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    Argument Letter Paper Article Pamphlet Short Story

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    Ken Zi
    An essay is generally defined as a piece of writing that presents an author's argument, though the definition overlaps with other forms of writing like letters, papers, articles, pamphlets, and short stories. Essays have traditionally been categorized as either formal or informal based on their purpose, organization, and style. They are commonly used as literary criticism, political manifestos, arguments, observations of daily life, and reflections. While essays are typically brief, some works such as John Locke's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding are lengthy. Essays have also become a major part of education, used to teach writing skills and evaluate student performance. The concept of the essay has expanded to other media like film and photography.

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    Argument Letter Paper Article Pamphlet Short Story

    Uploaded by

    Ken Zi
    45 views3 pages
    An essay is generally defined as a piece of writing that presents an author's argument, though the definition overlaps with other forms of writing like letters, papers, articles, pamphlets, and short stories. Essays have traditionally been categorized as either formal or informal based on their purpose, organization, and style. They are commonly used as literary criticism, political manifestos, arguments, observations of daily life, and reflections. While essays are typically brief, some works such as John Locke's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding are lengthy. Essays have also become a major part of education, used to teach writing skills and evaluate student performance. The concept of the essay has expanded to other media like film and photography.

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    An

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    An essay is generally defined as a piece of writing that presents an author's argument, though the definition overlaps with other forms of writing like letters, papers, articles, pamphlets, and short stories. Essays have traditionally been categorized as either formal or informal based on their purpose, organization, and style. They are commonly used as literary criticism, political manifestos, arguments, observations of daily life, and reflections. While essays are typically brief, some works such as John Locke's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding are lengthy. Essays have also become a major part of education, used to teach writing skills and evaluate student performance. The concept of the essay has expanded to other media like film and photography.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    45 views3 pages

    Argument Letter Paper Article Pamphlet Short Story

    Uploaded by

    Ken Zi
    An essay is generally defined as a piece of writing that presents an author's argument, though the definition overlaps with other forms of writing like letters, papers, articles, pamphlets, and short stories. Essays have traditionally been categorized as either formal or informal based on their purpose, organization, and style. They are commonly used as literary criticism, political manifestos, arguments, observations of daily life, and reflections. While essays are typically brief, some works such as John Locke's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding are lengthy. Essays have also become a major part of education, used to teach writing skills and evaluate student performance. The concept of the essay has expanded to other media like film and photography.

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    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 traditionally been sub-classified as formal and informal. Formal
    essays are characterized by "serious purpose, dignity, logical organization, length," whereas the
    informal essay is characterized by "the personal element (self-revelation, individual tastes and
    experiences, confidential manner), humor, graceful style, rambling structure, unconventionality
    or novelty of theme," etc.[1]
    Essays are commonly used as literary criticism, political manifestos, learned arguments,
    observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of the author. Almost all modern essays
    are written in prose, but works in verse have been dubbed essays (e.g., Alexander Pope's An
    Essay on Criticism and An Essay on Man). While brevity usually defines an essay, voluminous
    works like John Locke's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding and Thomas
    Malthus's An Essay on the Principle of Population are counterexamples.
    In some countries (e.g., the United States and Canada), essays have become a major part of
    formal education. Secondary students are taught structured essay formats to improve their
    writing skills; admission essays are often used by universities in selecting applicants, and in the
    humanities and social sciences essays are often used as a way of assessing the performance
    of students during final exams.
    The concept of an "essay" has been extended to other media beyond writing. A film essay is a
    movie that often incorporates documentary filmmaking styles and focuses more on the evolution
    of a theme or idea. A photographic essay covers a topic with a linked series of photographs that
    may have accompanying text or captions.
    Definitions

    John Locke's 1690 An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.

    The word essay derives from the French infinitive essayer, "to try" or "to attempt". In
    English essay first meant "a trial" or "an attempt", and this is still an alternative meaning. The
    Frenchman Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) was the first author to describe his work as essays;
    he used the term to characterize these as "attempts" to put his thoughts into writing.
    Subsequently, essay has been defined in a variety of ways. One definition is a "prose composition
    with a focused subject of discussion" or a "long, systematic discourse".[2] It is difficult to define the
    genre into which essays fall. Aldous Huxley, a leading essayist, gives guidance on the subject.[3] He
    notes that "the essay is a literary device for saying almost everything about almost anything", and
    adds that "by tradition, almost by definition, the essay is a short piece". Furthermore, Huxley argues
    that "essays belong to a literary species whose extreme variability can be studied most effectively
    within a three-poled frame of reference". These three poles (or worlds in which the essay may exist)
    are:

     The personal and the autobiographical: The essayists that feel most comfortable in this pole
    "write fragments of reflective autobiography and look at the world through the keyhole of
    anecdote and description".
     The objective, the factual, and the concrete particular: The essayists that write from this pole
    "do not speak directly of themselves, but turn their attention outward to some literary or scientific
    or political theme. Their art consists of setting forth, passing judgment upon, and drawing
    general conclusions from the relevant data".
     The abstract-universal: In this pole "we find those essayists who do their work in the world of
    high abstractions", who are never personal and who seldom mention the particular facts of
    experience.
    Huxley adds that the most satisfying essays "...make the best not of one, not of two, but of all the
    three worlds in which it is possible for the essay to exist."

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