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Writing Tips Oasis - A website dedicated to helping writers to write and publish books.

How to Write a Collection of Essays

By Georgina Roy

Table of Contents

1. Defining the genre

2. the writing process, 3. choosing the right essays, 4. publishing multiple collections, 5. selecting compatible themes, 6. the importance of arrangement, 7. chronological arrangement, 8. arranging for impact, 9. dealing with difficult themes, 10. the importance of second opinion, 11. analysis: are you offering something new, 12. presenting radical ideas, 13. writing and language style, 14. pre-publication options, 15. publishing the collection of essays.

Welcome to Writing Tips Oasis and our newest guide – how to write a collection of essays.

This guide will be different than others, and this is due to the fact that the type of work you’re trying to publish will not fall into a traditional genre – and by that, we mean literary fiction, non-fiction, and genre fiction , including everything from chic lit to dystopian fantasy and science fiction.

If we can call philosophy a genre – and not an academic discipline – then that’s where a collection of essays would belong to. However, philosophy is not isolated from other scientific studies, it encompasses learnings from many other academic disciplines, from history to psychology. A collection of essays may touch upon these, however, most often, a collection of essays is the place where a writer shares their own views and perspective on the world, the life they’ve lived, and the lessons they’ve learned along the way.

In other words, a collection of essays can be quite a niche, and that comes with its own consequences. In this guide, we will analyze the different aspects and things that you need to be careful about when writing a collection of essays, and, at the end, we will take a look at the publishing process and how it differs from publishing a fiction or a non-fiction book.

A collection of essays might fall under the umbrella of philosophy – barely, but it has an even more difficult time falling into a genre. It’s a mix of autobiography, memoir, and, well, blog posts, and as such, it can be a tough ordeal to even find the right audience for it.

For example, you may want to explore the things you learned while in your teens, and maybe your essays will provide a fascinating insight into what it’s like to be a teenager and what you would’ve liked to know at that age. However, who will read that? The teenagers you’re writing about may be more interested in reading YA vampire novels, people in their early twenties or even thirties may not be so keen to go back to those years – or even think about what they should have known at that age – and people who are older than that may have different things on their minds, which means your book of insightful essays may fall into the hands of other writers or a small group of people who like to think about those things.

Similarly, you may want to document everything you’ve learned as a new parent. Now, that, is a different story altogether, because there will be a lot of people who will relate to that – and be interested in reading it in order to see what they could learn from you. So, from a pure business and marketing point of view, a collection of essays on parenthood will have a better chance at attracting many readers than a collection of essays on being a teenager.

So, what can you do?

Well, for starters, write the essays first. So, let’s cover that aspect before we continue.

The writing process of a collection of essays is quite different compared to a novel or a non-fiction book. Could you decide upon each title in your collection and sit down to write them? Of course, but would those essays be genuine? Chances are, they would sound more like textbook passages, or, even worse, schoolwork assignments.

As such, what you really need to have when you decide to publish a collection of essays are written essays. Whether these will be written over the course of a year, five years, or a decade, is up to you and your writing habits. However, there is one truth that we may be able to claim with relative certainty: all writers write essays. If you’re a writer and you’re not writing essays at the moment, chances are you haven’t noticed that you do. For example, many writers would write essays as a warm up to writing in their novel. Moreover, what are non-fiction books these days but the author’s knowledge and opinion on a certain, specific topic? Of course, good non-fiction novels are supported by facts and a lot of research, but at the core of it, they are still a series of essays in a very specific, very narrow even, topic.

Of course, now, you may find yourself thinking that you should better give up on your goal to publish a collection of essays because you have none at the moment. Our advice is twofold. First, dig into your writing – especially your free writing, musings in your notebooks or forgotten word files in your laptop. Chances are, there is a lot of wisdom hiding in there. Second, make a habit to write down your thoughts. Life is chaos, that’s true, but we learn something every day, and we create the narrative of our lives through our thought processes. Start creating the habit to write these things down, as often as you can. Soon, you will begin to want to do it, because writing can also serve as a form of therapy where we make sense of things. Before you realize it, you will begin to write essays, and you may have enough essays to publish in a collection within a few months or a year.

But, the process does not end there. If the first goal is to have the essays already written, the second goal is to choose the right essays.

Let’s take a look at what that means.

In the first section, we talked about two different types of collections of essays, teenage years and parenthood. But, those two are nothing but examples of the themes and topics that your collection of essays will cover. In other words, you can have collections of essays on many aspects of life. From finding love in a busy world to being a new pet owner after a lifetime of fear of animals, for example. Dealing with hypochondria, dealing with mental illnesses, becoming a parent, choosing not to be a parent and the consequences of that – both personal and social and where and how they meet. You can have collections of essays on sociology, social issues, psychology, even history – if you can offer a different perspective on past events.

The opportunities are endless. Meanwhile, chances are, your essays will revolve around your own life, and what you learn along the way. This means that there will be a variety of topics that you will cover in your essays.

As such, welcome to the one and only rule of writing and publishing an essay collection: choose the correct essays, essays that will revolve around either a single topic or a variety of topics that will revolve around a similar theme or phase in life. You will write many essays in the course of your writing career – even more so if you decide to adopt the habit of writing things down – but that does not mean that every essay you’ve ever written will get to be published. To double down on it even, not every essay you’ve written will be publishable in the first place.

But, of those that are publishable, they will cover a variety of topics, each topic as different from the other as night and day, and those essays will ideally belong in different collections. So, let’s cover that first before we continue on what it means to combine different themes and topics in a single collection.

Some authors have found their niche and publish their essay collections and that is what their career as an author is based upon. Can you do the same?

The answer to that question is complicated. In theory – yes, you can. If you have enough material for many different collections, then you have completed the first step in achieving such a goal. The second step, unfortunately, depends on the wheel of fortune and lady luck herself. You can self-publish, yes; but will your first publication be successful without the backing (and the marketing team) of a publishing house that specializes in publishing essays? Moreover, will you even have the luck to get published traditionally without an agent – who, yes, also specializes in authors who write essay collections?

However, you can publish different collections of essays even if you are predominantly a fiction author. Look at how many authors from the 20 th century, like Bukowski, Bradbury, Vonnegut, and yes, even Stephen King have published their collections of essays throughout the years. Stephen King’s On Writing is one of the most famous books that aspiring writers are recommended to read (and again, consider this mention a recommendation too, because Stephen King is the king of writer discipline, which is what has made him so prolific over the years).

So, maybe after you analyze your essays, you will realize that you have material for three or four different collections. Which then begets the task of organizing the essays into a cohesive whole.

And that’s when you need to begin to think in terms of themes.

Before you even begin to think about which essays to select for your collection, you need to decide on the theme or themes that you will talk about. As writing essays can often be a stream-of-consciousness effort rather than a planned one, you may be tackling different themes as you write them. So, when the moment comes to decide which theme will be prevalent in the essays, you may feel strangled by the need to choose just one.

However, that is the furthest thing from the truth. The goal here is to not promise something that you will not deliver upon – in the title, in the description, in the blurb of the book. If you wish to gather all the essays you’ve written while living in a certain town – whether your hometown or not – then, by all means, allow the reader to understand that the town will be what connects all of them. On the other hand, if you wish to cover your life experiences as an expat for example, or what living as an expat has taught you, then make sure to keep within that margin. The difference between the first and the second example is that the first one is a lot narrower. To continue with the example, let’s say that you were born in one town, but are writing about your experiences while living in another town. In this case, your essays about your hometown will not belong in that collection.

On the other hand, if what connects all your essays together is your life as an expat (still continuing on the other example above), then you can include not only essays about your hometown, and the new town where you moved, but you can include every other essay where your perspective as an expat comes into play.

Again, these two are just examples. You may wish to write about being a feminist (or, as is the case of Roxane Gay, about being a Bad Feminist), and what that means to you. In this case, you would include all the essays where the ideas you express come from that aspect – and it doesn’t matter whether you are talking about the interpretation of dreams or the most prevalent pop culture ideas of the current times.

As such, do not mix essays that do not have a correlation between them. For example, you should not really mix essays on the prevalent homelessness in NYC, while in the same collection, include an essay about what partying at Columbia University was really like. Not only are those two topics quite disconnected from one another, but it would also be in bad taste and give an impression that you, as the writer, are unaware of your own privilege.

Once you make a decision on what would be the theme or aspect about yourself or your life that will connect all of the essays in your collection, you can begin to think about the arrangement of the essays.

How you arrange the essays in your collection is just as important as the essays themselves. There are a few different ways that you can do this: chronologically, for impact, or, to create a cohesive narrative whole.

First and foremost, each essay you have chosen needs to present a point and argue for or against that point, based on your perspective. A collection of essays is not a memoir or an autobiography that will recount past events or experiences – but, an essay will contain those past experiences, along with a certain amount of established, confirmed research findings if you’re dwelling into themes and topics where you need the support of such findings to argue your points. But, an essay needs to have a point, it should end on an abrupt note where it feels unfinished, even if that note may seem powerful to you personally.

A collection of essays, in turn, needs two things: each essay needs to correspond well with the overall theme that connects all of them, and, ultimately, it needs to form a cohesive collection of ideas on the established theme. Whether this will be done through a chronological arrangement, an arrangement for impact, or through an arrangement that hints at a narrative without delving too much into fiction, will depend on both the theme and the author themselves – or, upon you as the author. But, once you decide on which path to take, then make sure to stick to it to ensure that reader gets to close your book after reading all of your essays with the feeling that they have, by reading your essays, gained a new perspective of the theme you are talking about in the essays.

Since it’s impossible to distil these different arrangements without using examples, we will go back to our two previous examples: a collection of essays written in one town, and a collection of essays about your (supposed) life as an expat. And, since we mentioned three ways, we will add another example theme, which can be feminism.

Of our previous examples of themes, the example of life as an expat works best for chronological arrangement of essays. There will be a difference in the essays one would have written in the beginning of such a major change in life, and as time goes along, those essays will have gained a different tone and perspective.

There are other themes that can benefit from chronological arrangement. For example, coming of age in a certain country, coming of age in a certain time period (the 60’s, the 70’s, the 80’s and so forth), coming of age in the time period of the early to late 2000’s, and the major worldwide changes that ensued as a result of the technology boom, or, growing up with a smartphone in hand (something that we assume newly fledged adults will be writing about in the next decade).

The common correlation between all of these themes is time: as time passes, the perspective changes. There is always a change in the tone from the first to the last essay, and the last essay should wrap things up and offer a conclusion on the overall theme presented in the collection. In the end, reading such a collection makes the reader feel that they have gone through a philosophical journey just as much as the author did, and are able to understand the author’s perspective and ideas – even if they don’t agree with them.

Another title for this section could be “arranging due to impact” because there are two different paths the author can take here. First, you can arrange the essays to create a different impact with each of them. Meaning, each essay’s impact will be calculated and placed specifically in that spot in the collection because that essay will be more painful, powerful, or maybe, more humorous than the ones before and after it. Depending on the difficulty of the themes you’re tackling, you might want to arrange the essays in such a way so as to not overwhelm your readers.

To go back to our example, let’s say that your collection is about living a single town. Life in a single town, in which case you can have essays about life, which yes, will include death and birth and everything in between. For example, if your first essay is about death, grief, or mourning, you may have exhausted the reader completely, even though they’ve just begun reading your collection of essays.

However, on the other hand, maybe you do want to start with a bang and then continue on with the other essays. In this case, you want to ensure that you do not use up the most powerful essays all at once in the beginning of the collection, because then your readers might not stick around when the individual themes and topics of the essays become lighter.

In the end, when it comes to arranging for impact – or as a result of the impact of the individual essays – you are the one who should make the final decision on which way you will go. However, it’s very important to keep this impact in mind because ultimately, you want the readers to enjoy reading your collection, even if it deals with difficult themes (and, truthfully, though often humorous, most collection of essays do deal with difficult themes that would make most people even a little uncomfortable). So, the idea is to ease your readers into it before presenting them with some of the most difficult essays – essays that would have a great emotional impact on the readers.

Which brings us to arranging with hints of narrative – and dealing with difficult themes.

When it comes to dealing with difficult themes – or, perhaps the better word here would be traumatic themes – like rape, grief, mourning, murder, suicide, – arranging the essays in such a collection can be a huge challenge.

And the truth is that there is no “correct” way of arranging the essays when it comes to themes like these. Your readers will always fall into two categories: people who have gone through that traumatic experience, and people who haven’t. And each individual from both groups will experience your collection differently.

The reason why we mentioned arranging the essays with a hint of a narrative is because when it comes to themes like dealing with trauma and grief, arranging the essays in such a way can give the reader hope – especially if you do have essays that focus on the aspect of healing. If that’s the case, you have the opportunity to divide the essays in three parts (just like a novel has a beginning, a middle, and an ending). You have the essays that talk about life before the traumatic event, the traumatic event, the post-traumatic period, and the healing period.

Please note that this doesn’t mean that you need to create a fictional story or to rewrite your essays so that they read like fiction, or a string of loosely connected short stories. If you do that, you’ve delved either into fiction territory, or the territory of a memoir or an autobiography (about a certain time period of life). What we talk about is having the essays arranged in such a manner as to show the process of dealing with the trauma and healing.

Or, in other words, you are not always right. Here, we will get a bit away from difficult themes and talk about the other type of difficult topics that we are dealing with today: social issues. As the year 2020 showed, the world is full of social injustices based on race, religion, ethnicity, wealth, sexual orientation, gender (or non-gender) … we can go on and on.

And you may have some strong opinions on these issues. That, however, automatically, will not make you right. In fact, these issues are so complicated, and each person’s views will differ so much that the writer’s background always gets involved into the importance of their opinion – which is not necessarily a good thing – but it happens. Even when a woman writes about what it means to be a feminist, there may be other women who will disagree with her views. Or, a person of color might write about what it means to be oppressed, and then another person of color may come forward and dispute all of those claims. Alas, that is the world we live in.

The best thing you can do is try to get a second opinion – not from a friend, a lover, or a family member, or a person who you know will agree with your views. Quite the opposite actually. Have your essays read by someone who may actually disagree with your views. Have your essays beta read by strangers whose opinion you cannot gauge before you give them your collection. Try to get as many unbiased opinions as possible, and then listen to their feedback.

And this isn’t just because you’re not always right. Additionally, there will always be the chance that some people will not understand your essays. Maybe you did not express your views in the correct manner (which happens quite often), maybe you said something that can be easily taken in a negative connotation out of context – which can later on be posted in reviews of your collection. And don’t forget that cancel culture exists – these days, any public figure can get “cancelled” really quickly because of a wrong word in a wrong spot in a single sentence. It’s not just about not offending a person, a group of people, or a whole nation or gender, it’s about not having your career ruined before it has even begun.

We’ll talk more later about the difference between being honest in your views and being offensive, but first, let’s take a look at what you would be offering in the essays themselves.

Like with any other genre of fiction or non-fiction niche, before you start with the publishing process of your essay collection, read other author’s collections – yes, in the particular theme or topic you wish to tackle.

Read as many as you can. And then, start analyzing.

In fiction, it is advisable to read as many novels in your genre so that you will ensure that you will not publish something that has been seen before. For example, you may have a great idea about a love story between an overbearing, overprotective Alpha-male, and a not-quite-submissive heroine who still needs the hero to rescue her on occasion. And if you thought how that sounds like Twilight (and its adult spawn, 50 Shades of Grey ), you’d be correct.

The same applies to non-fiction niches too. You may have a great idea about a cookbook full of your grandmother’s southern cooking recipes. But then, you do your research and discover that there are about a hundred books out there on southern cooking, and about half of them have the same recipes that you thought were unique to your grandmother’s kitchen.

The same applies to essay collections. You may think that you have great ideas and great insight into life, the universe, and everything, but you may also discover that about a hundred other authors have already said the same thing in different words.

However, do not despair! The chances of that particular scenario happening with a collection of essays is quite slim (but not impossible). Worst case scenario, a few of your essays may present ideas that have been explored by other authors. But, that doesn’t mean that your particular individual perspective will not offer anything new to the table. Because of that, read as many collections as you can, and then analyze your own essays. Decide which essays fall into the category of “no one has said this before” and the category of “someone has talked about this, but they haven’t proposed this idea’ and “people have already talked at length about this, and I’m not really offering anything new.”

And, even better news: the chances of your essays falling into the third category are even slimmer, unless you’re talking about how it’s really bad to hit and abuse street animals, for example. In other words, your essays would need to be written about universal topics with views that are easily shared by most good and kind people in the world. On the other hand, if you’re proposing new and radical ideas about what society should do to protect these street cats and street dogs, then, most of the same good and kind people in the world would probably be all ears.

So, what happens when you do have radical ideas?

First and foremost, the term “radical idea” is both vague and specific, because an idea that was radical fifty years ago is a normal and accepted idea today. An idea that goes against the established common norm is a radical idea, even if it may seem like a normal idea to you, personally. Some radical ideas are positive, however, some can be quite negative. And then, there are the ideas that appeared radical at a first glance, but in reality, they are what should have been the norm all along (like, for example, women having the right to vote and the right to equal wages in comparison to men).

As such, the first thing to do is to analyze – in the same way as in the previous section – whether your ideas can or would be considered radical by your readers. The second step is to see whether you are presenting your ideas properly. As we talked before, you do not want to be misunderstood, because that can be something that will kill your career before you’ve even begun it properly, and this can be especially important if you are planning on making a career as a public speaker and writer of essay collections.

