Typically, an essay has five paragraphs: an introduction, a conclusion, and three body paragraphs. However, there is no set rule about the number of paragraphs in an essay.
The number of paragraphs can vary depending on the type and scope of your essay. An expository or argumentative essay may require more body paragraphs to include all the necessary information, whereas a narrative essay may need fewer.
To enhance the coherence and readability of your essay, it’s important to follow certain rules regarding the structure. Take a look:
1. Arrange your information from the most simple to the most complex bits. You can start the body paragraph off with a general statement and then move on to specifics.
2. Provide the necessary background information at the beginning of your essay to give the reader the context behind your thesis statement.
3. Select topic statements that provide value, more information, or evidence for your thesis statement.
There are also various essay structures , such as the compare and contrast structure, chronological structure, problem method solution structure, and signposting structure that you can follow to create an organized and impactful essay.
An impactful, well-structured essay comes down to three important parts: the introduction, body, and conclusion.
1. The introduction sets the stage for your essay and is typically a paragraph long. It should grab the reader’s attention and give them a clear idea of what your essay will be about.
2. The body is where you dive deeper into your topic and present your arguments and evidence. It usually consists of two paragraphs, but this can vary depending on the type of essay you’re writing.
3. The conclusion brings your essay to a close and is typically one paragraph long. It should summarize the main points of the essay and leave the reader with something to think about.
The length of your paragraphs can vary depending on the type of essay you’re writing. So, make sure you take the time to plan out your essay structure so each section flows smoothly into the next.
When it comes to writing an essay, the introduction is a critical component that sets the tone for the entire piece. A well-crafted introduction not only grabs the reader’s attention but also provides them with a clear understanding of what the essay is all about. An essay editor can help you achieve this, but it’s best to know the brief yourself!
Letâs take a look at how to write an attractive and informative introductory paragraph.
1. Construct an attractive hook
To grab the reader’s attention, an opening statement or hook is crucial. This can be achieved by incorporating a surprising statistic, a shocking fact, or an interesting anecdote into the beginning of your piece.
For example, if youâre writing an essay about water conservation you can begin your essay with, âClean drinking water, a fundamental human need, remains out of reach for more than one billion people worldwide. It deprives them of a basic human right and jeopardizes their health and wellbeing.â
2. Provide sufficient context or background information
An effective introduction should begin with a brief description or background of your topic. This will help provide context and set the stage for your discussion.
For example, if you’re writing an essay about climate change, you start by describing the current state of the planet and the impact that human activity is having on it.
3. Construct a well-rounded and comprehensive thesis statement
A good introduction should also include the main message or thesis statement of your essay. This is the central argument that you’ll be making throughout the piece. It should be clear, concise, and ideally placed toward the end of the introduction.
By including these elements in your introduction, you’ll be setting yourself up for success in the rest of your essay.
Letâs take a look at an example.
The Wright Brothers’ invention of the airplane in 1903 revolutionized the way humans travel and explore the world. Prior to this invention, transportation relied on trains, boats, and cars, which limited the distance and speed of travel. However, the airplane made air travel a reality, allowing people to reach far-off destinations in mere hours. This breakthrough paved the way for modern-day air travel, transforming the world into a smaller, more connected place. In this essay, we will explore the impact of the Wright Brothers’ invention on modern-day travel, including the growth of the aviation industry, increased accessibility of air travel to the general public, and the economic and cultural benefits of air travel.
You can persuade your readers and make your thesis statement compelling by providing evidence, examples, and logical reasoning. To write a fool-proof and authoritative essay, you need to provide multiple well-structured, substantial arguments.
Letâs take a look at how this can be done:
1. Write a topic sentence for each paragraph
The beginning of each of your body paragraphs should contain the main arguments that youâd like to address. They should provide ground for your thesis statement and make it well-rounded. You can arrange these arguments in several formats depending on the type of essay youâre writing.
2. Provide the supporting information
The next point of your body paragraph should provide supporting information to back up your main argument. Depending on the type of essay, you can elaborate on your main argument with the help of relevant statistics, key information, examples, or even personal anecdotes.
3. Analyze the supporting information
After providing relevant details and supporting information, it is important to analyze it and link it back to your main argument.
End one body paragraph with a smooth transition to the next. There are many ways in which this can be done, but the most common way is to give a gist of your main argument along with the supporting information with transitory words such as âhoweverâ âin addition toâ âthereforeâ.
Hereâs an example of a body paragraph.
The Wright Brothers’ invention of the airplane revolutionized air travel. They achieved the first-ever successful powered flight with the Wright Flyer in 1903, after years of conducting experiments and studying flight principles. Despite their first flight lasting only 12 seconds, it was a significant milestone that paved the way for modern aviation. The Wright Brothers’ success can be attributed to their systematic approach to problem-solving, which included numerous experiments with gliders, the development of a wind tunnel to test their designs, and meticulous analysis and recording of their results. Their dedication and ingenuity forever changed the way we travel, making modern aviation possible.
A powerful concluding statement separates a good essay from a brilliant one. To create a powerful conclusion, you need to start with a strong foundation.
Letâs take a look at how to construct an impactful concluding statement.
1. Restructure your thesis statement
To conclude your essay effectively, don’t just restate your thesis statement. Instead, use what you’ve learned throughout your essay and modify your thesis statement accordingly. This will help you create a conclusion that ties together all of the arguments you’ve presented.
2. Summarize the main points of your essay
The next point of your conclusion consists of a summary of the main arguments of your essay. It is crucial to effectively summarize the gist of your essay into one, well-structured paragraph.
3. Create a lasting impression with your concluding statement
Conclude your essay by including a key takeaway, or a powerful statement that creates a lasting impression on the reader. This can include the broader implications or consequences of your essay topic.
Hereâs an example of a concluding paragraph.
The Wright Brothers’ invention of the airplane forever changed history by paving the way for modern aviation and countless aerospace advancements. Their persistence, innovation, and dedication to problem-solving led to the first successful powered flight in 1903, sparking a revolution in transportation that transformed the world. Today, air travel remains an integral part of our globalized society, highlighting the undeniable impact of the Wright Brothers’ contribution to human civilization.
Most essays are derived from the combination or variation of these four main types of essays . letâs take a closer look at these types.
1. Narrative essay
A narrative essay is a type of writing that involves telling a story, often based on personal experiences. It is a form of creative nonfiction that allows you to use storytelling techniques to convey a message or a theme.
2. Descriptive essay
A descriptive essay aims to provide an immersive experience for the reader by using sensory descriptors. Unlike a narrative essay, which tells a story, a descriptive essay has a narrower scope and focuses on one particular aspect of a story.
3. Argumentative essays
An argumentative essay is a type of essay that aims to persuade the reader to adopt a particular stance based on factual evidence and is one of the most common forms of college essays.
