Senshi1
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If you can read through this without getting distracted or simply wandering off, you deserve a medal. 🙂 I wrote it, and even I can't stay interested long enough to read through it.
The word “essay” comes from the Latin word “essatius”, which means to explain. Keeping true to this, this particular essay has been penned in order to analyse the contents of this essay. The obvious place to start would be the introductory paragraph, which is being composed parallel to this analysis, making time constraints less inconvenient. Here, the essay is explaining the nature of the opening paragraph. Traditionally, the opening paragraph offers a brief overview of the essay as a whole. In this case, however, the opening paragraph is doing the work of the essay itself by actually analysing the text. For example, at one point the essay says:
“Traditionally, the opening paragraph offers a brief overview of the essay as a whole. In this case, however, the opening paragraph is doing the work of the essay itself by actually analysing the text.”
Although the first of those sentences remains faithful to the classical essay structure, the second sentence is clearly explaining the nature of it. We can determine this through the use of explanatory phrases such as “however, the opening paragraph is doing the work of the essay itself by actually analysing the text” (“by” being the keyword).
The second paragraph of an essay usually goes into slightly more detail, for example, offering a brief overview of the subject in question. In this case, the subject being explained in the essay is the essay itself, and, consequently, this explanation. We can clearly see that this paragraph, particularly the second sentence, is indeed looking at the text as a whole, as it offers a brief one-sentence summary:
“In this case, the subject being explained in this essay is the essay itself, and, consequently, this explanation.”
The essay then goes on to explain that sentence, and how it sums up the essay as a whole. The overall tone of the essay is to be expected; rather formal, and not at all personal. There isn’t a single use of the first person in the essay, which is extremely common of analytical writings.
The third paragraph of the essay is starting to go into more detail regarding the content of the essay. It’s sort of like a closer look at the text.
Interestingly, at this point, the tone of the essay changes for a brief moment, employing an extremely uncharacteristic phrase:
“It’s sort of like a closer look at the text.”
Usage of the phrase “sort of” is extremely uncommon in this context. Whilst it is possible that the writer was trying to make a statement, it is more likely that this phrase was used simply to grasp the readers’ attention. Often at this point of the essay, especially ones covering topics that aren’t normally considered to be “exciting”, the readers’ interest may begin to wane. Therefore, usage of a phrase such as this is probably a bold attempt on the writer’s part to attract back some of the attention it may have lost along the way.
The words in the essay are not particularly complicated, consisting of simple explanatory words and phrases such as “such as”, “etcetera”, etc. However, despite this, the sentence structure is unusually complex at some points. Particularly noteworthy is the following sentence, taken from the second paragraph:
“In this case, the subject being explained in this essay is the essay itself, and, consequently, this explanation.”
This particular sentence could be made simpler by dividing it into two separate sentences. For example: “In this case, the subject being explained is the essay itself. Consequently, the essay is in fact explaining this explanation.” The illusion of complexity is also created by repetition of certain words. Sometimes multiple words in the same sentence are even used, as displayed above; the word “essay” is repeated, as well as the similar words “explained” and “explanation.” The use of alliteration with these four words also adds to the effect this sentence has, reinforcing the impact made by the initial repetition.
The conclusion is surprisingly short, and to-the-point, saying only the following:
“The conclusion is surprisingly short, and to-the-point, saying only the following:
The reason for this, however, is probably that the writer felt that they had explained themselves fully in the preceding paragraphs and did not feel obligated to go into any further detail. On the whole, the essay, when analysed, despite covering an adequate amount of detail, is essentially an extremely basic piece of writing, structure-wise, and does nothing to stand out from any other essay on this particular topic.”
The reason for this, however, is probably that the writer felt that they had explained themselves fully in the preceding paragraphs and did not feel obligated to go into any further detail. On the whole, the essay, when analysed, despite covering an adequate amount of detail, is essentially an extremely basic piece of writing, structure-wise, and does nothing to stand out from any other essay on this particular topic.