To put it into an example, let’s use feminism as a theme here. Today, the word feminist can often be correlated with a person who believes in equal rights for all genders. On the other hand, a feminist can be also correlated with a person who believes that women need and should not only get special rights, but also special treatment. And, the line between those two gets really, really blurry quite often, so much so that, as we’ve mentioned before, a feminist can read an essay written by another feminist and disagree with the writer and call their views radical (and maybe even harmful).

The best thing to do to avoid being mislabeled and misunderstood is to be very clear in your essays that you do not discard the established norm – or the general view of the idea, but that your idea also deserves merit and consideration. To go back to feminism, or, even deeper, rape culture. Today, it is widely considered that one in five women will be the recipient of unwanted sexual and/or romantic attention. A study in the The New England Journal of Medicine suggested that this number can be lessened by teaching young girls and women to speak up when they feel that their boundaries are being threatened. However, it would be easy for that statement to be misinterpreted as “we need to teach women how to defend themselves, but there is no need to teach men about consent.”

You might think, “Oh, they are my essays, and I will write them in any writing style I want.”

You’d be very wrong.

The language and writing style is your choice – however, remember what we talked about in a previous section: you do not wish to alienate your readers by false advertising. Meanwhile, different topics will require a different writing style. For example, observations about life in the modern small town will sound the best written in a language style that would be easy to follow and understand. You might even call it, workman-like prose that does not ask the readers to have had a high SAT score to understand.

On the other hand, if you’re writing about grief and dealing with grief, your language style will have a different requirement. Yes, it’s okay to use workmanlike prose in it too; but, since you would also want to add credibility to your opinions through established psychological research, you might want to find a balance between an academic style and workmanlike prose.

Moreover, you have essays on topics that require a more academic-sounding voice, like societal issues and similar topics. In this case, it’s best to lean slightly towards a more formal, more academic prose that will convince the readers that you know what you’re talking about.

The good news is that this is an issue you would have to deal with in the editing process – after you have chosen your essays and determined their arrangement in the collection. When the time comes for you to edit the collection – and editing is necessary, even if your essays have already been written – you can work on the writing style and use of language in your prose. That is to say, you will not be changing your views or opinions on anything, you will basically be tightening the prose.

Another thing to ensure when you’re editing the essays (which is the final step before starting the publication process), is that all of the essays use the same writing style – regardless of whether the style is humorous, serious, academic, or workmanlike prose. Even so, we would not recommend using workmanlike prose too much in your essays as this can harm your credibility and make people feel that they are reading your blog posts in print – or eBook version of them. Your writing style needs to reassure the readers that your opinions are worth reading about, that they are worth something, and that your insights into the topics you’re talking about are valuable and worth paying for (since ultimately, readers would be buying your essay collection, and you want to ensure that they have gotten their value for the money).

Finally, you would have to proofread your collection. In this step, you should pay attention to spelling and grammar mistakes, yes, but also, pay attention to repetitive words and phrases. When you’re writing in free form (or free writing), you may tend to use the same phrases over and over again without even realizing it. If your essay collection will be beta read, then ask your beta readers (even if they are your friends), to tell you about the phrases that you use most often. In fact, a good beta reader will tell you this even without you asking for that.

Finally, your collection will be ready and in mint condition. And the question that arises after that is: what now?

Well, let’s take a look at some of your options.

First and foremost, understand that publishing any book requires a lot of patience. The road to a successful release of a book is long and difficult, and it will ask you to work for a long time before you will see the fruits of your labor. This is true for any book.

Sure, you might say, but how did this author or that author do it? Well, the answer to that is: it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what the experience was for another author because each author will have their own unique story of how they got published, and, even if you follow their way step by step, you still might not get the same result because publication – successful publication – depends half on luck, and half on the quality of your work.

However, the good news is that there are some things that you can do to make the road to publication for your own essay collection easier.

1) Get out there: Meaning, establish yourself online. Create professional social media accounts for yourself, create a website and a blog. Make sure you’re not an unknown commodity because in that case, publishers will not bet on your book collection being successful, which will make it more difficult for you to get traditionally published. And, if you’re self-publishing, the same applies. A self-published book by an author with a large following online will get more traction, because you would already have a fan base waiting for your book – even if that fan base is small.

2) Get published in magazines: Both online and in print. This will require you to do your homework – meaning, do a lot of research. There are plenty of online magazines out there, as well as magazines that are still in print. Analyze your essays. The good news is that you can publish your essays individually in these magazines to gain traction, and then you will be able to attract publishers for the whole collection. The bad news is that you need to pitch your essays to the right magazines. First, you want to get published in magazines that have a large reader base. Second, you need to make sure that the content and writing style will match the magazine’s style and content. However, you can try to get published in many different magazines, which in this case, can be very helpful because it might enable you to gain traction as an essay writer (or a columnist) quicker. In other words, depending on the content of your essays, you can seek out different types of magazines that will match different essays from your collection.

3) Be a columnist or a guest blogger: Seek out bloggers who have a wide audience and try to be a guest blogger on their blog. Make sure, again, that the topics of your essays will match the topics of the blogger, and, make sure that that particular blogger is a person whom you would not mind to be associated with later on. On the other hand, when it comes to magazines, instead of trying to sell your essays to them, try to become their guest columnist. Again, this doesn’t mean that you need to track down a cooking magazine and try to write a column for them. The magazine should be publishing material that fits you as a writer and fits the themes that you like to write about, especially because a column is a piece that is very close to an essay – meaning, the writer shares their own personal opinion about a certain theme, topic or an issue.

To conclude here, before you begin the publishing process – of which we’ll talk about next – try to make a name for yourself out there. For example, some vloggers from YouTube have landed publishing deals due to garnering a big following there. Having a platform that will wait for your work to get published can be a huge help in having a successful publication that will kick-start your career as a writer – even if you’re not getting traditionally published.

As with any other publication process, you can take two different routes: self-publishing, or traditional publishing. And, if you think that one or the other is easier, you’d be terribly wrong, because both routes are difficult, and, as we’ve already said in this guide, it will require patience.

First, getting an online platform – or getting followers online on social media and websites like YouTube or even Twitch, can be a huge help. It’s not a guarantee that when you publish your essay collection, it will be a major success. You may sell a lot of copies, but the general feedback might not be as optimal as you’d hoped (and nothing will hurt your ratings like bad reviews or Goodreads and Amazon, the two platforms that people use the most these days when they choose the next books).

But, let’s talk about the two publishing processes so far.

Self-publishing: it can be done through Amazon and other platforms, but Amazon also offers print-on-demand, which means that you can get published both in print and in eBook format easily. In this case, your job will involve becoming your own marketing consultant, your own publicist, and your own sponsor for ads and other paid promotion options. And yes, this can be a huge cost for you, and you will not have the guarantee that your investment will pay off. What you can do is ensure that the book has a catchy title and a blurb. Focus on who you are: what makes you unique? Is it your cultural background, or is it your personal experience with the topics you would be covering in your essay collection? Whatever makes you, the writer, unique, needs to be put in the blurb for your essay collection. Read other books’ blurbs.

For example, Roxane Gay’s extremely successful Bad Feminist has what makes her unique in the title: she considers herself an unconventional feminist, and the essays in that essay collection all revolve around that topic. On the other hand, you have Aleksandar Hemon’s The Book of My Lives , which chronicles his life in Sarajevo before the war, and his life in Chicago while his hometown is under siege, where the only thing he was able to do was watch from afar. The one similarity it has with Bad Feminist is in the title: it immediately points to what makes the author unique and what makes their perspective unique. So, your book collection’s title itself should point out to both what makes you, as the writer, unique, and it should point to the topics you are talking about in your essays.

Meanwhile, don’t forget about the cover. Again, it should suit the themes and topics you are covering, and, it should look professional and well done. If you have the skills to create a cover on your own, that’s great, but if your cover looks like something a teenager created while writing fanfiction on Wattpad (and even on that platform, fanfiction covers have become better and better), then you might consider hiring a professional to do it for you.

Traditional publishing: you might think that getting traditionally published will save you the headache of dealing with everything we’ve described above. Again, you’d be wrong. Getting traditionally published means finding a publisher for your novel. Many publishing houses do not accept unsolicited manuscripts, no matter how well written they are, and if they do, you might end up in the slush pile that gets touched upon once or twice every quarter. With a lot of other manuscripts, essay collections written by authors like yourself.

To avoid this, you would need an agent, someone who will pitch your essay collection to the correct publishing houses that, in turn, might want to sign you on. First, you need the right agent – someone who is established in the niche that is essay collections, and who has successfully worked with other authors who’ve published similar works, like biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs. Even so, your best bet might be an agent who’s worked with author’s who’ve published essay collections – or at least one or two authors. Next, it would be a good idea if the agent also has experience in publishing essay collections in similar topics to the ones in your collection.

Furthermore, the publishing house you will be aiming for – if you have a good agent, they will probably already know which publishing houses would be interested in publishing your work. However, if you do not have an agent yet and you still want to send your manuscripts to publishing houses that do accept unsolicited manuscripts, make sure it’s the right publishing houses – meaning, again, they will have published similar work before. Do not send your manuscript of essay collections to a publishing house – or an imprint of a publishing house – that publishes collections of short stories or anthologies. First, they will probably not sign you on, second, even if they do, their audience is not the right audience for your essay collection.

Again, even if you do get an agent, that agent will need something to work with, and not just your essays and the topics you’re covering. For example, sure, you might have written several essays on race and social injustice, but, today, there are many essay collections that deal with that topic, so, there has to be something about you – or your essays – that sets your work apart from all of those that have come before. Moreover, a publisher might reject your manuscript simply because you’re an unknown author who hasn’t established themselves yet, and, even though your essays are well written and have great insights into many problems of the world today, they might not sign you on because they don’t believe that your essay collection will sell well.

That’s why we can’t recommend this enough: create an online presence for yourself, first and foremost. Even if it takes you a year to actually publish your essay collection, start building that online presence right now. Moreover, there are different ways to use social media in a way that will benefit you, the author, and your brand (or the brand you will build around your name as an author). Be careful not to post something or say something online that will backfire on you in the future.

If you want to self-publish, do not do it immediately. Start with the online presence. Then, create a book page for your book on Goodreads. Set up a publication date some months in the future, and create a pre-order page on Amazon. Create a website and a blog, and connect your online presence with the website and the blog. Send out ARCs (advanced reading copies) to reviewers who have a following, and, more importantly, who have reviewed essay collections before. Try to gain traction by being a guest blogger with bloggers who focus on similar themes as yours, and who, ideally, have a large platform themselves and are willing to have you on their blog.

Ultimately, whichever publication route you take, prepare yourself for a lot of work and a lot of patience. It might be a while before your work sees the light of day. Make sure that your essays in the collection have a timeless value (for example, if your essay is talking about a topic that was prevalent and specific when you originally wrote it in 2014, it might not be quite relevant in 2021). More importantly, once you start building your author’s brand online, do not stop, and do not quit. Keep going, even if it takes you a while to build your platform – because, without it, all of your effort might not lead to the commercial success you want. And again, while a platform is no guarantee, it certainly will help to an extent.

Georgina Roy wants to live in a world filled with magic. As a screenwriting student, she is content to fill notebooks and sketchbooks with magical creatures and amazing new worlds. When she is not at school, watching a film or scribbling away in a notebook, you can usually find her curled up, reading a good urban fantasy novel, or writing on her own.

Just write.

How to write an essay collection

What is an essay collection?

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How to Write an Essay

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Essay Writing Fundamentals

How to prepare to write an essay, how to edit an essay, how to share and publish your essays, how to get essay writing help, how to find essay writing inspiration, resources for teaching essay writing.

Essays, short prose compositions on a particular theme or topic, are the bread and butter of academic life. You write them in class, for homework, and on standardized tests to show what you know. Unlike other kinds of academic writing (like the research paper) and creative writing (like short stories and poems), essays allow you to develop your original thoughts on a prompt or question. Essays come in many varieties: they can be expository (fleshing out an idea or claim), descriptive, (explaining a person, place, or thing), narrative (relating a personal experience), or persuasive (attempting to win over a reader). This guide is a collection of dozens of links about academic essay writing that we have researched, categorized, and annotated in order to help you improve your essay writing. 

Essays are different from other forms of writing; in turn, there are different kinds of essays. This section contains general resources for getting to know the essay and its variants. These resources introduce and define the essay as a genre, and will teach you what to expect from essay-based assessments.

Purdue OWL Online Writing Lab

One of the most trusted academic writing sites, Purdue OWL provides a concise introduction to the four most common types of academic essays.

"The Essay: History and Definition" (ThoughtCo)

This snappy article from ThoughtCo talks about the origins of the essay and different kinds of essays you might be asked to write. 

"What Is An Essay?" Video Lecture (Coursera)

The University of California at Irvine's free video lecture, available on Coursera, tells  you everything you need to know about the essay.

Wikipedia Article on the "Essay"

Wikipedia's article on the essay is comprehensive, providing both English-language and global perspectives on the essay form. Learn about the essay's history, forms, and styles.

"Understanding College and Academic Writing" (Aims Online Writing Lab)

This list of common academic writing assignments (including types of essay prompts) will help you know what to expect from essay-based assessments.

Before you start writing your essay, you need to figure out who you're writing for (audience), what you're writing about (topic/theme), and what you're going to say (argument and thesis). This section contains links to handouts, chapters, videos and more to help you prepare to write an essay.

How to Identify Your Audience

"Audience" (Univ. of North Carolina Writing Center)

This handout provides questions you can ask yourself to determine the audience for an academic writing assignment. It also suggests strategies for fitting your paper to your intended audience.

"Purpose, Audience, Tone, and Content" (Univ. of Minnesota Libraries)

This extensive book chapter from Writing for Success , available online through Minnesota Libraries Publishing, is followed by exercises to try out your new pre-writing skills.

"Determining Audience" (Aims Online Writing Lab)

This guide from a community college's writing center shows you how to know your audience, and how to incorporate that knowledge in your thesis statement.

"Know Your Audience" ( Paper Rater Blog)

This short blog post uses examples to show how implied audiences for essays differ. It reminds you to think of your instructor as an observer, who will know only the information you pass along.

How to Choose a Theme or Topic

"Research Tutorial: Developing Your Topic" (YouTube)

Take a look at this short video tutorial from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to understand the basics of developing a writing topic.

"How to Choose a Paper Topic" (WikiHow)

This simple, step-by-step guide (with pictures!) walks you through choosing a paper topic. It starts with a detailed description of brainstorming and ends with strategies to refine your broad topic.

"How to Read an Assignment: Moving From Assignment to Topic" (Harvard College Writing Center)

Did your teacher give you a prompt or other instructions? This guide helps you understand the relationship between an essay assignment and your essay's topic.

"Guidelines for Choosing a Topic" (CliffsNotes)

This study guide from CliffsNotes both discusses how to choose a topic and makes a useful distinction between "topic" and "thesis."

How to Come Up with an Argument

"Argument" (Univ. of North Carolina Writing Center)

Not sure what "argument" means in the context of academic writing? This page from the University of North Carolina is a good place to start.

"The Essay Guide: Finding an Argument" (Study Hub)

This handout explains why it's important to have an argument when beginning your essay, and provides tools to help you choose a viable argument.

"Writing a Thesis and Making an Argument" (University of Iowa)

This page from the University of Iowa's Writing Center contains exercises through which you can develop and refine your argument and thesis statement.

"Developing a Thesis" (Harvard College Writing Center)

This page from Harvard's Writing Center collates some helpful dos and don'ts of argumentative writing, from steps in constructing a thesis to avoiding vague and confrontational thesis statements.

"Suggestions for Developing Argumentative Essays" (Berkeley Student Learning Center)

This page offers concrete suggestions for each stage of the essay writing process, from topic selection to drafting and editing. 

How to Outline your Essay

"Outlines" (Univ. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill via YouTube)

This short video tutorial from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill shows how to group your ideas into paragraphs or sections to begin the outlining process.

"Essay Outline" (Univ. of Washington Tacoma)

This two-page handout by a university professor simply defines the parts of an essay and then organizes them into an example outline.

"Types of Outlines and Samples" (Purdue OWL Online Writing Lab)

Purdue OWL gives examples of diverse outline strategies on this page, including the alphanumeric, full sentence, and decimal styles. 

"Outlining" (Harvard College Writing Center)

Once you have an argument, according to this handout, there are only three steps in the outline process: generalizing, ordering, and putting it all together. Then you're ready to write!

"Writing Essays" (Plymouth Univ.)

This packet, part of Plymouth University's Learning Development series, contains descriptions and diagrams relating to the outlining process.

"How to Write A Good Argumentative Essay: Logical Structure" (Criticalthinkingtutorials.com via YouTube)

This longer video tutorial gives an overview of how to structure your essay in order to support your argument or thesis. It is part of a longer course on academic writing hosted on Udemy.

Now that you've chosen and refined your topic and created an outline, use these resources to complete the writing process. Most essays contain introductions (which articulate your thesis statement), body paragraphs, and conclusions. Transitions facilitate the flow from one paragraph to the next so that support for your thesis builds throughout the essay. Sources and citations show where you got the evidence to support your thesis, which ensures that you avoid plagiarism. 

How to Write an Introduction

"Introductions" (Univ. of North Carolina Writing Center)

This page identifies the role of the introduction in any successful paper, suggests strategies for writing introductions, and warns against less effective introductions.