4. Expository essays
An expository essay is a common format used in school and college exams to assess your understanding of a specific topic. The purpose of an expository essay is to present and explore a topic thoroughly without taking any particular stance or expressing personal opinions.
While this article demonstrates what is an essay and describes its types, you may also have other doubts. As experts who provide essay editing and proofreading services , weâre here to help.
Our team has created a list of resources to clarify any doubts about writing essays. Keep reading to write engaging and well-organized essays!
What is the difference between an argumentative and an expository essay, what is the difference between a narrative and a descriptive essay, what is an essay format, what is the meaning of essay, what is the purpose of writing an essay.
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Not sure which path your essay should follow? Formatting an essay may not be as interesting as choosing a topic to write about or carefully crafting elegant sentences, but itâs an extremely important part of creating a high-quality paper. In this article, weâll explain essay formatting rules for three of the most popular essay styles: MLA, APA, and Chicago.
For each, weâll do a high-level overview of what your essayâs structure and references should look like, then we include a comparison chart with nitty-gritty details for each style, such as which font you should use for each and whether theyâre a proponent of the Oxford comma. We also include information on why essay formatting is important and what you should do if youâre not sure which style to use.
Does it really matter which font size you use or exactly how you cite a source in your paper? It can! Style formats were developed as a way to standardize how pieces of writing and their works cited lists should look.
Why is this necessary? Imagine youâre a teacher, researcher, or publisher who reviews dozens of papers a week. If the papers didnât follow the same formatting rules, you could waste a lot of time trying to figure out which sources were used, if certain information is a direct quote or paraphrased, even who the paperâs author is. Having essay formatting rules to follow makes things easier for everyone involved. Writers can follow a set of guidelines without trying to decide for themselves which formatting choices are best, and readers donât need to go hunting for the information theyâre trying to find.
Next, weâll discuss the three most common style formats for essays.
MLA style was designed by the Modern Language Association, and it has become the most popular college essay format for students writing papers for class. It was originally developed for students and researchers in the literature and language fields to have a standardized way of formatting their papers, but it is now used by people in all disciplines, particularly humanities. MLA is often the style teachers prefer their students to use because it has simple, clear rules to follow without extraneous inclusions often not needed for school papers. For example, unlike APA or Chicago styles, MLA doesnât require a title page for a paper, only a header in the upper left-hand corner of the page.
MLA style doesnât have any specific requirements for how to write your essay, but an MLA format essay will typically follow the standard essay format of an introduction (ending with a thesis statement), several body paragraphs, and a conclusion.
One of the nice things about creating your works cited for MLA is that all references are structured the same way, regardless of whether theyâre a book, newspaper, etc. Itâs the only essay format style that makes citing references this easy! Here is a guide on how to cite any source in MLA format. When typing up your works cited, here are a few MLA format essay rules to keep in mind:
APA stands for the American Psychological Association. This format type is most often used for research papers, specifically those in behavioral sciences (such as psychology and neuroscience) and social sciences (ranging from archeology to economics). Because APA is often used for more research-focused papers, they have a more specific format to follow compared to, say, MLA style.
All APA style papers begin with a title page, which contains the title of the paper (in capital letters), your name, and your institutional affiliation (if youâre a student, then this is simply the name of the school you attend). The APA recommends the title of your paper not be longer than 12 words.
After your title page, your paper begins with an abstract. The abstract is a single paragraph, typically between 150 to 250 words, that sums up your research. It should include the topic youâre researching, research questions, methods, results, analysis, and a conclusion that touches on the significance of the research. Many people find it easier to write the abstract last, after completing the paper.
After the abstract comes the paper itself. APA essay format recommends papers be short, direct, and make their point clearly and concisely. This isnât the time to use flowery language or extraneous descriptions. Your paper should include all the sections mentioned in the abstract, each expanded upon.
Following the paper is the list of references used. Unlike MLA style, in APA essay format, every source type is referenced differently. So the rules for referencing a book are different from those for referencing a journal article are different from those referencing an interview. Hereâs a guide for how to reference different source types in APA format . Your references should begin on a new page that says âREFERENCESâ at the top, centered. The references should be listed in alphabetical order.
Chicago style (sometimes referred to as âTurabian styleâ) was developed by the University of Chicago Press and is typically the least-used by students of the three major essay style formats. The Chicago Manual of Style (currently on its 17th edition) contains within its 1000+ pages every rule you need to know for this style. This is a very comprehensive style, with a rule for everything. Itâs most often used in history-related fields, although many people refer to The Chicago Manual of Style for help with a tricky citation or essay format question. Many book authors use this style as well.
Like APA, Chicago style begins with a title page, and it has very specific format rules for doing this which are laid out in the chart below. After the title page may come an abstract, depending on whether youâre writing a research paper or not. Then comes the essay itself. The essay can either follow the introduction â body â conclusion format of MLA or the different sections included in the APA section. Again, this depends on whether youâre writing a paper on research you conducted or not.
Unlike MLA or APA, Chicago style typically uses footnotes or endnotes instead of in-text or parenthetical citations. Youâll place the superscript number at the end of the sentence (for a footnote) or end of the page (for an endnote), then have an abbreviated source reference at the bottom of the page. The sources will then be fully referenced at the end of the paper, in the order of their footnote/endnote numbers. The reference page should be titled âBibliographyâ if you used footnotes/endnotes or âReferencesâ if you used parenthetical author/date in-text citations.
Below is a chart comparing different formatting rules for APA, Chicago, and MLA styles.
or ). | |||
including the title page. | |||
What if your teacher hasnât specified which essay format they want you to use? The easiest way to solve this problem is simply to ask your teacher which essay format they prefer. However, if you canât get ahold of them or they donât have a preference, we recommend following MLA format. Itâs the most commonly-used essay style for students writing papers that arenât based on their own research, and its formatting rules are general enough that a teacher of any subject shouldnât have a problem with an MLA format essay. The fact that this style has one of the simplest sets of rules for citing sources is an added bonus!
Thinking about taking an AP English class? Read our guide on AP English classes to learn whether you should take AP English Language or AP English Literature (or both!)
Compound sentences are an importance sentence type to know. Read our guide on compound sentences for everything you need to know about compound, complex, and compound-complex sentences.
Need ideas for a research paper topic? Our guide to research paper topics has over 100 topics in ten categories so you can be sure to find the perfect topic for you.
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What does a good essay need.
An academic essay aims to persuade readers of an idea based on evidence .
Although there are some basic steps to writing an assignment, essay writing is not a linear process. You might work through the different stages a number of times in the course of writing an essay. For example, you may go back to the reading and notetaking stage if you find another useful text, or perhaps to reread to locate specific information.