Essay Analysing This Essay
By Kurt Z. Shoney
The word “essay” comes from the Latin word “essatius”, which means to explain. Keeping true to this, this particular essay has been penned in order to analyse the contents of this essay. The obvious place to start would be the introductory paragraph, which is being composed parallel to this analysis, making time constraints less inconvenient. Here, the essay is explaining the nature of the opening paragraph. Traditionally, the opening paragraph offers a brief overview of the essay as a whole. In this case, however, the opening paragraph is doing the work of the essay itself by actually analysing the text. For example, at one point the essay says:
“Traditionally, the opening paragraph offers a brief overview of the essay as a whole. In this case, however, the opening paragraph is doing the work of the essay itself by actually analysing the text.”
Although the first of those sentences remains faithful to the classical essay structure, the second sentence is clearly explaining the nature of it. We can determine this through the use of explanatory phrases such as “however, the opening paragraph is doing the work of the essay itself by actually analysing the text” (“by” being the keyword).
The second paragraph of an essay usually goes into slightly more detail, for example, offering a brief overview of the subject in question. In this case, the subject being explained in the essay is the essay itself, and, consequently, this explanation. We can clearly see that this paragraph, particularly the second sentence, is indeed looking at the text as a whole, as it offers a brief one-sentence summary:
“In this case, the subject being explained in this essay is the essay itself, and, consequently, this explanation.”
The essay then goes on to explain that sentence, and how it sums up the essay as a whole. The overall tone of the essay is to be expected; rather formal, and not at all personal. There isn’t a single use of the first person in the essay, which is extremely common of analytical writings.
The third paragraph of the essay is starting to go into more detail regarding the content of the essay. It’s sort of like a closer look at the text.
Interestingly, at this point, the tone of the essay changes for a brief moment, employing an extremely uncharacteristic phrase:
“It’s sort of like a closer look at the text.”
Usage of the phrase “sort of” is extremely uncommon in this context. Whilst it is possible that the writer was trying to make a statement, it is more likely that this phrase was used simply to grasp the readers’ attention. Often at this point of the essay, especially ones covering topics that aren’t normally considered to be “exciting”, the readers’ interest may begin to wane. Therefore, usage of a phrase such as this is probably a bold attempt on the writer’s part to attract back some of the attention it may have lost along the way.
The words in the essay are not particularly complicated, consisting of simple explanatory words and phrases such as “such as”, “etcetera”, etc. However, despite this, the sentence structure is unusually complex at some points. Particularly noteworthy is the following sentence, taken from the second paragraph:
“In this case, the subject being explained in this essay is the essay itself, and, consequently, this explanation.”
This particular sentence could be made simpler by dividing it into two separate sentences. For example: “In this case, the subject being explained is the essay itself. Consequently, the essay is in fact explaining this explanation.” The illusion of complexity is also created by repetition of certain words. Sometimes multiple words in the same sentence are even used, as displayed above; the word “essay” is repeated, as well as the similar words “explained” and “explanation.” The use of alliteration with these four words also adds to the effect this sentence has, reinforcing the impact made by the initial repetition.
The conclusion is surprisingly short, and to-the-point, saying only the following:
“The conclusion is surprisingly short, and to-the-point, saying only the following:
The reason for this, however, is probably that the writer felt that they had explained themselves fully in the preceding paragraphs and did not feel obligated to go into any further detail. On the whole, the essay, when analysed, despite covering an adequate amount of detail, is essentially an extremely basic piece of writing, structure-wise, and does nothing to stand out from any other essay on this particular topic.”
The reason for this, however, is probably that the writer felt that they had explained themselves fully in the preceding paragraphs and did not feel obligated to go into any further detail. On the whole, the essay, when analysed, despite covering an adequate amount of detail, is essentially an extremely basic piece of writing, structure-wise, and does nothing to stand out from any other essay on this particular topic.
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