"How to Write A Good Introduction" (Michigan State Writing Center)

Beginning with the most common missteps in writing introductions, this guide condenses the essentials of introduction composition into seven points.

"The Introductory Paragraph" (ThoughtCo)

This blog post from academic advisor and college enrollment counselor Grace Fleming focuses on ways to grab your reader's attention at the beginning of your essay.

"Introductions and Conclusions" (Univ. of Toronto)

This guide from the University of Toronto gives advice that applies to writing both introductions and conclusions, including dos and don'ts.

"How to Write Better Essays: No One Does Introductions Properly" ( The Guardian )

This news article interviews UK professors on student essay writing; they point to introductions as the area that needs the most improvement.

How to Write a Thesis Statement

"Writing an Effective Thesis Statement" (YouTube)

This short, simple video tutorial from a college composition instructor at Tulsa Community College explains what a thesis statement is and what it does. 

"Thesis Statement: Four Steps to a Great Essay" (YouTube)

This fantastic tutorial walks you through drafting a thesis, using an essay prompt on Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter as an example.

"How to Write a Thesis Statement" (WikiHow)

This step-by-step guide (with pictures!) walks you through coming up with, writing, and editing a thesis statement. It invites you think of your statement as a "working thesis" that can change.

"How to Write a Thesis Statement" (Univ. of Indiana Bloomington)

Ask yourself the questions on this page, part of Indiana Bloomington's Writing Tutorial Services, when you're writing and refining your thesis statement.

"Writing Tips: Thesis Statements" (Univ. of Illinois Center for Writing Studies)

This page gives plentiful examples of good to great thesis statements, and offers questions to ask yourself when formulating a thesis statement.

How to Write Body Paragraphs

"Body Paragraph" (Brightstorm)

This module of a free online course introduces you to the components of a body paragraph. These include the topic sentence, information, evidence, and analysis.

"Strong Body Paragraphs" (Washington Univ.)

This handout from Washington's Writing and Research Center offers in-depth descriptions of the parts of a successful body paragraph.

"Guide to Paragraph Structure" (Deakin Univ.)

This handout is notable for color-coding example body paragraphs to help you identify the functions various sentences perform.

"Writing Body Paragraphs" (Univ. of Minnesota Libraries)

The exercises in this section of Writing for Success  will help you practice writing good body paragraphs. It includes guidance on selecting primary support for your thesis.

"The Writing Process—Body Paragraphs" (Aims Online Writing Lab)

The information and exercises on this page will familiarize you with outlining and writing body paragraphs, and includes links to more information on topic sentences and transitions.

"The Five-Paragraph Essay" (ThoughtCo)

This blog post discusses body paragraphs in the context of one of the most common academic essay types in secondary schools.

How to Use Transitions

"Transitions" (Univ. of North Carolina Writing Center)

This page from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill explains what a transition is, and how to know if you need to improve your transitions.

"Using Transitions Effectively" (Washington Univ.)

This handout defines transitions, offers tips for using them, and contains a useful list of common transitional words and phrases grouped by function.

"Transitions" (Aims Online Writing Lab)

This page compares paragraphs without transitions to paragraphs with transitions, and in doing so shows how important these connective words and phrases are.

"Transitions in Academic Essays" (Scribbr)

This page lists four techniques that will help you make sure your reader follows your train of thought, including grouping similar information and using transition words.

"Transitions" (El Paso Community College)

This handout shows example transitions within paragraphs for context, and explains how transitions improve your essay's flow and voice.

"Make Your Paragraphs Flow to Improve Writing" (ThoughtCo)

This blog post, another from academic advisor and college enrollment counselor Grace Fleming, talks about transitions and other strategies to improve your essay's overall flow.

"Transition Words" (smartwords.org)

This handy word bank will help you find transition words when you're feeling stuck. It's grouped by the transition's function, whether that is to show agreement, opposition, condition, or consequence.

How to Write a Conclusion

"Parts of An Essay: Conclusions" (Brightstorm)

This module of a free online course explains how to conclude an academic essay. It suggests thinking about the "3Rs": return to hook, restate your thesis, and relate to the reader.

"Essay Conclusions" (Univ. of Maryland University College)

This overview of the academic essay conclusion contains helpful examples and links to further resources for writing good conclusions.

"How to End An Essay" (WikiHow)

This step-by-step guide (with pictures!) by an English Ph.D. walks you through writing a conclusion, from brainstorming to ending with a flourish.

"Ending the Essay: Conclusions" (Harvard College Writing Center)

This page collates useful strategies for writing an effective conclusion, and reminds you to "close the discussion without closing it off" to further conversation.

How to Include Sources and Citations

"Research and Citation Resources" (Purdue OWL Online Writing Lab)

Purdue OWL streamlines information about the three most common referencing styles (MLA, Chicago, and APA) and provides examples of how to cite different resources in each system.

EasyBib: Free Bibliography Generator

This online tool allows you to input information about your source and automatically generate citations in any style. Be sure to select your resource type before clicking the "cite it" button.

CitationMachine

Like EasyBib, this online tool allows you to input information about your source and automatically generate citations in any style. 

Modern Language Association Handbook (MLA)

Here, you'll find the definitive and up-to-date record of MLA referencing rules. Order through the link above, or check to see if your library has a copy.

Chicago Manual of Style

Here, you'll find the definitive and up-to-date record of Chicago referencing rules. You can take a look at the table of contents, then choose to subscribe or start a free trial.

How to Avoid Plagiarism

"What is Plagiarism?" (plagiarism.org)

This nonprofit website contains numerous resources for identifying and avoiding plagiarism, and reminds you that even common activities like copying images from another website to your own site may constitute plagiarism.

"Plagiarism" (University of Oxford)

This interactive page from the University of Oxford helps you check for plagiarism in your work, making it clear how to avoid citing another person's work without full acknowledgement.

"Avoiding Plagiarism" (MIT Comparative Media Studies)

This quick guide explains what plagiarism is, what its consequences are, and how to avoid it. It starts by defining three words—quotation, paraphrase, and summary—that all constitute citation.

"Harvard Guide to Using Sources" (Harvard Extension School)

This comprehensive website from Harvard brings together articles, videos, and handouts about referencing, citation, and plagiarism. 

Grammarly contains tons of helpful grammar and writing resources, including a free tool to automatically scan your essay to check for close affinities to published work. 

Noplag is another popular online tool that automatically scans your essay to check for signs of plagiarism. Simply copy and paste your essay into the box and click "start checking."

Once you've written your essay, you'll want to edit (improve content), proofread (check for spelling and grammar mistakes), and finalize your work until you're ready to hand it in. This section brings together tips and resources for navigating the editing process. 

"Writing a First Draft" (Academic Help)

This is an introduction to the drafting process from the site Academic Help, with tips for getting your ideas on paper before editing begins.

"Editing and Proofreading" (Univ. of North Carolina Writing Center)

This page provides general strategies for revising your writing. They've intentionally left seven errors in the handout, to give you practice in spotting them.

"How to Proofread Effectively" (ThoughtCo)

This article from ThoughtCo, along with those linked at the bottom, help describe common mistakes to check for when proofreading.

"7 Simple Edits That Make Your Writing 100% More Powerful" (SmartBlogger)

This blog post emphasizes the importance of powerful, concise language, and reminds you that even your personal writing heroes create clunky first drafts.

"Editing Tips for Effective Writing" (Univ. of Pennsylvania)

On this page from Penn's International Relations department, you'll find tips for effective prose, errors to watch out for, and reminders about formatting.

"Editing the Essay" (Harvard College Writing Center)

This article, the first of two parts, gives you applicable strategies for the editing process. It suggests reading your essay aloud, removing any jargon, and being unafraid to remove even "dazzling" sentences that don't belong.

"Guide to Editing and Proofreading" (Oxford Learning Institute)

This handout from Oxford covers the basics of editing and proofreading, and reminds you that neither task should be rushed. 

In addition to plagiarism-checkers, Grammarly has a plug-in for your web browser that checks your writing for common mistakes.

After you've prepared, written, and edited your essay, you might want to share it outside the classroom. This section alerts you to print and web opportunities to share your essays with the wider world, from online writing communities and blogs to published journals geared toward young writers.

Sharing Your Essays Online

Go Teen Writers

Go Teen Writers is an online community for writers aged 13 - 19. It was founded by Stephanie Morrill, an author of contemporary young adult novels. 

Tumblr is a blogging website where you can share your writing and interact with other writers online. It's easy to add photos, links, audio, and video components.

Writersky provides an online platform for publishing and reading other youth writers' work. Its current content is mostly devoted to fiction.

Publishing Your Essays Online

This teen literary journal publishes in print, on the web, and (more frequently), on a blog. It is committed to ensuring that "teens see their authentic experience reflected on its pages."

The Matador Review

This youth writing platform celebrates "alternative," unconventional writing. The link above will take you directly to the site's "submissions" page.

Teen Ink has a website, monthly newsprint magazine, and quarterly poetry magazine promoting the work of young writers.

The largest online reading platform, Wattpad enables you to publish your work and read others' work. Its inline commenting feature allows you to share thoughts as you read along.

Publishing Your Essays in Print

Canvas Teen Literary Journal

This quarterly literary magazine is published for young writers by young writers. They accept many kinds of writing, including essays.

The Claremont Review

This biannual international magazine, first published in 1992, publishes poetry, essays, and short stories from writers aged 13 - 19.

Skipping Stones

This young writers magazine, founded in 1988, celebrates themes relating to ecological and cultural diversity. It publishes poems, photos, articles, and stories.

The Telling Room

This nonprofit writing center based in Maine publishes children's work on their website and in book form. The link above directs you to the site's submissions page.

Essay Contests

Scholastic Arts and Writing Awards

This prestigious international writing contest for students in grades 7 - 12 has been committed to "supporting the future of creativity since 1923."

Society of Professional Journalists High School Essay Contest

An annual essay contest on the theme of journalism and media, the Society of Professional Journalists High School Essay Contest awards scholarships up to $1,000.

National YoungArts Foundation

Here, you'll find information on a government-sponsored writing competition for writers aged 15 - 18. The foundation welcomes submissions of creative nonfiction, novels, scripts, poetry, short story and spoken word.

Signet Classics Student Scholarship Essay Contest

With prompts on a different literary work each year, this competition from Signet Classics awards college scholarships up to $1,000.

"The Ultimate Guide to High School Essay Contests" (CollegeVine)

See this handy guide from CollegeVine for a list of more competitions you can enter with your academic essay, from the National Council of Teachers of English Achievement Awards to the National High School Essay Contest by the U.S. Institute of Peace.

Whether you're struggling to write academic essays or you think you're a pro, there are workshops and online tools that can help you become an even better writer. Even the most seasoned writers encounter writer's block, so be proactive and look through our curated list of resources to combat this common frustration.

Online Essay-writing Classes and Workshops

"Getting Started with Essay Writing" (Coursera)

Coursera offers lots of free, high-quality online classes taught by college professors. Here's one example, taught by instructors from the University of California Irvine.

"Writing and English" (Brightstorm)

Brightstorm's free video lectures are easy to navigate by topic. This unit on the parts of an essay features content on the essay hook, thesis, supporting evidence, and more.

"How to Write an Essay" (EdX)

EdX is another open online university course website with several two- to five-week courses on the essay. This one is geared toward English language learners.

Writer's Digest University

This renowned writers' website offers online workshops and interactive tutorials. The courses offered cover everything from how to get started through how to get published.

Writing.com

Signing up for this online writer's community gives you access to helpful resources as well as an international community of writers.

How to Overcome Writer's Block

"Symptoms and Cures for Writer's Block" (Purdue OWL)

Purdue OWL offers a list of signs you might have writer's block, along with ways to overcome it. Consider trying out some "invention strategies" or ways to curb writing anxiety.

"Overcoming Writer's Block: Three Tips" ( The Guardian )

These tips, geared toward academic writing specifically, are practical and effective. The authors advocate setting realistic goals, creating dedicated writing time, and participating in social writing.

"Writing Tips: Strategies for Overcoming Writer's Block" (Univ. of Illinois)

This page from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's Center for Writing Studies acquaints you with strategies that do and do not work to overcome writer's block.

"Writer's Block" (Univ. of Toronto)

Ask yourself the questions on this page; if the answer is "yes," try out some of the article's strategies. Each question is accompanied by at least two possible solutions.

If you have essays to write but are short on ideas, this section's links to prompts, example student essays, and celebrated essays by professional writers might help. You'll find writing prompts from a variety of sources, student essays to inspire you, and a number of essay writing collections.

Essay Writing Prompts

"50 Argumentative Essay Topics" (ThoughtCo)

Take a look at this list and the others ThoughtCo has curated for different kinds of essays. As the author notes, "a number of these topics are controversial and that's the point."

"401 Prompts for Argumentative Writing" ( New York Times )

This list (and the linked lists to persuasive and narrative writing prompts), besides being impressive in length, is put together by actual high school English teachers.

"SAT Sample Essay Prompts" (College Board)

If you're a student in the U.S., your classroom essay prompts are likely modeled on the prompts in U.S. college entrance exams. Take a look at these official examples from the SAT.

"Popular College Application Essay Topics" (Princeton Review)

This page from the Princeton Review dissects recent Common Application essay topics and discusses strategies for answering them.

Example Student Essays

"501 Writing Prompts" (DePaul Univ.)

This nearly 200-page packet, compiled by the LearningExpress Skill Builder in Focus Writing Team, is stuffed with writing prompts, example essays, and commentary.

"Topics in English" (Kibin)

Kibin is a for-pay essay help website, but its example essays (organized by topic) are available for free. You'll find essays on everything from  A Christmas Carol  to perseverance.

"Student Writing Models" (Thoughtful Learning)

Thoughtful Learning, a website that offers a variety of teaching materials, provides sample student essays on various topics and organizes them by grade level.

"Five-Paragraph Essay" (ThoughtCo)

In this blog post by a former professor of English and rhetoric, ThoughtCo brings together examples of five-paragraph essays and commentary on the form.

The Best Essay Writing Collections

The Best American Essays of the Century by Joyce Carol Oates (Amazon)

This collection of American essays spanning the twentieth century was compiled by award winning author and Princeton professor Joyce Carol Oates.

The Best American Essays 2017 by Leslie Jamison (Amazon)

Leslie Jamison, the celebrated author of essay collection  The Empathy Exams , collects recent, high-profile essays into a single volume.

The Art of the Personal Essay by Phillip Lopate (Amazon)

Documentary writer Phillip Lopate curates this historical overview of the personal essay's development, from the classical era to the present.

The White Album by Joan Didion (Amazon)

This seminal essay collection was authored by one of the most acclaimed personal essayists of all time, American journalist Joan Didion.

Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace (Amazon)

Read this famous essay collection by David Foster Wallace, who is known for his experimentation with the essay form. He pushed the boundaries of personal essay, reportage, and political polemic.

"50 Successful Harvard Application Essays" (Staff of the The Harvard Crimson )

If you're looking for examples of exceptional college application essays, this volume from Harvard's daily student newspaper is one of the best collections on the market.

Are you an instructor looking for the best resources for teaching essay writing? This section contains resources for developing in-class activities and student homework assignments. You'll find content from both well-known university writing centers and online writing labs.

Essay Writing Classroom Activities for Students

"In-class Writing Exercises" (Univ. of North Carolina Writing Center)

This page lists exercises related to brainstorming, organizing, drafting, and revising. It also contains suggestions for how to implement the suggested exercises.

"Teaching with Writing" (Univ. of Minnesota Center for Writing)

Instructions and encouragement for using "freewriting," one-minute papers, logbooks, and other write-to-learn activities in the classroom can be found here.

"Writing Worksheets" (Berkeley Student Learning Center)

Berkeley offers this bank of writing worksheets to use in class. They are nested under headings for "Prewriting," "Revision," "Research Papers" and more.

"Using Sources and Avoiding Plagiarism" (DePaul University)

Use these activities and worksheets from DePaul's Teaching Commons when instructing students on proper academic citation practices.

Essay Writing Homework Activities for Students

"Grammar and Punctuation Exercises" (Aims Online Writing Lab)

These five interactive online activities allow students to practice editing and proofreading. They'll hone their skills in correcting comma splices and run-ons, identifying fragments, using correct pronoun agreement, and comma usage.

"Student Interactives" (Read Write Think)

Read Write Think hosts interactive tools, games, and videos for developing writing skills. They can practice organizing and summarizing, writing poetry, and developing lines of inquiry and analysis.

This free website offers writing and grammar activities for all grade levels. The lessons are designed to be used both for large classes and smaller groups.

"Writing Activities and Lessons for Every Grade" (Education World)

Education World's page on writing activities and lessons links you to more free, online resources for learning how to "W.R.I.T.E.": write, revise, inform, think, and edit.

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The Best Essay Collections to Add to Your TBR List

Discover big ideas in small doses.

Anyone who has read very much of it knows that some of the best prose around is happening in nonfiction. From personal essays to political ones, cultural criticism to travelogues, these 10 books represent some of the best essay writing of the last century, spanning continents and languages, tackling subjects that range from political unrest to pulp fiction—and everything in-between. 

So, if you’re ready to expand your mind and change your outlook, add these essay collections to your TBR list today!

A Day in the Life of Roger Angell

By Roger Angell

While you may not recognize Roger Angell’s name, you probably know who he is. The stepson of legendary author E. B. White, Angell has worked for the New Yorker in various capacities for decades, including as a frequent contributing writer. 

