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How To Write An Essay

This document provides guidelines for writing four different types of essays: narrative, opinion, review, and for and against. It outlines the typical structure for each type: 1. A narrative essay should have 3 paragraphs for background, events, and results. It provides tips for an engaging beginning and using descriptive language and connectors to tell a story. 2. An opinion essay introduces a problem, states your opinion and reasons, discusses other opinions, and concludes by restating your views. 3. A review introduces a book/film, summarizes the plot, provides general comments using descriptive adjectives, and recommends whether to read/watch it. 4. A for and against essay generally states

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35 views

How To Write An Essay

This document provides guidelines for writing four different types of essays: narrative, opinion, review, and for and against. It outlines the typical structure for each type: 1. A narrative essay should have 3 paragraphs for background, events, and results. It provides tips for an engaging beginning and using descriptive language and connectors to tell a story. 2. An opinion essay introduces a problem, states your opinion and reasons, discusses other opinions, and concludes by restating your views. 3. A review introduces a book/film, summarizes the plot, provides general comments using descriptive adjectives, and recommends whether to read/watch it. 4. A for and against essay generally states

Uploaded by

Ara Cava
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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How to write

an essay
A narrative essay
A narrative essay should have at least three paragraphs:
Background

Events

Result

Writing a story, from imagination or real, usually requires a sense of the dramatic.
Remember you need a good beginning that arouses the interest and curiosity of the
reader, so try to avoid dull beginnings like: I was on the beach and the sun was
shining Try something like: There I was, lying on the sand under the glorious
sun. In the background paragraph you should give all the information that is relevant
for the story you are going to tell: when did it happen? where? how many people were
involved?, etc.
In the events paragraph you have to narrate the body of the story. The most common
tenses used to tell a story are the past simple, past continuous and past perfect. You can
use adverbs to make your story more vivid and remember to use connectors to join the
sentences so that they are not too short and sketchy:

Time connectors : when, as soon as, at that moment, one


night/morning, until, suddenly
A sequence of facts: then, later, after that, at last
Simultaneous actions: meanwhile, in the meantime, at the same time

In the results paragraph, remember it is important to supply a well-rounded ending to


your story: Even now I can still remember that terrible scene clearly, It was the
most amazing/surprising thing that has ever happened to me, I had never thought
something like that could happen to us, I had never had such a great time.

An opinion essay
The basic format of an opinion essay is:
Introducing/Stating
the problem

Your personal
opinion and the
reasons of it

Other peoples
opinions and why
they are wrong

Conclusion/Restatement
of your views

Before you start writing it is absolutely essential to make a clear ordered plan (on paper
or in your head) and stick to it as far as possible when you are writing. If you get
confused your reader will too.
Each paragraph should contain a key sentence that the writer goes on to explore in
further detail in the rest of the paragraph, either by giving examples, an extra
explanation, a judgement or a mixture of them all.
In this kind of essay you are likely to use any tense, but we often use the second
conditional to envisage what would happen if our line of argument was or was not
followed: If people smoked less, the incidence of lung cancer would not be so high.
In the second paragraph, to introduce your opinion you may want to use some of these
expressions: I believe/think that, It strikes me that, As I see it, In my opinion, To my
mind, I feel very strongly that, I am inclined to believe that, I am absolutely
convinced that, I would say that, I am totally opposed to/against, I am in favour
of, It seems to me that
In the third paragraph you can introduce arguments people would use against your case
and show why you think they are wrong. The following phrases are useful:
It is popularly believed that., but
People often claim that, but
People argue thatbut what they dont realise is
People think thatbut that couldnt be further from the truth
Contrary to popular belief,
In the last paragraph we use expressions such as: In conclusion, To summarise, To
sum up

A review
The basic plan for the review of a book or film should be:
Introduction/background

Plot

General comments

Recommendation

To start the introduction we could use something like: The book/film


shows/concerns/deals with/describes/tells the story of /is based onYou can also give
technical information: The film is directed/produced by, It stars, It is set in, The
book has been written by, It is illustrated/published by
To tell the plot, you give all the details of the story in chronological order so you will
have to use connectors (see A narrative essay). As for the tenses, it is common to use
the present simple: At the beginning of the film, two FBI agents are driving south to
investigate the disappearance of three young men.
In the general comments you may want to give your opinion. Remember to use a good
variety of adjectives, not just good, bad, beautiful, interesting or boring:

extraordinary, fantastic, fascinating, amazing, superb, thrilling, brilliant, original,


amusing, entertaining, exciting, unimaginative, humourless, awful, predictable,
disappointing, unconvincing, heavy, etc. You may want to mention the good and bad
aspects in one sentence, so you will have to use words to make contrasting points: On
the one handon the other hand, Although, Despite/in spite of, Whereas ,
However, Nevertheless
Finally, you give your verdict: All in all/In the last analysis/ In conclusion I can
thoroughly recommend this book/film because
, or I find this book/film rather so I would not recommend it.

A for and
essay

against

This can be similar to an opinion essay, although it is less personal: remember that here
you are asked to give arguments for and against the topic, so you should try to give
equal weight to both and make sure your final decision is a well-balanced consideration
of the points you have outlined. The basic format should be:
General statement
of the problem/
situation

Points for

Points against

Weighing up the
points outlined and
coming
to
a
decision

Before you start the essay remember to make a list of the pros and cons in two separate
lists and of possible conclusions, otherwise you may get lost while you are writing.
It is important to make your first paragraph interesting. You may want to give some
surprising facts or statistics, to make a controversial statement or even to begin with a
quotation.
A for and against composition should not be just a list of ideas. Sentences need to be
linked by suitable words and the correct and varied use of connectors is important in
giving your writing style:
To make contrasting points: On the one handon the other hand, Although,
Despite/in spite of, Whereas , However, Nevertheless
To introduce the result of something: So, therefore, as a result
To give reasons: because/as/since, because of, due to, owing to
To add ideas: in addition, too, moreover, furthermore, whats more,
besides, as well
To introduce an example: For example, for instance
To enumerate: Firstly, secondly, finally
In the last paragraph we could use expressions such as: In conclusion, To
summarise, To sum up, All in all

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