What is an Essay, Types of Essay And Essay Writing Examples:
An essay is an organised piece of writing about a given topic. It is a commonly assgined form of writing that every student encounters while in school. The exercise can be a rewarding and challenging type of writing and is often assigned both in class. Which requires previous planning and practices at some what level of creativity and as exercise and practices at home. At both levels, perfection is the target.
Therefore, the essence of writing an essay is to encourage students to test or examine and to develop their ideas and concept and to demonstrate their understanding concerning a particular topic or concept.
The first positive step towards achieving, effective writing essays is to work towards understanding some common genres/types within essay writing, a number of skills emerged: skills of close reading, analysis, comparison and contrast, persuasion, conciseness, clarity and exposition. Therefore, essay is concise and required clarity in purpose and direction.
Types of Essay
There are four types of essay:
Narrative Essay
Descriptive Essay
Argumentative Essay
Expository Essay
1. Narrative Essay: It is one type of essay requires you to relate an event or incident as an eye witness would. This is the act of story telling and a wide experience in the reading of short stories, novels and so on is required. Your essay must be interesting and convincing; the reader should enjoy reading it and be led to believe that what he is reading is true. The narrative should follow the order in which the events took place gradually moving the reader to the climax of your story. Your only have to state the facts as they were.
Examples of Narrative Essay
– The Pride month celebration and its preparation
– My first day in college
– Shooting an elephant
– Life-long best friends
2. Descriptive Essay: A descriptive essay is one that requires you to write a description of, for example, an object, a person, an animal, an incident or a scene. If you choose a descriptive essay in the examination, you should have a very clear picture in your mind of what you want to describe. The clearer the picture you have, the better will be your description. Descriptive essays are usually popular with examination candidates. To score a high mark, candidates will be expected to give every clear, interesting and infromative description.
Examples of Descriptive Essay
– The person I like most
– A typical market scene
– About myself
– My Guitar Instructor
3. Argumentative Essay: An Argumentative essay is an essay which requires you to attempt to influence and persuade your reader to agree with your own points of view on a particular issue presenting an argument requires a lot of planning and skills. Effective arguments should be presented in a well organised form. You need to first and foremost, give a clear intelligent definition of the subject of discussion so that your audience or readers know what you want to write about.
There are always two sides in an argument and the mode of your answer depends entirely on the form the questions take. The question usually specifies whether you are expected to write on only one side or on both sides. Some questions give you a choice of the side to write on, while some state the side to tackle.
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Examples of Argumentative Essay
– Educators are more essential to a community than doctors
– Should students take active part in politics
– Are you for or against of bride price in your community?
– Is technology making us smarter or lazier?
4. Expository Essay: An expository essay is one that requires you to explain a thing or a process fully. The explanation will necessarily demand writing a great deal about what distinguishes the subject of the essay from all other things. It may also involve some description.
Apart from dealing with things that we can see hear, touch, smell or taste, an expository essay may also treat things that we may not be able to fell directly. It covers a wide range indeed. The subjects of expository essays include feature articles in newspapers and magazines of formal lecturers and addresses. Such of writings not only state facts or describe situations, but also make judgments. Much of the material in textbooks will be found to be expository. The test of air pressure in pure sciece; the financial state of a nation in economics, the role of a state in international affairs, in history or political science and so on.
Examples of the internet
– The history of the internet
– Road page
– Instruction on performing a task
– A driving directives
Kant for College Freshmen – An Expository essay
Kant thinks that Desire is the engine of life. Desire is what keeps us alive both as individuals and as a species. For example, hunger and thirst are forms of desire; without these desires, we perish as individuals. Sex involves a form of desire; without this desire we perish as a species.
Kant believes that humans and animals are alike in this respect — humans are animals, after all. However, humans are also more than animals because, in addition to desire, we also have Reason. I will not attempt to explain what Kant means by “Reason” – it would take too long – but for our purposes we may regard “free will” and “practical reason” as two names for the same thing.
Kant argues that, in order for an action to be moral (i.e., to conform to duty), it has to be “free,” but what does this mean? In effect, it means that the action must meet two conditions. First, the action must be independent of desire. Why? Because it is our animal nature that is governed by desire, and actions which arise out of animal nature are non-moral. They are not necessarily immoral (bad), but they are at best amoral (neutral). A free action, therefore, must not have desire as its motivation.