He has written about all sorts of subjects, especially baseball, and this unique collection pulls together a variety of his best-loved pieces, including his famous Christmas poems, a variety of parodies, and a “tense correspondence over a short fiction contest that pays only in baked goods.”

Related: "Your Horoscope," by Roger Angell

My Seditious Heart

By Arundhati Roy

A New York Times  bestseller and Booker Prize winner, Arundhati Roy is many things, and in My Seditious Heart  she proves that among those is an “electrifying political essayist” ( Booklist ). 

Collecting essays from two decades of her life, this “lucid and probing” ( Time Magazine ) book presents a lifetime of battling for social and political justice and human rights, from American capitalism to the Hindu caste system and beyond. “The scale of what Roy surveys is staggering,” writes The New York Times Book Review . “Her pointed indictment is devastating.”

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Men Explain Things to Me

By Rebecca Solnit

In these “personal but unsentimental essays” ( The New York Times ), National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author Rebecca Solnit provides the perfect “antidote to mansplaining” ( The Stranger ). 

From the title essay, which explores why men talk over women and what the ultimate cost of that is, to essays about Virginia Woolf and marriage equality, Solnit’s unsparing prose has been called “ essential feminist reading ” by The New Republic – and simply “essential” by Marketplace .

Collection of Sand

By Italo Calvino

Newly translated into English for the first time by Martin McLaughlin, this “brilliant collection of essays” and travelogues, the last piece of new writing published by the legendary Italo Calvino before his death, “may change the way you see the world around you” ( The Guardian ). 

From antique maps to Japanese gardens, Calvino takes us on a tour of the world, but also of his own mind, in the process heightening our appreciation of the visual world around us. 

Slouching Towards Bethlehem

By Joan Didion

In her first work of nonfiction, one of America’s most “dazzling” prose stylists ( The New York Times ) also establishes herself as a singular voice on American culture, painting a vivid portrait of a nation in the midst of tumultuous change. 

First published in 1968, Slouching Towards Bethlehem has become a modern classic , hailed as “a rare display of some of the best prose written today in this country” by the New York Times Book Review . No wonder Time Magazine chose it as one of the 100 best and most influential nonfiction books to date.

Related: Joan Didion: Her Books, Life and Legacy

Essays After Eighty

By Donald Hall

A former Poet Laureate of the United States, Donald Hall has “wrought his prose to a keen autumnal edge” in his waning years, according to The Wall Street Journal . This collection of essays written, as the title implies, after he turned 80, sees Hall reflecting on his life, on his career, on writing itself, and on the view out his window. 

“Alternately lyrical and laugh-out-loud funny ” ( The New York Times ), these essays show that Hall has never lost his deft touch, nor his passion for life and all of its mysteries, whimsies, and wonders.

Freedom Is a Constant Struggle

By Angela Y. Davis

Author of such classic works as Women, Race, and  Class, Angela Y. Davis made a name for herself as an activist and scholar with a penetrating insight into social issues. 

In this new collection of essays, she tackles some of the most pressing issues that affect our present moment , from the Black Lives Matter movement to Palestine and beyond, calling upon us all to imagine a better world – and do the important work required to make it possible.

Illuminations

By Walter Benjamin

A German cultural critic who has been called one of most original thinkers of the 20th century, Walter Benjamin fled Germany in 1932, as the Nazi party rose to power, and died in exile before the end of the second World War. 

Hannah Arendt, herself one of the most influential political theorists of the modern age, hand-assembled this collection of some of Benjamin’s most famous and most important essays, including his legendary “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” to form this unforgettable book from a unique mind.

Tell Me How It Ends

By Valeria Luiselli

An American Book Award Winner and a finalist for both the Kirkus Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, this “essay in forty questions” is a “moving, intimate” account of serving as a translator for undocumented children facing deportation ( The New York Times Book Review ). 

As a volunteer worker, Luiselli translated these forty questions from a court form to ask undocumented children who were under threat of deportation. By structuring her writing around them, she helps to put a vitally human face on children who are thrust into an often-uncaring system in this book that is, “Worth of inclusion in a great American (and international) canon of writing about migration” ( Texas Observer ).

Maps and Legends

By Michael Chabon

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay “makes an inviting case for bridging the gap between popular and literary writing” ( O, The Oprah Magazine ) in this appreciation of everything from pulp fiction to comic books, horror to westerns. 

By writing about the stories that move him, speak to him, and inspired him to write, Chabon also talks about his own identity as an author, and what storytelling means to all of us, whether he’s writing about Superman or Sherlock Holmes.

Related: 12 Michael Chabon Books You Won't Be Able to Put Down

Keep Reading: 10 Essential Essay-Length Memoirs You Can Read Online for Free

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What is Essay? Definition, Usage, and Literary Examples

Essay definition.

An essay (ES-ey) is a nonfiction composition that explores a concept, argument, idea, or opinion from the personal perspective of the writer. Essays are usually a few pages, but they can also be book-length. Unlike other forms of nonfiction writing, like textbooks or biographies, an essay doesn’t inherently require research. Literary essayists are conveying ideas in a more informal way.

The word essay comes from the Late Latin exigere , meaning “ascertain or weigh,” which later became essayer in Old French. The late-15th-century version came to mean “test the quality of.” It’s this latter derivation that French philosopher Michel de Montaigne first used to describe a composition.

History of the Essay

Michel de Montaigne first coined the term essayer to describe Plutarch’s Oeuvres Morales , which is now widely considered to be a collection of essays. Under the new term, Montaigne wrote the first official collection of essays, Essais , in 1580. Montaigne’s goal was to pen his personal ideas in prose . In 1597, a collection of Francis Bacon’s work appeared as the first essay collection written in English. The term essayist was first used by English playwright Ben Jonson in 1609.

Types of Essays

There are many ways to categorize essays. Aldous Huxley, a leading essayist, determined that there are three major groups: personal and autobiographical, objective and factual, and abstract and universal. Within these groups, several other types can exist, including the following:

• Academic Essays : Educators frequently assign essays to encourage students to think deeply about a given subject and to assess the student’s knowledge. As such, an academic essay employs a formal language and tone, and it may include references and a bibliography. It’s objective and factual, and it typically uses a five-paragraph model of an introduction, two or more body paragraphs, and a conclusion. Several other essay types, like descriptive, argumentative, and expository, can fall under the umbrella of an academic essay.
• Analytical Essays : An analytical essay breaks down and interprets something, like an event, piece of literature, or artwork. This type of essay combines abstraction and personal viewpoints. Professional reviews of movies, TV shows, and albums are likely the most common form of analytical essays that people encounter in everyday life.
• Argumentative/Persuasive Essays : In an argumentative or persuasive essay, the essayist offers their opinion on a debatable topic and refutes opposing views. Their goal is to get the reader to agree with them. Argumentative/persuasive essays can be personal, factual, and even both at the same time. They can also be humorous or satirical; Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal is a satirical essay arguing that the best way for Irish people to get out of poverty is to sell their children to rich people as a food source.
• Descriptive Essays : In a descriptive essay, the essayist describes something, someone, or an event in great detail. The essay’s subject can be something concrete, meaning it can be experienced with any or all of the five senses, or abstract, meaning it can’t be interacted with in a physical sense.
• Expository Essay : An expository essay is a factual piece of writing that explains a particular concept or issue. Investigative journalists often write expository essays in their beat, and things like manuals or how-to guides are also written in an expository style.
• Narrative/Personal : In a narrative or personal essay, the essayist tells a story, which is usually a recounting of a personal event. Narrative and personal essays may attempt to support a moral or lesson. People are often most familiar with this category as many writers and celebrities frequently publish essay collections.

Notable Essayists

• James Baldwin, “ Notes of a Native Son ”
• Joan Didion, “ Goodbye To All That ”
• George Orwell, “ Shooting an Elephant ”
• Ralph Waldo Emerson, “ Self-Reliance ”
• Virginia Woolf, " Three Guineas "

Examples of Literary Essays

1. Michel De Montaigne, “Of Presumption”

De Montaigne’s essay explores multiple topics, including his reasons for writing essays, his dissatisfaction with contemporary education, and his own victories and failings. As the father of the essay, Montaigne details characteristics of what he thinks an essay should be. His writing has a stream-of-consciousness organization that doesn’t follow a structure, and he expresses the importance of looking inward at oneself, pointing to the essay’s personal nature.

2. Virginia Woolf, “A Room of One’s Own”

Woolf’s feminist essay, written from the perspective of an unknown, fictional woman, argues that sexism keeps women from fully realizing their potential. Woolf posits that a woman needs only an income and a room of her own to express her creativity. The fictional persona Woolf uses is meant to teach the reader a greater truth: making both literal and metaphorical space for women in the world is integral to their success and wellbeing.

3. James Baldwin, “Everybody’s Protest Novel”

In this essay, Baldwin argues that Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin doesn’t serve the black community the way his contemporaries thought it did. He points out that it equates “goodness” with how well-assimilated the black characters are in white culture:

Uncle Tom’s Cabin is a very bad novel, having, in its self-righteous, virtuous sentimentality, much in common with Little Women. Sentimentality […] is the mark of dishonesty, the inability to feel; […] and it is always, therefore, the signal of secret and violent inhumanity, the mask of cruelty.

This essay is both analytical and argumentative. Baldwin analyzes the novel and argues against those who champion it.

Further Resources on Essays

Top Writing Tips offers an in-depth history of the essay.

The Harvard Writing Center offers tips on outlining an essay.

We at SuperSummary have an excellent essay writing resource guide .

Related Terms

• Academic Essay
• Argumentative Essay
• Expository Essay
• Narrative Essay
• Persuasive Essay

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7 Brilliant Essay Collections You Need to Read

When you think of essay collections, the image that comes to mind may be cumbersome compendiums of scholarly compositions. But personal essays banish the academic connotation of the word, and can provide some of the funniest, most sincere, most illuminating, and most genuinely affecting reading you can ever experience. Here are some great collections to start with.

The hilarious and iconic first collection by the indomitable Sloane Crosley earned her a rightful place as one of the modern masters of the form. I WAS TOLD THERE’D BE CAKE is a comedy of manners as Crosley tries—and often fails—to navigate the rigid customs of upper-middle-class society in endearing tales of fumbling through everything from social functions to a disastrous volunteer experience at the Museum of Natural History. Crosley is something of a cosmopolitan iconoclast, because through her essays, she exposes the inherent ridiculousness of adhering to the script of etiquette at all costs.

Sloane Crosley is different from Abbi and Ilana in a lot of ways. She can uphold a professional career, for one. She calls Manhattan home, whereas the Broad City stars reside in grungier Gowanus. But even when she’s being a bridesmaid or volunteering at the American Museum of Natural History, Crosley’s experiences always have an amusing twist and usually end in disaster. She’s also really funny.

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In SUNSHINE STATE, Sarah Gerald blends personal pieces about her childhood and adolescence on Florida’s Gulf Coast, with gonzo journalism–style essays—where she inserts herself and her own experiences in the reporting—on the Suncoast Seabird Sanctuary, Florida’s overlooked homeless population, and other issues the titular Sunshine State faces. She brings humanity to a place often separated from the realm of real life, cast off as a mere vacationland or “America’s basement.” The overall effect is a nuanced portrait of Florida, so deeply defined you can almost feel the humid, salty air crackle the pages against your fingers.

When Olivia Laing moved to New York City, she found herself enveloped in a seemingly constant loneliness, despite residing in one of the most populated metropolises in the entire world. But, as she demonstrates in THE LONELY CITY, this is a city built by lonely people. In a series of thought-provoking essays, she examines cities from the point of view of various iconic artists, from Edward Hopper to Andy Warhol. Laing shares how their experiences of isolation and seclusion were pivotal to their work, which in turn, has become part of the fabric of New York itself. By exploring the lives of others, Laing finds connections to her own life in the most intimate of ways, and finally discovers a kinship with the world around her.

Blending personal memoir with cultural criticism, HOW TO FALL IN LOVE WITH ANYONE examines the scripts of finding love we pass down through our society—in romantic comedies, social media posts, stories of other people’s lives—and questions if clinging to these myths prevents us from realizing our own authentic relationships. Inspired by her parent’s divorce and her own breakup, journalist Mandy Len Catron shares her experiences of traveling to the Appalachian coal mining town where her parents met, using literary theory to examine love stories, and using a 36-question quiz to create intimacy with anyone. The result is a vulnerable and insightful collection that digs deep into a subject that affects us all.

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Aleksander Hemon’s first book of nonfiction is as introspective as you might expect from the title. Following Hemon from Sarajevo to Chicago, THE BOOK OF MY LIVES chronicles the experience of feeling like an outsider even when you’ve made it to the place you think you want to be—whether that be a new city, adulthood, or anything in between.

For celebrated essayist Chuck Klosterman, it’s hard to determine the line between his personal life and his writing life. Anyone who’s read Klosterman’s work knows how passionate and curious he is about writing about pop culture. But KILLING YOURSELF TO LIVE—a journal of Klosterman’s cross-country journey to view the sites where rock stars have died—is the collection where he finally inserts himself into his work, and shares with readers how he found himself. From snorting cocaine in a graveyard to ending three relationships in 21 days, KILLING YOURSELF TO LIVE is a behind-the-scenes look at rock journalism like no other.

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The Shortlist

Essay Collections on Home, Culture and Everything in Between

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By Lori Soderlind

• Nov. 17, 2020

MAYBE THE PEOPLE WOULD BE THE TIMES By Luc Sante 328 pp. Verse Chorus. Paper, $19.95.

Sante’s collection of essays is a cabinet of curiosities, filled with the dark, the curious, the marvelous, the magnificent and the simply strange subjects that have passed through his imagination, mainly in the past 15 years of his work as an author and a critic.

The book opens with several moving personal reflections on the East Village music scene of Sante’s youth, and contains a lustrous oeuvre of art and cultural criticism, but its most striking pieces evade easy categories. A section of writing on photography includes staged arcade portraits, fotonovelas and a series of photos of people in masks. One mixed-media essay invents collectors’ notes for old 45-r.p.m. records. Another short piece observes the party mood of a crowd gathered at the scene of a street accident.

Sante’s cultural filter catches what others might dismiss as obscure or inconsequential. True, his interests include the likes of Sophie Calle, H. P. Lovecraft and other well-known figures present and past, but even they are examined for their fringe qualities, and their presence in this collection only elevates the importance of the doodles and shoe stores he also shows us. Perhaps anyone could write well about Patti Smith; Sante’s taste for the cultural margins is a singular gift.

In one short essay, Sante writes of a little-known photographer, Bruce Barone, calling his images of American cities in the 1970s and ’80s “annals of a former world … documented so fleetingly and obscurely that I sometimes have felt it existed only in my imagination.” This is exactly the sensation of reading Sante’s own collected works. So many treasures, snatched back from obscurity, including moments of his own life.

THE AGE OF SKIN By Dubravka Ugresic Translated by Ellen Elias-Bursac 236 pp. Open Letter. Paper, $16.95.

“If somebody thinks that ours is a vulgar time, they’re right,” the Croatian author Ugresic writes in her collection “The Age of Skin.”

Written between 2014 and 2018, these dispatches from a fitfully (or failingly) democratizing post-Soviet Europe reach across politics, art, the media, popular culture, feminism, fashion and technology with a unifying theme: cultural decline, or more precisely for democratic societies, cultural self-destruction.

Over nearly three decades, Eastern Europe’s “imaginary” — its collective idea of its values and character — has been strafed with atrocities that range from war and genocide to simpler outrages, such as crooked politicians who refashion themselves into artists. Media gets much of the blame for this deepening ugliness; “thanks to the media, stupidity has now gone global,” Ugresic writes. As a result, cultural memory has been obliterated; political corruption is endemic; celebrities have been elevated to heroes; mediocrity and cynicism reign.

A major literary voice in Europe, Ugresic brings deep personal insight into the grinding despair and destructive nationalism of post-communist societies, often writing with lively, ironic flair keenly translated by Elias-Bursac. Do Lenin’s mummy, Adele and Croatian unemployment have any business being in the same essay together? In this book, yes. Gladly.

Not too long ago, this collection might have inspired gratitude for American democracy, once characterized by its optimism, a beacon to the world. Today, it is striking to read about post-Soviet Europe and recognize ourselves, including the creepy sense of Russia’s unchecked influence in our struggles. Ugresic’s warning is unvarnished.

“The true terror begins,” she writes, “when we begin to feel there is nowhere left … that all destinations are equally bad.”

MOBILE HOME A Memoir in Essays By Megan Harlan 171 pp. University of Georgia. Paper, $22.95.

In the title essay of her collection “Mobile Home,” Harlan cites a renowned book on the history of housing that notably excludes mobile homes, as if to refuse their legitimacy. “We can’t just have everyone rolling around, parking and sleeping hither and yon,” she writes, imagining the voice behind this dismissal of houses with chassis. Viewed this way, mobile homes are impermanent and thus do not cultivate neighborhoods or communities; people may crave mobility, but a functioning society requires foundations.

Harlan and her family moved 17 times while she was a child, following her father’s work as an engineer across four continents. Impermanence defined her early life, and is a resonant ache in this linked-essay memoir. Her meditations on the meaning of places, houses and homes are rooted in her nomadic experience, if nomadism can be said to root anything.

