, must arrest attention. Do not therefore write "But my time has expired and i must stop." Nor should you write, "Thus we see that....," and then proceed to show that it is possible to repeat in one or two sentences all that you have written in five pages of essay. Do not be afraid that, unless in some form or other you say "My essay is now ended," your work will be unfinished. Study once more a few closing sentences from practised essayists.
Your concluding paragraph should be a brief restatement of your main points in way that makes clear their importance.
Look over the endings of some of the essays that you have written so far. Choose one ending that you think is not so good as it might be. Rewrite the ending in a way that rounds off your essay more effectively and leaves your reader with the idea or impression you intend.
By: Admin http://high-english-writing.blogspot.com/
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