essay on letter writing

Friday essay: a lament for the lost art of letter-writing – a radical art form reflecting ‘the full catastrophe of life’

PhD Candidate, The University of Melbourne

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Edwina Preston received funding from the Australia Council for her latest published novel.

University of Melbourne provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation AU.

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Letters did not count [as writing]. A woman might write letters while sitting by her father’s sick-bed. She could write them by the fire while the men talked without disturbing them. The strange thing is, I thought, turning over the pages of Dorothy’s letters, what a gift that untaught and solitary girl had for the framing of a sentence, for the fashioning of a scene.

— Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

Last year I went to the funeral of a friend with whom I shared a house in Melbourne in the early 1990s. While I and my other housemates went on to the full array of box-ticking life experiences – children, careers, relationships, houses – our friend was diagnosed with an aggressive form of multiple sclerosis in her early twenties. When she died, we had not heard her voice for many years.

Of all the eulogies at her funeral, the most arresting was a letter she’d written at 23, read aloud by a former housemate, Delia. Our friend had been travelling at the time; negotiating a fledgling relationship, digesting the reality of her diagnosis, preparing for the suddenly precarious unfolding of her life.

She hadn’t spoken for so long but here in this letter, this imprint of her voice on paper, she sprang suddenly into life. Funny, irreverent, honest, scared: we could hear her. The occasion was sad; but the letter was joyful.

I had forgotten what a powerful time capsule a letter could be.

Read more: Post apocalypse: the end of daily letter deliveries is in sight

Gen X-ers occupy a distinctly precious cultural position – straddling the analogue past of letter writing and the hyper-digital present of TikTok and Instagram. One of my earliest school memories is of learning how to transcribe an address onto an envelope in the form required by post offices (carefully indented at every line, return address on the back). It seems almost archaic now.

We may not have been “the last generation of devoted letter writers” – that title goes to our parents’ or grandparents’ generation – but letter-writing was still a necessary, carefully taught skill when we were growing up.

It was the normal way to communicate with grandparents, international pen-pals, and school friends who had moved to the country. We all sat down at school camp on the first night and wrote our parents a letter, Camp Granada style, supervised by prowling teachers who made sure we gave our parents a worthy account.

I remember too how important it was, as a young adult in the world of pre-internet travel, to land in a far-flung place, track down the Poste Restante and find miraculously waiting for you – as though your arrival was predestined – a handful of pale blue aerograms, enscripted with miniscule, space-saving writing. Letters from home.

In momentary deferral to the anti-hoarding gods, I recently threw out a tranche of these aerograms, sent to me when I travelled India as a 19-year-old. I not only curse myself when I think of this now, but I feel an actual pain in my chest. What insights have I lost into my former self, my family and my friends as a result?

The human condition

The disappearance of letter-writing from Western cultural life is such a recent phenomenon that I don’t dare proclaim its death. From Abelard and Heloise’s 12th-century love missives , dense with biblical references but no less dense with longing, to the letters of Vincent Van Gogh to his brother Theo, it’s hard to imagine how we might have made sense of the human condition without the insights gleaned from letters.

What would we know of the interior worlds of artists and writers, scientists and politicians, sisters and friends and lovers? What would we know about life itself? Or, as importantly, about how to live ? In the first century AD, Seneca articulated his philosophy of stoicism via a series of 124 “ moral letters ” to his young friend Lucilius.

These letters are only nominally a private correspondence between two men; in fact, they were written for a much larger readership that might benefit from Seneca’s solutions to the moral dilemmas of living in the world.

Even if one side of the conversation (Lucilius’s) remained unheard, the letter, as a form, lent a sense of reciprocity and intimacy to Seneca’s words – it enabled him to speak to many as though he were speaking to one. With titles such as “On saving time”, “On old age and death”, “On the relativity of fame”, “On care of health and peace of mind”, Seneca’s letters continue to resonate 2,000 years later.

Rainer Maria Rilke’s ten Letters to a Young Poet , written in 1903-08 and published posthumously in 1929, provided creative guidance to his young recipient, a Czech poet and military student. These letters are famous for Rilke’s inordinately gentle manner, his tenderness and warmth.

Yet it seems that, in breathing a philosophy of art and life into the ear of his young admirer, Rilke also breathes it affirmingly into himself, and into the generations privy to the correspondence since. I noticed traces of his philosophy of creativity – which emphasises patience and attentiveness to the small things of life – in a 1961 letter from Patrick White to Thea Astley I recently read:

Read, think & listen to silence, & shell the peas … concentrating on the work in hand until you know what it is to be a pea — and drudge at the school, & sleep with your husband & bring up your child. That is what I mean when I say “living” …

Unlike the essay or the novel, letters facilitate a kind of collapsing of low and high, profound and profane, the life of domesticity and the life of the spirit. They are not master accounts of ourselves, with all the incidentals written out.

Writer Maria Popova, commenting on the mid-century correspondence of illustrator Edward Gorey and author Peter F. Neumeyer , says the two men wrote to each other of everything “from metaphysics to pancake recipes”.

This democratic levelling of subject matter is perhaps nowhere more evident than in letters, where hierarchies of value don’t prevail as they do in more authoritatively literary forms: the traditional novel, for instance, in which everything must gear toward thematic and narrative resolution.

Letting the real world in

Megan O’Grady, in the New York Times , has described letters as “leaky” in the way they allow a seepage of the real world to occur: “the baby wakes from the nap and cries; the air-raid siren sounds; the social mores and psychodynamics of other eras filter in”. In correspondence, even the rhetorical devices of transition, the elegant segues that smooth a jagged change of subject, are largely dispensed with.

No one, writing a letter, agonises over the wording of a sentence that links two paragraphs. A trail of unexplained ellipses has a particular function in a letter – to break a chain of thought, to attest to bodily movement in temporal space: a kettle being put on, a doorbell answered, a nappy changed.

My friend Delia, reading over letters from her friends in the early 1990s when she was a student in America, said:

It was funny reading these letters back. Sometimes they would be written over days, or even weeks, they’d stop and start and stop again: “Sorry, got distracted with something. Anyway …” Or be continually updated: “Well, I finally got a phone call from X, you won’t believe what happened …”

They were provisional, real-time, patched-together accounts of life as we lived it, as it occurred, on the spot. An unspooling of self onto the page in real time.

Or selves perhaps; each letter, each recipient, facilitating an adjustment of the self, a tweak: there’s the correspondent we make laugh, the correspondent we confide in, the correspondent to whom we offer advice and comfort. Like a diary, a letter can function as a “chronicle of [one’s] hours and days”, but because it is, in essence, a two-way communication – an ongoing, unfinished conversation – a letter invokes a relationship so it needs to be sensitive to the reader in ways a diary need not.

It needs to configure itself for entertainment value. It’s one of the few writing forms that allows the mind of the writer to roam freely, independently, and yet actively connect with an attentive, and presumably sympathetic, reader: a known reader.

The materiality of letters sets them apart from today’s electronic equivalents. Letters are disarmingly tangible when we chance upon them in a forgotten box or tin or bundle: we might have forgotten them, but they didn’t cease to exist. They offer curious subtexts too, not least to do with the presence of the human hand on paper.

A different kind of utterance

I have in my possession pages of my late grandmother’s “scribble” – a self-deprecating term she used (for her handwriting or for the thoughts her letters contained? I was never sure which).

Her backwards-scooping scrawl carries with it her personality somehow – occasionally, I see an echo of it in my own handwriting, a certain soft flourish in an “h” or an “n”. I remember the pale blue pages on which her letters were written, and my habit of placing a heavy-ruled piece of paper beneath my own when I wrote back to her, to ensure my lines were straight.

Particularly precious in my family is a letter written to my father as a little boy by his own father, stationed on an air base in New Guinea in 1943. The letter, on tiny yellow paper, is written in flawless copperplate – a skill my grandfather was particularly proud of, having left school at 12 – and the front of the envelope is illustrated with an image of Ginger Meggs, hand-drawn in coloured ink.

Returning after the war, my grandfather was a difficult, traumatised man, but in his letter there’s a glimpse of the loving young father and husband he was before:

Dear Barry Just a few lines from your Daddy hoping it finds you well; and I also trust that your little yacht arrived alright; and I do hope it sails well for it has really big sails though I think you shall be able to manage it alright after Mum has fixed it all up for you […] Now Barry I guess you are wondering when I shall be home, well I really thought that I would be home for Xmas but now it looks like it shall be early in the new year so I am hoping I get back in time for your birthday for if I do, we shall sure have a birthday party, won’t we, with just you and Leslie and Mumie and me …“

In the last years of my own father’s life, this tiny hand-inked letter had pride of place in a glass display case in his residential care unit: a beautiful relic, the ephemeral trapped on paper.