The personal history emerges as Harlan examines the worlds she rolled through, the effect of those many uprootings on her family, her father’s alcoholism and eventual death, and her commitment to raising her own child differently. These stories are attached to topics that travel just as widely, including the varieties of nomadic living, ancient Saudi ruins and Joseph Eichler’s Northern Californian tract housing. Spider webs, trailers and Dorothy’s Kansas all help define what a home is, and what it might mean to have one.

And what is a home? Is it an idea, a structure? For many years, Harlan could not say where hers was, so her answer is complicated. Perhaps, these essays suggest, home is after all the place that is ours — whoever and wherever we find ourselves to be.

THE BEST OF BREVITY Twenty Groundbreaking Years of Flash Nonfiction Edited by Zoë Bossiere and Dinty W. Moore 256 pp. Rose Metal. Paper, $16.95.

Literary form followed function in the late 1990s when, anticipating the internet’s revolutionary impact, “flash” prose came into fashion. In the future as it suddenly appeared, blog posts would replace essays; books would move to e-readers or cease to exist, and hyperlinks would end narrative as we knew it. All this screen-reading, incidentally, would erode our patience for long forms.

Rather than lead to a literary cataclysm, technology so far has created a literary multiverse in which new and traditional forms coexist. Evidence of this can be held in your hands, in a new anthology — published in print, no less — from Brevity, an online journal founded at that first recognition of change.

Twenty years on, flash nonfiction, epitomized by the 84 essays Brevity’s editors chose for this collection, endures largely because those who write it quickly mastered the craft. There is no formula; these essays of 750 or fewer words include lists and “found” essays, lyric essays, researched essays, even graphic memoir. They work because they are efficient on the sentence level, cutting to the rhetorical nub without sacrificing their power to evoke.

The immersive effect of reading this anthology straight through is the opposite of a flash experience, and is also lovely, like rolling down a sidewalk of lit windows. A 2-year-old nestles with a bear, drunken men fight in the street, 30-foot stone heads sit on Easter Island. So much beauty, so much grief — the whole range of experience flashing by, leaving impressions as it passes.

Lori Soderlind is the author, most recently, of “The Change: My Great American, Postindustrial, Midlife Crisis Tour.” She is the director of the M.F.A. creative writing program at Manhattanville College.

Follow New York Times Books on Facebook , Twitter and Instagram , s ign up for our newsletter or our literary calendar . And listen to us on the Book Review podcast .

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Frequently asked questions

What is an essay.

An essay is a focused piece of writing that explains, argues, describes, or narrates.

In high school, you may have to write many different types of essays to develop your writing skills.

Academic essays at college level are usually argumentative : you develop a clear thesis about your topic and make a case for your position using evidence, analysis and interpretation.

Frequently asked questions: Writing an essay

For a stronger conclusion paragraph, avoid including:

• Important evidence or analysis that wasn’t mentioned in the main body
• Generic concluding phrases (e.g. “In conclusion…”)
• Weak statements that undermine your argument (e.g. “There are good points on both sides of this issue.”)

Your conclusion should leave the reader with a strong, decisive impression of your work.

Your essay’s conclusion should contain:

• A rephrased version of your overall thesis
• A brief review of the key points you made in the main body
• An indication of why your argument matters

The conclusion may also reflect on the broader implications of your argument, showing how your ideas could applied to other contexts or debates.

The conclusion paragraph of an essay is usually shorter than the introduction . As a rule, it shouldn’t take up more than 10–15% of the text.

The “hook” is the first sentence of your essay introduction . It should lead the reader into your essay, giving a sense of why it’s interesting.

To write a good hook, avoid overly broad statements or long, dense sentences. Try to start with something clear, concise and catchy that will spark your reader’s curiosity.

Your essay introduction should include three main things, in this order:

• An opening hook to catch the reader’s attention.
• Relevant background information that the reader needs to know.
• A thesis statement that presents your main point or argument.

The length of each part depends on the length and complexity of your essay .

Let’s say you’re writing a five-paragraph  essay about the environmental impacts of dietary choices. Here are three examples of topic sentences you could use for each of the three body paragraphs :

• Research has shown that the meat industry has severe environmental impacts.
• However, many plant-based foods are also produced in environmentally damaging ways.
• It’s important to consider not only what type of diet we eat, but where our food comes from and how it is produced.

Each of these sentences expresses one main idea – by listing them in order, we can see the overall structure of the essay at a glance. Each paragraph will expand on the topic sentence with relevant detail, evidence, and arguments.

The topic sentence usually comes at the very start of the paragraph .

However, sometimes you might start with a transition sentence to summarize what was discussed in previous paragraphs, followed by the topic sentence that expresses the focus of the current paragraph.

Topic sentences help keep your writing focused and guide the reader through your argument.

In an essay or paper , each paragraph should focus on a single idea. By stating the main idea in the topic sentence, you clarify what the paragraph is about for both yourself and your reader.

A topic sentence is a sentence that expresses the main point of a paragraph . Everything else in the paragraph should relate to the topic sentence.

The thesis statement is essential in any academic essay or research paper for two main reasons:

• It gives your writing direction and focus.
• It gives the reader a concise summary of your main point.

Without a clear thesis statement, an essay can end up rambling and unfocused, leaving your reader unsure of exactly what you want to say.

The thesis statement should be placed at the end of your essay introduction .

Follow these four steps to come up with a thesis statement :

• Ask a question about your topic .
• Write your initial answer.
• Develop your answer by including reasons.
• Refine your answer, adding more detail and nuance.

A thesis statement is a sentence that sums up the central point of your paper or essay . Everything else you write should relate to this key idea.

An essay isn’t just a loose collection of facts and ideas. Instead, it should be centered on an overarching argument (summarized in your thesis statement ) that every part of the essay relates to.

The way you structure your essay is crucial to presenting your argument coherently. A well-structured essay helps your reader follow the logic of your ideas and understand your overall point.

The structure of an essay is divided into an introduction that presents your topic and thesis statement , a body containing your in-depth analysis and arguments, and a conclusion wrapping up your ideas.

The structure of the body is flexible, but you should always spend some time thinking about how you can organize your essay to best serve your ideas.

The vast majority of essays written at university are some sort of argumentative essay . Almost all academic writing involves building up an argument, though other types of essay might be assigned in composition classes.

Essays can present arguments about all kinds of different topics. For example:

• In a literary analysis essay, you might make an argument for a specific interpretation of a text
• In a history essay, you might present an argument for the importance of a particular event
• In a politics essay, you might argue for the validity of a certain political theory

At high school and in composition classes at university, you’ll often be told to write a specific type of essay , but you might also just be given prompts.

Look for keywords in these prompts that suggest a certain approach: The word “explain” suggests you should write an expository essay , while the word “describe” implies a descriptive essay . An argumentative essay might be prompted with the word “assess” or “argue.”

In rhetorical analysis , a claim is something the author wants the audience to believe. A support is the evidence or appeal they use to convince the reader to believe the claim. A warrant is the (often implicit) assumption that links the support with the claim.

Logos appeals to the audience’s reason, building up logical arguments . Ethos appeals to the speaker’s status or authority, making the audience more likely to trust them. Pathos appeals to the emotions, trying to make the audience feel angry or sympathetic, for example.

Collectively, these three appeals are sometimes called the rhetorical triangle . They are central to rhetorical analysis , though a piece of rhetoric might not necessarily use all of them.

The term “text” in a rhetorical analysis essay refers to whatever object you’re analyzing. It’s frequently a piece of writing or a speech, but it doesn’t have to be. For example, you could also treat an advertisement or political cartoon as a text.

The goal of a rhetorical analysis is to explain the effect a piece of writing or oratory has on its audience, how successful it is, and the devices and appeals it uses to achieve its goals.

Unlike a standard argumentative essay , it’s less about taking a position on the arguments presented, and more about exploring how they are constructed.

You should try to follow your outline as you write your essay . However, if your ideas change or it becomes clear that your structure could be better, it’s okay to depart from your essay outline . Just make sure you know why you’re doing so.

If you have to hand in your essay outline , you may be given specific guidelines stating whether you have to use full sentences. If you’re not sure, ask your supervisor.

When writing an essay outline for yourself, the choice is yours. Some students find it helpful to write out their ideas in full sentences, while others prefer to summarize them in short phrases.

You will sometimes be asked to hand in an essay outline before you start writing your essay . Your supervisor wants to see that you have a clear idea of your structure so that writing will go smoothly.

Even when you do not have to hand it in, writing an essay outline is an important part of the writing process . It’s a good idea to write one (as informally as you like) to clarify your structure for yourself whenever you are working on an essay.

Comparisons in essays are generally structured in one of two ways:

• The alternating method, where you compare your subjects side by side according to one specific aspect at a time.
• The block method, where you cover each subject separately in its entirety.

It’s also possible to combine both methods, for example by writing a full paragraph on each of your topics and then a final paragraph contrasting the two according to a specific metric.

Your subjects might be very different or quite similar, but it’s important that there be meaningful grounds for comparison . You can probably describe many differences between a cat and a bicycle, but there isn’t really any connection between them to justify the comparison.

You’ll have to write a thesis statement explaining the central point you want to make in your essay , so be sure to know in advance what connects your subjects and makes them worth comparing.

Some essay prompts include the keywords “compare” and/or “contrast.” In these cases, an essay structured around comparing and contrasting is the appropriate response.

Comparing and contrasting is also a useful approach in all kinds of academic writing : You might compare different studies in a literature review , weigh up different arguments in an argumentative essay , or consider different theoretical approaches in a theoretical framework .

The key difference is that a narrative essay is designed to tell a complete story, while a descriptive essay is meant to convey an intense description of a particular place, object, or concept.

Narrative and descriptive essays both allow you to write more personally and creatively than other kinds of essays , and similar writing skills can apply to both.

If you’re not given a specific prompt for your descriptive essay , think about places and objects you know well, that you can think of interesting ways to describe, or that have strong personal significance for you.

The best kind of object for a descriptive essay is one specific enough that you can describe its particular features in detail—don’t choose something too vague or general.

If you’re not given much guidance on what your narrative essay should be about, consider the context and scope of the assignment. What kind of story is relevant, interesting, and possible to tell within the word count?

The best kind of story for a narrative essay is one you can use to reflect on a particular theme or lesson, or that takes a surprising turn somewhere along the way.

Don’t worry too much if your topic seems unoriginal. The point of a narrative essay is how you tell the story and the point you make with it, not the subject of the story itself.

Narrative essays are usually assigned as writing exercises at high school or in university composition classes. They may also form part of a university application.

When you are prompted to tell a story about your own life or experiences, a narrative essay is usually the right response.

The majority of the essays written at university are some sort of argumentative essay . Unless otherwise specified, you can assume that the goal of any essay you’re asked to write is argumentative: To convince the reader of your position using evidence and reasoning.

In composition classes you might be given assignments that specifically test your ability to write an argumentative essay. Look out for prompts including instructions like “argue,” “assess,” or “discuss” to see if this is the goal.

At college level, you must properly cite your sources in all essays , research papers , and other academic texts (except exams and in-class exercises).

Add a citation whenever you quote , paraphrase , or summarize information or ideas from a source. You should also give full source details in a bibliography or reference list at the end of your text.

The exact format of your citations depends on which citation style you are instructed to use. The most common styles are APA , MLA , and Chicago .

An argumentative essay tends to be a longer essay involving independent research, and aims to make an original argument about a topic. Its thesis statement makes a contentious claim that must be supported in an objective, evidence-based way.

An expository essay also aims to be objective, but it doesn’t have to make an original argument. Rather, it aims to explain something (e.g., a process or idea) in a clear, concise way. Expository essays are often shorter assignments and rely less on research.

An expository essay is a common assignment in high-school and university composition classes. It might be assigned as coursework, in class, or as part of an exam.

Sometimes you might not be told explicitly to write an expository essay. Look out for prompts containing keywords like “explain” and “define.” An expository essay is usually the right response to these prompts.

An expository essay is a broad form that varies in length according to the scope of the assignment.

Expository essays are often assigned as a writing exercise or as part of an exam, in which case a five-paragraph essay of around 800 words may be appropriate.

You’ll usually be given guidelines regarding length; if you’re not sure, ask.

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Organizing Academic Research Papers: Reviewing Collected Essays

• Purpose of Guide
• Design Flaws to Avoid
• Glossary of Research Terms
• Narrowing a Topic Idea
• Broadening a Topic Idea
• Extending the Timeliness of a Topic Idea
• Academic Writing Style
• Choosing a Title
• Making an Outline
• Paragraph Development
• Executive Summary
• Background Information
• The Research Problem/Question
• Theoretical Framework
• Citation Tracking
• Content Alert Services
• Evaluating Sources
• Primary Sources
• Secondary Sources
• Tertiary Sources
• What Is Scholarly vs. Popular?
• Qualitative Methods
• Quantitative Methods
• Using Non-Textual Elements
• Limitations of the Study
• Common Grammar Mistakes
• Avoiding Plagiarism
• Footnotes or Endnotes?
• Further Readings
• Annotated Bibliography
• Dealing with Nervousness
• Using Visual Aids
• Grading Someone Else's Paper
• How to Manage Group Projects
• Multiple Book Review Essay
• Reviewing Collected Essays
• About Informed Consent
• Writing Field Notes
• Writing a Policy Memo
• Writing a Research Proposal
• Acknowledgements

Collected essays vary in form and content [see below] but generally refers to a single book that contains essays [chapters] written by a variety of contributing authors. The overall work may cover a broad subject area, such as health care reform, or examine a narrow research problem, such as antitrust regulation in the clothing industry. Each chapter in a scholarly collected essay book is written by an expert in the field examining a particular aspect of that topic. Most collected essay works include a foreword or introductory chapter that summarizes current research in the field, placing the studies discussed by each author in the book within the larger scholarly context.

How to Approach Writing Your Review

Types of Collected Works

• Conference Proceedings --a collection of papers published as part of an academic conference or other gathering of professionals. The purpose is to inform a wider audience of the material presented at the conference as well as to document the work of scholars who have participated in that conference. Many conferences are held annually and, thus, the proceedings are published annually and may focus on a particular theme representing a cutting edge issue in the field [e.g., Proceedings of the 10th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research--Social Networks: Making Connections between Citizens, Data, and Government ].
• Collection of an Author's Research --a collection of works by a distinguished scholar. The contents of collected works by a particular researcher can take the form of reprints of prior research or of selected reprints with a new introductory chapter by the author or an expert in the field that synthesizes and updates the overall status of research [e.g., The Nature of Politics: Selected Essays of Bertrand de Jouvenel . Edited and with an introduction by Dennis Hale and Marc Landy; Foreword by Wilson Carey McWilliams. New York: Schocken Books, 1987. xxxv, 254 pp.]
• Festschrift --a volume of articles or essays by colleagues and admirers that serve as a tribute or memorial to a preeminent scholar or public figure. The essays usually relate to, or reflect upon, an honoree's contributions to their scholarly field, but may include original research by the authors that build upon the research of the honoree [e.g., Social Cognition, Social Identity, and Intergroup Relations: A Festschrift in Honor of Marilynn B. Brewer . Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, editors. New York: Psychology Press, 2011. xi, 423 pp.].
• Reader --a collection of scholarly papers, most often reprinted from journals, representing a cross-section of research about a particular topic. Most readers are intended to be used in the classroom. Readers serve to document the breadth and range of the most important research that has developed in a particular area of study and, often, as specified over a period of time [e.g., Companion Reader on Violence Against Women . Claire M. Renzetti, Jeffrey L. Edleson, Raquel Kennedy Bergen, editors. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2012. x, 411 pp.].
• Reprints --sometimes in the form of a multi-volume set, this is a selective collection of previously published materials. Most frequently, reprints contain scholarly journal articles gathered together to form a comprehensive overview of prior research in a particular area of study.
• Thematic Articles --the most common form of collected works in the social sciences, this is a collection of new scholarly essays from multiple authors examining a particular research problem or topic.

Developing an Assessment Strategy for Each

The challenge with reviewing a book of collected essays is that you must begin by thinking critically about the research problem that underpins each of the individual essays, synthesizing the multiple arguments of multiple authors, and then clearly organizing those arguments into conceptual categories [themes] as you write your draft.

Here are some questions to ask yourself depending on the type of collected work you're reviewing . Note that all types require you to first identify the overarching subject of the book of collected essays.

