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The structure of an academic essay, examples of essays in English. How to choose a topic? The main mistakes in the introduction, thesis, argumentation, conclusion.
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The first thing you need to know about an academic essay is that it is different from a motivation letter. The main goal of a motivation letter (also known as the Statement of Purpose) is to convey information to the selection committee about you as a person and a student, describe your academic achievements and goals. Simply put, a motivation letter is a letter about you.
As for the academic essay, this is a letter from you. It should reveal your thinking, analysis and reasoning skills in relation to the main idea. Therefore, the approach to writing an essay is very different from a motivational letter, although they have some similarities.
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| Language | Subject | Specialty | University | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| English | Global warming is real | Biology | Cambridge University | Download |
| English | Knowing How to Live Alone | Social Psychology | Charles University in Prague | Download |
| English | Should the death penalty be restored in the UK? | Philosophy | Oxford University | Download |
The topic can be pre-determined by the university. For example, "Is brainstorming a fairly effective method of solving problems today?" In other cases, the university only sets the line of reasoning in a particular area: “In your opinion, which school of management has more potential?”. The third option — you choose the main topic for a given subject at your own discretion. In this case, remember that it is important to take the topic that you can logically explore the best.
Often, in the very setup of the topic proposed by the university, there are clues to help you understand what style your academic essay should have. For example, the following keywords can be met[1]:
As a rule, the structure includes four main parts: introduction, thesis, argumentation and conclusion. In fact, the thesis is the main idea of the work, therefore, it can be located even after the arguments, but in this case it will be a part of the conclusion. If you already have an opinion on the topic, start with a thesis, and then give arguments. The main thing here is the flow and consistency of the text. If you use excerpts from other people's works or quotes from books, indicate it in the reference section. Break the text into paragraphs according to your train of thought — the argument should be divided into several parts.
Advice from the first step of writing a motivation letter will be useful here as well. Your first task when writing any interesting text is to create a "hook", i.e. a certain sentence that can arouse the reader’s interest and is directly related to the main topic. Be original, but don't overdo it. Find what characterizes your thesis or the problem more accurately, for example, the opinion of a well-known specialist in this field or a seemingly unremarkable fact that suits your thesis in the best possible way. It is not mandatory to start work like this — you can also find your hook during the writing of the main part, but in the final version of the text its use in the introduction is extremely desirable.
Develop the idea, so that gradually from the hook you can transition to the main part of your work. In a few words, describe the problem posed, but avoid fillers — everything you write here should directly affect your thesis.
After choosing a topic, the first thing you need to do is to form the thesis. A thesis is neither a proven fact, nor an opinion or the result of an observation. This is also not an argumentation, not a complex of cause-effect relationships and not a description of a certain phenomenon — all of this should come next. A thesis is the main idea of your essay, the main essence of which is contained in several statements.
Imagine the situation: you are sitting with an essay in your hands right in front of a member of the commission, and without reading your work, he asks you the question: "What is the main idea of this work?" So, the thesis is those few statements that can answer this question without further clarifications and elaborations. The presence of the thesis in the text not only helps the reader to understand the meaning of the work, but also helps them to see how much you understood it and how the rest of the text is related to it.
Keep in mind that, as a rule, a topic of an essay represents a controversial question or judgment and does not imply a definitive answer. That is why your task is not to search for an objective solution, which, most likely, simply does not exist, but to set up and argue your point of view.
At its core, argumentation is a persuasion attempt. At this stage, it is necessary to describe the reasons that determined the thesis. Devote a small paragraph to each of them and monitor their completeness, play on their contrasts — try to make each next paragraph different from the previous one without breaking the logical chain. The main criteria that must be observed when constructing your argument: topics, sequence, chronology and contrast. Avoid oversimplified statements: context must be built for each argument. Remember that the thesis can be given at the end of the work, do not focus on a strict sequence of selected parts.
In the last part of the essay, you need to comprehensively and concisely conclude your thoughts. Summarize the argument, briefly repeat the thesis, if it was at the beginning of the work. Or give a thesis if you decide to place it after the arguments.
If your essay requires a large amount of factual information, you need to work with sources correctly. Do not rush to mindlessly copy information from Wikipedia. If you have to use it, then you’d better go to the links section. It is better to search for the information you need in the scientific literature and original scientific articles. But even in this case, take a critical approach to the information presented, because many books were written dozens or hundreds of years ago and could lose their relevance, and scientific research could be carried out to support already existing confirmation bias, and not to reveal the truth, which in turn makes it subjective and not really scientific.
This article covers only the main points of writing an academic essay. In order to take into account all the subtleties, you can contact us for professional help in preparing an essay, motivational and recommendation letters. We also offer our assistance in submitting digital applications and editing all application documents. Based on our many years of professional experience, we can quickly and efficiently prepare your documents to the university for further 100% admission to a foreign university.
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