I need to keep this post short so that I can get back to grading and do not use this as a method of procrastination, which is usually the reason I write long blog posts.
I want to say something about writing an introduction to an essay. What I have to say is not new or revolutionary, but it is a lesson that the vast majority of my students do not understand, especially at the beginning of the semester.
I am still searching for excellent words to describe it. In short, I believe that an essay is an exploration into a question. It must be a genuine exploration, and not simply a veiled attempt to dogmatically assert what I, as the writer, have already believed.
To strike at the heart of this, I believe a writer as essayist needs to reflect upon his or her own mind. I believe that the things that need to be focused on the most are:
(A) A question
(B) The the relevant beliefs that, even if held with conviction, the writer recognizes are not completely justified.
(C) Some deep underlying belief that the author either (a) cannot reasonably doubt, or (b) will explicitly assume to be true for the sake of doubting another belief, and for which the author believes is a non-controversial, fairly widespread belief.
My hypothesis is that all good essay introductions need to consider these points.
I am not sure how to present an example of this at the moment. Perhaps this very blog post is an example. Let me try it out:
As I was beginning to write this blog post, I was adamant that I simply wanted to assert that an excellent introduction must construct a puzzle. What I mean by puzzle is that a question is provided, but there is sufficient specificity and certain considerations in place that force the idea-to-be-explored to be considered with certain constraints. This is actually very much like solving a mystery. When Sherlock Holmes is confronted with a mystery, the simple question is “who done it,” but that in itself does not trigger one’s curiosity, and there is nothing to think about. Certain details need to be clearly explained: who are the possible characters, what was the layout of the room, and a number of other conditions that may or may not be relevant. These introduce concepts that the mind, both of Sherlock Holmes as Essayist (in the sense of Attempter-Detective) and the reader, utilize to begin trying to solve the puzzle. Even as the reader witnesses with amazement how Holmes goes about solving the problem, the reader has been given enough information to begin thinking about it. And the reader often is engaged in a mystery novel by this very fact: they can consider solutions independently of Holmes and even compete with Holmes to arrive at a logical, deductive conclusion. The reader is even in a position, by the end of the story, to say that the end of the story did not make sense, but only because the story itself gave sufficient, clear details to allow the reader to make logical sense or to find the logical missteps. If the details were vague in beginning, then the story cannot “not make sense,” because vagueness allows for more possibilities in what could be going on behind the scenes. In a mystery novel, you don’t want your vagueness in starting details. That makes for a poor mystery. You want the vagueness only in the answer to the question: “who done it.” Everything else is designed to help the reader answer that question, but alongside the attempter-detective.
Anyway, back to my three essential elements point: A good introduction requires a question. But if it is about what the essayist already believes (in my case, what an essay ought to conclude), and if the essay is going to be a genuine essay and not simply a polemic or legalistic argument, then the essayist must be willing to confront one’s beliefs and identify what isn’t justified in those beliefs. More questions are brought up in this case. If I believe that an essay ought to be a puzzle, and if this blog post is a legitimate essay into how an essay introduction ought to be constructed, then I need to find elements of my belief that I realize I have not yet justified, even
if they don’t seem convincing to me. When I have found reason to doubt my beliefs (not reason to reject my beliefs, which is different) then I create a genuine question for myself which I want to solve.
However, there must still be constraints, and this is from where the beliefs that I cannot reasonably doubt arise. These I hold to be the boundary, the details, the location of the glove, that my mind must work on. I believe, for example, that an “essay” must be an attempt. That it must be a struggle, something to spark wonder both within the reader and writer. And this need to spark wonder is a constraint. The question is not, for the time being, “should an essay spark wonder,” but “how does an essay spark wonder.”
I am not satisfied, and this answer is not complete. But it is time to get back to grading.
Natural Causes 
I’m curious whether you believe that an essay is to prove the author’s belief or to answer the question. The former really does make the essayist a detective, but the later turns the essayist into a lawyer only looking for the best method of satisfying his point. Many 101 and 102 English professors discourage the use of the former state of mind. The core belief is a justification, not a foundation. I believe this, so this must be true because the core foundation supports it. A wide belief supports many things though, like the belief that there is one god. Well, that supports at least the three desert religions, but then you have to get smaller and smaller until you have different secs within one of those religions. The secs’ beliefs vary a lot. Those could be argued against and an answer may never come.
I was always taught that a good essay always gives the answer in the introduction. The rest of the paper just proves why the answer is correct. Unfortunately, I tend to state my belief and question whether or not that belief is true. Many times I have started arguing a point and found that it had too many holes. I would have never figured this out without first trying to logically argue my belief. It seems that to truly explore a belief on a subject, one must be open to that belief being true.
The method you presented is actually much easier for me to follow. I’m allowed to let my questions lead, but doesn’t this only work for philosophical essays?…. Well, I hope you get distracted enough to finish this thought soon. It would be helpful to know how to turn my questions into something academic. My professors would be thankful for someone explaining to me in a way that I understand that there has to be a provable answer. They say that ending with more questions or maybe figuring out the right question is not right. I think that’s bullocks, but maybe you can prove me wrong.