• Conference Proceedings --what organization is sponsoring the conference? Is there a specific theme to the conference? Was the collection of papers selectively chosen or do the proceedings represent all papers presented at the conference? If not, how were the papers selected? Are the papers reprinted as they were presented or have they been updated or significantly edited prior to publication [this is often noted in the introduction]? Are the proceedings online and, if so, how might this facilitate access to additional materials? Is there foreword or an introductory chapter that effectively synthesizes the collection? Is it logically organized and include important front and back matter such as a table of contents and an index?
• Collection of an Author's Research --who is the author and why do you believe his or her work is important enough to be gathered together for publication? Is there an underlying theme or does the collection represent a "best of" collection? What may have been ommitted? Are any original works included or are the contents only reprints? Is there a bibliography of the all of the author's writings? Is there a foreword or an introductory chapter written by the author or a guest contributor that effectively synthesizes the collection? Is the book logically organized and include important front and back matter such as a table of contents and an index?
• Festschrift --who is being honored and why? Do the contributions represent essays of general tribute or do the contributions represent original research that builds upon the honoree's prior work? Is there a list of contributors and does it include biographical profiles of each that helps determine their relationship to the honoree? Is there a foreword or an introductory chapter that effectively synthesizes the collection? Is it logically organized and include important front and back matter such as a table of contents and an index?
• Reader --does the collection represent a broad spectrum of publications about a research topic or only a few? Are there underrepresented areas of research in the collection? Is there a list of editors/compilers and does it include biographical profiles of each? Are the contents reprinted in their entirity or is the text only excerpted? Are the reprints readily available through other means or do they represent a compilation of hard-to-find publications? Is there a foreword or an introductory chapter that effectively synthesizes the collection? Is it logically organized and include important front and back matter such as a table of contents and an index?
• Reprints --does the collection represent reprints from a variety of publications or only a few? Are there underrepresented areas of research in the collection? Are the reprints readily available through other means or do they represent a compilation of hard-to-find publications? Are the reprints from relatively current or older publications? Is there a foreword or an introductory chapter that effectively synthesizes the collection? Is it logically organized and include important front and back matter such as a table of contents and an index?
• Thematic Articles --how are the contents arranged? Do the contributions survey a broad area of research or do they examine multiple issues associated with a particular research problem? Is there a list of contributors and does it include biographical profiles of each? Do you the contributors come from one or a variety of institutions? Do the contributors all come from the United States or are there any international contributors? Is there foreword or an introductory chapter that effectively synthesizes the collection? Does the work include important front and back matter such as a table of contents and an index?

Structure and Writing Style

I. Bibliographic Information

Provide the essential information about the book using the writing style that your professor has asked to use for the course [e.g., APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.]. Depending on how your professor wants you to organize your review, the bibliograophic information represents the heading of your review. In general, it would look like this:

El Ghonemy, Mohamad Riad. Anti-Poverty Land Reform Issues Never Die: Collected Essays on Development Economics in Practice . (New York: Routledge, 2010. xx, 223 pp.)

Reviewed by [your name].

II. Scope/Purpose/Content

The first challenge in reviewing any type of collected essay work is to identify and summarize its overarching scope and purpose, with additional focus on describing how the book is organized and whether or not the arrangement of its individual parts facilitates and contributes to an understanding of the subject area. Most collected works include a general statement of purpose in the foreword or an introductory chapter. In some cases, the editor will discuss the scope and purpose at the beginning of each essay.

To help develop your own introductory thesis statement that covers all of the material, start by reviewing and taking notes about the aim and intent of each essay. Once completed, identify key issues and themes. For example, in a compilation of essays on environmental law, you may find the papers examine various legal approaches to environmental protection, describe alternatives to the law, and compare domestic and international issues. By identifying the overall themes, you create a framework from which you can cogently evaluate the contents.

As with any review, your introductory statement must be succinct, accurate, unbiased, and clear. However, given that you are reviewing a number of parts within a much larger work, you may need several paragraphs to provide a comprehensive overview of the book's overall scope, purpose, and content.

If you find it difficult to discern the overall aims and objectives of the collected essay work [and, be sure to point this out in your review if you believe it to be a deficiency], you may arrive at an understanding of the purpose by asking yourself a the following questions:

• Why did the contributing authors write on this subject rather than on some other subject? Why is it important?
• From what point of view is the work written? Do some essays take one stance while others investigate another or are they just a mish-mash of viewpoints?
• Were the authors trying to give information, to explain something technical, or to convince the reader of a belief’s validity by dramatizing it in action?
• What is the general field or genre, and how does the book fit into it? Review related literature from other books and journal articles to familiarize yourself with the field, if necessary.
• Who is the intended audience?
• What are each author's style? Do they clash or do they flow together? Is it formal or informal? You can evaluate the quality of the writing style by noting some of the following standards: coherence, clarity, originality, forcefulness, correct use of technical words, conciseness, fullness of development, and fluidity.
• Scan the Table of Contents because it can help you understand how the book is organized and will aid in determining the main ideas covered and how they are developed [e.g., chronologically, topically, thematically, etc.]
• How did the book affect you? Were any prior assumptions you had on the subject changed, abandoned, or reinforced due to this book? Did some essays stand out more than others? In what ways?
• How is the book related to your own course or personal agenda? What personal experiences have you had that relate to the subject?
• How well has the book achieved its goal(s)?
• Would you recommend the book to others? Why or why not?

III.  Critically Evaluate the Contents

Critical comments should form the b ulk of your book review . A good method for reviewing a collected work is to follow the arrangement of contents, particularly if the essays are grouped in a particular way, and to frame the analysis in the context of the key issues and themes you identified in the introduction. State whether or not you feel the overall treatment of the subject matter is appropriate for the intended audience. Ask yourself:

• Has the purpose of the book been achieved?
• Have all of the essays contributed something important to the overall purpose? If not, how have some author's failed to add something meaningful?
• What contribution does the book make to the field?
• Is the treatment of the subject matter unbiased?
• Are there facts and evidence that have been omitted?
• What kinds of data, if any, are used to support the author's thesis statement?
• Can the same data be interpreted to alternate ends?
• Is the writing style clear and effective?
• Does the book raise important or provocative issues or topics for discussion and further research?

Support your evaluation with evidence from the text and, when possible, in relation to other sources.Do not evaluate each essay one at a time but group the analysis around  the key issues and themes you first identified. If relevant, make note of the book's format, such as, layout, binding, typography, etc. Do some or all of the essays include tables, charts, maps, illustrations, or other non-textual elements? Do they aid in understanding the research problem?

IV.  Examine the Front Matter and Back Matter

Back matter refers to any information included after the final chapter of the book. Front matter refers to anything before the first chapter. Front matter is most often numbered separately from the rest of the text in lower case Roman numerals [i.e. i-xi ]. Critical commentary about front or back matter is generally only necessary if you believe there is something that diminishes the overall quality of the work or there is something that is particularly helpful in understanding the book's contents.

The following back matter may be included in a book and should be considered for evaluation when reviewing the overall quality of the book:

• Table of contents --is it clear? Does it reflect the true contents of the book?
• Author biography --also found as back matter, the biography of author(s) can be useful in determining the authority of the writer and whether the book builds on prior research or represents new research. In scholarly reviews, noting the author's affiliation can be a factor in helping the reader determine the overall validity of work [i.e., are they associated with a research center devoted to studying the research problem under investigation].
• Foreword --in a scholarly books, a foreword may be written by the author or an expert on the subject of the book. The purpose of a foreword is to introduce the reader to the author as well as the book itself, and attempt to establish credibility for both. A foreword does not contribute any additional information about the book's subject matter, but it serves as a means of validating the book's existence. Later editions of a book sometimes have a new foreword prepended [appearing before an older foreword if there was one], which might explain in what respects that edition differs from previous ones.
• Preface --generally describes the genesis, purpose, limitations, and scope of the book and may include acknowledgments of indebtedness to people who have helped the author complete the study. Is the preface helpful in understanding the study? Does it effectively provide a framework for what's to follow? A Preface is often very important to understanding the overall purpose oft he collected work.
• Chronology --also found as back matter, a chronology is generally included to highlight key events related to the subject of the book. Does it contribute to the overall work? Is it detailed or very general?
• List of non-textual elements --if a book contains a lot of charts, photographs, maps, etc., they will often be listed in the front.
• Afterword --this is a short, reflective piece written by the author that takes the form of a concluding section, final commentary, or closing statement. It is worth mentioning in a review if it contributes information about the purpose of the book, gives a call to action, or asks the reader to consider key points made in the book.
• Appendix/appendices --is the supplementary material in the appendix or appendices well organized? Do they relate to the contents or appear superfluous? Does it contain any essential information that would have been more appropriately integrated into the text?
• Index --is the index thorough and accurate? Are there elements such as bold text, to help identify specific parts of the book?
• Glossary --are the definitions clearly written? Is the glossary comprehensive or are key terms missing?
• Endotes/Footnotes --check any end notes or footnotes as you read from essay to essay. Do they provide important additional information? Do they clarify or extend points made in the body of the text?
• Bibliography/Further Readings --review any bibliography or further readings the author may have included. What kinds of sources [e.g., primary or secondary, recent or old, scholarly or popular, etc.] appear in the bibliography? How does the author make use of them? Make note of important omissions.

V.  Summarize and Comment

State your general conclusions succinctly. Pay particular attention to any capstone chapter that summarizes the work. Collected works often have one. List the principal topics, and briefly summarize the key themes and issues, main points, and conclusions. If appropriate and to help clarify your overall evaluation, use specific references and quotations to support your statements. If your thesis has been well argued, the conclusion should follow naturally. It can include a final assessment or simply restate your thesis. Do not introduce new information or ideas in the conclusion.

Bazerman, Charles. Comparing and Synthesizing Sources . The Informed Writer: Using Sources in the Disciplines. Writing@CSU. Colorado State University; Book Reviews . Writing@CSU. Colorado State University; Book Reviews . The Writing Center. University of North Carolina; Writing a Book Review . The Writing Lab and The OWL. Purdue University; Rhetorical Strategies: Comparison and Contrast . The Reading/Writing Center. Hunter College; Visvis, Vikki and Jerry Plotnick. The Comparative Essay . The Lab Report. University College Writing Centre. University of Toronto; Writing Book Reviews. Writing Tutorial Services, Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning. Indiana University.

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The Memoir in Essays: A Reading List

Elizabeth kadetsky on the multiple ways we can look at the self.

While the personal essay has enjoyed continued popularity, a book-length collection of linked essays, centered on an author’s self or life, is less common than a traditional memoir or novel. A truly successful essay collection can reveal the author processing experiences at many different points in time and through many different lenses. As a writer, I’ve always been drawn to the essay as a form, for its concision, for its ability to highlight an intriguing gap between author and narrator that lends an inherent tension and self-questioning. A collection of essays treating the same or related inquiries multiplies this effect.

The distance afforded by those multivalent lenses can allow an author to regard one’s younger self as a different character, a different persona. This can create an unease or uncertainty that is exciting, and also very relatable to the reader. An author’s ability to forgive that earlier version of herself is especially prevalent in the memoir-in-essays, perhaps because of the extended time period covered as a writer composes essays across years or even decades.

We are lucky enough to be in the middle of a renaissance. Several recent and upcoming memoirs-in-essays use the inquisitive essay form to tell life stories from different vantage points and make the reader question and revel in unreliable narrators and new perspectives. The more traditional memoir focuses on seeking and attaining redemption. The nonlinear structure of an essay collection reveals that there is never easy redemption, never clear resolution: bad things happen for no reason; overcoming one trial does not lessen the need to adapt in the next.

These new, enchanting and powerful collections are a welcome reminder that in our collective state of unrest and unknown futures, there is a comfort in knowing that there is an inherent uncertainty in having the answers.

Emily Arnason Casey, Made Holy: Essays (University of Georgia Press)

In beautiful, scenic prose, Emily Arnason Casey probes her middle American childhood from the stance of different venues, times of life, and primary characters—a family cabin and repository for memories both happy and sad; a little sister who grew up and wasn’t a sidekick anymore; a mother who didn’t reveal the family propensity to alcoholism until it was too late; an aunt who succumbed to the illness’s lure. In a spiral-like structure that keeps returning to a central and unanswerable question—how, and why, must this family battle the draws and effects of alcohol addiction—Arnason Casey tells a poignant story of a “normal” family that through its quirks and desires must find a path to survival. The author finds solace in nostalgia and a way forward by examining the errors of the past and by embracing, as a mother, the promise of the future generation. Her probing and compulsive need to question reminds us that alcoholism has no simple etiology, and that its cures are as individual as they are elusive.

Sonja Livingston, The Virgin of Prince Street: Expeditions into Devotion } (University of Nebraska Press)

At a time of dwindling religiosity, Livingston finds herself wishing for greater connection to her Catholic roots while also exploring the physical space of the church in upstate New York that made memories for her as a child. Because of religious attrition, the church that she grew up in becomes the gathering space for dozens of rescued saint statues deaccessioned from other churches nearby. Livingston embarks upon a quest to find a missing Virgin Mary statue, that moves not in straight lines but elliptically, following a parallel physical and emotional journey that is an exploration into faith, Catholicism, and a desire for spiritual connection on modern terms. In examining the sustained power of a central icon of the Catholic church and an object of personal, sentimental attachment, Livingston’s linked essays highlight the irresolvable paradox of modern religiosity—that the seeker must follow an uncharted middle pathway when the old texts and their tropes, their patriarchy and their strictures, necessarily fall away.

Amy Long, Codependence (Cleveland State University Poetry Center)

In this haunting and troubling book, Long revisits scenes and anecdotes from her  boyfriend’s heroin addiction and her subsequent dependence on opioids for chronic pain. Formal experiments such as essays disguised as lists, prescription forms, and medical reports are interspersed among scene-driven recollections from different points in time: the author’s first introduction to the drug; the allure of an older addict; attempts at recovery. The grounding presence of the author’s supportive mother is offset by the narrative’s tragic other constant—the euphoria and escape offered by the drug. By eschewing a linear narrative structure, Long illustrates the difficulty of achieving recovery and puts lie to the myth that addiction is a logical disease that naturally ends with a cure. In its very form, this memoir undermines the narrative so prevalent in media treatments of this illness—that in order to trounce the beast, the individual suffering from addiction need only attend a recovery program. Having written about and witnessed my own sister’s decades’ long struggle to overcome opioid addiction, I was drawn to Long’s wisdom in portraying addiction not as a problem to be solved so much as a complexity to be observed and penetrated.

Sejal Shah, This Is One Way to Dance (University of Georgia Press)

The Indian-American author continually revisits her troubled relationship to her American identity through layered essays treating her bifurcated Indian and American past. Exploring her family’s immersion in Gujarati subculture when she was a child growing up in Rochester, New York; her experience as one of few people of color in her MFA creative writing program; and many family weddings in which she must confront her presumed future as a desi bride, Shah questions her place in both American culture and the thriving American-Gujarati subculture. By placing dates at the ends of the essays, it is suggested that her complicated and lifelong conflicts about race and cultural identity can be told chronologically. But, as she explains in her introduction, many essays had multiple end dates after having been revised and reconsidered as time moved forward. The multiple end dates elegantly upend the notion that a rational, hypothesis-thesis-synthesis structure can encompass the complexities of identity and belonging. Shah’s choice to write non-narratively about her conflicts of identity provide insight for anyone raised with a dual or multiple cultural identity—anyone who may, at different points of time, feel a greater allegiance to one culture, another, or a never straightforward amalgam of many. Who we understand ourselves to be, Shah’s book tells the reader in subtle ways, is not a fact so much as a moving target, an unending query.

Sue William Silverman, How to Survive Death and Other Inconveniences (University of Nebraska Press)

Silverman is the author of three previous memoirs. In How to Survive Death and Other Inconveniences , she tells her life story through the lens of an obsession with death and the desire to come to terms with the inevitable but often avoided reality that in the end we are mortal. The essays begin with a chronological life story of growing up in New Jersey and encountering American culture’s death-avoidance, but then take a swerve when several brief but elusive mentions accrue into an account of a rape at a young age and a discovery that her memory of the event connects to her fixation on death. A chronological structure gives way to a thematic plot, in which Silverman seeks to confront her topic through reporting, immersion, and reflection—for instance by visiting a morgue, exploring mythological figures associated with death, and recollecting a family funeral. The sophisticated writing and structure make the whole greater than the sum of its many fascinating and worthy parts. Silverman’s essays continually reveal the irrational functioning of memory and how it connects our pasts to our worldviews. Honoring subconscious logic, How to Survive Death and Other Inconveniences makes the gambit that the mysteries of the self are both keys to understanding and uncertainties to be celebrated. We become who we are without being fully conscious of our choices—probing those choices won’t give us easy answers, but the discoveries along the way will be illuminating and well worth the necessary befuddlements.

__________________________________

Elizabeth Kadetsky’s memoir , The Memory Eaters, is available now from University of Massachusetts Press.

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Essay Collections

Items features thematic essay collections that explore a broad range of areas of concern, including key terms, concepts, fields, and empirical zones of inquiry; the political economy of social knowledge production; changes in the landscape of higher education and the institutional ecology of social science research; the relationship between social knowledge and its uses; and more.

Before the present iteration of Items , the Council published occasional essay collections that addressed contemporary events and topics through a social science lens. These can now be found archived here alongside ongoing and concluded series.

Current Collections

Crisis and collaboration across the indian ocean, where heritage meets violence, covid-19 and the social sciences, democracy papers, what is inequality, past collections, reflecting on dpd, 10 years after the arab spring, beyond disinformation, extremism online, disinformation, democracy, and conflict prevention, ways of water, layered metropolis, chancing the storm, sexuality & gender studies now, sociolinguistic frontiers, race & capitalism, understanding gun violence, just environments, reading racial conflict, can social science matter, interdisciplinarity now, the cities papers, the inaugural democracy papers, 10 years after september 11, the minerva controversy, making communications research matter, change in cuba, crisis in the horn of africa, how genocides end, border battles, understanding katrina, the privatization of risk, riots in france, contemporary conflicts, after september 11.

