Discursive essay writing

WRITING DISCURSIVE, LITERARY, AND ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAYS

We often have to organize and communicate information and ideas in an academic setting. Some times we have to put forward an argument or oppose a particular point of view. This is an argumentative essay. It is a requirement in fields such as Life Science, Geography, History, Life Orientation, and English literature.

Step 1

Analyse the issue and determine what different positions can be taken on this issue. For example, "Since 1994 the ANC government has moved away from its non-racial principles" The core issue is around the concept of non-racial principles. There are at least three positions:

YES - They have moved away from those principles
NO - They have not moved away, but have stuck to them
PARTLY - They have changed or modified some of the principles or ways in which they have implemented them but they have stuck to others

Step 2

Choose the position you agree with most strongly

Step 3

Give between three and five reasons for your position

Step 4

Find at least one piece of strong supporting evidence for each of your reasons

Step 5

Write an introduction in which you state briefly :

what the issue is and the background to it
what you position is (your thesis)
how you intend to prove your thesis (sum up your line of argument)

Step 6

Set out your argument in 3 to 5 paragraphs, devoting one paragraph to each reason and its supporting evidence

Step 7

Write a conclusion in which you sum up the argument and state again the conclusion you have arrived at. Do not add new information in your paragraph.

Discursive essay

The discursive essay differs from the argumentative essay in that it does not try to prove a particular stance, but rather tries to examine an issue from a number of different viewpoints and present enough information for the reader to arrive at their own position. Select two or three different positions or angles on the issue and expand on each of them in separate paragraphs with supporting detail.

Literary essay

The literary essay may be either a discursive or an argumentative essay. It is important to analyse the question to determine which sort of essay it is supposed to be. The other very important issue when writing literary essays is that your evidence must always be based on the literary work (anchored in the text) so it is a good strategy to refer to incidents in the work and even to use quotations from the work to support your arguments. When writing a literary essay be careful to distinguish between a speaker in the text and the author e.g. Scout says... or the author has Scout say...Always refer to the author as the author, or by surname, or by full name, never by first name only e.g. Shakespeare or William Shakespeare are acceptable but William is not! Also be careful that you refer to a work with the correct genre and title; do not call a play a novel, book or film.