What is Essay?
An '''essay''' is a written [[text]]. It is usually about the personal point of view of the author who wrote it. The definition of an essay is vague. [[wikt:article|Articles]] and [[short story|short stories]] can be quite similar. Almost all modern essays are written in [[prose]], but works in [[Poetry|verse]] have been called essays (e.g. [[Alexander Pope]]'s ''An Essay on Criticism'' and ''An Essay on Man''). People that write essays are called essayists. Most essays are short. This does not have to be the case. [[John Locke]]'s ''[[An Essay Concerning Human Understanding]]'' and [[Thomas Malthus]]'s ''[[An Essay on the Principle of Population]]'' are long essays. Essays can have all sorts of purposes. For example, an essay can be very argumentative, it can talk about points for and against the essay question to give a balanced argument or opinion. Essay must be essential and give some new points about topics. Its must be useful to readers. [[Michel de Montaigne]], a 16th century philosopher invented the essay. ==Types== *argument led approach. An [[argument|argumentative]] essay is a [[criticism|critical]] piece of writing, aimed at presenting [[Objectivity (philosophy)|objective]] view of a subject matter. It is narrowed down to a single topic. <ref>Chapter 6: Comparison and Contrast in Glenn, Cheryl. Making Sense: A Real-World Rhetorical Reader. Ed. Denise B. Wydra, et al. Second ed. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2005.</ref> *thesis led approach. A [[thesis statement]] based essay follows a thesis which supports a particular case.<ref>{{cite book|author=Jane Gallop|title=Polemic: Critical Or Uncritical|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eSwsBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA15|date=12 November 2012|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-135-87348-6|pages=15+}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://papyr.com/hypertextbooks/comp1/thesis.htm|title=English Composition 1: Thesis|website=papyr.com}}</ref><ref>https://www.ee.princeton.edu/people/alumni/thesis-led-essay.html{{Dead link|date=October 2022 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-at