100 Must-Read Essay Collections

Rebecca Hussey

Rebecca holds a PhD in English and is a professor at Norwalk Community College in Connecticut. She teaches courses in composition, literature, and the arts. When she’s not reading or grading papers, she’s hanging out with her husband and son and/or riding her bike and/or buying books. She can't get enough of reading and writing about books, so she writes the bookish newsletter "Reading Indie," focusing on small press books and translations. Newsletter: Reading Indie Twitter: @ofbooksandbikes

View All posts by Rebecca Hussey

There’s something about a shiny new collection of essays that makes my heart beat a little faster. If you feel the same way, can we be friends? If not, might I suggest that perhaps you just haven’t found the right collection yet? I don’t expect everyone to love the thought of sitting down with a nice, juicy personal essay, but I also think the genre gets a bad rap because people associate it with the kind of thing they had to write in school.

Well, essays don’t have to be like the kind of thing you wrote in school. Essays can be anything, really. They can be personal, confessional, argumentative, informative, funny, sad, shocking, sexy, and all of the above. The best essayists can make any subject interesting. If I love an essayist, I’ll read whatever they write. I’ll follow their minds anywhere. Because that’s really what I want out of an essay — the sense that I’m spending time with an interesting mind. I want a companionable, challenging, smart, surprising voice in my head.

So below is my list, not of essay collections I think everybody “must read,” even if that’s what my title says, but collections I hope you will consider checking out if you want to.

1. Against Interpretation — Susan Sontag

2. Alibis: Essays on Elsewhere — André Aciman

3. American Romances — Rebecca Brown

4. Art & Ardor — Cynthia Ozick

5. The Art of the Personal Essay — anthology, edited by Phillip Lopate

6. Bad Feminist — Roxane Gay

7. The Best American Essays of the Century — anthology, edited by Joyce Carol Oates

8. The Best American Essays series — published every year, series edited by Robert Atwan

9. Book of Days — Emily Fox Gordon

10. The Boys of My Youth — Jo Ann Beard

11. The Braindead Megaphone — George Saunders

12. Broken Republic: Three Essays — Arundhati Roy

13. Changing My Mind — Zadie Smith

14. A Collection of Essays — George Orwell

15. The Common Reader — Virginia Woolf

16. Consider the Lobster — David Foster Wallace

17. The Crack-up — F. Scott Fitzgerald

18. Discontent and its Civilizations — Mohsin Hamid

19. Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric — Claudia Rankine

20. Dreaming of Hitler — Daphne Merkin

21. Self-Reliance and Other Essays — Ralph Waldo Emerson

22. The Empathy Exams — Leslie Jameson

23. Essays After Eighty — Donald Hall

24. Essays in Idleness — Yoshida Kenko

25. The Essays of Elia — Charles Lamb

26. Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader — Anne Fadiman

27. A Field Guide to Getting Lost — Rebecca Solnit

28. Findings — Kathleen Jamie

29. The Fire Next Time — James Baldwin

30. The Folded Clock — Heidi Julavits

31. Forty-One False Starts — Janet Malcolm

32. How To Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America — Kiese Laymon

33. I Feel Bad About My Neck — Nora Ephron

34. I Just Lately Started Buying Wings — Kim Dana Kupperman

35. In Fact: The Best of Creative Nonfiction — anthology, edited by Lee Gutkind

36. In Praise of Shadows — Junichiro Tanizaki

37. In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens — Alice Walker

38. Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? — Mindy Kaling

39. I Was Told There’d Be Cake — Sloane Crosley

40. Karaoke Culture — Dubravka Ugresic

41. Labyrinths — Jorge Luis Borges

42. Living, Thinking, Looking — Siri Hustvedt

43. Loitering — Charles D’Ambrosio

44. Lunch With a Bigot — Amitava Kumar

45. Madness, Rack, and Honey — Mary Ruefle

46. Magic Hours — Tom Bissell

47. Meatless Days — Sara Suleri

48. Meaty — Samantha Irby

49. Meditations from a Movable Chair — Andre Dubus

50. Memories of a Catholic Girlhood — Mary McCarthy

51. Me Talk Pretty One Day — David Sedaris

52. Multiply/Divide: On the American Real and Surreal — Wendy S. Walters

53. My 1980s and Other Essays — Wayne Koestenbaum

54. The Next American Essay, The Lost Origins of the Essay, and The Making of the American Essay — anthologies, edited by John D’Agata

55. The Norton Book of Personal Essays — anthology, edited by Joseph Epstein

56. Notes from No Man’s Land — Eula Biss

57. Notes of a Native Son — James Baldwin

58. Not That Kind of Girl — Lena Dunham

59. On Beauty and Being Just — Elaine Scarry

60. Once I Was Cool — Megan Stielstra

61. 100 Essays I Don’t Have Time to Write — Sarah Ruhl

62. On Kissing, Tickling, and Being Bored — Adam Phillips

63. On Lies, Secrets, and Silence — Adrienne Rich

64. The Opposite of Loneliness — Marina Keegan

65. Otherwise Known as the Human Condition — Geoff Dyer

66. Paris to the Moon — Adam Gopnik

67. Passions of the Mind — A.S. Byatt

68. The Pillow Book — Sei Shonagon

69. A Place to Live — Natalia Ginzburg

70. Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination — Toni Morrison

71. Pulphead — John Jeremiah Sullivan

72. Selected Essays — Michel de Montaigne

73. Shadow and Act — Ralph Ellison

74. Sidewalks — Valeria Luiselli

75. Sister Outsider — Audre Lorde

76. The Size of Thoughts — Nicholson Baker

77. Slouching Towards Bethlehem — Joan Didion

78. The Souls of Black Folk — W. E. B. Du Bois

79. The Story About the Story — anthology, edited by J.C. Hallman

80. A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again — David Foster Wallace

81. Ten Years in the Tub — Nick Hornby

82. Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Man — Henry Louis Gates

83. This Is Running for Your Life — Michelle Orange

84. This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage — Ann Patchett

85. Tiny Beautiful Things — Cheryl Strayed

86. Tuxedo Junction: Essays on American Culture — Gerald Early

87. Twenty-eight Artists and Two Saints — Joan Acocella

88. The Unspeakable — Meghan Daum

89. Vermeer in Bosnia — Lawrence Weschler

90. The Wave in the Mind — Ursula K. Le Guin

91. We Need Silence to Find Out What We Think — Shirley Hazzard

92. We Should All Be Feminists — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichi

93. What Are People For? — Wendell Berry

94. When I Was a Child I Read Books — Marilynne Robinson

95. The White Album — Joan Didion

96. White Girls — Hilton Als

97. The Woman Warrior — Maxine Hong Kinston

98. The Writing Life — Annie Dillard

99. Writing With Intent — Margaret Atwood

100. You Don’t Have to Like Me — Alida Nugent

If you have a favorite essay collection I’ve missed here, let me know in the comments!

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Sasha taqʷšəblu LaPointe discusses new essay collection

Sasha taqʷšəblu LaPointe, a Coast Salish author from the Nooksack and Upper Skagit Indian tribes, sees her great-grandmother as the quintessential storyteller. “It was her gift, not mine,” she writes in her new book “Thunder Song” — a collection of intimate, meditative essays woven together with metaphors, unabashed honesty and the echoes of spirit songs sung by generations of Coast Salish women.

“In our longhouse ceremonies, songs hold a spiritual power,” LaPointe says of spirit songs in her book. “There are certain songs for prayer, for healing.”

Outside of her family, the community most important to LaPointe was always the punk scene. LaPointe fell in love with punk as a kid in her trailer on the Swinomish Reservation — making mixtapes on a boombox, listening to haunting melodies and Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill screaming the lyrics to “White Boy.” Her book explores how she was drawn into the punk world and how it gave her a haven.

“I really feel like the pull was rooted in chosen family,” she says. “A lot of the folks that gravitate towards the punk scene are looking for that. And I was inspired by it. Punks and artists were fiery and passionate about things.” LaPointe is a member of the punk band Medusa Stare . 

LaPointe wears two silver customized name necklaces, one in English and one in her Indigenous language of Lushootseed. She was given her traditional Skagit name, taqʷšəblu, after her great-grandmother Vi taqʷšəblu Hilbert, a linguist who helped preserve the Lushootseed language. In 2006, Hilbert commissioned an orchestral work performed by the Seattle Symphony at Benaroya Hall. She believed that Indigenous songs had the power to heal the world. She died in 2008 at 90 years old. 

When asked what her traditional name means, LaPointe jokes and laments that elders and anthropologists confirmed it doesn’t mean anything.

“I feel really ripped off in this because I want to say it means something so cool. Like ‘woman who runs with wolves,’” she says. “But no, it doesn’t mean anything.” 

Since entering her 30s, carrying this name proudly means carrying her great-grandmother’s legacy within her, a responsibility but also a gift — one she now embraces. “It was a name that always made me feel like I had a lot to live up to,” LaPointe says. “I’m a very different person than my great-grandmother, but I want to make her proud.”

LaPointe’s “Thunder Song,” despite being an essay collection, is just as much autobiographical as LaPointe’s first book “ Red Paint: The Ancestral Autobiography of a Coast Salish Punk ,” which came out in 2022.

“There’s so much memoir and personal narrative in the essays that I think some of them absolutely do start off right where ‘Red Paint’ left off,” LaPointe says.

“Red Paint” was a true confessional, exploring trauma and how it shaped her with a magnifying glass held up to the most vulnerable parts of her childhood and adult life. “Thunder Song” is LaPointe’s call out to the world, a love letter to the Pacific Northwest, an Indigenous riot grrrl manifesto, a time machine to her great-grandmother and the story of her heart dealing with the collective historical trauma that continues to besiege Indigenous people.

“The world is a truly messed up place right now,” she says. “And I think in those moments — the protests, the pandemic, the forest fires — there was a lot of collective anxiety and trauma, and this collection is part of how I could make sense of it.”

Growing up on the Swinomish Reservation, LaPointe lived in the middle of the woods but was enamored by the city. She imagined moving to Seattle and becoming a music journalist or an artist. A runaway at 13 with a court-approved emancipation at 15, eventually, she spent much of her late teens and early 20s living, working and performing in Seattle. 

At 25, she was at a crossroads. Her grandparents had given her a college brochure and she had also been asked to go on tour with a circus band.

“It felt like an assignment from my great-grandmother coming through from the spirit world,” LaPointe says. “She was like, ‘We know you want to go join the circus — but go pursue an education.’”

She decided against going on tour and moved to Santa Fe, N.M., to enroll at the Institute of American Indian Arts. After graduating in 2014, LaPointe moved back to Seattle. She now splits her time between Washington and Southern California — where her partner, Blaine, lives — but she cannot stay away from her Tacoma home for too long. “I have to come back and recharge,” she says. “Being in my Coast Salish territory, literally my ancestral homelands, feels really powerful and significant to me.”

In “Thunder Song,” LaPointe traverses both trauma and tender joyous moments with fearlessness and grace. She talks about sexual assault, abortion, miscarriage and how love depleted and defeated the women in her ancestry.

She expertly crosses between her contemporary influences and Native heritage as she details her obsession with “The Little Mermaid” and the story of the Maiden of Deception Pass, who sacrificed herself for her people, or the story of the Basket Ogress, who could make children disappear, alongside the reality of missing and murdered Indigenous women who are forgotten. 

With special care to the people closest to her, this collection gives LaPointe space to explore past and present relationships including significant moments with her mother, who she, at times, has had a tumultuous relationship with. LaPointe says she was anxious when she showed her mother a draft of the essay detailing their story. 

“We were on one of our walks. She was like, ‘It was so powerful. It was really beautiful. It was right. I’m so proud of you,’” LaPointe says. “That felt like a good ‘mom blessing’ because that [essay] was not easy. I was shaking in my boots.”

Throughout the book, LaPointe narrates how she wades through the various intersections of her identity as a queer, mixed heritage woman, as an artist, as a writer, as a daughter and as a friend.

“Of course, I’m tribally enrolled but I contain multitudes,” she says. “Our traditional languages and stories are really important to me, but so is making mixtapes and going to rowdy punk shows.”

AUTHOR EVENTS

Sasha taqʷšəblu LaPointe, Counterpoint, 256 pp., $27

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Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021

Contributor Bio

Marissa gallerani, by melissa febos, reviewed by marissa gallerani.

Melissa Febos’s new essay collection, Girlhood , arrives amid the continued reckoning of the #MeToo movement. As all facets of female life are being reevaluated, Febos turns her attention toward her own childhood, an oft-ignored time in women’s lives that is not removed from the pressures of femininity. The themes Febos regularly explores in her writing–in Abandon Me (2017), her relationship with her father; in Whipsmart (2010), her career as a sex worker – once again feature here, but with a new appreciation for how Febos’s later life was shaped by the transitional period of her youth.

Opening with an epigraph from Judith Baker, “Destruction is thus always restoration,” the collection includes eight essays, each preceded by an illustrated frontispiece. These illustrations conjure tarot cards in their simplicity and potency. The tarot is often associated with marginalized groups, especially women, who have used the practice to reclaim ownership over their lives. Such tension is prevalent here as Febos explores the inherent contradiction between a young girl’s inner life and the public persona society expects her to adopt. Febos emphasizes just how much the events she and other young girls endure are beyond their control. Starting with the onset of early puberty at age eleven, Febos traces how the changes in her body lead to different treatment from her peers, both male and female. She is ogled and ostracized at a female classmate’s pool party, and a male classmate taunts and spits at her at the bus stop. More horrifyingly, Febos recounts a series of encounters with men, sometimes twice her age, who either do not know that she is a child or do not care.

The essays cover many topics, from how men forcibly inject themselves into women’s lives, in “Intrusions,” to empty consent and its lifelong consequences, in “Thank You for Taking Care of Yourself.” Each essay explores a different gender expectation as it is imposed on women and girls. After recounting the daily harassing phone calls decrying her as a “fucking whore,” Febos explains how she felt she could only suffer alone; even if she went to her parents, she was unsure of what they’d do to help her. The more harassment Febos endures, the more she erases herself. As she notes,

[The body’s] physical form becomes impossible to see because your own eyes are no longer the expert. Your body is no longer a body but a perceived distance from what a body should be, a condition of never being correct, because being is incorrect. Virtue [for women] lies only in the interminable act of erasing yourself.

In addition to their wide-ranging subject matter, the essays also include myriad astrological, mythological, and academic references. Febos has always been skilled at drawing disparate threads together into a coherent narrative, and she continues this tactic with varying degrees of success. “Mirror Test,” one of the most compelling essays in Girlhood , is an elegy on the opinions of others and their influence on one’s own beliefs. It contains a number of obscure scientific and academic references, like Jacques Lacan’s theory of Innenwelt and Umwelt and Heinrich Kramer’s treatise Malleus Maleficarum , that seem misplaced in the narrative. Only upon finishing was I able to understand their significance. Febos’s subject matter is powerful enough that additional academic references are not required to make her point; her anecdotal experiences are sufficient. The surveys Febos undertakes as part of her explorations in “Thank You for Taking Care of Yourself” feel more integrated and organic.

As Girlhood progresses, Febos transforms from a young girl who measures her worth against others’ opinions to a self-assured woman who can reflect on her youth and see its impact on her now. Not just a collection of harrowing encounters, Girlhood ends by offering a catharsis, a hope for claiming yourself. In particular, in “Les Calanques,” the closing essay and a beautiful retrospective on her time in France, Febos offers this: “Now, I am so careful. The more I know my own worth, the less I have to fling myself against anything.”

Bracing at times, Girlhood forced me to reconsider my own girlhood. I can no longer ignore the harassment I received, the situations I felt trapped in, the empty consent I have given to escape worse. Far from feeling traumatized by these reminders, I felt validated that mine was not a singular experience. While on a walk recently, I became aware that a man was following me. As I took a circuitous route home, I could only reflect on how, even in the most mundane matters, my existence as a woman is not safe from commentary. A powerful read, Girlhood explores a delicate time in women’s lives that is ripe for reexamination.

Published on June 7, 2021

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Spring 2024

Star struck.

“LITERARY CRITICS  do fulfill a very important role, but there seems to be a problem with much contemporary criticism,” Simon Leys once wrote. “One has the feeling that these critics do not really like literature—they do not enjoy reading.” This was a line my mind kept drifting to as I plodded through Lauren Oyler’s debut essay collection, No Judgment . The book was originally to be called Who Cares , and perhaps that title should have been retained. Who cares, really, about any of this? Gawker, the firing of Ben Mora, a TED Talk from 2010, Richard Brody’s New Yorker review of Tár , an Instagram ad for a meditation app Oyler once saw, bad Goodreads reviews she once got, the fact that customers leave negative Google reviews for her friend Laurel’s “successful bagel shop and café attached to an English-language bookstore in Berlin” and thereby “project a particular logic of capitalism onto their relationship with . . . Laurel that lends the consumer dictatorial power”? When writing Enemies of Promise , Cyril Connolly said he aspired to write a book that would last for ten years. Much like Oyler’s debut novel, Fake Accounts , with its Women’s March plot, long meditations on social media trolls, and thirty-nine-page parody of Jenny Offill, No Judgment is already dated, even before its release. 

It’s not that all of Oyler’s subjects are uninteresting. The ethics of gossip and of autofiction, how our culture has come (at least in theory) to value “vulnerability” and to dread “anxiety,” the purpose of professional criticism, even the expat community in Berlin (perhaps this last is a tad precious)—these could be starting points that lead to terrific essays. But Oyler is contemptuous of disagreement, quickly bores of research, and rigidly attempts to control the reader’s responses. As a result, the writing is cramped, brittle. Oyler clearly wishes to be a person who says brilliant things—the Renata Adler of looking at your phone a lot—but she lacks the curiosity that would permit her to do so.

