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How to write an academic essay?

In the academic environment, a form of knowledge test such as the essay is becoming more and more common. It has many advantages, but such tasks often baffle students and teachers alike. If you don't know how to write an academic essay and you need help, you can always turn to online essay writing services. For example, on Studybay.com you are sure to find answers to all your questions and get help from real professionals. The reviews about this service are very good, so you can be sure that you will be satisfied with the result.

What is an academic essay?
In general, an essay refers to a kind of essay that describes an individual point of view on a chosen issue in a free form. It is a genre of prose that may be literary-critical or philosophical in nature.

The foundation of an essay is the personality of the author: his position, opinion, worldview. Therefore, it is inherently subjective in nature.

At first glance, subjectivity and science are incompatible, because knowledge should be objective. This is how we approach the definition of an academic essay. It is an essay supported by logical arguments and based on scientific sources.

To put it simply, the author of an academic essay does not just cite any subjective ideas that come into his/her head, but also finds objective justifications for them.

How is it different from a paper?
Some people associate the essay with a paper. Although something in common can indeed be found, the differences between the two types of work are more compelling:

• The subject matter. The essayist describes his or her thoughts on a particular element of reality, not about everything and nothing.


• Public importance. The subject of the work is an issue of public relevance, rather than a personal experience of the student (such as "How I spent my summer" or "How I found love on the Internet").


• Rational validity. The author does not simply state facts, but provides logical arguments to support them.


• Presence of references. The author's position is supported by references to scientific sources. Therefore, the essay always ends with a list of references.

These differences are enough to distance oneself from a classic essay. But immediately there is a feeling that we have approached the notion of a term paper. In fact, the essay is quite far from it as well.

How does an academic essay differ from a term paper?
In the text of a term paper, a certain question or topic within a discipline is studied. However, when writing an essay, this task is approached in a completely different way:

• Subjectivity. A term paper sets out all points of view on the issue being studied. Even if the subject is the views of a certain scholar, the student is obliged to mention his or her main opponents. The author of the essay, on the contrary, chooses a single point of view and justifies its correctness.


• Evidence. The coursework simply states the facts, from which it remains to draw conclusions. At best, at the end, the student will write that he/she agrees with one of the positions described and state the reasons. The task of the essay is to convince the reader of the truth of the chosen thesis (or to disprove the truth of those that contradict it), to prove the rightness.


• Reflection. The conclusions of a term paper are often self-evident. An essay requires deep reflection: its conclusions do not lie on the surface. In the process of writing, the subject of the paper and its properties are reconsidered.


• The coursework lists all views on the problem, and at the end the student, overcoming shyness, expresses his or her opinion. Those who are not aiming for a top grade omit this part altogether.

The essay is written in reverse. First the author states his/her vision of the problem: without it there would be no given academic text. Then he/she looks for its support in the academic literature.

What types of essays are there and are they all suitable for academic papers?
Since the essay is, after all, a literary genre, one cannot ignore its internal classifications. The most interesting one for us is by mode of presentation:

• Description. It is a record of an empirical experience with an emphasis on those features that attracted the student more.


• Narrative. It is a coherent account of an event that happened, where the essayist's personal perception of what happened plays a significant role, even if he or she was not a direct participant.


• Comparison. The student compares two objects according to the features that are most essential in his/her personal view. The conclusions become strongly subjective.


• Argumentation. The essayist takes a certain position and gives arguments to prove it correct.


• Analytics. The author looks for cause and effect connections between phenomena and gives individual justification for them.

As we can see, argumentation is more in line with the above characteristic of an academic essay. Nevertheless, comparison and analysis can also be used for such works, since they possess the attributes of academic work. However, description and narration are not suitable for academic essays: they correspond more to the notion of literary essays.