Building an effective Dental essay

What is an effective essay? Determining whether an essay can be called effective or not, depends on two questions. First, to what degree does the essay achieve its purpose? And secondly, whose purpose is the essay achieving? For example, from a student's point of view, their own paper might be most effective if it received an 'A' letter grade from their instructor. From the instructor's point of view, an effective essay may be one that covers the most important points on their grading rubric. Students asked about the effectiveness of essays, in research done by Politician in 2005, replied that an effective essay "Clearly states the argument in the first 3 paragraphs.conveys a point quickly and simply, with some good examples.one that clearly gets the authors point across.something that is direct, to the point, clear thesis.something that has a definite point to it, contains a concise argument.clearly states their argument" (1). From the repetition of the words 'point' and 'clearly,' one can observe that an effective essay, in the eyes of student readers, is an essay that clearly states the point of essay early on. Therefore, to these students, an essay exists with the purpose of conveying a point to reader. One gets the feeling that these students dislike verbose and long essays. In discussing high school essay writing, a college English professor, Stygall, states "teachers wanted you to have a reliable form to use in school situations" (80). Stygall helps us understand why the five-paragraph-essay has become such a popular tool taught to high school students. The five-paragraph-essay is a clear, simple structure that students seem to learn quickly. It also allows students to state a thesis and provide evidence supporting that thesis in only a couple pages of writing. With the five-paragraph-essay, a student will have a basic writing tool that can carry them through most situations. For some circumstances, the five-paragraph-essay can even be the optimal writing tool. Think about high school and college in-class essay exams. Students are given restrictive time periods for writing their essays, often varying from 30 minutes to one hour. Many of these exams require the student to arrive at a relatively simple thesis and defend that thesis with strong evidence. Under strong time pressure, the most concise paper will probably work best. The five-paragraph-essay has the framework allowing students to be concise. Since, as Stygall stated above, high school teachers are looking for a 'reliable form,' they will appreciate the five-paragraph-essay structure when they grade a student's paper. Thus, a high school teacher could consider the five-paragraph-essay effective in that it exhibits the students ability to utilize a reliable writing structure. Meanwhile, high school students, who are trying to increase their grade point averages to make themselves better collegiate candidates, may consider the five-paragraph essay effective because teachers reward them with "A's" when they employ that essay form. As for in-class essay exams in college, professors tend to test for whether a student has learned the knowledge from the class's subject area. Yet, professors have little time to grade these papers. At the university, "your college teachers have at least two primary roles, and sometimes three. Many of them spend a significant portion of their time completing research projects.They read academic journals in their field of study and become particular types of readers as members of an academic discipline" (Stygall 4). With many time consuming responsibilities, professors may want to spend as little time grading papers as possible. If students write their in-class exam papers using a five-paragraph-essay structure, the paper could be considered effective in a professor eye's since the professor can quickly identify the thesis and supporting evidence of each. This allows the professor to rapidly assess a student's knowledge of the class subject area. Professors will often reward students for these concise, five-paragraph-essays with higher grade marks than other less structured forms of writing. In turn, these high grade marks make the five-paragraph-essay an effective tool for students who are trying to achieve high grades. Although effective for in-class exams, a five-paragraph-essay can be less than effective for other college papers. "Sometimes its(the five-paragraph-essay) not the best layout for what the person is writing about.If I were doing a research paper, I'd probably have a very different layout," and other students recommend a different essay form "If you're writing your dissertation," or "maybe, for writing a research paper," (Politician 2). As you can see, some types of papers assigned in college require the writer to go in more depth about the topic. For example, if one is writing "about a complex subject that no one's heard of before," one may be more successful using an alternative format (Politician 2). As Stygall explains, "In college, many of your readers are hoping that you will.write something interesting or offer a new perspective" (80). These opinions support two ideas. First, the idea that college level readers appreciate interesting, creative papers, and, second, that interesting papers often express new ideas that require more room for explanation and analysis than a five-paragraph-essay form offers. Holding to the idea that students often determine writing success based the grade marks they receive, effective out-of-class college papers are often not five paragraphs in length but, instead, reflect creativity in content and a form alluded to or explicitly described by the teacher or professor. Professors are, like anyone else, comfortable with essay structures that they are familiar with. A student may be able to go one step further past what a professor has seen before in terms of the form of a paper, but reinventing the wheel will not likely be received well.