Three Points of Making an Essay

Three Points of Making an Essay

Vocabulary, coherency of paragraphs, and grammar are three important points to master when we want to make a good essay in English. Those three elements are not too difficult to learn if we can do certain strategy or fun solution to make them much easier.

The first step we can do as a beginner writer is making a Tree of Words. Based on the theory in Learning Revolution, learning can be more effective if we can visualize our ideas into interesting pictures . So, Tree of Words is the right way to help us enriching vocabulary and stimulating our brains to connect ideas.

We can choose a topic about something we like and start to write it down into a piece of paper or notebook. Then, under the topic we have chosen, write the words that support the idea of the topic as many as we can and shape them like branches of tree or other shapes we love to see to make the learning more interesting.

In order to reduce difficulties in collecting and finding appropriate words, we can look up at Indonesian – English Dictionary. It is very important because simple mistake can cause misunderstanding.

For example, Indonesian people use the word ‘ hand phone ‘ to state a phone they can bring everywhere, when in fact, that word is not usual for native English speakers. They usually use ‘cell phone’ or ‘mobile phone’ instead of ‘hand phone’. This problem can make the native readers confuse when they read our essay.

Besides enriching vocabulary, Tree of Words can also be considered as a starting step to make a draft of an essay. All we need to do is classify the words we have written into three or more points so that later we can organize and develop our ideas into paragraphs well.

We can imagine as if we have a topic in mind titled Starburst Coffee. The words related to it perhaps are coffee, cup, flavors, price, place, location, situation, facilities, and discounts. Next, we classify coffee, cup, and flavors into the first main point named The Details of Product. It will be the main idea in the first paragraph and the explanation will be about the common facts about the product.

After that, facilities, situation, and location are gathered into the second main idea titled The Description of the Café. The explanation will be about the physical facts about the Starburst Coffee building and how the atmosphere is going there. Do the same step until the last main idea we have.

If we have had the draft with the classified words, we can directly try to develop them into paragraphs, but we must check the coherency of the main points that we have written so we will be easier to make a connecting sentence.

We can take the example of the previous topic about Starburst Coffee. As a writer, we must make a relation between the first main idea, The Details of The Product, and the second main idea, The Details of The Café, although they are different. It is because Readers will always need to read connected paragraphs.

Think of the best sentence we will put by the end of the first paragraph to continue the explanation into the second one. We can say for example : Not only the delicious and unforgettable taste of the coffee that customers can get here in Starburst Coffee, but also the comfort design of the building. Then after that sentence, we can directly talk about the second main idea.

The importance of coherency of paragraphs is stated by Murray and Hughes in Writing Up Your University Assignments and Research Projects that coherency is about how well a writer can arrange ideas as well as possible to make readers understand.

From that theory, we know that reader is everything for a writer. Therefore, when we begin to develop our main points into paragraphs, never forget to re-read as if we are the readers. We have to be critical and fair although it is our own essay. Always remember that making the readers understand is the main purpose of being a writer.

The last step in the process of making an essay is grammar editing. Actually editing does not only consist of grammar editing, but in this case, we need to emphasize on it because we write in English. However good the ideas and the content of an essay, the readers will not understand if the grammar we use is not right.

Actually, the easiest way to check the grammar of our essay is by typing it on the computer. The automatic spelling and grammar checking tools will show us the correct form of tenses or words if we do mistakes. But, we cannot fully depend on it because we have to be able to write manually.

To be expert in grammar, we must regularly do grammar exercises or read many English books. By reading, unconsciously we will absorb grammar patterns contained in each sentences in the books. When we get used to read and think in English, later we will be easier to learn grammar theoretically.

If we can accomplish the three basic main points of a good essay well, the readers must be satisfied to read our works as beginner writers. But, it does not mean we stop the efforts here. We have to keep improving our creativity in making new ideas and stories so that our essay will grow better and become the best.





Source :
1. Gordon Dryden and Dr. Jeannette Vos, The Learning Revolution (Jakarta: Kaifa, 2003), hlm. 163.

2. Prof. Mudrajad Kuncoro, Mahir Menulis (Jakarta: Erlangga, 2009), hlm. 111.