It reminds me of a similarly gentle, loving letter written by John Steinbeck to his son in 1958, upon his son’s announcement that he had fallen in love:

Dear Thom: First – if you are in love – that’s a good thing — that’s about the best thing that can happen to anyone. Don’t let anyone make it small or light to you. Second – There are several kinds of love […] The first kind can make you sick and small and weak but the second can release in you strength, and courage and goodness and even wisdom you didn’t know you had.

Did Steinbeck speak as honestly and tenderly to his son in person? Perhaps, I don’t know. But it’s possible that letters allowed a different kind of utterance for "strong, silent” men of past generations: a benevolent “father-tongue” (lower case) which enabled them to shed, if momentarily, the practised hardness of masculinity.

I know that my grandfather’s letter contains a grace and sweetness that was not present in person. In person, his expression of love was to teach my father how to box.

Read more: Hold the post: there's no such thing as a dead letter

Famous love letters

Love letters, of course, occupy a place of their own within the “genre”, if it can be called a genre. The 5,000 or so letters between Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Steiglitz , penned across 30 years, provide a window onto the mutual creative inspiration that existed between the two artists, but also include searing love letters that testify to an enduring sensuality.

“Dearest,” writes Georgia:

— my body is simply crazy with wanting you – If you don’t come tomorrow – I don’t see how I can wait for you – I wonder if your body wants mine the way mine wants yours – the kisses – the hotness – the wetness – all melting together – the being held so tight that it hurts – the strangle and the struggle.

On a voyeuristic level, the love letters of the famous gratify our curiosity – what went on between these two giants of the screen/literary world/art scene? Were they (are they?) like us in their lusts and their pettinesses? Often, yes, they are like us – we’re reassured by their broken promises and bickerings and insecurities.

They say things they shouldn’t, embarrassing things, things they later regret. T.S. Eliot later disavowed his fervent love letters to American speech and drama teacher Emily Hale – they “were the letters of an hallucinated man,” he said. Nevertheless, these letters have an ardour, a heart-on-the-sleeve earnestness, that reveals a different side to the cool modernist poet, a side that was warm-blooded, ruled by the heart, even, possibly, vulnerable.

Letters are immediate; we write them from inside the moment, and so the immediate, the moment, becomes the truth. Their vigour, and their value, lies in this unedited, uneditable quality: they document us, trap fleeting moments in glass. We might even say things that bare our souls. “I am reduced to a thing that wants Virginia,” wrote Vita Sackville-West famously to Virginia Woolf in one such moment in 1926.

Some of the funniest/“dirtiest” letters on the public record are James Joyce’s letters to his wife Nora Barnacle , in which he joyously catalogues her repertoire of farts:

big fat fellows, long windy ones, quick little merry cracks and a lot of tiny little naughty farties ending in a long gush from your hole … I think I would know Nora’s fart anywhere. I think I could pick hers out in a roomful of farting women.

The publication of the letters in 1975 upset Joyce’s grandson, but the correspondence reveals a healthy mutual sexual relationship, free of any false social pieties and, certainly, of embarrassment.

The love letters of famous writers have a pith and poetry the rest of us might not be equal to, but even the simplest love letters, if they’re heartfelt, speak of who we are, or once were, and how we affected other people. They are testament to the risks we take to express deep and difficult feelings; the things we might not have been able to say in the flesh.

My first boyfriend says he wrote me a love letter when we were 16 and I sent it back to him with the spelling corrected in red pen. I can’t remember the spirit with which I embarked on this particular revision, but it’s retrospectively both very funny and an insight into my own priggishness. Nor can I imagine making such amendments now using tracked changes – somehow I think it would be less funny and more tragic.

I have in my possession other love letters from the pre-internet age – not many, a few. They embarrassed me, mainly, at the time, but I’m glad I’ve kept them – they are charged with a force that cuts through time, and connects me with myself as a younger, if more callous, person.

Read more: 'Weaponised irony': after fictionalising Elizabeth Macarthur's life, Kate Grenville edits her letters

Email and autocorrect

And while famous love letters of the past are collected, collated and curated for public consumption, I’m not sure a 21st-century romantic email correspondence will have the same longevity. For one thing, emails are less spontaneous: if only because they are infinitely revisable, deletable – as well as easily forwardable (accidentally or otherwise).

They don’t contain the mark of the person, the pecularities of handwriting or, yes, spelling mistakes – autocorrect puts out these interesting little fires. Writes O’Grady: “It’s hard to imagine that in 50 years we’ll be picking up The Collected Emails of Zadie Smith.”

Email won’t ever be a replacement for the unfolding, from a wadded envelope, of several pages of lovingly tended text. For me, at least. I use email for collegiate communications, friendly transactions, social to-ings and fro-ings. While it might provide the last vestige of formality in an increasingly informal communications world, email remains an inadequate substitute for letters.

Delayed gratification – part of the frisson of a traditional correspondence – is a bad portent when it comes to emails. It’s easy to interpret even the briefest email silence as unwillingness or neglect on the part of the recipient. O’Grady writes:

Email – already an old-fashioned form – isn’t really the electronic replacement of the letter but a different mode of communication entirely: fleeter, tactical, somehow both more and less disposable. It is unwise to commit too much of oneself to electronic code, which lives on in some ether or another, unflung into the fireplace.

Text messages are semiotically interesting in the way they codify language and narrative, but their idiom is brevity. You can flirt in a series of text messages, you can also argue, but you can’t reflect the way you might in a letter; it’s easy to send a platitude or establish a rapport in a text, not so easy to tease out a philosophy.

Letter-writing is a commitment of time and an offering of trust, both an indulgence and an act of generosity. It must trust that what is being related will be accepted. It must assume that its confidences will be honoured.

‘The stuff of life’

As a writer looking for a literary device with which to capture the voice of a troubled female poet in 1960s Melbourne, first-person narrative didn’t work. I tried and got nowhere. It couldn’t satisfactorily make visible the ruptures and randomness of my character’s life, its trivial details and entertaining side-notes: the nappies she had to run off and attend to; the soggy egg cartons glimpsed dishearteningly through a window; the clothesline she feared being garrotted by.

If it’s not doing something to further the narrative , goes the traditional novel-writing wisdom, cut it out . But I wanted to put in the things that didn’t further the narrative: the ephemeral things, apparently unimportant, that are actually the stuff of life.

Letter-writing allows this stuff to be present. Perhaps it’s the only traditional writing form that does, and it gave me a credible reason for putting the trivial, the small, the fleeting into my story. And when I did, to my surprise, my character came to life: she became spontaneous and real and began to speak in a language and voice that seemed authentic.

In her wonderful 1988 essay about writing and motherhood, The Fisherwoman’s Daughter , Ursula Le Guin used the term “mother tongue” to describe an “authentic” women’s language. The mother tongue, she says, speaks with intimacy, proximity, connectivity; it’s the voice with which we talk to a neighbour over the fence, or to our children when they come home late, or to our partners when it’s their turn to take out the bins, or our friends when we’re trying to make them laugh over a drink.

Its power is not in dividing but in binding … We all know it by heart. John have you got your umbrella I think it’s going to rain. Can you come play with me? If I told you once I told you a hundred times … O what am I going to do? … Pass the soy sauce please. Oh, shit … You look like what the cat dragged in …

In its use of the mother tongue, correspondence actually corresponds with the ways we interact with people in our lives, as well as with the spontaneities of speech itself. It doesn’t pretend the writer is not a real person, speaking in an authoritative void, like an oracle, to untethered, disembodied others. It allows the full catastrophe of life to be present and visible.

Researching the letters of women poets in preparation for working on my novel , I realised letter-writing has always been socially acceptable for women in ways the “master” forms of literary production – the novel, the poem – haven’t been. So long as they were literate, women have always written letters – as an essential form of communication and self-expression, but also because writing letters didn’t disturb the status quo or conflict with domestic or mothering responsibilities.

A woman didn’t need to consciously conceive of herself as a “writer” in order to be an avid letter-writer. And a woman didn’t need a “room of her own” in order to write her letters; she could write them among the potato peels and bills and children’s laundry. Quietly, (apparently) benignly, women have for centuries been able to refine and experiment with their writing practice under the guise of merely “writing a letter”.

