“I am so clever that sometimes I don’t understand a single word of what I am saying.” ― Oscar Wilde
Upon retirement in 1571, Michel de Montaigne spent his time in the French countryside reading and writing, where he claimed to be merely “essaying” – which in French means trying – a kind of exploratory, unresolved thinking on the page. Montaigne suggested that in writing about himself, he was also “undertaking a study, the subject of which is man.” Essays traffic in ideas, asking questions, and explaining thinking in order to help the reader become equally enthralled.
This paper is a true essay in the classical sense that the writer should discover, articulate and express personal insights as they intersect with and circle around a specific topic or experience. Writing consultant Katherine Bomer in her publication “The Journey is Everything” states “The kind of writing I am arguing for in this book: prose pieces that are personal, lyrical, literary, descriptive, reflective, narrative, expository, philosophical, political, spiritual…all of the above.”Your goal? To craft an essay that has room for everything – essays linger, arouse, question, travel, contradict, reveal and expose the mind.
Successful essays will:
- Be personal. Narrate your own story/experience in first person, cultivate voice
- Set up the text, context and approach in a way that allows you to enter the conversation
- Use at least one class/college/life idea or moment as a “touchstone” – a foundation for your inquiry
- Explore the larger contextual elements (moment in history, geography, age, situation…)
- Possess a controlling idea, but also be creative, organic, logical – not formulaic
- Be honest and accurate – identify and name your ideas, places, moments, setting
- Possess a thoughtful, creative conclusion – good essay have striking beginnings and endings
- Include quoted credible sources (writers, current voices, critics, peers…)
- Use an epigraph to creatively contextualize your contribution to the conversation (see Wilde quote)
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