1 What is an Essay?

There are, of course, many types of writing. There are books, poems, news articles, journal entries, letters, and more. All kinds of writing are valuable and have unique purposes and forms. But in the chapters of this book, we will learning how to write an essay. An essay is a text in which a writer shares an argument, opinion, or experience. This means that the purpose of an essay varies; for instance, one could write a personal essay or an academic essay. Our focus is the academic essay, as this is the most common kind of writing assigned in college courses.

The academic essay may not sound the most exciting, but if you take it as an opportunity to share your unique thoughts and opinions, an can be interesting to write. Furthermore, there are various different ways to write an essay. However, as stated in the introduction, we will only be focusing on one essay format to get you started.

Hopefully, you are also getting opportunities to write other types of texts in your courses or personal life. The good news is that practicing any type of writing (no matter what language it is in) can help you become a better essay writer. So, don’t feel like you need to limit yourself to writing essays. Explore it all!

You still might not be able to imagine what exactly an academic essay looks like or sounds like. However, I am hopeful that it will become clear to you very quickly. Starting in the next chapter, we will closely look at many examples of academic essays.