Types of Essays, Definitions, Characteristics, Structures and Examples – In the world of writing, writing an essay is certainly not a new thing for all of us. There is an essay in the form of a work fiction There are also non-fiction works. One of the non-fiction essays that is familiar to the academic community, one of which is an essay. Maybe almost everyone, consciously or unconsciously, has read an essay. In making an essay there are several rules that must be obeyed. In addition, essays also have various types, depending on the purpose of the essay. In this article, we will discuss the types of essays – their definitions, characteristics, structures and examples.

Essay Definition

Referring to the definition of the Big Indonesian Dictionary, the term 'esai' is defined as an essay or written work which is included in prose that discusses a problem (study) at a glance from the personal point of view of the author. The expert, Soetomo, also stated the same thing, who defined an essay as a short essay based on one's perspective in addressing a problem. Based on the two definitions described earlier, we can conclude that the essay is strongly influenced by the author's point of view in assessing a problem, so that the writing on the essay must contain opinions that are subjective and argumentative. Even though it is subjective, the arguments presented in the essay must still be subjective logical, well understood, and based on theory or data and facts field. That way, the essay is not only a fictional writing or the imagination of the author. In general, essays have something in common with the editorials found in

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letter news, which has the aim of convincing the public of the author's point of view on an issue, or in other words leading public opinion. The difference is that editorials are only written by a chief editor, while essays can be written by anyone.

Essay Characteristics

As with all written works, to distinguish them from other writings, essays have several characteristics, including:

  1. A short essay.

Essay is a type of prose in written form. Essays are written with the number sentence short ones. This is because the essay consists of a concise and clear study so that it is easily understood by the general public.

  1. Have style typical language.

Because it is strongly influenced by the author's point of view, of course the writing style of each essay writer will be different and bring their own characteristics. Essays can be written by anyone who wants to respond to a problem or raise a particular issue for discussed, thus each essay will have a different writing style from one individual to another other.

Essay Structure

So that the essays that are written later are good and easy to understand, when writing we need to pay attention to the structures that make up the essay, as follows:

  1. preliminary

The introduction is the initial structure that builds the framework of the essay. The introduction will usually briefly reveal the topic or theme that will be raised throughout the essay. In this section, the background underlying the writing of the essay is described, usually in the form of data or facts in the field. In addition, in this section the author also expresses a few opinions about the theme that will be discussed further. In short, the introduction will be an introduction or description of the reader in order to understand the topic to be discussed an essay is brought, so that the reader will easily understand the contents of the essay that will be delivered in the section next.

  1. Content or Discussion

This section is a core part of the essay building structure. In this section, the previously selected topics or themes will be discussed and explained in more detail and detail. In the discussion, writing will describe his opinions and arguments chronologically or sequentially so that the essays written later are coherent. The content also explains the basic principles of the compilers of the argument, such as the theory of experts combined with data and real facts in the field. Theories, data, and facts are what will convince the reader to believe the author's opinion conveyed in the essay.

  1. Closing or Conclusion

As the name suggests, the closing section is the last section in compiling an essay. This section contains a conclusion in the form of a sentence that summarizes the main points that have been presented previously in the introduction and discussion sections. Conclusions should be brief, concise, and clear, and not extend to other topics. Some essays also add author suggestions for third parties to address the problems discussed in the closing section.

In addition to following the structure of essay writing as described previously, the following are some steps that can be used as a reference in writing essays, namely

  • Determine the theme or issue to be raised.
  • Make an outline of the main idea that will be developed in the discussion paragraph.
  • Develop the main idea in the discussion paragraph accompanied by the author's opinion on the idea. In writing the opinion must be based on theory, expert opinion, data data, as well as existing facts.
  • Summarize the main or core of the ideas that have been conveyed previously.

Types of Essays

Essays are divided into several types. Among them, essays are divided into based on the purpose of their writing and the variety of issues raised.

(1-5) Types of Essays Based on the Purpose of Writing

The following is a description of the types of essays based on the purpose of writing and each explanation,

  1. Story Essay

Essay story is an essay that aims to describe, or present either an item, a person, or something else so that the reader can imagine it. This essay aims to make it seem as if the reader sees the shape, hears the sound, tastes the taste, or smells the smell of an object, or a person, or something else that is presented in the content of the essay. Or with word On the other hand, story essays aim to give the reader the main impression the author wants to convey about an object or someone or something else.

  1. Exposure Essay

This essay aims to explain or explain in more detail something to the reader. The main purpose of this essay is to educate and provide information to readers.

  1. Argumentative Essay

This type of essay aims to convince the reader to accept the author's ideas, views, attitudes, or beliefs on an issue or problem. An argumentative essay will try to reveal the truth of an idea with a motive so that later readers in the end will side with the author and do something based on the opinions contained in the essay that.

  1. Painting Essay

A painting essay is an essay whose contents describe something with the aim of helping the reader understand what is being conveyed.