Just out of curiosity, were you a student in one of my classes? It helps to understand what you meant by certain things, especially your questions themselves. Or am I speaking to someone who has not been exposed to my writing instruction? I am not trying to weaken your anonymity, but it could be useful: especially if you are a current student who is trying to figure out what I am looking for in an essay.
I am going to work through your comment backwards:
I take issue with your professors. It’s not that they are wrong and I am right. It’s that we are probably both not paying sufficient attention to the different purposes for which an essay is written. A different purpose will result in different demands.
Your professors’ advice, to lead with your point and not to raise more questions at the end, is well suited if you are trying to prove your point is right, as is the case in politics, law, advertising, and business dealing, or if you are trying to explain something. This is because seeing the thesis first, and the argument second, helps the reader understand where the argument is going. It emphasizes the claim, and de-emphasizes the argument. This is, we might say, more directly spractical.
It also has the tendency not to encourage critical, self-reflective thought.
However, if the purpose of the paper is discovery, based on the reasons and evidence, such as in most discussions of philosophy, literature, science, or any exploration where the answer is not known, or when previously held beliefs are being called into question, then the essay should attempt to leave the answer for the end. If you have read any philosophy essays, you’ll notice that the thesis is almost never in the beginning (except in the case of academic scholarly essays, which is NOT the heart of philosophy). Rather, the philosopher begins with some problem/puzzle construction. From there, small, obvious points are usually examined and clarified: stuff that is not called into question in itself (at least the author believes cannot be called into question). From there, small steps are taken, with every step of reasoning analyzed, to ensure that the next step follows logically from the previous step. The path is slow, but sure. Sometimes, the essay steps back and tries to see what this has to do with the original question, which often helps to guide the direction of the essay itself. But primarily, the essay moves forward, using the light of its reason on the darkness of ignorance, until a somewhat satisfying answer is found.
Not all essays do it, but many essayists recognize that perhaps their original question is too big for the current essay, so they take note of what they discovered and what they haven’t, letting the reader consider and pickup from where the author left off.
Hi Professor Swanson,
It’s Autumn Beaty and I was not talking about your essays. Though I have trouble with them, it is because I am trying to find the answers. I find it much easier to think that way. I am just frustrated with other classes. How can I have a definite answer for whether or not psychologists should be involved in interrogation? It’s a complex subject. When I took it to my teacher, she said that I should support my first conclusion. When I took it to the writing lab, the guy said that I’m in City college and should have chose a less difficult subject because the conclusion I came to was that we should be asking if the interrogators followed the APA code of ethics and not that interrogators needed to not be involved. I only came to that conclusion after working through the situation though.
To be honest, I take issue with both of those responses.
First, anyone who has been in school for a long time should recognize by now that even writing experts disagree intensely about what the structure of an essay should be. For a teacher to say, “This IS what a good essay is” is to ignore that often sophisticated and worthwhile argument. For advice to handle this as a student, I would say that if the teacher is giving you specific details on how to write an essay, then take the position of “in the end, I do not need to write like this, but it will be good training to learn how to write like this for this class.”
As for the “it’s a city college, you should avoid these difficult subjects:” hogwash, hogwash, hogwash. It is certainly an intellectual virtue to understand what kind of argument you are or are not capable of making. However, our minds do not expand unless we occasionally tackle subjects that ARE too big for us. This is especially true when there’s nothing really at stake. In other words, if you were a politician or administrator who was making the actual argument that would affect policy, then yes, you need to be prepared, be an expert, and argue meticulously. People’s lives and mental well-being is at stake. But if you are trying to figure out what you think, and are trying to explore a new idea, then by all means, reach as far as your curiosity allows. Do you best to argue it well, and perhaps it will even be a well-argued paper. But the idea that “you are in a community college and therefore incapable of saying anything worthwhile on this subject” is less than good advice. Dare to make mistakes. No one is going to die or be harmed if you make a few mistakes. But you WILL learn more about how to express an idea.
Just keep in mind– I’m sure you do already– that I am not THE authority on what a good essay is either. I have worthwhile, informed ideas, and I’ve been trained by an excellent program. But so have a number of other people, and we don’t necessarily agree. Listen to everyone, try their methods, and find your own voice. That’s what a “liberal education” is all about: liberating your mind from the tyranny of custom, from the tyranny of following the orders of your teachers, in order to make intelligent, rational, and informed choices about your own beliefs: in this case, beliefs on what a good essay is.
Regarding your Ethics class and the current Athens game, your purpose is to change minds: leading with the point of your argument, and following with the justification, is probably the best strategy. In this, the purpose is more like the political/legal/persuasive papers than an exploratory paper. However, writing a private exploratory paper as a first step would often be advantageous.
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaag