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8 Essay

Essays can be of different types.

Descriptive essays are those which consist of descriptions of places or things—animals,
plants, towns, countries, famous buildings.

Narrative essays involve the narration of events or a series of events.

Such essays may consist of historical stories or legends, biographies (the lives of great
people), incidents in a person’s life, accidents or natural disasters like earthquakes and
floods, journeys, real or imaginary stories.

Imaginative essays are those that express the thoughts and feelings of a person.

You, as the writer, have to imagine yourself in a certain situation which may or may not

be familiar to you. Autobiographies (the story of a person’s life written by the person
herself or himself) could also be imaginative essays.

An essay has three parts—introduction, body and conclusion.

y The introduction should be brief and should be made up of a few short sentences in
a very short paragraph or two. It would be good if you could make it a little different
from how others may begin their essays.

Here’s an example of an interesting introduction for an essay on the topic—
My Birthday Gift.

Was someone rubbing a cube of ice on my nose? Was it snowing only on
my nose? These questions ran through my mind as soon as I woke up on my
birthday last year.

Well, it was neither!

I’ll tell you what it was! It was my birthday gift sniffing me. My parents had

given me the most wonderful surprise of my life—a cuddly white puppy! That
was my birthday gift!

y The body is the main part of the essay and contains the thoughts of the writer.

This could consist of a few paragraphs.

y The conclusion sums up the essay. It should be brief and made up of a few short
sentences in a single paragraph. Try to make it meaningful and interesting.
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