Writing an essay

Abstract

One of the things that makes studying English unlike studying any other subject is that success depends upon your ability to write a good essay. Tell yourself from the start, therefore, that you are going to produce really good essays, essays that examiners will want to praise rather than find fault with. But how can this be done? Isn’t the ability to write well a gift that some people are born with? It’s worth pausing to consider the thinking behind such a view: the informing assumption is that essay writing is largely a matter of luck and inspiration, and that a good essay cannot be planned and calculated in advance. The first thing to get clear, however, is that inspiration has very little to do with producing good essays; the basis of good essay writing is having a method that enables you to write good essays.