Academic Essay

Academic Essay

Academic essay, one part of Writing III materials, is a piece of
writing that methodically analyses and evaluates a topic or issue. 
Fundamentally, an essay is designed to get the academic opinion on a
particular matter. "One damned thing after another" is how Aldous Huxley
described the essay: "a literary device for saying almost everything about
almost anything." .Nowadays, essay has become a major part of formal
education. It takes an important role in education, for example essay are
often used by universities in selecting applicants or scholarship programs
and, in the humanities and social sciences, as a way of assessing the
performance of students during final exams. Since the academic essay
becomes essential educationally, it is better for students to know and
understand how to make a good essay academically. There are three main
parts of academic essay, those are: introductory paragraph, body, and
concluding paragraph.

First, introductory paragraph .It is usually the first paragraph in
an essay. It informs the reader about the topic of the essay, explains why
the discussion in the essay is an important one to have, and provides a
'map' of the essay's argument. According to Austin Peay State University,
"First impressions are so important. It is true that the first impression
whether it's a first meeting with a person or the first sentence of a paper
sets the stage for a lasting opinion. The introductory paragraph of any
paper, long or short, should start with a sentence that piques the interest
of your readers." To make an introductory paragraph, firstly the students
have to write the thesis statement (main idea). After that the students
have to limit the entire essay to the topic that the students have
introduced in their thesis statement. Secondly the students have to provide
some background information about the topic itself. The students can use
interesting facts, quotations, or news from many sources which is related
to the essay.

Second, the body paragraph .The body of the essay consists of all the
paragraphs between the introduction and the conclusion. Commonly, the body
paragraph takes a largest portion. The body is where the argument of the
essay is actually laid out. Besides, Learning Skills Centre University of
Canterbury notes ,"The body is where you develop your argument. It is
grouped into parts according to related ideas. Each part is made up of
paragraph. Each paragraph has one main point which advances your argument."
To make a good body of essay, the first step is, list the points that
develop the main idea of the essay and then develop each point with facts,
details and examples. Typically, it has three paragraphs, but it might have
two paragraphs and of course it can have many more than three. Each of
these paragraphs usually has a topic sentence and several supporting
sentences.

Third, the last part of academic essay's structure is concluding
paragraph. According to Learning Skills Centre University of Canterbury ,
"The conclusion restates and emphasizes the ideas which are most important
to the argument." Moreover the concluding paragraph draws together the
essay's argument. It is also a part of paragraph that consist of the
summary from the essay. The concluding paragraph should strong and clear,
so that the readers will be able to understand the whole content of the
essay.

In conclusion, an essay can be said as a good one, if all of the
three parts in it relates and supports to each other. The first is
introductory paragraph which contains of introduction and information about
main idea of the essay. Next one is the body, it is the most important part
of the essay itself because it has content and argument. The last part but
not the least is concluding paragraph, even it is shorter than others, the
concluding paragraph takes important role too, because the readers can
catch the whole content of the essay from this part. Together, the
introduction and the conclusion act as a frame for the essay, while the
real work is done in the body.


Preferences :
http://learnonline.canberra.edu.au/mod/book/view.php?id=178430&chapterid=278

http://www.lps.canterbury.ac.nz/lsc/documents/handouts/Essay_structure.pdf