So perhaps letter-writing has functioned as a kind of ruse or subterfuge for women: a way of writing without seeming to have “unseemly” writerly ambitions. I think of my grandmother’s characterisation of her letters as “scribble”.

It was not the done thing for a woman of her generation to publicise her accomplishments, but I knew she knew she was a good writer, with lovely handwriting, and a gentle and responsive style. Calling her writing “scribble”, I realised, was a way of repudiating the criticism of thinking she had something to say, but getting on with the job of saying it nevertheless.

As I wrote my character’s letters to her sister, I became more and more convinced that letter-writing has functioned as a radical, maybe even revolutionary, writing form for women. This is because, on the one hand, it was considered so socially unthreatening that it went under the radar, and, on the other, because it allowed the small daily realities of women’s lives to be made visible.

It could be written from within the midst of their lives – not separate, not in a garret room or writer’s hut — but right there, on the kitchen table amongst the scraps and the bills and the children’s toys.

Gregory Kratzmann, editor of Australian poet Gwen Harwood’s voluminous correspondence, says Harwood wrote her correspondence in precisely this way:

She wrote letters quickly and with great facility, often when she was surrounded by domestic activity […] sometimes three or more long letters in the same day […] the activity of writing was an essential part of living […]

The prolific 19th-century novelist Margaret Oliphant used this same “kitchen-table” approach to write her novels – and there were nearly one hundred of them. Far from imperilling her progress, she felt that

her writing profited, from the difficult, obscure, chancy connection between the art work and emotional/manual/managerial complex of skills and tasks called “housework,” and that to sever that connection would put the writing itself at risk, would make it, in her word, unnatural.

If letter-writing can tolerate interruption, distraction, diversion, it stands to reason that novel writing can too. And poetry writing. And even philosophical treatise writing. Perhaps being interrupted is not so terrible nor so damaging to artistic creation as we have always thought. Who says that the uninterrupted thought is better than the interrupted one?

Read more: Gwen Harwood was one of Australia's finest poets – she was also one of the most subversive

‘The framing of a sentence’

I have never had an inviolate writing space of my own. Everything I have written has been interrupted constantly by children and domestic demands. I stop to remedy problems; attend to outbursts of screaming; acquire and prepare drawing materials; find lost books; answer spelling enquiries; listen to an imaginative narrative just written; lace on rollerblades; deal with insistent lamentations that “There’s nothing to eat”.

My writing space has been fundamentally accessible to my children: they remove pens and papers and post-it notes, use my desk as a place to apply nail-polish, leave tell-tale trails of crumbs and rings from glasses. Yes, it’s annoying. Does it make my writing worse? No. Sometimes it makes it better.

Writing my character, contemplating all this, I thought – dare I say it? – that perhaps Virginia Woolf was wrong. Perhaps “a room of one’s own” has never been necessary to the writing of prose. Perhaps the seeds of a different kind of writing practice, one that served women’s realities and responsibilities better, can be glimpsed in the practice of letter writing.

Correspondence has always enabled women to become caught up, immersed, in the moment of the work, yet remain equally available and connected to life around them.

Thus it deserves our attention, even as it fades from view as a writing practice. To return to Virginia Woolf’s silently observed letter-writing girl at the beginning of this essay: “[W]hat a gift that untaught and solitary girl had for the framing of a sentence, for the fashioning of a scene.”

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How to write a letter

HOW TO WRITE A LETTER:  A GUIDE FOR TEACHERS AND STUDENTS

In this age of digital communication, writing letters is becoming something of a lost art. Emails and text messages can be sent instantly and for a fraction of the cost good old-fashioned snail mail can offer.

So, why bother teaching letter-writing at all? Well, though electronic ‘letters’ are often freer in formatting and language than physical letters, we can also apply letter-writing rules to electronic media. However, physical letters do offer some distinct benefits of their own too.

A WELL-WRITTEN LETTER CAN CHANGE THE WORLD.

Whilst we pride ourselves here on how to write a great essay, information report, or another text type that is primarily used in an educational setting, the ability to craft a powerful letter or email has literally changed people’s lives, altered the course of history and been the difference between life and death in some cases.

It can be the one opportunity to remove all the noise and confusion on any subject area and honestly tell someone how you feel straight from the heart.  Pen to paper.  

For whatever reason, a thousand emails, tweets, and likes will never have the same impact as a well-crafted handwritten letter.  Its very creation and existence show your reader how passionate and genuine about what it contains.

Letters fall under the transactional writing category; if you want to know more about transactional texts, be sure to check out our in-depth guide here.

COMPLETE LETTER WRITING UNIT FOR STUDENTS

Over 100 PAGES of engaging RESOURCES , various letter SAMPLES , LESSON PLANS and INTERACTIVE DIGITAL RESOURCES to teach your students how to write amazing LETTERS and EMAILS .

Teach this life skill with confidence through this excellent ALL-IN-ONE RESOURCE . No preparation is required.

3 REASONS TO TEACH LETTER WRITING

1. the personal touch: .

Those of us who grew up in an age before the internet got going will remember the excitement of waiting for and receiving a letter. Many of us will have had childhood pen pals we never met or received love letters from our teenage sweethearts. Maybe some treasured letters are still securely stored in a bedside drawer.

There is something extremely personal and intimate about the letter that email cannot capture. Letters are physical, and their increasing rarity makes them seem even more intimate today.

In this day and age, receiving a personally written letter is something a unicorn in communication terms. Students who know how to produce a well-crafted letter can use it to their advantage. For example, any business hiring manager will undoubtedly be numbed by the constant torrent of emails flooding their inbox.

That mailed resume accompanied by a handwritten letter that waits for them on their desk in the morning will surely stand out and secure an attentive read. The letter, in its various forms, is guaranteed to stand out and make an impact in an age where the vast majority of communication is digital.

3. Handwriting

Just as letter writing has declined in popularity, so too has the emphasis on well-developed handwriting skills. You can, if you wish, take the opportunity here to have the students work on their handwriting skills.

While students may protest that they can accomplish the task much quicker by word-processing, another benefit of handwriting a letter is that the speed becomes almost meditative. This allows students to focus carefully on their grammar and punctuation without always resorting to the crutch of spell-checkers and grammar correction software.

FORMAL AND INFORMAL LETTER WRITING:  WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE?

The table below outlines whether your letter should be written formally or informally, with some suggested prompts .  Whilst there are many similarities, a formal letter should always be considered as a document with a real purpose and ramifications.

FORMAL LETTER FEATURES

USED FOR PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION THESE DOCUMENTS FOLLOW A PRESCRIBED FORMAT. THEY ARE WRITTEN IN A PASSIVE VOICE FOR A SPECIFIC PURPOSE AND IN MANY CASES ARE LEGALLY BINDING. SOME EXAMPLES ARE.

INVITATION Make someone feel special about an upcoming event.

APPLICATION Write a professional letter of application for a job or group you wish to join.

REFEREE / REFERENCE Vouch for another’s skills, personality or credibility.

ACCEPTANCE & REJECTION Approve or deny an applicant in a professional manner.

MAKE AN OFFER Make a formal and binding offer in writing.

EXIT / RESIGNATION Formally leave or step down in a professional and dignified manner.

INFORMAL LETTER FEATURES

USED FOR PERSONAL COMMUNICATION THESE LETTERS HAVE NO PRESCRIBED FORMAT AND ARE WRITTEN IN AN ACTIVE VOICE.

THANK YOU Let someone know you appreciate their efforts.

CONGRATULATIONS Acknowledge someone’s achievements in life.

GRIEVANCE / LOSS Acknowledge someones personal loss or suffering and let them know you care.

FRIENDSHIP & LOVE Tell someone how special they are to you and why?

LETTER TO THE EDITOR / MAYOR ETC. Let someone know how their actions and adversely affect you and others.

LETTER TO SELF Give your older or younger self some words of advice and wisdom.

INFORMATIONAL UPDATE Write a letter back home telling them what you have been up to.

HOW TO WRITE FORMAL LETTERS

The writing process begins with planning.

As with all genres of writing, the process of formal letter writing should start with planning. This should involve sketching a brief outline from which to work rather than a comprehensive detailing of minutiae. The plan should include:

• Note addresses, names etc. – who are you writing to?
• Record the purpose of the letter – what do you want to say?
• List points to be made (each will form a paragraph) – how will you say it?
• State action point – what do you want the reader to do?

Formal letters can be written for a wide range of purposes and may come in various shapes, including a letter of complaint, a cover letter accompanying a job application, a letter of invitation, a reference letter, or a proposal letter – to name a few. Though each will adhere to its own rules of formatting and tone when writing formal letters, students should avoid using slang or contractions.

