Essays serve as a way to assess your understanding of specific ideas and your ability to explain and argue these to answer a given question. The beginning of an essay can seem daunting. These stages apply to every essay or paper. Essays are used to assess your understanding of specific ideas and your ability to explain these in your own words. Essays have traditionally been sub-classified as formal and informal. However, the time and effort spent on each stage depends on the type of essay, for example a personal statement, statement of purpose, high school essay or graduate school essay. Formal essays are characterized by "serious purpose, dignity, logical organization, length," whereas the informal essay is characterized by "the personal element (self-revelation, individual tastes and experiences, confidential manner), humor, grac… An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument — but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. The essay writing process consists of three stages: preparation, writing and revision. The word ‘essay’ derives from the Latin word ‘exagium’, meaning the presentation of a case. When you write an essay you are making a case for the validity of a particular point of view, analysis, interpretation, or set of facts or procedures. In an academic context, most likely that of University, what defines an essay is their purpose. A thesis statement is a sentence that states the main idea of … A body, or middle section, that provides evidence used to prove and persuade the reader to accept … Essays are usually written in a discursive style, bringing together ideas, evidence and arguments to address a specific problem or question. Creating a Thesis Statement. The definition of an essay is vague, overlapping with those of an article or a short story. What an Essay Is and How to Write One Writing an Introduction. An essay is an extended piece of writing that presents and supports a thesis or proposition.