Character analysis essay

Narrative Essays: Telling a Story

In a narrative essay, the writer tells a story about a real-life experience. While telling a story may sound easy to do, the narrative essay challenges students to think and write about themselves. When writing a narrative essay, writers should try to involve the reader by making the story as vivid as possible. The fact that narrative essays are usually written in the first person helps engage the reader. “I” sentences give readers a feeling of being part of the story. A well-crafted narrative essay will also build towards drawing a conclusion or making a personal statement.

Expository Essay

The main function of the expository essay is to explain, or to acquaint your reader with something; it can be used to describe, explain or present some information. In order to write an expository essay, preparation and background research will be required. This will arm you with facts and information that will be subsequently conveyed to your reader. Expository writing will also require you to show understanding of the chosen topic – this is why many professors and tutors choose this essay type to check how well a student has mastered a given topic. In their most common form, expository essays will take about 5 paragraphs; however, classes and instructors may require them to be larger in size. No matter the size, an essay should at all times include an introduction and a conclusion – the body length may vary.

Review

A review may be either formal or informal, depending on the context. Its goal is to evaluate a specific piece, perhaps a novel or movie. This implies that the reviewer's personal opinion plays a significant role in the process. Despite a degree of subjectivity, a certain objective standard needs to be maintained and, as in a persuasive essay, your assertions need to be proved.
The formality of the review will be determined by how much of the essay is analysis, how much is summary, and how much is your reaction to the work you are reviewing. A more formal review will not only discuss the work or its own merits but will also place it in context. Newspapers and popular magazines tend to review in terms of finance, e.g. is this record or film worth spending money on? Critical journals will attempt to determine whether a new novel or play has achieved something new and significant. A good review will discuss both these qualities and the importance of a given work.

Literary Essay

In the literary essay, you are exploring the meaning and construction of a piece of literature. This task is more complicated than reviewing, though the two are similarly evaluative. In a review you are discussing the overall effect and validity of a work, while in a literary essay you are paying greater attention to specifics.

A literary essay focuses on such elements as structure, character, theme, style, tone, and subtext. You are taking a piece of writing and trying to discover how and why it is put together the way that it is. You must adopt a viewpoint on the work in question and show how the details of the work support your viewpoint.

A literary essay may be your own interpretation, based only on your reading of the piece, or it may be a mixture of your opinions and references to the criticism of others, much like a research paper. Again, be wary of plagiarism and of letting the opinions of more experienced writers swamp your own response to the work. If you are going to consult the critics, you should re-read the literary work you are discussing and make some notes on it before looking at any other opinions.

Argumentative Essay

The art of argumentation is not an easy skill to acquire. Many people might think that if one simply has an opinion, one can argue it effectively, and these folks are always surprised when others don't agree with them because their logic seems so correct. Additionally, writers of argumentation often forget that their primary purpose in an argument is to "win" it – to sway the reader to accept their point of view. It is easy to call names, easy to ignore the point of view or research of others, and extremely easy to accept one's own opinion as gospel, even if the writer has not checked his or her premise in a couple of years, or, as is the case for many young writers, never questioned the beliefs inherited from others.

Want to know what you think about something? Then write an argumentative essay. To be fair, however, you'll find that one of the first things you must do is become an expert on the issue. When you pick a topic, you should avoid writing about issues that cannot be won, no matter how strongly you might feel about them. The five hottest topics of our time seem to be gun control, abortion, capital punishment, freedom of speech, and probably the most recent, euthanasia, or the right to die. If possible, avoid writing about these topics because they are either impossible to "win," or because your instructor is probably sick of reading about them and knows all the pros and cons by heart (this could put you at a serious disadvantage). If you have difficulty picking a decent topic for your essay, feel free to check out our list of good argumentative essay topics. Either way, the topics may be some fine reading material, because most people are somewhat aware of the problems and can then concentrate on understanding the method of argument itself. But care should be taken; if you read one side, you also read the other. Far too many individuals only read the side that they already believe in. These issues cannot be won for good reason: each touches on matters of faith and beliefs that for many people are unshakable and deeply private.

