Long research paper

The Personal EssayIn a way, all essays are personal essays. They represent what you think, what you feel, about a given topic. They represent your effort (the word essay comes from the French essayer, which means to try) to communicate those thoughts and feelings to others. In the purely personal essay, however, there is no effort to objectify those thoughts, there is no concealment that this is your opinion; no standing behind any mask of objectivity is permitted, no embarrassment is allowed.

The personal essay is often a free-wheeling device of self-expression. If you ever want to experiment with prose and with loosened structure, this is where you can do it. (If you're writing for a grade, though, make sure you understand what your instructor is looking for before you get too crazy!)

You will probably want to use quoted language in your personal essay. There is nothing like the "heard voice" to create the impression that this is real. Your readers are going along, reading your prose on the paper, and then they see someone saying "This is great stuff!" and they not only read and see, they hear. Spoken speech engages another whole sense and enriches the medium immensely. Unfortunately, using quoted language demands a whole set of typographical conventions — the quotation marks themselves and the various commas and end-marks that are required.

When using quoted speech, don't let a voice talk for very long in your essay; it will take over and start to sound weird. Only the greatest writers can handle speech effectively over a long period of time. Keep the speech elements brief — which is how speech is in real life, after all. We're not allowed to say much before we're interrupted by others or by something else going on. Also, don't try to duplicate the speech of real life, the way people really talk. Tape record a dinner conversation some evening, when people don't know you're doing it, and you'll probably hear something quite unpleasant, something that should never be written down. Use conventional spelling, and don't leave out letters or try to recreate in spelling what you hear people say (He dozn't do nuthin'!); your readers will become more aware of your clever spelling than they are of what's going on in your essay.

Above all, don't forget that you never want your readers to ask So what? at the end of your essay and hear a hollow response. What is the point of your essay? Don't belabor the point too much; let the point grow out of the experience of the essay. It might be true, in fact, that you didn't even have a point to make when you started writing your essay. Go ahead and write it and see if a point develops. If you're not satisifed and feel that your essay remains pointless, ask your friends to read it and see if they discern a point where you don't. (It's possible!) Then, once you've decided what your point might be, you might want to rewrite parts of your essay to smooth out the edges: you don't want to clobber your readers over their heads with your point, but you don't want to be so subtle that no one gets it, either.

The ability to inform clearly and at the same time to hold your reader’s interest is one of the most important writing skills you can master many teachers require informative essays as part of social studies and science courses. Many jobs require some kind of informative writing. An important part of the prewriting process of an informative essay involves research. You may need to take time either to research your topic thoroughly or to choose another topic about which you know more. If you want to use someone’s words to present your information, put those wards into quotation marks and identify that person.

Paragraphs of argument and persuasion are essentially the sane form of writing. Ineach, reasons are presented to support an idea that is open to question or debate. The distinction between these two kinds of paragraphs lies in their intent. In a paragraph of argument, the writer explains one side of an issue without expecting the reader to act upon or to embrace his or her way of thinking. In a paragraph of persuasion, the writer’s purpose is to convert the reader to his or her way of thinking.

A narrative essayis an account of one or more events. A narrative that is longer than a paragraph can tell about a series of connected events. An interesting narrative usually involves conflict, a struggle against something or someone. A conflict is not necessarily a physical struggle. It can be a disagreement with another person. I can be a struggle with nature, with society, or even within yourself. Narratives can be written in the first person (i) or in the third person (she or he).

Autobiographical essay. Movie stars, diplomats, generals, musicians and scientists write autobiographies because they want others to know what they are like and what they have accomplished. A biographical essay has the same relationship to a full-length biography that an autobiographical essay has to an autobiography. An essay is much shorter, and its writer must be much selective in choosing details.

Reviewis a kind of argumentative essay in which a writer presents an opinion, with reasons to back it up, about a particular work of art. But a good essay includes more than a well-presented opinion. A good essay is a combination of information and opinion. At the beginning of the review, identify what you are reviewing.

In a Literary essayyou interpret what the work, or a part of it means. When you write a literary essay about a novel, short story, poem, or play you need to go beneath the surface to explore the work’s deep meaning. A literary essay is essentially an argumentative essay in which you attempt to convince your reader that your interpretation of a ;literary work is right or at least valid.

Finding information and then communicating what you have found in aresearch paper is one of the most common assignments you will get in school or in business. The research paper requires a careful and diligent search for facts, but you must show that you have mastered this information by presenting it in your own words. In many cases, however, you will find quotations from authorities.