Language should be straightforward and polite. Encourage students to avoid bursts of purple prose in favor of direct, functional language. Usually, a formal letter will be written to achieve a particular end and should be written with that end foremost in mind. Students should avoid meanderings and stay firmly focused on the task at hand.

TIPS FOR WRITING GREAT FORMAL LETTERS

• The writer’s address should be in the top right-hand corner.
• The date should be written below the writer’s address
• The recipient’s name and address are below that on the left-hand side
• Use the correct opening (Dear Sir / Madam, Dear Mrs Ferguson, etc.)
• Use Standard English
• The opening sentence should explain the purpose of the letter
• Each paragraph should make a single specific point
• Use an appropriate formal tone and register in the wording of the letter
• Avoid contractions, slang, and abbreviations
• The concluding ‘action point’ paragraph states what you want the recipient to do
• The formal ending, such as Yours Sincerely or Yours Faithfully

A Note on Salutations

If the student knows the intended recipient’s name, start with Dear Mr. / Mrs Surname and end with Yours Sincerely. If they don’t know the recipient’s name, start with Dear Sir / Madam and end with Yours Faithfully.

Use of Rhetorical Devices

As mentioned, formal letter writing focuses on attempting to convince someone to take some course of action or other. To do this, it is helpful to employ some rhetorical devices to make the writing more persuasive . Some useful techniques to encourage your students to employ include:

Direct Address: Using the pronoun ‘you’ in a formal letter makes the reader feel that you are speaking directly to them. This helps to engage the reader and encourage them to continue reading the letter.

Emotive Language: Where students are trying to convince the reader to take a course of action, the use of emotive language can often be a powerful tool. Students can use either positive or negative colored words to create the desired response in the reader.

Facts and Figures: Another way to persuade and convince is to employ facts and figures to support the points made in the letter.

FORMAL LETTER STUDENT EXAMPLES

How to write an informal letter

Common features of informal letters:.

There are far fewer rules to follow when writing an informal letter, but there are still some practical guidelines to follow that will prove helpful for students engaged in writing informally.

As with any piece of writing, it is important to consider who the audience is and the reason for writing in the first place. In particular, this will help decide the tone and the language register. The more intimate the relationship, the more informal the language can be.

Though the letter will be informal, it will still have a purpose. Information should still be organized into paragraphs, as would be done with a formal, more ‘official’ letter. Students sometimes struggle with this aspect, as they often conflate ‘informal’ with ‘disorganized.’ Making them plan their informal letter before writing can help ensure it is sufficiently organized.

HOW TO START AN INFORMAL LETTER

Informal letters will start with a greeting appropriate to how close the relationship is. For acquaintances, this may be ‘Dear Tom,’ (using the first name instead of the surname) to a very informal ‘Hi Jane,’. Don’t forget the comma after the name!

After the greeting, a general opening sentence should follow. Usually, this will be something like a ‘How are you?’ or a ‘How have you been?’. If the recipient is married or has kids, you may wish to ask how their spouse or children are.

Next, students should state the reason for writing. The language should be open and friendly in tone and, in contrast to the formal letter, colloquial language, idiomatic expressions, and contractions are perfectly okay and even desirable.

Just as the opening salutation to an informal letter is much more relaxed, so too will the closing salutation. There are many possibilities for the students to choose here, and their decision will depend on who they are writing to and their personal preferences. Some examples of possible closings include ‘Love’, ‘Best regards’, ‘All the best’, and ‘Thanks’.

INFORMAL LETTER STUDENT EXAMPLES

Teaching Resources

Use our resources and tools to improve your student’s writing skills through proven teaching strategies.

PRACTICE LETTER WRITING WITH THESE ACTIVITIES FOR STUDENTS

The most effective way for students to internalize all the features of letter writing, formal or informal, is to gain experience by writing various letters for differing purposes. The following activities offer some suggestions for students to get practising today:

1. FICTION AS A SPRINGBOARD

Have students write as if they were a character from a piece of fiction you have been reading in class. Choosing a dramatic point in the plot , ask students to imagine they are one of the characters writing a letter to another character in the story. This writer may be either formal or informal, depending on the scenario presented. This will give students realistic letter-writing practice while also getting them to engage closely with the text and respond imaginatively to its themes.

2. THE AGONY AUNT

Either offer a range of possible life predicaments or cut out the questions from the ‘agony aunt’ page of a local newspaper. Students must write back offering advice in response to the predicaments expressed in the question or predicament. The response should be written in full letter format. This activity also lends itself to several variations. The response may be written to a close friend, for example, or written from the perspective of a professional agony aunt employing a more formal tone and presentation.

3. A LETTER OF COMPLAINT

Have students think of their favorite candy bar or clothing item. Encourage them to imagine they have bought this product lately and found it to be substandard. Students must write a formal letter of complaint to the manufacturer outlining their complaint and recommending a course of action to satisfactorily resolve that complaint. They must use all the features of a formal letter as outlined above.

HOW TO MAKE YOUR HANDWRITTEN LETTERS LOOK OLD AND AUTHENTIC.

• Write in pencil or a calligraphy pen,
• screw them up tightly and carefully unfold and flatten.
• Lightly dab coffee stains over the paper to make it look aged.
• Carefully singe or burn the edges of your paper.
• Add some sepia-filtered photos for effect.

SIGNING-OFF

As students become more confident in their understanding of letter-writing formats, encourage them to exchange letters with each other for peer assessment. You may wish to provide them with a checklist of features to look for while reading over their partner’s work.

Letter-writing can also be a great way to partner up with schools overseas; often, children studying English as a second language will be delighted to receive letters from (and write to) students in English-speaking countries. And though email increasingly encroaches on the traditional territory of the letter, many of the skills garnered in the practice of letter writing are transferable to the modern manifestation. There is ample opportunity here to link letter-writing learning with approaches to writing emails too.

Letter-writing can provide a focus for a wide range of learning objectives while also teaching students valuable practical skills that will serve them well beyond their school years, both in their personal and work lives. And who knows, perhaps in years to come, one of the letters your student writes in your class may become a treasured keepsake in someone’s bedside drawer.

LETTER WRITING GRAPHIC ORGANIZERS (TEMPLATES)

WRITING CHECKLIST & RUBRIC BUNDLE FOR ALL TEXT TYPES

HOW TO WRITE A FORMAL LETTER TUTORIAL VIDEO

OTHER GREAT ARTICLES RELATED TO LETTER WRITING

Transactional Writing

Personal Narrative Writing Guide

How to Write a Recount Text (And Improve your Writing Skills)

Content for this page has been written by Shane Mac Donnchaidh.  A former principal of an international school and university English lecturer with 15 years of teaching and administration experience.  Editing and support content has been provided by the literacyideas  team.

Letter Writing

Before the advent of modern technology made communication so easy, the art of writing a letter was considered an important requirement. Even today a letter is an important means of communication in both the workspace as well as our personal lives. So let us educate ourselves with the nuances of letter writing.

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A letter is a written message that can be handwritten or printed on paper. It is usually sent to the recipient via mail or post in an envelope, although this is not a requirement as such. Any such message that is transferred via post is a letter, a written conversation between two parties.

Now that E-mails ( Advantages and disadvantages ) and texts and other such forms have become the norm for communication, the art of letter writing has taken a backseat. However, even today a lot of our communication, especially the formal kind , is done via letters. Whether it is a cover letter for a job, or the bank sending you a reminder or a college acceptance letter, letters are still an important mode of communication. Which is why it is important that we know the intricacies of letter writing.

(Source: npr)

Types of Letters

Let us first understand that there are broadly two types of letter, namely Formal Letters, and Informal Letters. But then there are also a few types of letters based on their contents, formalities, the purpose of letter writing etc. Let us have a look at the few types of letters .

• Formal Letter : These letters follow a certain pattern and formality. They are strictly kept professional in nature, and directly address the issues concerned. Any type of business letter or letter to authorities falls within this given category.
• Informal Letter : These are personal letters. They need not follow any set pattern or adhere to any formalities. They contain personal information or are a written conversation. Informal letters are generally written to friends, acquaintances, relatives etc.
• Business Letter : This letter is written among business correspondents, generally contains commercial information such as quotations, orders, complaints, claims, letters for collections etc. Such letters are always strictly formal and follow a structure and pattern of formalities.
• Official Letter : This type of letter is written to inform offices, branches, subordinates of official information. It usually relays official information like rules, regulations, procedures, events, or any other such information. Official letters are also formal in nature and follow certain structure and decorum.
• Social Letter : A personal letter written on the occasion of a special event is known as a social letter. Congratulatory letter, condolence letter, invitation letter etc are all social letters.
• Circular Letter : A letter that announces information to a large number of people is a circular letter. The same letter is circulated to a large group of people to correspond some important information like a change of address, change in management, the retirement of a partner etc.
• Employment Letters : Any letters with respect to the employment process , like joining letter, promotion letter, application letter etc.

