Why Write an Essay?

Essays are vehicles for working out your thoughts, expressing your ideas, and convincing others to agree with you.

If you want to learn something from your writing, the essay is an ideal form for you. Its focus on process and orientation toward reflection and discovery requires you to reconsider your assumptions and encourages you to extend your ideas to new areas. The essay also lends itself well to self-expression: it can have all the freedom of a diary entry along with the refinement of an edited work.

Essay writing is a good way to break into publication. Whether you want to generate clips for job applications or simply want to see your name in print, you’ll find that essays are often easier to place than fiction or poetry and that unsolicited essays might be accepted where unsolicited news stories would not. For submission tips, see How to Get Your Essay Published.

Writing essays gives you a way to participate in your community. A well-written piece that develops your opinion about a locally contested issue, made available in a newspaper or blog, can influence the course of events in your area. Essays also let you share your reaction to national or world happenings, give your evaluation of social trends, or correct a misunderstanding in an area of your expertise.