Second, Kant maintains that practical reason entails that – say – Liza can act in conformity with rules, merely because there are rules dictating that Liza should act that way. An example of this would be playing a game, e.g., baseball. Liza runs counterclockwise around the bases because the rules say she should. No other terrestrial creature can exhibit consistent behavior based simply on an understanding of a set of rules.
To carry the analogy a bit further, Liza does have a motive (desire, interest, or inclination) for playing the game of baseball in the first place; maybe she thinks it is fun, or maybe she just wants to win. But that certainly does not explain why she plays fairly. If anything, her desire to win would tempt her to cheat. So, why does she play fairly even if it means she might lose the game? Liza’s commitment to fair play is independent of (and maybe even contrary to) her desire to win the game. Desire may account for the fact that she plays the game at all, but, if her commitment to fair play is truly moral, then that commitment is independent of her desire to play or to win.
In sum, if an action is moral, then it is performed independently of desire, and it is performed only because it is dictated by rules. But which rules? Clearly, not all rules have moral significance. For example, there is nothing moral about the rule which dictates that Liza must proceed around the bases in a counter-clockwise direction. So, what’s the difference between any old rule in general (like the rules of a game) and a moral rule or moral law? Kant would say that a truly moral rule would be an instance of the Categorical Imperative.
2. The Categorical Imperative
The Categorical Imperative [hereafter CI] is often taken to be a moral rule or law, but it really isn’t; it’s actually something more like a litmus test to determine whether or not a rule or law is, indeed, moral.
The CI has two general formulations, and Kant states the first formulation as follows: “Act only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.” Less obliquely, we could say, “Act so that your deed could become the model for a universal law.”
Think about what the CI is saying: If Liza’s action (say, telling a lie) becomes the model for a universal law, then that law might be something like: “Everybody should tell lies.” If such a law were obeyed, then everybody would lie, and that means that people would lie to Liza. So, if Liza’s action becomes the model for a universal law, then, just as Liza tells lies, so likewise lies would be told to her, and she can be harmed by being lied to (however, subsequent harm to oneself is not why Kant thinks lying is wrong; Kant thinks it is wrong because it is contradictory in a sense I will not explore here).
The CI is sometimes called a “rule of reversal” because it involves reversing roles, putting oneself in the other guy’s shoes. As one acts toward others, so others shall act in return. By now the reader may have recognized the CI as the Golden Rule. “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” Part of Kant’s point is to show that the golden rule has nothing to do with religion, it’s a product of reason.
But there’s a problem with the first formulation of the CI (or Golden Rule). Philosophers call this the problem of “deviant desire,” and it goes like this: Suppose I’m a masochist. A masochist is a person who enjoys being subjected to pain – typically in sexual situations. As a masochist, I want people to hurt me, and since I would like to have others hurt me, does that give me license to do unto others as I would have others do unto me? Am I morally permitted to hurt others merely because I want to be hurt?
Kant closes this loophole through the second formulation of the CI. This formula says, “Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means but always at the same time as an end.” To understand this formula, we need to be clear about what “means” and “ends” are. An “end” is a goal, something someone wants to achieve; a “means” is the instrument or vehicle she uses to achieve her goal. In effect, a means is something that a person uses. So, the second formulation of the CI is telling us that it is wrong to use people. But is this really correct?
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Liza has a job. When Liza goes to work, her boss tells her to do things; the things she does are means to the boss’s ends, but not a means to her own, so Liza is being used. Is the boss behaving immorally? No, of course not; Liza has given her rational, informed consent to being used in this manner. Of course, Liza has consented because she wants the paycheck, but being paid is not what makes it all right for her to be used; suppose someone forced Liza to do something against her will and then paid her $100. Would that make such use of force morally acceptable? Clearly not. So, the second formulation of the CI can be more adequately restated as follows: “It is wrong to use people without their rational, informed consent.” People who are incapable of giving rational, informed consent (children, the demented, the mentally disabled, the dead) can never morally be used.
