Analyzing Written Essays

The two essays that I chose to read were, ‘A Soul as Free as the Air’ and ‘How to Succeed as an Online Student’. These two essays showed distinct characteristics that marked them each as one of the four types of expository essays—topic, time order, space order, and informative process. Both essays used facts and evidence to convey the concepts of the essay while also supporting the thesis statement, making it obvious that they are expository essays. Also, the information conveyed in both of these essays was presented unbiasedly. In ‘A Soul as Free as the Air’, the author used a time order format to organize the essay. The dates given throughout the essay were presented chronologically, starting at birth and ending at death. I think that the author chose this formatting style so that the biography was easily written and read. The structure of the essay easily communicated the Lucy Stone’s achievements and major life changes. If the author had chosen a different organizational method such as the informative process, the essay would have been less effective and substantial. For example if this essay had been written as a topic essay, I think that what was written as nice and easily read story, would become a somewhat boring list of facts. ‘How to Succeed as an Online Student’ was written in the manner of an informative process essay. It was organized in several sections with suggestions about things to consider when attending online schools. While it was similar to a topic essay, the fact that it is more ‘how-to’ based, separated it from topic and made it into an informative essay. I think the structure chosen for this essay was the best choice because not one point was more important than another, but they all had to work together equally in order for the essay to work out effectively. I think that the way both of these essays were written was really effective for the topics that were written about. When considering which organizational method is more