Browse more Topics under Writing

• Descriptive Essay
• Diary Entry
• Formal Letters
• Informal Letters
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• Story: Characters
• Story: Setting

Letter Writing Tips

Now that we have learned the basics of communicating via letters and the types of letters as well, let us focus on some tips for the actual letter writing.

1] Identify the type of letter

This obviously is the first step of the letter writing process. You must be able to identify the type of letter you are to be writing. This will be dictated by the person the letter is addressed to and the information that will be conveyed through the letter. Suppose you were writing to the principal of your college to ask for leave, this would be a formal letter ( Types of formal letters with samples ). But say you were writing to your old college professor catching up after a long time. Then this would be a personal ( informal ) letter.

2] Make sure you open and close the letter correctly

Opening a letter in the correct manner is of utmost importance. Formal letters open with a particular structure and greeting that is formal in nature. Informal letters can be addressed to the person’s name or any informal greeting as the writer wishes.

Even when closing the letter, it must be kept in mind what type of letter is being written. Formal letters end respectfully and impersonally, whereas informal letters may end with a more personal touch.

3] Establish the main intent of the letter

Once you start writing, make sure to get to the point as soon as possible. Especially in formal letters, it is important to immediately make clear the purpose of the letter.

4] Be careful of the language

A letter is always supposed to be polite and considerate. Even if it is a complaint letter, the point must be made in a careful and courteous manner. So it is necessary to use polite expressions and civil language in all types of letters.

5] Length of the letter

And the other important factor to be considered is the length of the letter you are writing. It should be kept in mind that formal letters are generally to the point, precise and short. Lengthy formal letters tend to not have the desired effect on the reader. The length of an informal letter is determined by the message in the letter and the relation to the recipient.

Solved Example for You

Q: Alex was to write a letter to her class teacher asking permission to remain absent from school for 2 days on account of some personal matter. What type of letter will he be writing?

• Personal Letter
• Business Letter
• Formal Letter
• Any of the above

Ans: The correct option is C. While the teacher is a personal acquaintance of Alex, the situation demands a formal letter and not a personal letter.

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IELTS Writing Samples: Essay, Letter, Report

If you have no idea what an IELTS essay looks like or need to improve your writing skills – you’re in the right place. I add new essays almost every day – subscribe and get them seconds after they’ve been published.

Here you will find IELTS Writing samples (essays, letters, reports), written by students and graded by an IELTS teacher. Every task is checked, marked, has comments and suggestions. Hold the mouse over to see suggested corrections. The teacher’s summary is at the bottom of each essay.

• IELTS 2019-2020 Writing Questions with Answers

IELTS Essay – Band 9

• IELTS Essay Samples of Band 9
• IELTS essay, topic: Traffic on roads has become a problem in nearly every country in the world (solutions)
• IELTS essay, topic: In some cities the numbers of tourists seem overwhelming, why is this happening?
• IELTS essay, topic: There is a moral necessity for the richer countries to help the poorer countries (agree/disagree)
• IELTS essay, topic: Some people like to own their home while others prefer to rent it (discuss)
• IELTS essay, topic: People today find their lives more and more dominated by their jobs (agree/disagree)
• IELTS essay, topic: Women, not men, should stay at home to care for children (agree/disagree)
• IELTS essay, topic: The advantages and disadvantages of high-rise apartment living
• IELTS essay, topic: Is fashion a significant part of society, or a waste of time and money (opinion)?
• IELTS essay, topic: Is studying at university better than getting a job straight after school (opinion)?
• IELTS essay, topic: Ending the world’s reliance on fossil fuels will be a positive development (agree/disagree)
• IELTS essay, topic: Artificial Intelligence will take over the role of teachers (agree/disagree)
• IELTS essay, topic: Having a salaried job is better than being self-employed (agree/disagree)
• IELTS essay, topic: Is learning a foreign language essential or a waste of time (opinion)?
• IELTS essay, topic: Libraries are not a necessity anymore because of the digital resources available today (agree/disagree)
• IELTS essay, topic: Individuals should be responsible for funding their own retirement (agree/disagree)
• IELTS essay, topic: Is banning cars from city centres a positive or negative development?
• IELTS essay, topic: Schoolchildren today take part in short work experience sessions instead of school (positive/negative)
• IELTS essay, topic: The number of advertisements for charities is increasing, what is causing this?
• IELTS essay, topic: Should school children be given homework (opinion)?
• IELTS essay, topic: The majority of former prisoners commit further crime after their release (reasons and solutions)
• IELTS essay, topic: Only people over 18 years old should be allowed to use social media (agree/disagree)
• IELTS essay, topic: With the scale of globalisation today, it would be best to have a single world currency (agree/disagree)
• IELTS essay, topic: Should boys and girls be educated separately (opinion)?
• IELTS essay, topic: Everybody should pay a small amount from their income to help people in poverty (agree/disagree)
• IELTS essay, topic: Households should have a government-imposed limit on the amount of rubbish they produce (agree/disagree)
• IELTS essay, topic: Is it acceptable that enormous sums are paid for pieces of art when many people around the world live in poverty?
• IELTS essay, topic: Athletes and entertainers’ enormous salaries reflect our dependence on entertainment (agree/disagree)
• IELTS essay, topic: Is using physical force to discipline children acceptable (opinion)?
• IELTS essay, topic: Should governments impose extra taxes to restrict tourism in order to reduce pollution?
• IELTS essay, topic: Unemployment payments encourage people not to seek work (opinion)
• IELTS essay, topic: Do schools still need to teach handwriting and mental mathematics skills?
• IELTS essay, topic: What is the best motivation for workers – salary, job satisfaction or helping others?
• IELTS Essay, topic: In some countries private cars are now banned from city centres (advantages / disadvantages)
• IELTS Essay, topic: Some people believe that the problem of illegal drugs can be solved by legalising all drugs (agree/disagree)
• IELTS Essay, topic: Should governments or teachers be responsible for what is to be taught in schools (opinion)?
• IELTS essay, topic: Can the society cope with the larger number of elderly people and how?
• IELTS essay, topic: Should copyright materials such as music, films and books be freely available on the Internet (opinion)?
• IELTS essay, topic: Some parents think that children must do house chores (opinion)
• IELTS essay, topic: Since obesity may be caused by fast food, should the government put a tax on fast food?
• IELTS essay, topic: Some people think that sport in schools is a waste of time and resources, while others believe it is a vital part of education (opinion)
• IELTS Band 9 essay, topic: Some schools insist that students have laptops in class (advantages / disadvantages)
• IELTS Band 9 essay, topic: Today’s governments struggle to create enough housing for increasing populations while protecting the environment (opinion)
• IELTS Band 9 essay, topic: The world today is a safer place and governments should stop spending large amounts of money on their armed forces (agree/disagree).
• IELTS Band 9 essay, topic: Many people nowadays travel abroad for their university education (discuss)
• IELTS Band 9 essay, topic: Some people believe that everyone has a right to access to the Internet and governments should provide it free (agree/disagree)
• IELTS Band 9 essay, topic: Breakthroughs in medical science are the most significant advances over the last two centuries (opinion)
• IELTS Band 9 essay, topic: Some say that people should diet and exercise to lose weight, while others think they should eat better and change their lifestyle (opinion)
• IELTS Band 9 essay, topic: Should teachers be required to conform to a dress code?
• IELTS Band 9 essay, topic: Increases in fuel prices are the only way to reduce world consumption of fuel (agree/disagree)
• IELTS Band 9 essay, topic: Some people believe that teaching music in schools is vital, while others think it is unnecessary (opinion)
• IELTS Band 9 essay, topic: Some people believe that the world’s increase in population is unsustainable, while others think it is necessary and beneficial (opinion)
• IELTS Band 9 essay, topic: Wildlife population around the world has decreased by around 50 per cent, what can we do to protect wildlife?
• IELTS Band 9 essay, topic: Schools should teach their students how to survive financially in the world today (agree/disagree)

