Essay Samples Can Be a Good Writing Manual

Writing an essay is a skill which requires a lot of practice; teaching that skill can take even more practice and preparation. However, there are many different solutions to accomplishing this goal. Whether you are a tutor or teacher in the art of essay writing or a student hoping to improve your skills, one of the best ways to understand the rules and form of an essay is simply to read them. Using essay samples as your writing manual is helpful for many reasons.

• Learn the rules in context: Just as grammar is difficult to learn without using real sentences as examples, the rules of writing an essay are not easy to remember until you see them in action. This is because, as humans, we are far less equipped to deal with abstract rules and ideas if they have no grounding in the real world. Our brains are wired to understand concepts intuitively rather than to just consciously remember them. So you are far more likely to retain the information if you see it in a real example.
• Get familiar with the style: Many writers in the past have said that if you want to become a great writer, you have to read. This is because the more you submerse yourself in the form, the more familiar you become with the structures and characteristics that make the craft what it is. Reading as many essays as you can get your hands on will help you to absorb rules and stylistic tendency that aren’t so easy to explain in concrete terms. You will become more comfortable with the form and how it works and when you have to write yourself, it will feel much more natural.
• Know right from wrong: Reading a lot of essay samples can help you not only to see the rules in action but also to see why they exist. When you just hear an abstract rule about essay writing, it’s easy to dismiss it since you do not really understand why it might be necessary or useful. However, when you read through a well crafted essay which conforms to the rules and guidelines and then read a badly written essay which fails to follow many of the rules; you quickly begin to see why those rules are in place and gain a better feeling for what is right and wrong as you write your own essay.