  1. Invitation Essay

Invitation essays are almost similar in purpose to argumentative essays, except that this type of essay has a more specific purpose, namely: invites the reader to follow the author in doing something or vice versa invites the reader to stop doing something Thing.

(6-12) Types of Essays Based on the Diversity of Problems That Emerge

  1. Descriptive

Descriptive essay is an essay that describes a person or thing. The problem or thing raised in this essay is an object, such as a house, an electronic device, an animal, or a person.

  1. Title

Header, is a type of essay published in a newspaper which is a place to channel opinions community to express their views on an event that is developing in the community that. This type of essay raises issues that are currently being discussed in the community, such as political turmoil, the current state of the economy and so on. The title does not only contain serious issues, but what is currently trending in society can also be the subject of discussion in the editorial, for example the model fashion the latest, even to the phenomenon of "Om Telolet, Om" which has been widely discussed lately.

  1. Character Snippets

This type of essay allows a writer to insert a snippet (snippet) of one's character on a related issue to the reader. This essay does not describe in full the biography of a character, but only reveals a piece the character or nature of a character related to the issue or story raised in the essay that.

  1. Personal

Personal essays are almost similar to character snippets. It's just that what distinguishes this type of essay from a character essay is that the character or nature presented in the essay is a piece of the character or nature of the author himself. In personal essays, the author expresses his opinion in a frontal way on the issues raised in the essay.

  1. Reflective

This essay is an essay written to reflect on a political issue, government policy, and others which is usually written by an expert to respond to these issues.

  1. Critics

Critical essay is an essay that judges good or bad, useful or not, advantages or disadvantages of something, either in the form of art or works of art. literature. Critics will discuss and evaluate the various elements that make up the work and are packaged in an essay.

  1. Research Articles

Research article is a type of essay that contains the results obtained from a study. Articles of this type will generally add new knowledge in their field or re-check existing research with current real conditions.

Sample Essays and Discussions

Causes of the Lampung Language Endangered

Reporting from the BBC website, UNESCO says that more than a third of the world's languages ​​are threatened with extinction and some of them are spoken by a small group of speakers. Of the approximately 2,000 languages, according to UNESCO, about 200 are spoken by a small group of speakers. Lampung language which is the regional language of Lampung Province is one of them. Lampung language has many kinds of dialects and also has its own script (letters).

In the era of globalization when people put forward the national language and foreign languages ​​because of their needs communication in business and other matters, the use of regional languages ​​such as the Lampung language in the Lampung province area has begun to decline. It is feared that the Lampung language will have fewer speakers.

There are several possible reasons why there are fewer and fewer native speakers of the Lampung language; things that I think could be the cause of the decrease in native speakers of Lampung. The first is that there are many variations of dialects that make it difficult for fellow speakers who follow different dialects to be reluctant to use the Lampung language. In the end they prefer to use the national language to bridge these difficulties.

People who heterogeneous where many people outside the Lampung tribe live in Lampung and the existence of inter-tribal marriages are also the reasons why people tend to use the national language. The existence of this inter-tribal marriage gave birth to children who were not taught the Lampung language because their parents did not familiarize or teach them the Lampung language at home. Communication at home is dominated by language Indonesia as the national language. Not only children from inter-tribal marriages, but children born to parents tribe Many native Lampung people have started not learning the Lampung language or communicating with the Lampung language at home.

The dominance of the use of the Indonesian language so that the use of language I don't think it's only happening in Lampung. This is due to the pressing need and practicality in communicating in the realm of business, education, and other sectors.

Preservation of language as an element of culture of course it is not an easy thing, especially since it involves many people with different types of communication. The causes of the threat of local languages, both Lampung and other languages, cannot escape the role of all parties. Therefore, it takes the role and participation from many parties also to preserve it.

The discussion:

Judging from the issues raised, this essay is a presentation essay. This essay describes the causes of the cause of the Lampung language being threatened with extinction. In the first and second paragraphs, introductory data about phenomenon the extinction of a regional language quoted from a UNESCO statement. Paragraph These one and two are structurally the opening part which is an introduction to the next more detailed discussion, namely regarding the causes of the almost extinction of the Lampung regional language,

Judging from the structure, the fourth and fifth paragraphs are the content or discussion of the essay. In that section, he mentions chronologically what things can cause the extinction of the Lampung language. In the content of the essay, the writer is of the opinion that the causes of the fewer native speakers of the Lampung language include 1) The large number of dialect variations that cause reluctance in using the Lampung language, 2) Heterogeneous people living in Lampung as well as cross-breeding between tribes, 3) The use of Indonesian language which not only shifts the use of the Lampung language, but also shifts the use of other regional languages ​​for reasons of practicality and the need to communicate in the business, education, and other sectors. other professionals.

In the last part of the paragraph which is the closing part of the essay, the writer concludes that if the cause of the threat of extinction of the local language is the result of the contribution of all parties. Therefore, in overcoming the threat of extinction of a language, the role of all parties is also needed to preserve it.


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So many articles that explore the types of essays and their explanations. Hopefully this article can be useful