IELTS Essay – Band 8

• IELTS Essay Samples of Band 8
• IELTS essay, topic: The main aim of advertising is to improve sales of products that people do not really need (agree/disagree)
• IELTS essay, topic: It is better to be unemployed than work in a job you dislike (agree/disagree)
• IELTS essay, topic: Some people think that dangerous sports should be banned (discuss + opinion)
• IELTS essay, topic: Use of computers and mobile phones to communicate has a negative impact on reading and writing skills (agree/disagree)
• IELTS essay, topic: People are spending more and more time away from their families (reasons and effects)
• IELTS essay, topic: Reading newspapers and watching TV news is a waste of time (agree/disagree)
• IELTS essay, topic: Transportation of products and people is the main source of pollution (discuss + opinion)
• IELTS essay, topic: Some countries invest a significant amount of money in promoting the use of bicycles (reasons and effects)
• IELTS essay, topic: Too much attention and resources are given to the protection of wild animals and birds (agree/disagree)
• IELTS essay, topic: The purpose of education is to make individuals useful to society, not help people pursue personal ambitions (discuss + opinion)
• IELTS essay, topic: In many countries, the number of animals and plants is declining (reasons and solutions)
• IELTS essay, topic: New parents should attend parenting classes to learn how to bring up their children well (agree/disagree)
• IELTS essay, topic: Some people believe that countries should produce all the food necessary to feed their populations and import as little food as possible (agree/disagree)
• IELTS essay, topic: If a child commits a crime, should the child or the parents be punished? (discuss + opinion)
• IELTS essay, topic: The role of parents and family in the future success of a person is more important than knowledge and skills learnt at school (agree/disagree)
• IELTS essay, topic: Social media helps people to keep in touch with friends and stay on top of news and events (advantages/disadvantages)
• IELTS essay, topic: Part time courses are on the rise and students are taking them up as an alternative to full time courses (advantages/disadvantages)
• IELTS essay, topic: Some people think it is better to make more money rather than have free time (discuss + opinion)
• IELTS essay, topic: Some people argue that sports are essential, while others view sports as a leisure time activity (discuss + opinion)
• IELTS essay, topic: People in senior positions should be compensated with significantly higher salaries (agree/disagree)
• IELTS essay, topic: More and more people participate in extreme sports (reasons and solutions)
• IELTS essay, topic: Some people tend to buy products or get services instantly (reasons and effects)
• IELTS essay, topic: Many university students nowadays live away from home and their parents (advantages/disadvantages)
• IELTS essay, topic: Young people don’t communicate with older people as much as they used to (reasons and solutions)
• IELTS essay, topic: Many people do not exercise enough and eat an unhealthy diet (reasons and solutions)
• IELTS essay, topic: Some argue that governments should create nutrition and food choice laws to improve public health (discuss + opinion)
• IELTS essay, topic: Many people today are drinking sugar-based drinks (reasons and solutions)
• IELTS essay, topic: Celebrities can be poor role models for teenagers (agree/disagree)
• IELTS essay, topic: Many people try to achieve a work-life balance but fail (reasons and solutions)
• IELTS essay, topic: In many workplaces online communication has overtaken face to face meetings (advantages/disadvantages)
• IELTS essay, topic: Despite the benefits of walking, very few people walk nowadays (reasons and solutions)
• IELTS essay, topic: In many countries a lot of food is wasted (reasons and solutions)
• IELTS essay, topic: Newspapers have a significant influence on people’s ideas and opinions (reasons and solutions)
• IELTS essay, topic: The best way to solve environmental problems is to increase the price of fuel (agree/disagree)
• IELTS essay, topic: Who should discipline the children, parents or the government? (discuss + opinion)
• IELTS essay, topic: Young people aren’t spending their weekends doing outdoor activities such as hiking or mountaineering (reasons and solutions)
• IELTS essay, topic: Some think that hosting an international sporting event is beneficial for a country while others disagree (advantages / disadvantages)
• IELTS essay, topic: People should follow the customs and traditions of their new country (agree/disagree)
• IELTS essay, topic: Museums and art galleries should present only the national art (agree/disagree)
• IELTS essay, topic: Young people are facing problems at school and at home, what problems and how can parents help?
• IELTS essay, topic: Crime rates are likely to decline due to the advancements in technology (agree/disagree)
• IELTS essay, topic: Some people say that all popular TV entertainment programmes should aim to educate viewers about important social issues (agree/disagree)
• IELTS essay, topic: Young people are finding it harder to find permanent jobs (reasons and solutions)
• IELTS essay, topic: Some say that new homes should be constructed in existing cities while others argue that new towns should be built (advantages/disadvantages)
• IELTS essay, topic: Some think that young people should be free to choose any career they like, while others say that they should think more realistically about their future (opinion)
• IELTS essay, topic: In the modern world it is possible to shop, work and communicate online without face-to-face contact, is it a positive or a negative development?
• IELTS essay, topic: Excessive use of modern technologies is negatively affecting the reading and writing skills of children (agree/disagree)
• IELTS essay, topic: People who read for pleasure develop their imagination more and acquire better language skills compared to people who prefer watching television (agree/disagree)
• IELTS essay, topic: Who should be responsible for protecting the environment, individuals or the government?
• IELTS essay, topic: Children today are spending more time watching TV than in the past, is it a positive or a negative change?
• IELTS essay, topic: High-rise vs. low-rise buildings, which solution is better for a growing population?
• IELTS Essay, topic: Nowadays celebrities earn more money than politicians, what are the reasons for this?
• IELTS essay, topic: Some people think that it is fine for professional athletes to misbehave on or off the field, as long as they are playing well (opinion)
• IELTS essay, topic: Some people believe that women should be treated as equal to men when applying for a job with the police or the military, while others disagree (opinion)
• IELTS essay, topic: In many countries young people start living on their own after high school, is this a positive or negative development?
• IELTS essay, topic: In the past people wore their traditional clothes, but these days most people wear similar clothes, is this a positive or negative development?
• IELTS essay, topic: Many people support animal testing while others believe it isn’t appropriate (discuss)
• IELTS essay, topic: Some think that children should leave their family home as soon as possible while others believe they should stay for as long as they like (discuss)
• IELTS essay, topic: When new towns are planned, it is important to build more public parks or sports facilities than shopping centers (agree/disagree)
• IELTS essay, topic: Some people think that public health in a country can be improved by government making laws regarding nutritious food (agree/disagree).
• IELTS essay, topic: Nowadays many people choose ready-made food and refuse to cook at home, why and what are the advantages/disadvantages?
• IELTS essay, topic: Nowadays that many women have full time jobs, it is logical to share the housework evenly between men and women (agree/disagree)
• IELTS essay, topic: Some believe the government should take care of retirees, while others think everyone should save for their own retirement (opinion)
• IELTS essay, topic: Some people say that arts subjects are as essential as academic ones and should be part of school syllabus (agree/disagree)
• IELTS essay, topic: Nowadays people waste a lot of food, why is this happening and how to reduce waste?
• IELTS essay, topic: Some parents encourage young people to leave home while others think they should stay with the family, discuss and give your opinion
• IELTS essay, topic: What are the difficulties of learning a foreign language, and how to overcome them?
• IELTS essay, topic: Should employers pay more attention to personal qualities rather than qualifications?
• IELTS essay, topic: Some people use the Internet to search for solutions to their medical problems, is this a positive or negative development?
• IELTS essay, topic: Nowadays more and more people want to live by themselves, why is this happening?
• IELTS essay, topic: The education system is the only critical factor in the development of a country, agree/disagree (from Target Band 7 book)
• IELTS essay, topic: Obesity is becoming common among children, give reasons and solutions (from Target Band 7 book)
• IELTS essay, topic: Education in financial management should be a mandatory component of the school program, agree/disagree (from Target Band 7 book)
• IELTS essay, topic: Dieting can change a person’s life for better or worse (from Target Band 7 book)
• IELTS essay, topic: Changing drivers age limits is the best way to reduce traffic accidents (from Target Band 7 book)
• IELTS Essay, topic: Some believe that modern technology is increasing the gap between the rich and poor, while others disagree (discuss)
• IELTS essay, topic: Childcare training courses should be mandatory for all parents (agree/disagree)
• IELTS essay, topic: Many people believe that reducing speed limits is the best option for road safety improvement (agree/disagree)
• IELTS essay, topic: Nowadays families move to different countries for work and some think it has a negative effect on children (agree/disagree)
• IELTS essay, topic: Some people believe that preserving natural environment is crucial, but make no effort to do so (reasons and solutions)
• IELTS Essay, topic: Teachers are more responsible for social and intellectual development of students than parents (agree/disagree)
• IELTS essay, topic: People should not work beyond the retirement age (agree/disagree)
• IELTS essay, topic: The proportion of older people is increasing, what problems will this cause and what solutions can be suggested?
• IELTS essay, topic: Senior managers should have higher salaries than other employees (agree/disagree)
• IELTS essay, topic: Advertising affects what people think is important and has a negative effect on their lives (agree/disagree)
• IELTS essay, topic: Many believe that international tourism is bad for their country (reasons and solutions)
• IELTS essay, topic: Many museums charge for admission while others are free. Do the advantages of this outweigh the disadvantages?
• IELTS essay, topic: Some people claim that it is acceptable to use animals in medical research (discuss)
• IELTS essay, topic: should children grow up in the city or countryside (advantages/disadvantages)?
• IELTS essay, topic: should unpaid community work be mandatory in high school (agree/disagree)?
• IELTS essay, topic: the development of technology causes traditional skills to die out, agree or disagree?
• IELTS essay, topic: Why do criminals commit another offence after being punished?
• IELTS essay, topic: Schools should select students by their academic abilities, agree or disagree?
• IELTS essay, topic: Children these days are suffering from obesity, why and how can it be solved?
• IELTS essay, topic: Public libraries should only provide books, not videos or DVD, agree or disagree?
• IELTS essay, topic: Children should be engaged in paid work, agree or disagree?
• IELTS essay, topic: Should people spend a lot on weddings and birthday parties?
• IELTS Essay, topic: the positive and the negative sides of globalization
• IELTS Essay, topic: children and rules
• IELTS Essay, topic: The advantages and disadvantages of globalization
• IELTS Essay, topic: Financial education
• IELTS Essay, topic: Computers replacing teachers
• IELTS Essay, topic: Rich countries should help the poor
• IELTS Essay, topic: Events bringing people together
• IELTS Essay, topic: Computers instead of teachers