Establish a possible thesis/point of view |
Use books, journals and other credible academic sources for support and evidence. |
from your readings. |
and organise your ideas. |
to include your introduction, body and conclusion. |
Set the draft aside for a day or two, then |
- ask a friend/parent/colleague to read it. |
your essay. |
Complete or finalise your |
Complete your final draft and |
Essay and assignment writing guide.
10 May, 2020
11 minutes read
Author: Tomas White
Well, beyond a jumble of words usually around 2,000 words or so - what is an essay, exactly? Whether youâre taking English, sociology, history, biology, art, or a speech class, itâs likely youâll have to write an essay or two. So how is an essay different than a research paper or a review? Letâs find out!
The essay is a written piece that is designed to present an idea, propose an argument, express the emotion or initiate debate. It is a tool that is used to present writer’s ideas in a non-fictional way. Multiple applications of this type of writing go way beyond, providing political manifestos and art criticism as well as personal observations and reflections of the author.
An essay can be as short as 500 words, it can also be 5000 words or more. However, most essays fall somewhere around 1000 to 3000 words ; this word range provides the writer enough space to thoroughly develop an argument and work to convince the reader of the authorâs perspective regarding a particular issue. The topics of essays are boundless: they can range from the best form of government to the benefits of eating peppermint leaves daily. As a professional provider of custom writing, our service has helped thousands of customers to turn in essays in various forms and disciplines.
Over the course of more than six centuries essays were used to question assumptions, argue trivial opinions and to initiate global discussions. Let’s have a closer look into historical progress and various applications of this literary phenomenon to find out exactly what it is.
Todayâs modern word âessayâ can trace its roots back to the French âessayerâ which translates closely to mean âto attemptâ . This is an apt name for this writing form because the essayâs ultimate purpose is to attempt to convince the audience of something. An essayâs topic can range broadly and include everything from the best of Shakespeareâs plays to the joys of April.
The essay comes in many shapes and sizes; it can focus on a personal experience or a purely academic exploration of a topic. Essays are classified as a subjective writing form because while they include expository elements, they can rely on personal narratives to support the writerâs viewpoint. The essay genre includes a diverse array of academic writings ranging from literary criticism to meditations on the natural world. Most typically, the essay exists as a shorter writing form; essays are rarely the length of a novel. However, several historic examples, such as John Lockeâs seminal work âAn Essay Concerning Human Understandingâ just shows that a well-organized essay can be as long as a novel.
The essay enjoys a long and renowned history in literature. They first began gaining in popularity in the early 16 th century, and their popularity has continued today both with original writers and ghost writers. Many readers prefer this short form in which the writer seems to speak directly to the reader, presenting a particular claim and working to defend it through a variety of means. Not sure if youâve ever read a great essay? You wouldn’t believe how many pieces of literature are actually nothing less than essays, or evolved into more complex structures from the essay. Check out this list of literary favorites:
Pretty much as long as writers have had something to say, theyâve created essays to communicate their viewpoint on pretty much any topic you can think of!
Not only are students required to read a variety of essays during their academic education, but they will likely be required to write several different kinds of essays throughout their scholastic career. Donât love to write? Then consider working with a ghost essay writer ! While all essays require an introduction, body paragraphs in support of the argumentative thesis statement, and a conclusion, academic essays can take several different formats in the way they approach a topic. Common essays required in high school, college, and post-graduate classes include:
This is the most common type of a formal essay. The type of paper that students are usually exposed to when they first hear about the concept of the essay itself. It follows easy outline structure – an opening introduction paragraph; three body paragraphs to expand the thesis; and conclusion to sum it up.
These essays are commonly assigned to explore a controversial issue. The goal is to identify the major positions on either side and work to support the side the writer agrees with while refuting the opposing sideâs potential arguments.
This essay compares two items, such as two poems, and works to identify similarities and differences, discussing the strength and weaknesses of each. This essay can focus on more than just two items, however. The point of this essay is to reveal new connections the reader may not have considered previously.
This essay has a sole purpose – defining a term or a concept in as much detail as possible. Sounds pretty simple, right? Well, not quite. The most important part of the process is picking up the word. Before zooming it up under the microscope, make sure to choose something roomy so you can define it under multiple angles. The definition essay outline will reflect those angles and scopes.
Perhaps the most fun to write, this essay focuses on describing its subject using all five of the senses. The writer aims to fully describe the topic; for example, a descriptive essay could aim to describe the ocean to someone whoâs never seen it or the job of a teacher. Descriptive essays rely heavily on detail and the paragraphs can be organized by sense.
The purpose of this essay is to describe an idea, occasion or a concept with the help of clear and vocal examples. “Illustration” itself is handled in the body paragraphs section. Each of the statements, presented in the essay needs to be supported with several examples. Illustration essay helps the author to connect with his audience by breaking the barriers with real-life examples – clear and indisputable.
Being one the basic essay types, the informative essay is as easy as it sounds from a technical standpoint. High school is where students usually encounter with informative essay first time. The purpose of this paper is to describe an idea, concept or any other abstract subject with the help of proper research and a generous amount of storytelling.
This type of essay focuses on describing a certain event or experience, most often chronologically. It could be a historic event or an ordinary day or month in a regular personâs life. Narrative essay proclaims a free approach to writing it, therefore it does not always require conventional attributes, like the outline. The narrative itself typically unfolds through a personal lens, and is thus considered to be a subjective form of writing.
The purpose of the persuasive essay is to provide the audience with a 360-view on the concept idea or certain topic – to persuade the reader to adopt a certain viewpoint. The viewpoints can range widely from why visiting the dentist is important to why dogs make the best pets to why blue is the best color. Strong, persuasive language is a defining characteristic of this essay type.
Several other artistic mediums have adopted the essay as a means of communicating with their audience. In the visual arts, such as painting or sculpting, the rough sketches of the final product are sometimes deemed essays. Likewise, directors may opt to create a film essay which is similar to a documentary in that it offers a personal reflection on a relevant issue. Finally, photographers often create photographic essays in which they use a series of photographs to tell a story, similar to a narrative or a descriptive essay.
“What is an Essay?” is quite a polarizing question. On one hand, it can easily be answered in a couple of words. On the other, it is surely the most profound and self-established type of content there ever was. Going back through the history of the last five-six centuries helps us understand where did it come from and how it is being applied ever since.
If you must write an essay, follow these five important steps to works towards earning the “A” you want:
Generally speaking, when you must write any type of essay, start sooner rather than later! Donât procrastinate – give yourself time to develop your perspective and work on crafting a unique and original approach to the topic. Remember: itâs always a good idea to have another set of eyes (or three) look over your essay before handing in the final draft to your teacher or professor. Donât trust your fellow classmates? Consider hiring an editor or a ghostwriter to help out!
If you are still unsure on whether you can cope with your task – you are in the right place to get help. HandMadeWriting is the perfect answer to the question “Who can write my essay?”
Due to human nature, we draw conclusions only when life gives us a lesson since the experience of others is not so effective and powerful. Therefore, when analyzing and sorting out common problems we face, we may trace a parallel with well-known book characters or real historical figures. Moreover, we often compare our situations with […]
Writing a research paper on ethics is not an easy task, especially if you do not possess excellent writing skills and do not like to contemplate controversial questions. But an ethics course is obligatory in all higher education institutions, and students have to look for a way out and be creative. When you find an […]
Students obtaining degrees in fine art and art & design programs most commonly need to write a paper on art topics. However, this subject is becoming more popular in educational institutions for expanding students’ horizons. Thus, both groups of receivers of education: those who are into arts and those who only get acquainted with art […]
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1. Keep it real. Itâs normal to want to make a good impression on the school of your choice, but itâs also important to show who you really are. So just be yourself! Compelling stories might not be perfectly linear or have a happy ending, and thatâs OK. Itâs best to be authentic instead of telling schools what you think they want to hear.
2. Be reflective . Think about how youâve changed during high school. How have you grown and improved? What makes you feel ready for college, and how do you hope to contribute to the campus community and society at large?
3. Look to the future. Consider your reasons for attending college. What do you hope to gain from your education? What about college excites you the most, and what would you like to do after you graduate? Answering these questions will not only give colleges insight into the kind of student youâll be, but it will also give you the personal insight youâll need to choose the school thatâs right for you.
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Do your students struggle with what it means to elaborate? In this post, we will look at types of elaboration, how to elaborate on evidence, how to elaborate in an essay, elaborations strategies, and elaboration stems. Elaboration does not have to be a stumbling block for your students. There are simple ways to spark them into elaborating. Being able to elaborate in their writing can be the difference in a good and outstanding test score.
Give me more I say! Students understand the concept of pulling information from the text, but then they freeze up when they have to write more about it. Elaborating is providing more details about the subject. The problem is, some thinkers see things as black and white. Their thoughts: What more is there to say? This is where teaching elaboration techniques can open a new world for these thinkers. They donât see a reason to say more or to explain so letâs give them a reason. Below I will give some of my strategies that can be taught one at a time and practiced.
Whether responding to a prompt or text-based writing, these techniques for elaboration can take the guesswork out of what to write. Here are some of my favorites.
Evidence: The text shares that Shah Jahan loved his wife so much that when she died, he wanted to bury her in a grand place. He built the Taj Mahal as a mausoleum to show how much he loved her.Â
Elaboration: Talk about a grand gesture. The Taj Mahal is a huge tourist attraction to this day. It is well-known for its beauty. If his wife only knew the lengths Jahan went to give her the best burial possible. People are still talking about it 400 years later. That is a memorable burial for certain.
Evidence: The source boasts that New York City puts on the Worldâs Biggest Marathon. Often times there are over 50,000 runners participating from all over the world. This doesnât account for the two million spectators that enjoy cheering.
Elaboration: Are they serious? Trying to imagine a sea of thousands of people racing seems overwhelming. Not to mention for 26 miles. This is true dedication on the part of these runners. They are willing to pound the pavement surrounded by so many strangers. A marathon on its own is challenging, but to do it with that many people seems like a true commitment.
Writing to prompts is a great way for students to begin the day with a quick writes experience. Give brainstorming ideas to boost learning.
When figuring out what is writing mechanics or choosing the right daily grammar, you may be looking for worksheets on punctuation, worksheets for 5th grade language arts, worksheets for 3rd grade language arts, or another grade level. Regardless of what grammar worksheets you use, you need to make sure writing mechanics are addressed. So, what…
Writing in elementary school can be challenging, especially when it is time for persuasive writing essays. There are many techniques for persuasive writing essays, words for persuasive writing essays, and persuasive how to guides. Where should you start? It all depends on what you are looking for. Are you trying to raise writing scores, meet…
Whatâs Expository Writing Many teachers and students want an expository writing def to make things clear. They want to know whatâs expository writing, view an expository writing sample, view an expository writing essay, see topics for expository writing, format for expository essay, and obtain a list of expository writing transition words. This post will cover…
What Persuasive Writing Entails Many students wonder what persuasive writing a.k.a argumentative writing entails. This post will give an example of persuasive essay elements, persuasive topic choices for those searching for a topic for persuasive writing, persuasive writing prompt examples from my collection of persuasive writing prompts for 5th grade, techniques of persuasive writing, graphic…
If you are looking to teach how to write a conclusion for essay assignments, you have come to the write placeâŚI mean, right place. When teaching how to write a conclusion for essay assignments all you need to do is teach the following steps. Remember, conclusions are not meant to be long. When working on…
What does it mean to be a good person? The essay below aims to answer this question. It focuses on the qualities of a good person.
What does it mean to be a good person, qualities of good person, works cited.
The term âgoodâ has relative meanings depending on the person who is defining it. Several qualities can be used to define what constitutes a good person. However, there are certain basic qualities that are used to define a good person. They include honesty, trust, generosity, compassion, empathy, humility, and forgiveness (Gelven 24).
These qualities are important because they promote peaceful coexistence among people because they prevent misunderstandings and conflicts. A good person is fair and just to all and does not judge people. He or she is nice to everyone regardless of religion, race, social and economic class, health status, or physical state (Gelven 25).
A good person treats other people with respect, care, and compassion. Respect shows that an individual values and views the other person as a worthy human being who deserves respect. Compassion is a quality that enables people to identify with other peopleâs suffering (Gelven 27). It motivates people to offer help in order to alleviate the suffering of others. A good person has compassion for others and finds ways to help people who are suffering. Showing compassion for the suffering makes them happy.
It promotes empathy, understanding, and support. In addition, good people are forgiving. They do not hold grudges and let go of anger that might lead them to hurt others. They think positively and focus their thoughts on things that improve their relationships (Needleman 33). They avoid thinking about past mistakes or wrongs done by others. Instead, they think of how they can forgive and move on.
A good person is honest and trustworthy. This implies that they avoid all situations that might hurt the other person, such as telling lies, revealing secrets, and gossiping (Needleman 34). As such, their character or personality cannot be doubted because they do not harbor hidden intentions.
They act in open ways that reveal their true characters and personalities. On the other hand, good people are kind and respectful. They offer help voluntarily and work hard to improve the well-being of other people. In addition, they treat all people equally despite their social, physical, or sexual orientations. Good people do not discriminate, hate, deny people their rights, steal, lie, or engage in corrupt practices (Tuan 53).
Good people behave courageously and view the world as a fair and beautiful place to live in (Needleman 40). They view the world as a beautiful place that offers equal opportunities to everyone. Good people believe that humans have the freedom to either make the world a better or worse place to live in. They act and behave in ways that improve and make the world a better place.
