The Versatility of the Short Essay

This year, I have been teaching university writing courses, two levels of business and professional writing and a course in writing for the sciences. An approach I have used in these courses is that all writing in English is based upon the successful writing of short essays. In this blog post, I want to describe a simple step-by-step method for writing such short essays.

The first step I teach in constructing a short essay is to formulate a thesis for the essay and topic sentences for the body. The thesis statement in an essay is the entire communication reduced to a single sentence. When the essay takes a stand or attempts to persuade readers, the thesis statement is as simple as the topic plus the author's opinion on the topic. But when the essence of the communication is more explanatory or procedural, the thesis statement usually describes the overall goal for the communication. For example, in this present essay, I began writing by composing the following thesis:

I want to describe a simple step-by-step method for writing essays.

Then, I wrote a sentence to describe each step in the process.

The first step I teach in constructing a short essay is to formulate a thesis and topic sentences for the body.

The second step is to develop paragraphs based upon the topic sentences for the body.

The third step is to write introduction and conclusion paragraphs.

The fourth step is to consider the style of expression throughout the essay.

The final step is to edit the overall essay for grammar, punctuation, spelling, and other mechanical errors.

These sentences become topic sentences in their respective paragraphs in the body of the essay.

After the thesis and topic sentences have been drafted, the second step is to develop paragraphs based upon the topic sentences for the body. Additional explanation or descriptions can be added to the topic sentences in each paragraph as needed. Examples can also be set forth. The main goal in each paragraph is a feeling of 'completeness' in the discussion of the topic advanced in the first sentence. At this point, the body of the essay is complete in draft form.

The third step is to write introduction and conclusion paragraphs for the essay. I find that students respond well to the notion that the introduction begins with a statement of the general topic discussed in the essay and narrows that discussion, usually through a 'middle sentence', to the thesis statement, which ends the introduction. While the goal of the introduction is to end with the thesis statement, the goal of the conclusion is to begin with the thesis and to consider implications or acknowledge limitations of the discussion about to be concluded. With the completion of the conclusion, a first draft of the final essay should be complete. From this point on, the work focuses upon editing tasks, making the essay as good as it can be.

The fourth step in the essay writing process is to consider the style of expression throughout the essay. Often in the composition of an essay, writers will shift the tone, formality, or other stylistic elements of writing. Such matters can only come to light when authors look at their work as a connected and complete whole. Additionally, writers need to check to verify that each sentence in each paragraph contributes clearly to the topic set for the paragraph. Finally, writers need to introduce transitional expressions, words and phrases that help readers to move from sentence to sentence and paragraph to paragraph in the essay.

The final step is to edit the overall essay for grammar, punctuation, spelling, and other mechanical errors. A very good final exercise for authors to engage in is to read the finished written text out loud, slowly and word for word, looking for mistakes. While many students struggle significantly with such issues in their writing, even experienced writers must expend effort to correct errors in their work. Such errors detract from the overall dignity of the writing, even when they do not result in genuine miscommunication.


By following these steps, students can write a clear and simple essay without too much effort or writing experience. This simple method of essay writing is not the only productive way to write an essay, but it is one that is easy to learn and to practice. Once students have mastered this procedure (and become bored with it), they should find that their writing abilities will allow them to branch out to other, more sophisticated strategies and structures in their writing.

Starting a New Year

This semester, I am teaching three courses (with two sections of the science writing course), so I have been quite busy setting courses up and introducing students to the Moodle course pages and the social media tools I use in education. Although I have a small business in educational support (mentioned in other posts), I am employed by Thompson Rivers University to teach these particular courses this semester. It is important for me to state clearly that the opinions and claims made in this blog are my own and should not be taken to reflect TRU policies at any organizational level.

In the courses I am teaching, I have assigned each student to establish and contribute to a blog.Students in the science writing course have been encouraged to create a blog on some aspect of science they are interested in.  Students in the professional and business writing courses have been encouraged to create the sort of blog that could support some serious academic, professional, or business endeavor. Some of the students are quite eager to begin blogging, while others are unsure of a topic to settle on. Once every student is on board with this project, I should have about 150 new blogs to add to my reading list. I hope I can keep up with them!

Along with writing in their own blogs, I am encouraging students to read each other's blogs. I intend to use this format as a forum where students can practice the skills of dialogue (reading, commenting, quoting, linking, and so forth) in the blogosphere. Although it is not a requirement for the courses, I hope that my students will get readers from the 'outside'. Even a few scholars or professionals who would interact with the students would significantly raise the self-image of these new writers. Future entries on this blog will likely link to many of these new student blogs.

The Importance of Clean Water in Education

The title of this blog may take readers back a bit, but today is "Blog Action Day" in the blogosphere. The chosen topic for this day is the importance of clean drinking water.
In brief, the crisis this concentration of writing is supposed to address is as follows (taken from the Blog Action Day entry for 14 October 2010):

The problem of scarce clean water:
Nearly 1 billion people lack access to clean water, which causes a litany of struggles, diseases and even death.

• 40 Billion Hours: African women walk over 40 billion hours each year carrying cisterns weighing up to 18 kilograms to gather water, which is usually still not safe to drink.
• 38,000 Children a Week: Every week, nearly 38,000 children under the age of 5 die from unsafe drinking water and unhygienic living conditions.
• Wars Over Water: Many scholars attribute the conflict in Darfur at least in part to lack of access to water. A report commissioned by the UN found that in the 21st century, water scarcity will become one of the leading causes of conflict in Africa.
• A Human Right: In July, to address the water crisis, the United Nations declared access to clean water and sanitation a human right.... But we are far from implementing solutions to secure basic access to safe drinking water.

In lands of abundance (though there are many "third-world-regions" within even the most affluent countries), we know the importance of education in the development of civilized society (This blog has addressed this matter elsewhere--in fact almost 'every-elsewhere'!), but we don't often stress the need to keep people alive long enough to educate them. I think the figure, 38,000 children a week, is particularly important: This is the number of those who are deprived of an education, simply because they lack conditions that would allow them to live long enough to attend school. This situation must be addressed.
If these were our own children, we would address the situation. In fact, if these were our own children we would address the situation, even to the point of whatever violence it took to get the matter noticed. I am not at all advocating violence, but I can understand the plight of those (whose children are dying) who turn to such violence. The path to a proper global enlightenment (maybe we aren't as educated and civilized as we thought) seems clear, we must take ownership of the problem of unsafe drinking water--at least enough to allocate serious funds to solve the problem. I would imagine that if we put even a tenth of the money spent on fighting terrorists into the provision of safe wells and filtration systems for villages that currently have no source of water or only unsafe sources we could provide the world with a chance for its young people to grow up healthy. There are many organizations that have addressed the water issue in their most recent blogs (linked from the main page at Blog Action Day above), but we also need the actions of readers everywhere. The first step is to sign the Petition 
Further steps include blogging about the topic, writing/calling legislators in your country, watching for information about water in the media, and talking with your family and friends to help others understand the situation.
I want people to live long enough to receive the education I believe everyone is entitled to. I believe that addressing the problem of unsafe drinking water is a crucial step in the process.