IELTS Essay – Band 7

• IELTS Essay Samples of Band 7
• IELTS essay, topic: Some people say protecting the environment is the government’s responsibility, others believe individuals should be responsible for it (opinion)
• IELTS Essay, topic: Should students travel?
• IELTS Essay, topic: Computers in the future
• IELTS Essay, topic: Working children
• IELTS Essay, topic: The Internet and communication
• IELTS Essay, topic: News on TV
• IELTS Essay, topic: Environmental problems
• IELTS Essay, topic: Capital punishment
• IELTS Essay, topic: Should tobacco be prohibited?
• IELTS Essay, topic: Should wealthy nations share their wealth?
• IELTS Essay, topic: Advertising
• IELTS Essay, topic: Computers in our life
• IELTS Essay, topic: The Internet as a source of information
• IELTS Essay, topic: Smoking in public places
• IELTS Essay, topic: Children and rules
• IELTS Essay, topic: Space exploration
• IELTS Essay, topic: Internet connecting people
• IELTS Essay, topic: Popular events

IELTS Essay – Band 6

• IELTS Essay Samples of Band 6
• IELTS essay, topic: Students from rural areas should get a subsidized university education, agree or disagree?
• IELTS essay, topic: Should students do other activities in addition to studying?
• IELTS essay, topic: Change is always a good thing, agree or disagree?
• IELTS essay, topic: The advantages and disadvantages of studying in another country
• IELTS Essay, Topic: Is financial education at school a must?
• IELTS Essay, Topic: Avoiding traffic accidents
• IELTS Essay, Topic: Reasons for and against dieting
• IELTS Essay, Topic: The positive and negative sides of globalization
• IELTS essay, topic: Should children be working?
• IELTS essay, topic – Getting the news from the radio, TV or the Internet
• IELTS essay, topic – People moving into English speaking countries
• IELTS Essay, topic: Traffic accidents
• IELTS Essay, topic: Financial education at school
• IELTS Essay, topic: Aspects of globalization
• IELTS Essay, topic: Dieting changes a person’s life
• IELTS Essay, topic: Reasons to attend college
• IELTS Essay, topic: Education as a critical factor
• IELTS Essay, topic: Learning about the past
• IELTS Essay, topic: Globalization
• IELTS Essay, topic: Leisure time activities
• IELTS Essay, topic: Critical factors to the development of a country
• IELTS Essay, topic: Women in power
• IELTS Essay, topic: Overpopulation

IELTS Essay – Band 5

• IELTS Essay Samples of Band 5
• IELTS Essay, topic: Natural resources cannot sustain economic growth, agree or disagree?
• IELTS Essay, topic: keeping pets to live a more enjoyable life
• IELTS Essay, topic: the mother’s and father’s role in a family
• IELTS Essay, topic: Capital Punishment
• IELTS Essay, topic: Education with or without a teacher
• IELTS Essay, topic: A popular hobby rather than a favorite passtime
• IELTS Essay, topic: University money better spent on libraries or sports
• IELTS Essay, topic: Modern medicine helps to live longer

IELTS Letter – Band 9

• IELTS Letter Samples of Band 9
• IELTS Letter, topic: Asking your boss for some time off
• IELTS Letter, topic: Describing your visit to the museum
• IELTS Letter, topic: Applying for a job at a shop
• IELTS Letter, topic: Complaining about problems on your train journey
• IELTS Letter, topic: Writing to a friend to borrow a good camera
• IELTS Letter, topic: Introduction of an exchange student to a host family
• IELTS Letter, topic: Letting a friend know about your change of plans
• IELTS Letter, topic: Requesting information about a venue you would like to rent
• IELTS Letter, topic: Inviting an old friend to your new house
• IELTS Letter, topic: Notifying a bank about a missing credit card
• IELTS Letter, topic: Asking a friend if he would like to buy your car
• IELTS Letter, topic: Complaining about some food you bought at a supermarket
• IELTS Letter, topic: Apologising to a customer who received poor service
• IELTS Letter, topic: Requesting information about a foreign language course
• IELTS Letter, topic: Asking your friend to accompany you on a holiday
• IELTS Letter, topic: Complaining about rubbish collection services
• IELTS Letter, topic: Complaining about an unsatisfactory rental apartment
• IELTS Letter, topic: Thanking a friend for a nice birthday present
• IELTS Letter, topic: writing to apply for a part-time job

IELTS Letter – Band 8

• IELTS Sample Letters of Band 8
• IELTS Letter, topic: writing to recommend a friend for a job at a summer school camp
• IELTS Letter, topic: writing to thank a bus company employee for helping you
• IELTS Letter, topic: writing to a friend about an article that captured your attention
• IELTS Letter, topic: complaining to a company about receiving the wrong product
• IELTS Letter, topic: informing your manager about a presentation you were asked to prepare
• IELTS Letter, topic: Inviting a friend to a music concert
• IELTS Letter, topic: Resigning from a part time job
• IELTS Letter, topic: Inviting a friend to a family party
• IELTS Letter, topic: Enquiring about lost clothes
• IELTS Letter, topic: Complaining about airport services
• IELTS Letter, topic: Applying for an advertised position
• IELTS letter, topic: Business letter about organising a corporate event (from Ace the IELTS book)
• IELTS letter, topic: request for information about a seminar (from Ace the IELTS book)
• IELTS letter, topic: a complaint about a rental car (from Ace the IELTS book)
• IELTS letter, topic: ask the college principal for information about a scholarship (from Ace the IELTS book)
• IELTS Letter, topic: Invite a friend to your new house
• IELTS Letter, topic: Your friend is coming over to stay with you
• IELTS Letter, topic: Get well wishes for a team-mate
• IELTS Letter, topic: Leaving your current employment
• IELTS Letter, topic: An explanation for a relative
• IELTS Letter, topic: Telling a friend about a new job
• IELTS Letter, topic: Complaining to neighbours about their noisy dog
• IELTS Letter, topic: Explaining to a friend how to look after your house
• IELTS Letter, topic: Expressing dissatisfaction with a course at college
• IELTS Letter, topic: A complaint about a purchase made online
• IELTS Letter, topic: Booking a hotel room
• IELTS Letter, topic: Personal, asking for the forgotten file
• IELTS Letter, topic: An explanation for the boss

