Developing an Essay

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Developing and Essay
Most of the papers you write in college are essays. Whether you argue against pesticides, describe a physics experiment, analyze a business case, interpret a novel, examine the causes of a historical event, or tell of a personal experience, you are exploring your relation to the world and presenting ideas for someone to consider. You are writing an essay, a nonfiction composition that analyzes and interprets a topic, offering your view of it.

All your essay writing serves a basic purpose: you aim to communicate something about a topic to a particular audience of readers. These three components of the essay - you the writer, the topic, the audience - interact continuously during the writing process. You choose a subject that you care about and believe readers will care about. As you develop and arrange information about the topic, you balance your view, the demands of the subject, and the needs, interest, and expectations of the audience. If you have done your part, readers will be drawn into your world and will experience the subject as you do.

The general purpose of essay writing is thus communication by a writer through a subject to an audience. But shaping he materials for the benefit of an audience requires as well a more specific conception of purpose, a goal for a particular essay to achieve. Sometimes you will want to entertain readers or share with them your beliefs and feelings. More often you will want to inform readers about a subject or persuade them to agree with your opinion. These goals or intention often overlap in a single essay. You may combine, say, persuasion and self-expression in writing about a saxophonist's unusual talent. Or you may combine information and entertainment in an essay on an especially raucous rock concert. But an essay will have a primary intention that demands emphasis on one the three elements of the writing process. When you write mainly to express yourself, for instance, you predominate because you are the subject. In contrast, when you write mainly to persuade or entertain readers, they are your focus. And when you write mainly to inform readers about a subject, the subject itself is the focus. But always the other two elements also help determine what and how you write.