Essay writing is an intricate skill that involves more than just having a depth of understanding within a particular discipline. It also involves the ability to make connections between/among disciplines as well as with real life situations. One of the secrets of writing an incisive and relevant essay is the ability to pinpoint areas in which the theoretical aspects of the ideas being explored might also be made practical. It involves grounding the work in a foundation of theoretical research, but also having the ability to extend the ideas into the real world and explore their practical ramifications. Get free wine delivery when you purchase three bottles of wine online.

Several types of essays exist, such as informative, argumentative, persuasive, and explicative. Each essay type may be written using various formats for structuring, which include cause-effect, comparison/contrast, and classification forms, among others. These structural formats depend somewhat on the preference of the writer, but much more so upon the particular topic and the purpose for which the essay's ideas are being explored. It is these elements that determine the particular direction in which the writing process takes the writer, but all essays will at some point involve the areas of the writing process which shall be subsequently discussed.

The writing process involves several stages:

• Invention
  One of the first elements of the process centres on the invention or formulation of the topic to be explored within the essay. This represents the critical point at which the essay becomes conceived in the mind of the writer, and is usually the result of a question or problem that the writer seeks to understand or resolve.
• Critical Reading
  Following this, the essay enters the critical reading stage of the process, where any research or annotation previously done on the topic is explored, absorbed and analysed by the writer. Here the writer seeks to gain a thorough understanding of the problem and to find some ideas upon which answers to the initial question might be built.
• Thesis Formulation
  Next the essay enters the thesis formulation stage. It is here that any hypotheses regarding the question or problem are explicitly stated in order to identify the precise direction that the arguments of the essay will take. It is important to note that these hypotheses are usually encapsulated within a one-sentence thesis that is generally located at the end of the introductory paragraph.
• Organization
  After introducing the problem/question and stating the thesis, good essay writers proceed to a method of organization in which each paragraph systematically discusses its own individual area of the problem. Each paragraph must contain one topic sentence and several supporting sentences that corroborate the ideas presented within the thesis. However, while the problem is usually discussed in light of the position the writer takes within the thesis, mention must be made of alternative views in order to showcase the breadth of knowledge gained by the extensive reading and research done in the critical reading stage.
• Documentation
  Next, it becomes critical to perform proper documentation, as it does even more to demonstrate the breadth of research that has been done. It also prevents the pitfall of plagiarism that often plagues the essays of inexperienced writers.
• Referencing
  Such documentation is usually done according to a particular citation style, such as Harvard, Oxford, MLA, APA, Chicago, OSCOLA, etc. The style is generally dictated by the academic discipline for which the essay is being written.
• Revision
  Revision is critical after the first draft of the essay has been completed, and this stage involves re-reading the essay with a critical eye in order to check for contradictions, logical errors, and such problems as the omission of important data that adds to the comprehensiveness of the work.
• Proofreading
  Finally, proofreading is performed as a means of removing syntactical, grammatical, punctuation and orthographical errors that reduce the professionalism and academic excellence of the work.