For example, they conserve the environment by keeping it clean for future generations. A popular belief holds that people who conserve the environment are not good but just environmental enthusiasts. However, that notion is incorrect and untrue. People conserve the environment because of their goodness. They think not only about themselves but also about future generations (Tuan 53). They are not self-centered and mean but generous and caring.
Good people are characterized by certain qualities that include trust, honesty, compassion, understanding, forgiveness, respect, courage, and goodwill. They do not steal, lie, discriminate, or deny people their rights. They think about othersâ welfare and advocate for actions that make the world a better place. They promote justice and fairness because they view everyone as a deserving and worthy human being.
Gelven, Michael. The Risk of Being: What it Means to be Good and Bad . New York: Penn State Press, 1997. Print.
Needleman, Jacob. Why Canât We be good? New York: Penguin Group US, 2007. Print.
Tuan, Yi-Fu. Human Goodness . New York: University of Wisconsin Press, 2008. Print.
IvyPanda. (2018, December 19). How to Be a Good Person Essay. https://ivypanda.com/essays/what-it-means-to-be-a-good-person/
"How to Be a Good Person Essay." IvyPanda , 19 Dec. 2018, ivypanda.com/essays/what-it-means-to-be-a-good-person/.
IvyPanda . (2018) 'How to Be a Good Person Essay'. 19 December.
IvyPanda . 2018. "How to Be a Good Person Essay." December 19, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/what-it-means-to-be-a-good-person/.
1. IvyPanda . "How to Be a Good Person Essay." December 19, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/what-it-means-to-be-a-good-person/.
Bibliography
IvyPanda . "How to Be a Good Person Essay." December 19, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/what-it-means-to-be-a-good-person/.
December 16, 2021
Maggie Chiang for Quanta Magazine
Remember IBMâs Watson, the AI Jeopardy! champion? A 2010 promotion proclaimed, âWatson understands natural language with all its ambiguity and complexity.â However, as we saw when Watson subsequently failed spectacularly in its quest to â revolutionize medicine with artificial intelligence ,â a veneer of linguistic facility is not the same as actually comprehending human language.
Natural language understanding has long been a major goal of AI research. At first, researchers tried to manually program everything a machine would need to make sense of news stories, fiction or anything else humans might write. This approach, as Watson showed, was futile â itâs impossible to write down all the unwritten facts, rules and assumptions required for understanding text. More recently, a new paradigm has been established: Instead of building in explicit knowledge, we let machines learn to understand language on their own, simply by ingesting vast amounts of written text and learning to predict words. The result is what researchers call a language model. When based on large neural networks, like OpenAIâs GPT-3, such models can generate uncannily humanlike prose (and poetry !) and seemingly perform sophisticated linguistic reasoning .
But has GPT-3 â trained on text from thousands of websites, books and encyclopedias â transcended Watsonâs veneer? Does it really understand the language it generates and ostensibly reasons about? This is a topic of stark disagreement in the AI research community. Such discussions used to be the purview of philosophers, but in the past decade AI has burst out of its academic bubble into the real world, and its lack of understanding of that world can have real and sometimes devastating consequences. In one study , IBMâs Watson was found to propose âmultiple examples of unsafe and incorrect treatment recommendations.â Another study showed that Googleâs machine translation system made significant errors when used to translate medical instructions for non-English-speaking patients.
How can we determine in practice whether a machine can understand? In 1950, the computing pioneer Alan Turing tried to answer this question with his famous âimitation game,â now called the Turing test. A machine and a human, both hidden from view, would compete to convince a human judge of their humanness using only conversation. If the judge couldnât tell which one was the human, then, Turing asserted, we should consider the machine to be thinking â and, in effect, understanding.
Unfortunately, Turing underestimated the propensity of humans to be fooled by machines. Even simple chatbots, such as Joseph Weizenbaumâs 1960s ersatz psychotherapist Eliza , have fooled people into believing they were conversing with an understanding being, even when they knew that their conversation partner was a machine.
In a 2012 paper , the computer scientists Hector Levesque, Ernest Davis and Leora Morgenstern proposed a more objective test, which they called the Winograd schema challenge. This test has since been adopted in the AI language community as one way, and perhaps the best way, to assess machine understanding â though as weâll see, it is not perfect. A Winograd schema, named for the language researcher Terry Winograd, consists of a pair of sentences, differing by exactly one word, each followed by a question. Here are two examples:
Sentence 1: I poured water from the bottle into the cup until it was full. Question: What was full, the bottle or the cup? Sentence 2: I poured water from the bottle into the cup until it was empty. Question: What was empty, the bottle or the cup?
Sentence 1: Joeâs uncle can still beat him at tennis, even though he is 30 years older. Question: Who is older, Joe or Joeâs uncle? Sentence 2: Joeâs uncle can still beat him at tennis, even though he is 30 years younger. Question: Who is younger, Joe or Joeâs uncle?
In each sentence pair, the one-word difference can change which thing or person a pronoun refers to. Answering these questions correctly seems to require commonsense understanding. Winograd schemas are designed precisely to test this kind of understanding, alleviating the Turing testâs vulnerability to unreliable human judges or chatbot tricks. In particular, the authors designed a few hundred schemas that they believed were âGoogle-proofâ: A machine shouldnât be able to use a Google search (or anything like it) to answer the questions correctly.
These schemas were the subject of a competition held in 2016 in which the winning program was correct on only 58% of the sentences â hardly a better result than if it had guessed. Oren Etzioni, a leading AI researcher, quipped , âWhen AI canât determine what âitâ refers to in a sentence, itâs hard to believe that it will take over the world.â
However, the ability of AI programs to solve Winograd schemas rose quickly due to the advent of large neural network language models. A 2020 paper from OpenAI reported that GPT-3 was correct on nearly 90% of the sentences in a benchmark set of Winograd schemas. Other language models have performed even better after training specifically on these tasks. At the time of this writing, neural network language models have achieved about 97% accuracy on a particular set of Winograd schemas that are part of an AI language-understanding competition known as SuperGLUE . This accuracy roughly equals human performance. Does this mean that neural network language models have attained humanlike understanding?
Not necessarily. Despite the creatorsâ best efforts, those Winograd schemas were not actually Google-proof. These challenges, like many other current tests of AI language understanding, sometimes permit shortcuts that allow neural networks to perform well without understanding. For example, consider the sentences âThe sports car passed the mail truck because it was going fasterâ and âThe sports car passed the mail truck because it was going slower.â A language model trained on a huge corpus of English sentences will have absorbed the correlation between âsports carâ and âfast,â and between âmail truckâ and âslow,â and so it can answer correctly based on those correlations alone rather than by drawing on any understanding. It turns out that many of the Winograd schemas in the SuperGLUE competition allow for these kinds of statistical correlations.