Oyler owes her present notoriety to “takedowns” of a series of prominent women—Roxane Gay, Greta Gerwig, Sally Rooney, Jia Tolentino. These pieces broke little intellectual ground but were full of fun one-liners like “The essays in Bad Feminist exhibit the kind of style that makes you wonder whether literature is dead and we have killed it,” and “I get the sense that [Jia Tolentino] must feel overwhelming pity for ugly women, if she has ever met one.” 

It turns out that No Judgment displays many of the flaws Oyler once so forcefully identified in others. To begin with, it is often hard to tell what she is trying to say. The book is littered with meaning-averse statements—“It was not a good look, as we said a few years ago but don’t really say now”—and punctuated by banal truisms: “Until the revolution that would be our relief comes, we must ‘do the work’ to get better ourselves, as the internet phrase goes. It’s palliative, but it’s what we have.” In her essay on autofiction, she writes:

There’s a certain nihilism, or at least literalism, in expressing too much excitement about the claim that objectivity is impossible and truth a fiction. It’s nice in theory, but in practice, it is the writer’s responsibility at least to try. Actually, it’s everyone’s responsibility to try. By trying you can get surprisingly close.

No explanation how. 

Reflecting on gossip, she rehashes that Golden Rule well known to first graders: “I’ve come to believe the best unfollowable advice we are given about gossip is not about gossip specifically, but about our relationship to other people in general: do unto them as you would have them do unto you.” Vague passages are made blurrier by indulgent, under-explained shower thoughts: “The on-again, off-again relationship between gossip and fiction is on again”; “We want life to be like a novel, and actually, it often is”; “An opinion is objectively subjective. It can’t be wrong, but it can also never be right.” Elsewhere, she resorts to bizarre metaphors in lieu of arguments: “A Goodreads review is Monopoly money in a game you’re betting $50 on.” If you are unhappy about your representation in someone’s autofiction, you will “start looking for small business loans” to “set up shop” in “whatever space opens between their interpretation and yours.” Writing about Berlin as an American is like getting your bicycle stuck in a tram track because you’re “thinking nonstop about maneuvering at a strong enough angle to avoid getting stuck” but then you lurch too abruptly—that is, you say something dumb. Sometimes, the writing just collapses into gibberish: “I can’t remember my mother ever telling me that if I couldn’t say anything nice, not to say anything at all, which is the kind of lesson you teach a child in order to shield her from the overwhelmingly complicated truth. Same goes with ‘You can’t subtract a negative number,’ which has always bothered me. Of course you can. Sometimes, you must.”

Lauren Oyler is tired, y’all, as we said a few years ago but don’t really say now. Why did people think the narrator of Fake Accounts was her? Why did her ex-boyfriends think they were mimicked in the novel’s chorus of ex-boyfriends? Why, when she set out to write the definitive essay on autofiction, expanding on the 2,500-word footnote her editor so unjustly insisted she cut out of her novel, did all these people have the audacity to suggest she do research? Autofiction, she states, has “a history so long and international it’s tiresome even to mention: look, say critics with perspective, at the I-novels of early twentieth-century Japan, at what Russian formalists said about genre, at gay literature of the 1980s and 1990s, at anything happening in France in the past 120 years.” That is a joke, of course (it always is), but the message is clear: can’t she just talk about herself?

“Hysterical critics are self-centered,” Oyler wrote in her Tolentino takedown, “not because they write about themselves, which writers have always done, but because they can make any observation about the world lead back to their own lives and feelings, though it should be the other way round.” Only a few years later, the same critic turned an essay about the Goop cruise into an extended comment on her throuple. And now, despite her full-throated dismissal of “confessional” writing (“a simple form of writing”) in her personal essay on anxiety (“My Anxiety”), practically all topics addressed in No Judgment lead back to Oyler. Her essay on gossip defends her right to speculate that her friends are gay; her essay on autofiction defends her right to write about her boyfriends (and kiss other men while dating them); her essay on literary criticism defends her right to be hailed as one of the millennial generation’s greatest writers. Her essay on Berlin explains why it’s admirable she has bad German after eleven years in the country, why she isn’t contributing to gentrification, and why she loves taking Ecstasy (all the more perplexing because she once lampooned Tolentino for writing about her enjoyment of the drug). If we forget Oyler’s fondness for Ecstasy in the next hundred pages, “My Anxiety” reminds us of it. “My Anxiety” also reminds us that the author is “visibly fit.” 

Of course, Oyler doesn’t want to be a writer of personal essays; she wants to be an erudite critic of the old school. But again and again, she drifts toward personal recriminations and eschews any sustained discussion of literature. In her essay on autofiction, Oyler, who elsewhere identifies her taste as “highbrow,” seems to like novels by Sheila Heti, Ben Lerner, and Norman Rush. When it comes to books written before 1990, she’s on shakier ground, making some unbelievably clunky arguments premised on Emma Bovary and Humbert Humbert being practitioners of autofiction; in her commentary about the latter, Oyler concludes that writing about intimate secrets “is not nothing, ethically speaking.” (OK?) She dwells far too long on spats with ex-boyfriends and friends, dismissing everyone’s concerns with disdain. You’re worried that if I write a novel featuring a character with your name, some readers might think the character is based on you? Well, guess what—you’re showing up in my next novel. 

If Oyler seems to lack nuance when dealing with “real life,” she’s even more blinkered when it comes to interpreting other people’s writing. At one point, she quotes Janet Malcolm: “As everyone knows who has ever heard a piece of gossip, we do not ‘own’ the facts of our lives at all.” For Oyler, this solves the issue: there is nothing wrong with writing based on one’s own life, and no one should ever get mad at her (as mentioned, she’ll make sure to skewer anyone who does get mad in a future work). She seems not to see any complexity in Malcolm’s line, which is from a biography of Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath. In case you need a refresher, Plath committed suicide after Hughes’s adultery, Hughes destroyed her unpublished poems about him, and Hughes later published poems about her in his most acclaimed work, Birthday Letters. In any case, spoiler, Oyler’s conclusion on the whole issue of borrowing stories from one’s own life is: “It just has to be interesting.” 

Oyler claims she is well read, even a “snob,” but great swaths of No Judgment rely on the thinnest of online research. “Vulnerability has come to be seen as a first principle of living,” Oyler concludes from a single search for the term on the New Yorker ’s website. Having decided to write about the concept, she shares, “I was hoping for some surprising etymology, specifically involving a relationship to ‘vulva,’ that would, in its obviousness, lead me to my argument.” When a Google search reveals to Oyler that the terms are not related, she undertakes “research”—these are her words—into “historicizing” vulnerability and subsequently “discovers” that professor- cum -corporate-consultant Brené Brown’s 2010 TED Talk on the subject is “accepted as the source of the concept’s contemporary popularity.” Typically, “historicizing” a concept entails finding a “source” more than fourteen years old; Oyler’s argument here is as impressive as “historicizing” contemporary discourse on “threats to democracy” with a Vox explainer from 2016. Even were she not quite to begin with Saint Paul’s “strength in weakness,” Oyler might at least have discussed Freud’s concept of “original helplessness”; instead, she drops the Freud quote that comes up when you Google “Freud vulnerability” but fails even to mention the relevant theory. And rather than asserting, without even this minimal evidence, that Brown was “repackaging” Freud, Oyler might have actually researched any of the pit stops between Vienna and the TED stage. In the ’60s, D. W. Winnicott developed his theory of the “vulnerable self,” a “true self” around which people erected the defensive “false self.” In the ’70s, John Bowlby developed attachment theory, which urged “avoidants” to become as comfortable with vulnerability as “secures” and has since metastasized into an unbelievably widespread pop psychology. In the ’80s, transpersonal psychologists like John Wenwood preached that vulnerability was “the essence of human nature and of consciousness” and that “getting in touch with our more basic human tenderness and vulnerability can be a source of real power.” In the ’90s, Carol Gilligan’s “feminist care ethics,” with its embrace of vulnerability and interdependence, came to the fore—certainly influencing Brown as she completed her social work PhD. And while Oyler includes one of Sheryl Sandberg’s many ridiculous utterances, she seems not to know that Judith Butler, Martha Nussbaum, and Gayatri Spivak have all recently called for what Spivak termed a “radical acceptance of vulnerability.” But Oyler, highbrow shock jock, has no interest in changing her mind: she pitches “vulnerability” as its dumbest possible version, belaboring tumblr argot like “radical softness” rather than engaging potentially challenging arguments. So the only history Oyler is concerned with begins in 2010, with Brown in a jean jacket on that purple-lit stage. How could Oyler have known about that other stuff, anyway? Brown’s talk is the only subject discussed under “Emotional” on the Wikipedia page “Vulnerability.” 

In her essay on Goodreads, Oyler offers a brief account of the history behind rating books out of five stars, all of which is—you guessed it—available on the Wikipedia page for “Star (classification),” which comes up when you Google “history behind rating books out of five stars.” First, Oyler discusses Regency Englishwoman Mariana Starke’s exclamation-point-filled guidebook to the Continent (and a quote from The Charterhouse of Parma mocking it, conveniently referenced on Ms. Starke’s Wikipedia page). Then, she makes a brief foray into the Michelin star (apparently less “whimsical” than exclamation points). And finally, she visits the Best American Short Stories series and its editor Edward O’Brien’s asterisks indicating “permanence.” Oyler includes extensive quotes from totally forgotten American satirist Oliver Herford’s nearly unreadable review trashing O’Brien’s selections for the 1921 BASS (a review conveniently referenced on the “Star (classification)” Wikipedia page). Oyler also quotes Dorothy Parker (no surprise there) panning the selections for the 1927 edition as “wholly conventional.” But while Oyler gleefully adopts Herford and Parker’s disdain for O’Brien’s “mediocre” curation, she never mentions what O’Brien in fact chose to include. The 1921 story Herford decried for lacking a plot (“gets nowhere”) was Sherwood Anderson’s innovative “Brothers,” and for all her venom, even Parker admitted that, in 1927, O’Brien published a “superb” Hemingway story, “The Killers,” and another that was among Anderson’s “best.” O’Brien would also publish John Steinbeck, Willa Cather, and William Faulkner—who have, at the very least, proved “permanent,” as has the BASS itself. Eager to claim her seat at the Algonquin Round Table, Oyler seems not to have found the time to even look up the books’ tables of contents.

But what, beyond this inventory, is the point of “My Perfect Opinions,” the essay at the thematic core of this collection? It’s not immediately clear. At the beginning of the essay, Oyler announces:

What I am going to argue is that while I can’t really assess whether criticism is deteriorating per se, as it has always been said to be deteriorating, criticism is certainly threatened, despite an undeniable flourishing of nuanced criticism appearing in publications new and old in recent years.

“Can’t really assess”? You don’t say. Perhaps the problem is that it’s hard to squeeze meaning from a sentence that is pitched somewhere between “certainly threatened” and “undeniable flourishing.” But meaning isn’t really the point here. Rather, Oyler has two (contradictory) goals: first, to defend her own scathing reviews of others (by torturing the obviously silly phrase “no judgment”), and second, to discredit the widespread dislike of her book by Goodreads users. The canny reader may recall the negative reviews of Oyler’s novel in places like The Nation , Harper’s , the New Statesman , and the London Review of Books . But Oyler avoids mention of these, making it easier for her to draw a distinction between two sets of people: “professionals” like herself and those contemptible, lowbrow “Goodreads users.” 

To shore up this point, Oyler insists on her erudition:

The line about how Goodreads is for readers, not for writers, has always irritated me. Am I not a reader? I wonder, staring at my books. I know, in my heart, that I am not. My problem is not just that I am a writer; it’s also the kind of writer I am. A snob, highbrow, elitist, I find the concept of plot oppressive, value style over voice, and enjoy an unfamiliar vocabulary word. At the movies, I prefer subtitles; at the museum, I can probably identify a decent percentage of the permanent collection by sight. Unless you count DJ sets, which I don’t, the last live music I saw was at the opera; the last theater, an adaptation of Kafka’s novel Amerika . I hate theater, but I try to go anyway. I like television, but I have not watched a series to completion in years. I feel shame about difficult classics I haven’t yet read and pride about those I have. There are few things more satisfying to me than recommending to someone a book or film they’ve never heard of. I despise a happy ending; a happy ending says, to me, absolutely nothing about life except that humans have a near-universal desire for a happy ending that is basically unfulfillable if you have any critical thinking skills at all. I learned these values at the Ivy League university I attended as an undergraduate; while not everything was spelled out quite so bluntly there, my education introduced me to the resources that I used to develop these tastes and beliefs, the books and magazines and paths of inquiry. I could make use of my dormant Goodreads account to log my reading and tussle with the reviewers there, but I don’t want to. I have an outlet, several outlets, to discuss my reading, for pay, for now. I am a professional, and I am in danger.

Having been a teaching assistant in the department Oyler is so proud to have matriculated at, I am familiar with the less-than-Herculean intellectual labors needed to get an English degree from Yale. But I digress. Beyond the literal meaninglessness of the claim to “value style over voice,” the sophomoric airs of saying one “enjoys an unfamiliar vocabulary word,” the absurdity of claiming to be able to “identify a decent percentage of the permanent collection” “at the museum” “by sight” (the Met has almost two million items in its permanent collection), the half-hearted allusion to “opera,” the boast about seeing an adaptation of a Kafka novel—beyond this arch guilelessness, this churlish, half-ironic catalogue of her accomplishments, there is something greater here: the way Oyler conceives of her own claim to cultural elitism as a series of adolescent signifiers flung on with the pride of a Goth teenager donning her first Hot Topic belt. “I despise a happy ending”? If she’s so highbrow, I advise her to try out the ending of War and Peace .

Of course, Oyler makes little reference to this or any other of the “classics” she claims to love. By this point in the book—nearly eighty pages in—she has not discussed a single work of literature. Nor will she do so in the remainder of this essay. Instead, she sticks to criticizing Taylor Swift and Marvel movies, with the implicit message that those 9,894 unwashed plebeians who gave Fake Accounts a Goodreads rating of 2.86 stars are no different from the cultural wreckers who have foisted the superhero movies upon us, corn-fed Swifties from the heartland thumbing through Oyler’s novel between Colleen Hoovers. Marvel movies are stupid? I am much chagrined to only now be so informed!

The point is: Goodreads users wanted her book to have a “plot,” and Lauren Oyler wants us to know that she’s more sophisticated than that—that she “finds the concept of plot oppressive.” They thought it was “annoying” she called Australians “antipodeans.” This means they don’t like “big words.”

Oyler has every right to use as many “big words” as she wants, but she needs to have something to say. For all the passion behind her meta cri du coeur, Oyler’s conclusion is the exceedingly limp “I think ‘Why I’m Right’ should be the subtext of any piece of critical writing, balancing as it does subjectivity with objectivity.” Criticism is subjective, but critics think they’re right? Mind blown. “I would like to say that dedicating any time or energy to criticism comes from a belief in the importance of art,” she continues. “I fear making this claim would be a bit too valiant for me, so I will cite some other people doing so.” From here, she proceeds to quote Martin Scorsese making fun of Marvel movies, an episode familiar to anyone who had a Twitter account in 2019. If Oyler were serious about drawing on the history of American criticism, she might have mentioned that Dwight MacDonald, sixty years ago, articulated the points about mass culture she here attempts to make, most specifically why it is a “nonhuman,” infantilizing “article for mass consumption” rather than art. Instead, after a slew of nervous references to “privilege,” “classism,” and “elitism” (“constantly contradicting herself and referring to her shortcomings,” as she once said of Misses Gay and Tolentino, “getting in ahead of criticism, PR-style”), she merely ends with: “People who work all day are tired and just want to relax in front of unimaginably dumb movies. They’re not wrong to do so, but still: I’m right.”

No Judgment is an Empress Wears No Clothes moment even more embarrassing than that occasioned by Oyler’s novel. One wonders why her reviews, those diatribes against such easy targets, ever made such a splash. Perhaps the problem was that during the Trump presidency, literature really was a little bit too self-righteous, so people were thrilled to have a politically acceptable opportunity to call bad books bad. In the context of that “Great Awokening,” people were understandably eager to read Oyler’s screeds against the “moral obviousness” of contemporary fiction—the cruder, the better. 

But what, beyond the thrill of the tweetable insult, is the point of reading Oyler? “I don’t really know why I write criticism,” she admits. The primary reason seems to be “a feeling that I need to right some discursive wrong being committed by my colleagues when they praise bad books or misunderstand good ones.” But criticism can’t simply be about bickering among critics. In this collection, Oyler not once but twice deploys the old saw that “Writing is often nothing but revenge,” and her writing indeed seems aimed at little more than scoring points against her rivals, real or imagined. The resulting collection reads like a juvenile burn book, totally uninterested in the world outside her group chat.

Since Montaigne, the best essays have been, as the French word suggests, trials, attempts. They entail the writer struggling toward greater knowledge through sustained research, painful introspection, and provocative inquiry. And they allow the reader to walk away with a freeing sense of the possibilities of life, the sensation that one can think more deeply and more bravely—that there is more outside one’s experience than one has thought, and perhaps more within it, too. These essays, by contrast, are incapable of—indeed, hostile to the notion of—ushering readers, or Oyler herself, into new territory, or new thought. The pieces in No Judgment are airless, involuted exercises in typing by a person who’s spent too much time thinking about petty infighting and too little time thinking about anything else.

Ann Manov is a writer living in New York.