An essay is a written work that involves a methodical analysis and evaluation of some topic or problem.
When writing an essay, it is easy to fall into one of two extremes: describing facts, bypassing interpretation (fearing its subjectivity), or, on the contrary, describing your personal opinion without supporting it with facts. The art of writing an essay lies in finding this balance, in the ability to express your position, logically summarizing it and supporting it with rational, objective arguments.
Usually, a good essay describes and discusses several positions or points of view, and then draws a conclusion based on them, reflecting the author's informed opinion. Therefore, before writing an essay, you should always formulate what you think about what you are writing about, what your position is, what idea you will defend. In the case of our 99 papers reviews, everything is easier - in fact, the conclusion is already made ("This experiment is interesting to me"), all that is left to describe why.
You should begin your work on the essay by carefully reading its title or assignment. What are you asked to do? Describe, compare, discuss? What question is being asked? Do you understand all the terms at this stage? Based on this information, you can begin to think through the outline of the text.
Then it's your turn to make a plan and select your material. Consult the literature, and try to get a rough idea of what you're going to write about. At this stage, you need to make a plan containing the main topics that you plan to touch upon. It is possible that this plan will be changed later on. If your essay involves analysis of a large number of sources (which is not necessary in our contest), after making such an initial plan, you should start collecting and systematizing references on its basis - in connection with what and what you will be referring to.
So, the main ideas are outlined, the material is collected. Can you start writing? You should not hurry. It is useful to work through the detailed structure of your text first. An essay always consists of three parts - introduction, discussion and conclusion. In the introduction, you describe the question and its context, and briefly talk about the direction of your reasoning. For example, in the case of our contest, you briefly introduce the research you've chosen and summarize why you chose it. In the second part, the discussion, you present the arguments and evidence for your point of view. It is important that the discussion be logical and coherent. In an essay about experiments, this is where you can give a description of the research, and detail the points that interested you, whether it is the history of the experiment or the result, the technique or methodology used, the influence that was had on the subsequent development of the research field, etc. Here are only examples of arguments - in fact, there is a huge variety of them. The essay concludes by summarizing the discussion and demonstrating that you have answered the question.
Once the outline of the essay is drawn up according to this three-part "skeleton," you can begin writing. You can write from either end - some people prefer to have a written discussion first and then frame it with an introduction and conclusion, some write all parts in sequence. The main thing is to try to write clearly, briefly, and dedicate each paragraph to a single thought.
Well, and has already written the text to check and edit. Do you answer the question posed? Is it not necessary to change some fragments in order to make the proof more consistent? Is it necessary to shorten the text to meet the limit (we have 500 words)? Is the text literate, are there any typos? After your own check, you can show the text with the same questions to your friends who care - at this stage, a fresh look never hurts.
Basically, the essay is ready - all that remains is to format it.