Rather than give up on the Winograd schemas as a test of understanding, a group of researchers from the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence decided instead to try to fix some of their problems. In 2019 they created WinoGrande , a much larger set of Winograd schemas. Instead of several hundred examples, WinoGrande contains a whopping 44,000 sentences. To obtain that many examples, the researchers turned to Amazon Mechanical Turk, a popular platform for crowdsourcing work. Each (human) worker was asked to write several sentence pairs, with some constraints to ensure that the collection would contain diverse topics, though now the sentences in each pair could differ by more than one word.
The researchers then attempted to eliminate sentences that could allow statistical shortcuts by applying a relatively unsophisticated AI method to each sentence and discarding any that were too easily solved. As expected, the remaining sentences presented a much harder challenge for machines than the original Winograd schema collection. While humans still scored very high, neural network language models that had matched human performance on the original set scored much lower on the WinoGrande set. This new challenge seemed to redeem Winograd schemas as a test for commonsense understanding â as long as the sentences were carefully screened to ensure that they were Google-proof.
However, another surprise was in store. In the almost two years since the WinoGrande collection was published, neural network language models have grown ever larger, and the larger they get, the better they seem to score on this new challenge. At the time of this writing, the current best programs â which have been trained on terabytes of text and then further trained on thousands of WinoGrande examples â get close to 90% correct (humans get about 94% correct). This increase in performance is due almost entirely to the increased size of the neural network language models and their training data.
Have these ever larger networks finally attained humanlike commonsense understanding? Again, itâs not likely. The WinoGrande results come with some important caveats. For example, because the sentences relied on Amazon Mechanical Turk workers, the quality and coherence of the writing is quite uneven. Also, the âunsophisticatedâ AI method used to weed out ânon-Google-proofâ sentences may have been too unsophisticated to spot all possible statistical shortcuts available to a huge neural network, and it only applied to individual sentences, so some of the remaining sentences ended up losing their âtwin.â One follow-up study showed that neural network language models tested on twin sentences only â and required to be correct on both â are much less accurate than humans, showing that the earlier 90% result is less significant than it seemed.
So, what to make of the Winograd saga? The main lesson is that it is often hard to determine from their performance on a given challenge if AI systems truly understand the language (or other data) that they process. We now know that neural networks often use statistical shortcuts â instead of actually demonstrating humanlike understanding â to obtain high performance on the Winograd schemas as well as many of the most popular âgeneral language understandingâ benchmarks .
The crux of the problem, in my view, is that understanding language requires understanding the world, and a machine exposed only to language cannot gain such an understanding. Consider what it means to understand âThe sports car passed the mail truck because it was going slower.â You need to know what sports cars and mail trucks are, that cars can âpassâ one another, and, at an even more basic level, that vehicles are objects that exist and interact in the world, driven by humans with their own agendas.
All this is knowledge that we humans take for granted, but itâs not built into machines or likely to be explicitly written down in any of a language modelâs training text. Some cognitive scientists have argued that humans rely on innate, pre-linguistic core knowledge of space, time and many other essential properties of the world in order to learn and understand language. If we want machines to similarly master human language, we will need to first endow them with the primordial principles humans are born with. And to assess machinesâ understanding, we should start by assessing their grasp of these principles, which one might call â infant metaphysics .â
Training and evaluating machines for baby-level intelligence may seem like a giant step backward compared to the prodigious feats of AI systems like Watson and GPT-3. But if true and trustworthy understanding is the goal, this may be the only path to machines that can genuinely comprehend what âitâ refers to in a sentence, and everything else that understanding âitâ entails.
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Subscriber only, minnesota vikings | sam darnold is now the unquestioned starter in minnesota. what does that mean for the vikings, he got some good work in this week with the vikings partaking in joint practices with the cleveland browns..
As impressive as Darnold has been, however, the existence of rookie quarterback J.J. McCarthy provided the Vikings with a safeguard if things started to go sideways. Not anymore.
After undergoing surgery to repair a torn right meniscus this week, McCarthy is expected to miss the season , leaving Darnold as the unquestioned starter in Minnesota. What does that mean for the Vikings? Though the answer to that question likely won’t be known for a while, there has been some reason for optimism.
“I think our offense has potential to be good,” Darnold said. “We’ve just got to continue to work every single day and I think we’ll be all right.”
There have been glimpses of it over the past couple of weeks with Darnold garnering praise from head coach Kevin O’Connell, star receiver Justin Jefferson and starting center Garrett Bradbury.
“My confidence level in Sam is very, very high at this point,” O’Connell said. “Looking forward to seeing him continue his progression.”
The progression for Darnold continued this week. After looking the part last weekend with a few nice throws in the preseason game against the Las Vegas Raiders, Darnold followed it up with good work this week during joint practices with the Cleveland Browns.
“I think he’s been doing a tremendous job,” Jefferson said. “He’s been making plays all around. He’s still learning the system and still trying to get used to everybody. That chemistry is definitely coming along.”
Asked where he’s seen the most growth in himself, Darnold pointed to his relationship with O’Connell and the importance of being on the same page.
“Just being able to know exactly what he’s thinking,” Darnold said. “If we get a certain coverage, I know where he wants me to go with the football. It’s kind of that. It’s understanding the play-caller’s intent when we call a play and going and making that play come to life.”
There are still a number of intricacies that Darnold is getting a handle on as he continues to familiarize himself with the offense. He’s been working in concert with the offensive line, for example, in order to make protection calls before the snap.
“It’s those kind of reps that we want with him where we can kind of change things on the fly,” Bradbury said. “I feel really comfortable with him and I think he’s done a great job.”
Maybe the most important thing that can be gleaned simply by talking to Darnold’s teammates is that he’s already seemed to have gained their trust. That cannot be overstated as Darnold will now be the guy the Vikings have to rely on moving forward.
“He connects with just about everybody in the locker room, and that’s what we love to see,” Bradbury said. “It starts there with building the relationships off the field. He’s awesome to work with so far. Just a great friend and a great teammate and I’m happy to have him.”
Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris is expected to announce plans to fight food inflation with a federal ban on price gouging on groceries , but how much this would help Americans is debatable, economists say.
Over the past few years, President Joe Bidenâs administration has blamed corporate greed for the surge in inflation, and Harris is expected to take up that torch in a speech Friday in North Carolina's capital city of Raleigh. Corporations raised prices when snarled supply chains during the pandemic created shortages of nearly everything, and just never stopped or lowered prices again after supply chains stabilized, they argue.
âSome companies are keeping prices high even though input costs are falling, and supply chains are back to normal,â the White House said in a news release in March.
If higher grocery prices are the result of potential mergers between larger supermarkets and food producers and corporate greed, Americans may benefit from Harris' approach. However, many economists have doubts such a policy would be effective for various reasons, including whether price gouging is the root of inflation at all.
