When I was a freshman, writing an essay was always troubled me. I had hard time writing an essay for literature introduction. Therefore, I can totally understand how you feel when you struggled with essay writing. However, this semester I take the rhetoric and composition class and I learned many strategies for writing a good essay. I’m willing to share what I’ve learned with you. Hope that I can help you to conquer the fear of writing.
I would like to describe the process of writing an essay as to promote a product. A writer is like a sales and your idea is the goods. Therefore, at first you have to decide what to sell. That is, to decide what you want to convey in your essay. Define your purpose of writing is an efficient way to start a composition. Decide exactly what you want readers to know helps to well organize your composition so that you can easily come to the point.
After defining your purpose, here comes the introduction. As Aristotle said, “Well begun is half done.” Introduction can be a crucial part to decide the success or failure of your writing. It is like the display window which is often the key to decide whether the customer would go into the shop or not. A good introduction as well, may be the decisive factor in whether readers would read on or not. Therefore, how to catch audience’s eye is very important.
As for body of a composition, there are three modes of persuasion which are good ways to enrich it. They are pathos, ethos, and logos. Pathos is a way to touch audience’s emotion and make them feel a sense of consensus. I apply pathos quite often when writing my first essay-a terrible experience. I go into details and make use of metaphors and similes to help my readers understand my situation.
Ethos is to show evidence to persuade your reader what you say is true. My second essay talking about the expectation and reality of studying abroad is a good example to show ethos. I interviewed my friends who got experience of studying abroad and put what they actually said in my essay to let the readers believe what I said are based on the real situation.
Logos is the final modes of persuasion. It is to persuade audience by the logic of your writing. For example, the statistics from the ministry of Education could be a powerful appeal to persuade readers. Logos makes the writer looks knowledgeable to the audience, it also help to enhance ethos so that keep audience accepting your premises on the writing.
The final value I’d like to share is the importance of revising. Revising is the way to help you writing a good final draft. The right words and sentences just don’t come pouring out at beginning most of the time. Revising helps to refine the words and sentences and even the idea, so that you can eventually write a good article.
What I mentioned above are what I learned from my previous experiences. These tips can be a good help while you are writing. Practice makes perfect, with these tips and with enough practice, I believe you can finally write an effective essay.
Sherry