establish your purpose
think about your topic
compose your thesis statement
Considering your reader
In the process of researching a subject, synthesising that research, and shaping it into a coherent text, you will learn that subject thoroughly. By writing an essay about a subject, you master it in a way you could not do so merely by reading or listening to a lecture. You learn more efficiently and remember longer knowledge you have expressed in written form.
You don’t, however, write academic essays only for yourself. You write them to display to your professors the extent to which you understand an aspect of the content of a course you are taking. Your professors will read your essay, decide on its worth, and give it a grade. For this reason, it is crucial that, before you begin to write, you consider the expectations of your reader.
Readers influence content
Your primary reader is your teacher. You might share your essay with a classmate, a friend, or a family member and get their input before you hand your essay in. Your professor might show your essay to a colleague or share it with the rest of the class. But your primary reader is your teacher and it is his or her needs and expectations you must meet. In other words, you must match the content of your essay to the needs and expectations of your reader.
Begin by reading the assignment sheet and list of topics with extreme care. Look for terms like ‘describe,’ ‘explain,’ ‘define,’ ‘analyse,’ ‘compare and contrast,’ ‘discuss.’ These are key clues to your professor’s expectations. If your topic is describe and explain the process of photosynthesis, that is exactly what you must do. If your topic is discuss the causes of the First World War, do not compare and contrast the peace settlement of World War One with the peace settlement of World War Two. If you are asked to compare and contrast Ode to a Nightingale and Ode on a Grecian Urn, do not discuss the life of John Keats, except insofar as it might be relevant to the main topic. The first few words of the topic usually identify the focus your professor expects you to take. Successful writers accommodate their reader’s expectations.
Be clear about the required length of your essay, as well. Length will determine the level of detail you are expected to provide. An economics professor, for example, could ask for a thousand-word or a five thousand-word essay on the law of demand and supply; the length would dictate the level of detail you would include in such an essay. You must meet or exceed slightly the required length. If you do not, your ideas are likely not developed in the detail your professor wants.
Finally, clarify any important aspect of the assignment your teacher may not have made clear. Question anything not clear to you: Do you want us to include a plot summary along with our analysis of the story? How many sources do you expect us to cite? Are there sources you would particularly recommend? How many words do you want? May we use sub-titles? The more you know about what your reader wants, the more successful your writing will be.
Readers influence style
Style identifies the manner in which you present information to your readers. If you are sending an email to your friend, your writing style will be informal; your sentence structure might be fragmented; you will likely use slang; you will not be overly concerned about spelling.
The reader of your academic essays, on the other hand, are well-educated and working with you in an academic setting. They will expect you to present your information in a fairly mature and relatively formal writing style. You should not be flippant or sarcastic in an academic essay, nor, at the other extreme, should you be pedantic. Try to strike a balance with a style that is smooth and natural but appropriate for a well-educated reader. Most of your textbooks should be written in such a style and might provide you with a model to emulate.
Readers judge quality
Your friend who receives your email will not judge your sentence structure, paragraph structure, spelling, or grammar. Your professor who grades your academic essay will make that judgement.
Try to find out everything you can about the criteria your professor will use to assess your work. If your professor provides you with a list of the criteria, work closely with it as you write and revise your essay. If your professor does not provide the class with specific information about how essays will be evaluated, try to get some general guidelines at least. Studies clearly indicate that students who understand the criteria on which their writing will be judged write better essays than students who do not know how their teachers will evaluate their writing.
Establishing your purpose
After you have considered the needs of your reader, consider your purpose in writing this academic essay. We write for many reasons: we write a letter to exchange news with friends; we write a poem to express our feelings; we keep a journal to record daily observations.
Academic writing has usually one of two purposes: to provide information which a teacher has requested or to advance an argument about an issue related to the subject you are studying. In other words, academic essays are generally written in either the informative (also known as the expository) rhetorical mode or in the persuasive rhetorical mode.
The informative mode
An informative (also known as the expository) essay presents complete and accurate information about a specific topic. If you are asked to discuss the causes of the war in Iraq or to explain how to treat a victim of a heart attack or to define post structuralism or to compare and contrast Freudian and Jungian methods of treating obsessive-compulsive disorder or to explain the rules of cricket, you will write an informative essay. The purpose of an informative essay is to provide your reader with information he or she has requested or can use. Here is an example of a paragraph written in the informative mode. It is from an essay, which explains to readers how to choose an appropriate bottle of wine. Notice that the information provided is specific and detailed, the result mainly of the author’s use of examples in support of the paragraph’s main idea.
The good host will also know something about the grapes from which wines are made, if he is to make just the right choice for his dinner guests. A wine made from the cabernet sauvignon grape will be rich and deep red and will go best with red meats, especially pot roasts, steaks, ribs, and lamb. Wines made from the chardonnay grape, on the other hand, produce dry white wines that will go well with main courses made from fish, shellfish, poultry, and veal. Wines made from the pinot noir grape will be red, but lighter than those made from the cabernet sauvignon. Pinot noir wines are the perfect complement to barbequed red meat and chicken. The gewürztraminer grape, native to Germany, produces dry white wines with exotic perfumes and are perfect complements to Asian food, Japanese and Thai dishes especially. With a vegetarian meal, a light and crisp wine made from the sauvignon blanc grape, with its wonderful aroma of grass and pea pods, is ideal.
A special type of informative writing, known as the literature review, is an important component of much academic writing. The “lit review” is a component of masters theses, doctoral dissertations, and research studies; it is the section where authors put their own study in context by reviewing related work done earlier on the subject of their investigation. If, for example, a psychologist were designing and conducting a study to investigate the effect of aging on memory loss, she would need a special section of her report to review relevant studies done before she did hers. Here is an excerpt from such a lit review:
Gershin (2001) conducted a longitudinal study to measure memory loss among residents of a nursing home in Cornwall. The study was done over a ten-year period with twenty-three residents who were in their late seventies at the start of the study. Gershin found that there was an average of an 8% memory loss per resident per year over the ten-year period, based upon written and verbal tests that asked residents to recall names of close relatives and famous people. She found, as well, that memory loss escalated as the years passed, so that in the last two years of the ten-year period, the eighteen residents still participating were experiencing a 24-30% memory loss. Westin (2003) got similar results from his five-year study of elderly Japanese nursing home residents, as did Hasslebeck (1999), whose