The point of writing is to tell someone something. This could be telling a story, giving instructions, comparing things, or just writing to give information or opinions. Essays are pieces of writing where the author is telling something to the audience, and trying to connect with them in one way or another in order to make what they say have some kind of meaning to the members of the audience. There are many tools that are important elements of an essay. In order to write a meaningful essay that the audience can relate to, there is a method, and different tools that must be considered.
First I will talk about the method to writing an essay. In order to write a good essay there are steps that you should follow. The first step is to write down everything you know about the subject you are writing about. This allows you to empty all of the information from your mind and put it down on paper. This should be the first draft and the first step. Secondly you should go through all of the information that you have written, and edit. You should delete any information that does not need to be in the essay. Any information that will not add to the importance, or the audience understanding should be taken out. Then you should elaborate and give details of any information that you do want to keep in the essay. This is where you expand and go into depth in each area of importance. The next step after editing and expanding would be to get other people to review and give feedback. This is an important step because this allows you to get fresh sets of eyes to look at your work, and this is your first introduction to a part of your audience. This is helpful because peers can look at your work and let you know what is working well, and what isn't. This can allow you to make changes in order to make any unclear parts more clear for the audience. The next step would be to add the introduction. With a clear body for your paper it is now easy to introduce what is contained within. This is where you can explain to your audience what you are writing about. Include a thesis statement containing the subject you have written about. This introduction is much easier to write at the end because it is easy to introduce a paper that is already organized and detailed. The conclusion can be written at the same time as it is also just a brief summary again of what the paper is about. The introduction and conclusion are just summaries of the body. Telling what you have written about, and perhaps the importance and why you shared what you did.
Now that I have given the method for writing a good essay, I will now touch on some other important tools and elements that can be used in an essay to further help an author to connect to the audience. In a narrative, or an essay in which a story is being told, a point is being argued, or something is being explained, there are elements that are important for flow and audience connection. There should be characters, settings, plot,, theme, story grammar, and a sequential timeline of events to name a few. These are all important elements, but something that should be kept in mind is that each element influences the other elements. Another important tool found in essays is cause and effect. Using a causal chain of events explains why a certain event or series of events occurred. It helps the audience to keep track and understand the reason why things happened as well as gives them a timeline to follow which can help their understanding. If each cause and effect has a direct relationship the reader can easily stay focused, and the essay will flow better.
Visual rhetoric is another useful tool in helping an audience connect to an essay. Two important things are done in a visual rhetoric. First of all the author explains the objective material, or what is easily seen by the audience. Next, it explains the subjective information, or what is only known by the author. Another set of tools that are helpful in essays are gazes. There are many different gazes that an author may use in an essay. There is a familial gaze, which when talked about brings to the readers mind an intimate and personal memory of their own, which helps them make a connection to what is being talked about in the essay. There are other gazes as well such as consumer gazes, national gazes, political gazes, religious gazes, cultural gazes, and even traveling gazes. Gazes are used to make imprints on the reader that persuades them to think or act a certain way. Also used in essays are pathos, or emotions, as well as logos, or logic.
Compare and contrast is another tool used in essays. This is where we take similarities and differences of certain objects and point them out. One way to do this is subject by subject. This is where we take one point from each example, argument, or visual and we compare and contrast them one point at a time. Another way is by using side by side comparison in which you take one subject and list all the details, and then take the other subject and list all of their details and then at the end you list all of the similarities or differences found.
Definition in essays is also important. This is where the author explains and defines their point, tells the audience why it is important, and then they tell the audience what importance it has to them personally or why they should know this information. Without definition the audience would feel no connection to the topic of the essay. The final tool I am going to talk about here is classification and division, which is where the author points out some main points or segments in the essay and then they further divide those segments listing details and expanding on each segment. The segments are called classifications, and then the details given are the divisions of the classifications.
There are many tools that are useful in writing essays, but the most important thing for an author to remember is that they are writing for the purpose of someone reading what it is they are writing. So whatever tools are used are there in order to assist the author in being able to make a meaningful connection to the vast audience that will read their work. Without a meaningful connection the essay is basically pointless. So it is important to remember this when writing in order to write in a manner in which an audience can understand and connect to what you have taken the time to write.