Michael Ashton, managing principal at Enduring Investments LLC, who specializes in inflation analysis, questioned the existence of price gouging "in an industry as competitive as grocery."
âWhy did the price gouging just start in 2021-22?" he asked. "Did grocers just not realize they had this power before then or did they not get greedy until 2021?â
Profit margins in the food industry already tend to be among the lowest. Net profit margin in 2023 in the grocery industry hit 1.6%, the lowest level since 2019, according to FMI, The Food Industry Association.
During the pandemic, economists generally agreed supply chain shortages initially caused price increases.
After supply chains were ironed out, the dispute began. Researchers from the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City and former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke separately said last year that fast-rising wages when the economy reopened was a major contributor to rising grocery prices.
However, left-leaning government watchdog Accountable.US and former Labor Secretary Robert Reich say companies have been raising prices on Americans to reward stockholders with dividends and stock buybacks.
âConsumers are getting shafted, as corporations tell Wall Street they expect to be able to keep their prices and profits in the stratosphere,â Reich wrote in June .
The Groundwork Collaborative, a nonprofit that earlier this year said "climate change, corporate consolidation, and profiteering" are reasons grocery prices remain high, even quantified in January how much corporate greed contributed to inflation. In the middle of 2023, corporate profit margins accounted for roughly half of inflation and more than a third since the pandemic began, it estimated.
âThe industry keeps pushing the envelope to pad profits and bring in enough money for shareholder giveaways, but Americans are fed up,â said Liz Zelnick, director of the economic security & corporate power program at Accountable.US, in a news release.
Inflation's down but prices are high?: Prices don't drop when inflation eases. Why your wallet will be hurting for a while.
Opinions are mixed.
Reich, who sees corporate greed as the root of soaring inflation, advocated for a policy like what Harris is expected to announce.
âPut blame for high prices squarely where it belongs: on big corporations with monopoly power to keep prices high,â he wrote. âAnd take those corporations on: Condemn them for price gouging. Threaten them with antitrust lawsuits, price-gouging lawsuits, even price controls. Criticize them for making huge profits and giving their top executives record pay while shafting consumers.â
Others, like Sen. Rick Scott , R-Fla . , call the plan âfederal price controls,â which he says donât work.
Harrisâ solution to fighting inflation âis big government on steroids â where Washington bureaucrats stick their hands into American businesses and say what they can and canât sell a product for,â he said in a news release on Thursday. âIt never works because it causes companies to make much less of something â destroying supply and causing a mass shortage of goods.â
Such a policy could also be difficult to implement because calculating an appropriate profit margin might be tricky, said James Knightley, Dutch bank INGâs chief international economist.
âItâs critical that we get the economic facts right and avoid political rhetoric," said Sarah Gallo, senior vice president of product policy and federal affairs at the Consumer Brands Association trade group. "The reality is that there are complex economic factors at play."
Three in 5 Americans said corporate greed was a âmajor causeâ of inflation, according to a poll by left-leaning polling and research group Navigator Research of 1,000 registered voters. However, that was in January when annual inflation was running at a 3.1% pace . Since then, inflation has eased further.
"When looking at the inflation story, it's good now but the perception among consumers is different because prices are still elevated," Knightley said. "We're not returning to 2019 prices," which is what consumers are comparing to.
Since inflation only measures the pace at which prices are changing, actual sticker prices remain high from climbing over the past couple of years. Inflation in the 12 months through July was 2.9%, sharply down from its 40-year high of 9.1% in June 2022 and the lowest since March 2021. Overall, annual food inflation rose a smaller 2.2%, with grocery prices rising at an even slower 1.1% pace.
âWhy intervene?â Knightley said. âFrom an economics perspective, itâs looking like a pretty good place right now. This may be good messaging for the election, but it (inflation) may be falling by the wayside.â
Medora Lee is a money, markets, and personal finance reporter at USA TODAY. You can reach her at [email protected] and subscribe to our free Daily Money newsletter  for personal finance tips and business news every Monday through Friday morning. Â
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By Jamelle Bouie
Opinion Columnist
Donald Trump is behind. He trails in the pivotal postindustrial swing states and is treading water in the Southern and Sun Belt states â Arizona, Georgia and Nevada â that could help him find an alternative path to 270 electoral votes. In just a few months, Trump may join the exclusive club of two-time presidential losers.
Of course, it is still too early to make any real prediction about November. But the sharp reversal in Trumpâs electoral fortunes raises an obvious question worth thinking about now: If Trump loses, and perhaps especially if he loses badly, what comes next for the Republican Party?
It is rare in American political history for a single figure to dominate a party as thoroughly as Trump does the modern Republican Party without delivering a string of electoral wins or otherwise reshaping the political landscape. Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan all defined and redefined their respective parties, but they did so in the context of strong political organizations and movements that could deliver consistent, and sometimes crushing, victories over their opponents.
Not so with Trump. One of the defining attributes of his leadership of the Republican Party is the extent to which he has so thoroughly reshaped Republican identity while leading Republican politicians to a string of election defeats across the nation. After his surprise win in 2016, Republicans either lost or underperformed in 2018, 2020 and 2022. Trump was a one-term president, the first since George H.W. Bush lost his bid for re-election in 1992. And the closer Republican candidates tie themselves to Trump in competitive elections, the more likely it is they will lose, from Kari Lake in Arizona to Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania.
As striking as the relative electoral weakness of the Trump-era Republican Party is its total inability to either govern or police the boundaries of its coalition. Trump has no program beyond his own prejudices and impulses. â Build the wall â and â mass deportation now â reflect a deep-seated hostility to nonwhite immigrants that has no basis other than rank bigotry. âStop the stealâ and Trumpâs broader obsession with so-called election integrity is nothing more than an attempt to operationalize his core belief that he cannot actually lose an election â or anything, for that matter. Fittingly, the Trump-led Republican Party declined to devise a platform for the 2020 presidential election and produced a set of Trump-esque slogans for its 2024 one. To the extent that there is a Republican agenda, it is a product of the hard-right ideologues and conservative organizations that see Trump as a willing vessel and vehicle for their own interests.
Trumpâs leadership has also occasioned the total collapse of the boundaries ( such as they were ) separating the far-right fringe of American politics from its mainstream. The former president provides license for â and inspiration to â a large crop of right-wing extremists who disdain democracy and openly fantasize about the use of violence to eliminate their political opponents. âSome folks need killing,â Mark Robinson , the Republican Partyâs nominee for governor in North Carolina, declared at a church event in June.
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Published on January 11, 2019 by Shona McCombes . Revised on August 15, 2023 by Eoghan Ryan.
A thesis statement is a sentence that sums up the central point of your paper or essay . It usually comes near the end of your introduction .
