I have never written an essay in my life, at least not the type required by colleges. I will be finishing 10th grade by the last week of march and am taking up the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP) in 11th and 12th grades. I have to start writing essays but I don’t know how. Like, is there a specific structure for college essays, is there any website that would help me start writing essays, or a book or something?
The truth is, I am totally lost and have no idea where to begin.
I know these are the stupidest (is that a word?) questions in this forum, but any help is appreciated.
@potterhead612 depends largely on the type of essay. Essays should generally have some sort of cohesive structure/organization to them.
For essay tips, you can easily look them up online. You might want to read the following:
https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/685/01/
It might also be good to look at information from actual college writing departments, such as http://writingcenter.fas.harvard.edu/pages/strategies-essay-writing.
The main type of essay I’ve written in college thus far has been argumentative. Some essay assignments come with prompts; some don’t. These essays start by giving background, then exposing a question or problem within the topic (e.g. there are no female protagonists in the story; why is this?). The central element of many styles of argumentative essays is a thesis that makes a claim that you will spend the rest of the paper defending (e.g. rather than being an act of misogyny, the author’s having females in supporting roles is used to challenge conventional ideas about leadership and influence). The rest of the paper will give different examples of why the thesis is true. It will use quotes and analysis to do this. Often, papers like this wrap up with some statement of why what you’re writing about matters or is significant to the larger world.
There are also papers that compare multiple works and make them “dialogue” (e.g. Author A believes that holding onto the past is ultimately damaging. While the protagonist in Author B’s story is turning to memories to heal from her depression and emptiness, Author A would argue that this is actually driving her deeper into her misery). There are “expository” papers that describe an issue or a topic (e.g. explain the significance of reproductive technology in the evolution of the family).
The best thing to do would be to ask your teachers what they expect as far as paper-writing. Every teacher has different preferences.