Essays: Getting Started
So you've been assigned to write an essay. You know you'll be spending the next few weeks of your life with this sort of hanging over your head; you'll do a lot of writing and asking yourself "What on Earth am I trying to say?" and rewriting and re-rewriting, and then you'll turn the thing in and be done with it until the next one.
But the process gets a whole lot easier once you have a clear sense of what you're doing, what your goals are and what your instructor is likely to expect.
So let's walk through the essay writing process and familiarize ourselves with it. Just what does writing an essay entail?
To see the essay writing process in action, we'll also walk through my personal process of writing an essay assignment, from beginning to end.
From an English 1101 class at Georgia State University, I took an assignment prompt by Mack Curry IV and ran through the whole process of writing an essay. Let's see what my process looks like:
Rhetorical Analysis Prompt
Instructions
In a 3-5 page (not including Works Cited) essay, make and support a claim about how an image (picture, painting, advertisement, etc.) or a text (song, poem, speech, etc.) is being used. Your analysis should include discussion of how the image or the text uses rhetorical canons (invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery) or rhetorical appeals (ethos, pathos, and logos). The purpose of a rhetorical analysis is to read, analyze, interpret, and argue your position with the evidence. This essay should include the following information:
- An introduction paragraph that describes the image or text you have chosen to analyze, and its rhetorical situation (purpose, audience, and context).
- A thesis statement that clearly states your claim about the image or text. The thesis statement should also mention how you plan to analyze the image or text. The thesis should come at the end of the introduction paragraph.
- Body paragraphs containing supporting evidence for your thesis. The supporting evidence should be clear and detailed to accurately prove your point. Also, these paragraphs should start with the topic sentences that set the tone for what information will be included in the remainder of the paragraph.
- A conclusion paragraph that restates your thesis statement. The conclusion paragraph should serve as a summary of what has already been stated, so no new information is allowed.
- A Works Cited page that cites the image or text you chose to analyze. Works Cited should start on a separate page and have references listed in alphabetical order with hanging indent.
- MLA format for the entire assignment (including Works Cited page).
Evaluation
Your rhetorical analysis essay will be evaluated based on the following criteria:
- Introduction - 10 points
- Thesis Statement - 10 points
- Supporting Evidence - 40 points
- Conclusion - 10 points
- Professional tone, smooth transitions, and grammar/punctuation proficiency - 10 points
- Length - at least 3 full pages (not including Works Cited ) - 10 points
- Works Cited - 5 points
- MLA Format (in-text citations, spacing, and font) - 5 points
Adapted from Curry, Mack IV. English 1101 Rhetorical Analysis Prompt, Georgia State University, (2020).