FOLLOW STRUCTURE & STYLE GUIDELINES FOR ESSAYS


The STRUCTURE of an essay is as important as the paper FORMAT and source CITATIONS.

Be sure to follow the DRAFTING content for proper STRUCTURE & STYLE.

Be sure to use the 3-part-layout in all of your writing. See THIS LINK for help with the 3-part-layout in DBs, essays, and paragraphs.


Tuesday, September 17, 2019

Avoiding the Walk-through Essay



Reviewing Essays for Original Argument Structure
—of embedded sources

A common structural flaw in college essays is the "walk-through" (also labeled "summary" or "description"). 

Walk-through essays follow the structure of their sources rather than establishing their own [structure to drive the writing].  

  • Establish your own argument.  
  • Design your own writing content.  
  • Then, after your ideas are clearly stated, use sourced materials to defend what you have already clearly established--IN DETAIL.  
  • NOW that is how you create an original essay with original thought and progression.


You do not want to write a walk-through essay.  You want to create your own argument and only use sources to defend what you have argued.

Walk-through essays generally have a descriptive thesis rather than an argumentative one.  [College writing requires argument and persuasion, not description and reporting.]

Be wary of paragraph openers that lead off with "time" words ("first," "next," "after," "then") or "listing" words ("also," "another," "in addition"). Although they don't always signal trouble, these paragraph openers often indicate that an essay's thesis and structure need work: they suggest that the essay...
  • simply reproduces the chronology of the source text (in the case of time words: first this happens, then that, and afterwards another thing . . . ) or 
  • simply lists example after example ("In addition, the use of color indicates another way that the painting differentiates between good and evil").


Do not write a walk-through essay.  
  1. Create your own argument.  
  2. Use sources to defend what you have argued.
  3. Reiterate that the sources are proving your point.
  4. Stay in 3rd person voice.



Content modified by J. Dick from Elizabeth Abrams' Essay Structure handout.

Copyright 2000, by Elizabeth Abrams. 
Posted by the Writing Center at Harvard University in Essay Structure.
sponsored by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.





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