Your thesis will look a bit different depending on the type of essay you’re writing. But the thesis statement should always clearly state the main idea you want to get across. Everything else in your essay should relate back to this idea.
You can write your thesis statement by following four simple steps:
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What is a thesis statement, placement of the thesis statement, step 1: start with a question, step 2: write your initial answer, step 3: develop your answer, step 4: refine your thesis statement, types of thesis statements, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about thesis statements.
A thesis statement summarizes the central points of your essay. It is a signpost telling the reader what the essay will argue and why.
The best thesis statements are:
Professional editors proofread and edit your paper by focusing on:
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The thesis statement generally appears at the end of your essay introduction or research paper introduction .
The spread of the internet has had a world-changing effect, not least on the world of education. The use of the internet in academic contexts and among young people more generally is hotly debated. For many who did not grow up with this technology, its effects seem alarming and potentially harmful. This concern, while understandable, is misguided. The negatives of internet use are outweighed by its many benefits for education: the internet facilitates easier access to information, exposure to different perspectives, and a flexible learning environment for both students and teachers.
You should come up with an initial thesis, sometimes called a working thesis , early in the writing process . As soon as you’ve decided on your essay topic , you need to work out what you want to say about itâa clear thesis will give your essay direction and structure.
You might already have a question in your assignment, but if not, try to come up with your own. What would you like to find out or decide about your topic?
For example, you might ask:
After some initial research, you can formulate a tentative answer to this question. At this stage it can be simple, and it should guide the research process and writing process .
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Now you need to consider why this is your answer and how you will convince your reader to agree with you. As you read more about your topic and begin writing, your answer should get more detailed.
In your essay about the internet and education, the thesis states your position and sketches out the key arguments you’ll use to support it.
The negatives of internet use are outweighed by its many benefits for education because it facilitates easier access to information.
In your essay about braille, the thesis statement summarizes the key historical development that you’ll explain.
The invention of braille in the 19th century transformed the lives of blind people, allowing them to participate more actively in public life.
A strong thesis statement should tell the reader:
The final thesis statement doesn’t just state your position, but summarizes your overall argument or the entire topic you’re going to explain. To strengthen a weak thesis statement, it can help to consider the broader context of your topic.
These examples are more specific and show that you’ll explore your topic in depth.
Your thesis statement should match the goals of your essay, which vary depending on the type of essay you’re writing:
If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!
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A thesis statement is a sentence that sums up the central point of your paper or essay . Everything else you write should relate to this key idea.
The thesis statement is essential in any academic essay or research paper for two main reasons:
Without a clear thesis statement, an essay can end up rambling and unfocused, leaving your reader unsure of exactly what you want to say.
Follow these four steps to come up with a thesis statement :
The thesis statement should be placed at the end of your essay introduction .
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Learn how to build a rock-solid essay with our tips on the main parts of an essay, how many paragraphs should be in an essay, and essay structure examples.
This example guides you through the structure of an essay. It shows how to build an effective introduction, focused paragraphs, clear transitions between ideas, and a strong conclusion.
The basic structure of an essay always consists of an introduction, a body, and a conclusion. But for many students, the most difficult part of structuring an essay is deciding how to organize information within the body. This article provides useful templates and tips to help you outline your essay, make decisions about your structure, and ...
A personal essay is not self-indulgent; rather, it is a means of connecting with others through the common experience of being human. Essays are often written from a first-person point of view and allow the reader to get inside the author's thoughts and feelings.
An essay is a piece of nonfiction writing that informs the reader about a topic or argues a perspective. Learn all about the parts of a five-paragraph essay!
What is the best essay format? We explain APA vs Chicago vs MLA essay format to help you determine which rules you need to follow.
An academic essay should answer a question or task. It should have a thesis statement (answer to the question) and an argument. It should try to present or discuss something: develop a thesis via a set of closely related points by reasoning and evidence. An academic essay should include relevant examples, supporting evidence and information from academic texts or credible sources.
A good introduction paragraph is an essential part of any academic essay. It sets up your argument and tells the reader what to expect.
Learn how to write an essay outline that puts your ideas in logical order, no matter the essay type, along with tips and examples.
The essay is a written piece that is designed to present an idea, propose an argument, express the emotion or initiate debate. It is a tool that is used to present writer's ideas in a non-fictional way. Multiple applications of this type of writing go way beyond, providing political manifestos and art criticism as well as personal ...
How to Start an Essay Do you have an essay to write and don't know where or how to begin? Before you get started, there are a few things you consider about writing an essay. Forming and structuring your writing are necessary parts of crafting a well-developed essay. In this article, we delve deep into the steps you'll need to follow to ensure proper essay form.
What an Essay Is and How to Write One. Essays are brief, non-fiction compositions that describe, clarify, argue, or analyze a subject. Students might encounter essay assignments in any school subject and at any level of school, from a personal experience "vacation" essay in middle school to a complex analysis of a scientific process in graduate ...
An essay needs to be well structured as well as answering the question in its title. Learn how to write an essay in this Bitesize English video for KS3.
To begin to understand what makes writing, and writers, "good," we need to ask the larger question "What is writing?" It's easy to agree on the definition of writing if we limit it to something like "putting pen to paper" or "typing ideas into a computer."
An essay is a short work of nonfiction, while a writer of essays is called an essayist. In writing instruction, essay is often used as another word for composition. In an essay, an authorial voice (or narrator) typically invites an implied reader (the audience) to accept as authentic a certain textual mode of experience.
An expository essay is an essay that communicates factual information. Broadly, this type of writing is known as expository writing. Expository essays rely on different structures to communicate their positions, like compare and contrast, process essays, and analyzing cause and effect. Expository writing is one of the four main types of writing.
Essay. An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a letter, a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have been sub-classified as formal and informal: formal essays are characterized by "serious purpose, dignity, logical organization ...
A critical essay is a form of academic writing that analyzes, interprets, and/or evaluates a text. In a critical essay, an author makes a claim about how particular ideas or themes are conveyed in a text, then supports that claim with evidence from primary and/or secondary sources.
Writing the personal essay for your college application can be tough, but we're here to help. Sometimes the hardest part is just getting started, but the sooner you begin, the more time and thought you can put into an essay that stands out.
Do your students struggle with what it means to elaborate? In this post, we will look at types of elaboration, how to elaborate on evidence, how to elaborate in an essay, elaborations strategies, and elaboration stems.
Learn how to write an effective essay outline with clear guidelines and examples, and improve your argument and structure in academic writing.
What does it mean to be a good person? đ Find the answer here! How to be a good person essay focuses on the qualities and characteristics of a kind đ human being.
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Types of thesis statements Your thesis statement should match the goals of your essay, which vary depending on the type of essay you're writing: In an argumentative essay, your thesis statement should take a strong position. Your aim in the essay is to convince your reader of this thesis based on evidence and logical reasoning.