The Idea of an Essay, Volume 3

ii The Idea of an Essay: Volume 3 Introduction Dear Readers, Welcome to Cedarville University. We are excited to have you in our composition classes.This anthology is meant to serve as a learning tool, and we will use it together over the course of this semester as we engage in the process of writing. Cedarville University values writing. Regardless of your major, writing will be an intrinsic part of your education during your years at Cedarville, as it is a primary means of expressing clear, organized, critical thought. Perhaps more importantly, the writing you will do as part of your academic life will serve as practice for the various writing tasks each of you will complete as part of your chosen professions, as well as preparation for the writing you will do in your various communities, interpersonal relationships, and your daily devotions with God. Cedarville University commits to preparing each of you to be successful writers by requiring a first-year composition course taught by a member of the English, Literature, and Modern Languages Department. As composition instructors, we recognize the excellent writing created in our classes, so we host an annual composition contest for students who completed the course during that year. The anthology you are about to read consists of the winners of that contest for the 2013-2014 academic year. In the following pages, you will find models of university level writing, as well as examples of how to structure, organize, support, and document various genres of essays written for different purposes and with specific audiences in mind. We do not suggest these essays are perfect, as one of the most exciting aspects of writing is that it is a process that includes revision, so a text can always be improved upon or recreated as something different. Each essay begins with an instructor’s note that provides context for the essay and asks questions to prompt further ideas. The instructor’s note is followed by a short biography of the student who wrote the essay to hopefully illustrate that, although these students are now published authors, they are not much different from you, the reader. You should find this encouraging. If these students can write successfully at the university level, then so can you. Sincerely, The Cedarville Composition Instructors