The second formulation of the CI closes the loophole of “deviant desire.” The first formulation said, “Do unto others only what you want done to yourself,” but the second formulation said, “Do unto others only those things to which they give rational, informed consent.” So, the masochist does not get to inflict pain on Liza, unless Liza gives her rational, fully informed consent.
3. Important Kantian Concepts
The first formula of the CI can be restated as the Golden Rule, but also as something sometimes called “the Silver Rule.” (This “gold” and “silver” terminology is not found in Kant, but is often found in popular usage.)
The Silver Rule says, “Do NOT do unto others what you would NOT have others do unto you.” The difference between the Golden and Silver rules is significant. The Golden rule is much stronger. The Golden Rule requires people to go out of their way to do good things for others; for example, give money to help the poor. The Silver Rule requires only that we refrain from doing hurtful things to others. The CI encompasses both rules. Kant sorts them out through what he calls the concepts of “Perfect Duty” and “Imperfect Duty.”
The Silver-duties (to refrain from doing harm) are “perfect” and admit of no exception. The Golden-duties (to go out of one’s way to do good) are “imperfect” and admit of some exceptions. (Liza could go through her whole life, never give a dime to charity, and still be a morally acceptable person, as long as she observes the negative or “silver” duties.) For this reason, the Perfect (or silver or negative) duties are sometimes called “the moral minimum,” i.e., the very least one can do and still be considered a moral person.
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The second formulation of the CI could be restated as, “It is wrong to use people.” But, stated this baldly, it is obviously mistaken because we use people every day and no moral blame attaches to our actions. We need to refine our restatement to say something like, “It is wrong to use people without their rational, informed consent.” However, in order for this consent to be rational, it must be FULLY informed; if it is not, then there is no consent. For example, if Liza consents to have sex with somebody, and then later discovers that this person is HIV positive and that he/she was fully aware of this at the time Liza gave her consent, then Liza’s consent is null and void and the perpetrator of this deception is morally blameworthy (and legally guilty of aggravated assault), because Liza was not fully informed. She was immorally used.
Kant’s notion of “practical reason” could be restated as, “An action is free only if it is not motivated by desire.” The point is that an action is only free (hence conformable to duty, hence moral) if there is nothing in it for the person performing the action, the agent is completely disinterested. If the agent undertakes an action because it involves some kind of benefit for the agent herself (and the benefit might be as simple as a “good feeling”), then, according to Kant, the agent has undertaken the action out of desire or self-interest, and the action is therefore unfree (or “non-autonomous”), and therefore amoral. Remember, “non-moral” or “amoral” are concepts not to be confused with “immoral.”
There is one additional point to autonomy that is important. According to Kant, Reason is capable of acting simply because an action is dictated by rules. However, for Kant, Reason is also capable of making rules. The analogy here would be closer to inventing the game of baseball rather than merely playing the game of baseball. The rules that reason legislates for itself, if they are moral, must conform to the CI. A fuller restatement of Kant’s concept of duty might go something like this: “An action is free only if it is not motivated by the agent’s self-interest (i.e., ‘desire’), and if it is governed by an objective, universal law which Reason has legislated for itself.”
4. The two main problems with Kantian moral theory
1) Kant’s theory can’t handle conflicts of duty. Suppose Liza has a duty to protect innocent life and a duty to tell the truth. Suppose, further, that it’s 1850 and Liza’s house is a station on the Underground Railroad. Liza has some runaway slaves hiding in her basement when a group of slave-hunters show up at her door. They ask, “Do you know where these slaves are hiding?” What does Liza do? If she tells the truth, she betrays the slaves; if she protects the slaves, she has to lie. Kant was never able to produce a satisfactory solution to this kind of conflict, although W.D. Ross has addressed this problem in what I take to be a satisfactory manner [“The Right and the Good,” Oxford, 1930].
2) Liza can never do the right thing simply because she wants to do the right thing. If Liza wants to do something, then she is motivated by desire; if she’s motivated by desire, then her actions are not autonomous; if her actions are not autonomous, then her actions are (at best) amoral. It follows from the nature of practical reason that people who want to be moral can never truly be moral, and that the only really moral people are those who would rather be immoral (selfish), but who act contrary to their own desires. Talk about paradoxical results! Kant is often taken to task over this point, especially by feminist philosophers.
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