Cause and Effect Essay

The cause and effect essay includes some elements of writing that might be considered more professional than those a descriptive or narrative essay might include. It is very important, for instance, that your tone be reasonable, and that your presentation be factual and believable. Sources are often required in a cause/effect paper, and your choice of these sources is important as they reflect on the validity of your paper. Additionally, the first-person point of view does not work; you should sound objective and impartial. Consider the following sentences:

I believe that gun control measures should be taken in every hamlet in America.
Gun control measures should be taken in every hamlet in America.

In the first sentence, the first person is used. This would work in a narrative, but here it actually limits the meaning of the sentence to just the writer, and it makes the writer sound weak – as if he were justifying himself or herself. The second sentence is much more forceful. It makes a statement and does not limit itself to just what the writer believes. The purpose of a cause and effect paper is to be as convincing as possible, and to convince readers to accept the cause/effect as fact.

Compare and Contrast Essay

The main purpose and function of compare and contrast essays is obvious – to find similarities and dissimilaritiesbetween two or more objects or things. This kind of writing requires the writer to be an observer; in most cases it doesn’t require scholarly research or any specific referencing. Such essays are mostly subjective in nature, and writers are required to come up with differences or similarities they are able to point out and analyze. There are different compare and contrast patterns for these essays, yet the overall essay structure remains invariable: there should be an introduction, a few body paragraphs and a conclusion. While working on your compare and contrast essay, don’t forget to use the so-called cue words. These words help you to tie paragraphs together by means of small logical connectors. For example, you can use words like: on the one hand/on the other hand, this is such/in contrast, however, like, as well, too, unlike, though, but etc. These words will pull your essay together and will make it hold better. Check out an article that covers our compare and contrast essays in detail – and good luck with your writing!

Definition essay

A definition essay is writing that explains what a term means. Some terms have definite, concrete meanings, such as glass, book, or tree. Terms such as honesty, honor, or love are abstract and depend more on a person's point of view. ntroduction ‒ This should include a generic definition of your term or even an attention grabbing fact. Then you can give a contradiction to your term to contrast it. End your introduction by giving your own definition of the term that you are going to expound upon throughout the rest of your essay.

Body ‒ In your essay’s body, you need to provide a few different points that construct your interpretation of the definition. You can provide background information but it isn’t necessary. Each point should have its own paragraph

Point 1: This will include the first component of your definition. You will need to give your analysis for how the example substantiates your definition.

Point 2: This is the second aspect of your term. Once again, give an example and provide analysis.

Point 3 etc. if necessary

Conclusion ‒ Your conclusion should give an overview of your above points. You can also explain how the definition has impacted your life. The attention grabber at the beginning of your essay can be brought back in to tie everything neatly together.

Character analysis essay

A character analysis essay is a written work in which someone analyzes and writes about a character in a particular story. This essay is often written as a class assignment, though it can also be part of a critical review or analysis of a written work. The basic purpose of this type of essay is to consider and analyze a character within a story to better understand his or her nature and purpose. This type of essay should use different aspects of characterization presented by the storyteller to reveal information about that character. When someone writes a character analysis essay, it is meant to give the reader a greater understanding of a particular character within a written work and how he or she functions within that work. Though multiple characters can be included in such an essay, it is usually done to compare two major characters or to focus on just one character. Minor characters may not be important or featured enough in a story to warrant a full analysis, though this depends a great deal on the nature of the story and its characters. While different formats can be used for this essay, it often includes an overview of a character and how he or she fits into a story. It usually begins with a basic analysis of the character, demonstrating that the writer understands what type of character he or she is analyzing. This can include labels like “protagonist” and “antagonist,” as well as more specific character types such as foils, dynamic and static characters, and even various archetypes common to stories. Once the overall character is established, then the analysis usually explores how that character is important to the story and its conflict.A character analysis essay typically includes examples from the story to support the claims made within it, either through direct or indirect characterization. Direct characterization refers to specific ways a writer describes his or her characters directly, while indirect characterization refers to examples of actions or dialog made by a character to indirectly reveal information about him or her. Understanding these types of characterization is important in writing this type of analysis, as both methods are often used to reveal information about the characters. These examples can be used to support the claims or arguments made within it about a character and how he or she relates to a story.

A process essay is one that tells how to do something or how something gets done. Tone is very important in a process essay. The two types of process essay may require different writing styles. A process essay is supposed to include a way in which to do a certain thing. It can be about almost any subject. It is important to include all steps.

Date: 2016-03-03; view: 1298