Capturing an Essay

As students at EPCC, you will soon be asked to write essays. Since most classes require some kind of writing, the sooner you get good at it, the better. If you are curious and willing to apply serious effort, writing an essay can be as easy for you as spinning a spider web is for a spider. Writing essays is in your nature.

Reading some good essays will soon dispel the mystery of writing one. Nine times out of ten, an essay is just a personal story. In “A Latina in Kentucky,” Pat Mora tells about visiting a school, reflecting on her expectations and the pleasant outcome of her visit, which reinforced her commitment to write for children. In “Once More to the Lake,” E. B. White tells about a fishing trip he took with his son to a lake in Maine, where his father used to take him when he was a boy. Besides telling about the fish they caught, White reflects on time, nature, and the bond between generations. These essay-stories are interwoven with more reflection than a typical story told to the family over the evening meal. Still, they are basically stories about something that happened to the writers.

To write an essay, you must be a living, breathing human being who takes an interest in the things that you experience. By now, your life is rich with experiences. A slice of your life will usually be the best subject. You may write about your neighborhood, your parents, your siblings, your job, your grandparents, or your dreams. In an essay, you explain something you have experienced, clarifying what it taught you. You may give praise or assign blame. You may give advice on how to do something as this essay does. In any case, the act of writing will help you clarify your realization, what you think about the subject.

You capture your thoughts in writing much as a snapshot captures a scene. If you try to capture that scene on another day, the result will be different, depending on the light, the time of year, and other variables. Likewise, if you write the essay on another day, it will be different from the one you can write today. Writers make a lifestyle out of capturing their thoughts every day. Writing an essay is an art. As in any other art, you need a vision, creativity, commitment, resourcefulness, and energy. How will you combine the ingredients this time? Writers surprise themselves each time, coming up with interesting things that they didn’t realize they had in them.

On the practical side, you can begin an essay by making notes. Brainstorming is essential before trying to write that first sentence. Don’t waste time staring at a blank piece of paper. My favorite method of brainstorming is clustering, which I learned from Gabriele Rico at San Jose State College. Instead of struggling to write the first sentence, jot down the topic in a circle in the middle of your page. Then go shopping in your mind for ideas, images, and connections, anything that occurs to you until you have plenty of material to work with. Think of a sequence for your ideas. Some numbers on the clustering page will help you get all your ducks in a row.

Writing the notes will get the wheels of your mind turning. When you start to write, just do it. Get in the zone. Express yourself however you can. Don’t stop to worry about spelling or exact facts. Keeping a calm confidence, write deliberately, glancing at your clustering now and then for fresh ideas. Exert your personality. Tell your story the way you want to tell it. Adopt the tough guy’s attitude: “That’s my story, and I’m sticking with it.” If you have a sense of humor, harness it and crack the whip. Whatever you do, don’t stop writing until you have several pages filled with your handwriting. Once your story is out on paper, you can start to make it better. When you tell your story to your family over the supper table, you have only one chance to get it right. When you write it down, you can go back and change it as many times as you wish.

Once the sentences are all on paper, you can go back and read them, pen in hand, working in improvements. You can add more sensory details, more examples, more figurative comparisons. You can develop a series. You can switch compound sentences into complex sentences or some other alternative. You can tighten up the sentences by cutting unnecessary words and phrases. You can cut out complete sentences that repeat something already stated better elsewhere.Think critically.

Next, word process your essay. The computer makes your story into a malleable massof words, fluid and forgiving. Its blinking cursor invites you to add the special facts and delete the clutter. It points out misspelled words and ungrammatical phrases. Some of what the word processor tells you may not apply. You are the captain of your essay. You must make judgment calls. Seeing your essay neatly printed out will give you a fresh look at your ideas. Don’t be satisfied too quickly. Double check the spelling, punctuation, and mechanics, taking care of each letter, mark, and space.

Finally, look through your essay for a clever phrase to use as a title. Don’t use the topic for a title. “How to Write an Essay” is a sorry title. The title shouldn’t be too long, just enough to grab the reader’s attention and provide a clue as to where the essay is going. A good title may contain sensory detail or a clever play on words. For this essay, I might consider “Like a Spider” or “A Slice of Your Life” or “Capturing an Essay.”

If you write some essays and follow up on suggestions given, you will soon become more comfortable sharing your ideas in this format. Soon writing an essay will be as easy for you as spinning a web is for a spider.

1016 words, James Gonzales