IELTS Letter – Band 7

• IELTS Sample Letters of Band 7
• IELTS Letter, topic: Complaint about a laptop
• IELTS Letter, topic: Asking for information about an executive event
• IELTS Letter, topic: Asking for information about a seminar
• IELTS Letter, topic: Writing to a pen pal
• IELTS Letter, topic: Writing to a manager about problems at work
• IELTS Letter, topic: Complaint about a faulty mobile phone
• IELTS Letter, topic: Complaint about a rental car
• IELTS Letter, topic: a migrant writes a letter to a friend
• IELTS Letter, topic: item left on the bus
• IELTS Letter, topic: Explanation of delayed first working day
• IELTS Letter, topic: Asking for information on scholarships
• IELTS Letter, topic: Cleaning job application

IELTS Report – Band 9

• IELTS Report Samples of Band 9
• IELTS Report, topic: Table describing the amount of road traffic in London (from IELTS High Scorer’s Choice series, Academic Set 4)
• IELTS Report, topic: Double line graph of lengths of hospital stay (from IELTS High Scorer’s Choice series, Academic Set 4)
• IELTS Report, topic: Pie charts of greenhouse gas emissions (from IELTS High Scorer’s Choice series, Academic Set 4)
• IELTS Report, topic: Flow charts of circles of poverty (from IELTS High Scorer’s Choice series, Academic Set 3)
• IELTS Report, topic: Multiple Bar Chart of US’ Processed Food Export Markets (from IELTS High Scorer’s Choice series, Academic Set 3)
• IELTS Report, topic: Five line graphs showing the annual visitor spend in New Zealand (from IELTS High Scorer’s Choice series, Academic Set 3)
• IELTS Report, topic: Two bar charts showing the prevalence of obesity among boys and girls (from IELTS High Scorer’s Choice series, Academic Set 3)
• IELTS Report, topic: Bar chart describing Scotland’s exports (from IELTS High Scorer’s Choice series, Academic Set 3)
• IELTS Report, topic: Process diagram describing the life-cycle of the car (from IELTS High Scorer’s Choice series, Academic Set 2)
• IELTS Report, topic: Two pie charts describing the proportions of visits to Ireland by age, gender and type of visit (from IELTS High Scorer’s Choice series, Academic Set 2)
• IELTS Report, topic: Table and pie chart describing day and overnight stays in public and private hospitals in Australia (from IELTS High Scorer’s Choice series, Academic Set 2)
• IELTS Report, topic: Multiple line graph describing the percentage of students learning a second language (from IELTS High Scorer’s Choice series, Academic Set 2)
• IELTS Report, topic: Two pie charts describing UK tax revenue and government spending (from IELTS High Scorer’s Choice series, Academic Set 2)
• IELTS Report, topic: Process diagram describing the cycle of pollution (from IELTS High Scorer’s Choice series, Academic Set 1)
• IELTS Report, topic: Bar chart and pie chart describing Australian water consumption (from IELTS High Scorer’s Choice series, Academic Set 1)
• IELTS Report, topic: Two tables comparing workers of foreign and US birth in the United States (from IELTS High Scorer’s Choice series, Academic Set 1)
• IELTS Report, topic: Pie charts of electricity generation by source (from IELTS High Scorer’s Choice series, Academic Set 1)
• IELTS Report, topic: Bar chart of average rainfall by month (from IELTS High Scorer’s Choice series, Academic Set 1)

IELTS Report – Band 8

• IELTS Sample Reports of Band 8
• IELTS Report, topic: Diagram describing a fire exit plan in a college accommodation
• IELTS Report, topic: Line graph describing the number of students from the US, UK and Australia who studied in other countries
• IELTS Report, topic: Pie charts describing the percentages of book sales of one bookseller in 1970, 1997 and 2012
• IELTS Report, topic: Bar chart describing the percentage of people who ate at least five portions of fruit and vegetables per day
• IELTS Report, topic: Table describing postgraduate course fees in 3 countries
• IELTS Report, topic: Line graph describing production of 3 different fuels in the UK
• IELTS Report, topic: Table describing the use of water in 6 countries
• IELTS Report, topic: Four pie charts describing sectors of employment in two towns, in 2009 and 2020
• IELTS Report, topic: Table describing the viewers’ preferences for TV programs
• IELTS Report, topic: Bar charts describing the hours worked by men and women in 3 countries
• IELTS Report, topic: Bar chart describing the spending on R&D in 5 countries between 2001 and 2011
• IELTS Report, topic: Two bar graphs showing how often people exercised in Europe in 2016
• IELTS Report, topic: Comparing two plans of a cinema, in 1980 and now
• IELTS Report, topic: Describing two maps of a city, in 1960 and now
• IELTS report, topic: Shopping centre map comparison
• IELTS report, topic: Bar chart and pie chart describing residential water consumption (from IELTS High Scorer’s Choice series, Academic Set 1)
• IELTS Report, topic: Table describing number of students studying foreign languages (from Target Band 7 book)
• IELTS Report, topic: Table describing data on home schooled children (from Target Band 7 book)
• IELTS Report, topic: Comparing current and future floor plans of a museum (from Target Band 7 book)
• IELTS Report, topic: Pie chart and bar graph describing employment percentages (from Target Band 7 book)
• IELTS Report, topic: Double bar graph describing water usage by industries (from Target Band 7 book)
• IELTS Report, topic: Double bar graph describing investment in stocks and bonds (from Target Band 7 book)
• IELTS Report, topic: Double line graph showing average house prices (from Target Band 7 book)
• IELTS Report, topic: Double line graph showing high tech gadgets prices (from Target Band 7 book)
• IELTS Report, topic: Map of a town before and after redevelopment
• IELTS Report, topic: Bar chart of average house prices
• IELTS Report, topic: Bar graph describing trends in consumption of fast food
• IELTS Report, topic: Map with two sites for a shopping mall

IELTS Report – Band 7

• IELTS Sample Reports of Band 7
• IELTS Report, topic: Bar graphs describing unemployment rates and average earnings by level of education
• IELTS Report, topic: Flow chart describing how laundry service works (from Target Band 7 book)
• IELTS Report, topic: Single line graph describing rainfall statistics (from Target Band 7 book)
• IELTS Report, topic: Bar graph describing average house prices
• IELTS Report, topic: Table describing the satisfaction of sports club’s members
• IELTS Report, topic: Line graph describing the consumption of fish and meat
• IELTS report, topic: Double line graph describing the birth rate in China and the USA
• IELTS report, topic: Table describing different types of families living in poverty
• IELTS Report, topic: a pie chart of leisure activities
• IELTS Report, topic: bar graph of water usage
• IELTS Report, topic: A line graph of wages growth
• IELTS Report, topic: Table of home schooled students’ percentages

Note: the tasks are checked by an IELTS teacher, not an IELTS examiner or examiner trainer. All the bands are approximate.

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The essays are well organised and set perfect example for various band requirement

General Ielts material required

You can find General Training writing task 1 letters here. Is that what you were looking for, or something else?

Need sample answer for this topic The graph below describe rainfall statistics for somecountry

Awesome website good looking Thanks for sharing.

Dear Mr Braverman, I have heard that your website can help us in correcting our essays, so wanted to know how it is possible to send my task 2 essays for correction?

Hi Ava, yes we will be happy to correct your essays. Please visit this page to purchase a writing correction package , so that we can start checking your essays straight away.

Sir I need gernal ielts knowledge

Sir I need general Ielts knowledge

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Plz send me letter types

Hi Shahlo, you can find model letters that would score Band 9 in IELTS here . If you’d like to start receiving the latest IELTS questions and model answers to your email, go here and subscribe (it’s free)

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Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

Essay Writing

Welcome to the Purdue OWL

This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice.

Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

The Modes of Discourse—Exposition, Description, Narration, Argumentation (EDNA)—are common paper assignments you may encounter in your writing classes. Although these genres have been criticized by some composition scholars, the Purdue OWL recognizes the wide spread use of these approaches and students’ need to understand and produce them.

This resource begins with a general description of essay writing and moves to a discussion of common essay genres students may encounter across the curriculum. The four genres of essays (description, narration, exposition, and argumentation) are common paper assignments you may encounter in your writing classes. Although these genres, also known as the modes of discourse, have been criticized by some composition scholars, the Purdue OWL recognizes the wide spread use of these genres and students’ need to understand and produce these types of essays. We hope these resources will help.

The essay is a commonly assigned form of writing that every student will encounter while in academia. Therefore, it is wise for the student to become capable and comfortable with this type of writing early on in her training.

Essays can be a rewarding and challenging type of writing and are often assigned either to be done in class, which requires previous planning and practice (and a bit of creativity) on the part of the student, or as homework, which likewise demands a certain amount of preparation. Many poorly crafted essays have been produced on account of a lack of preparation and confidence. However, students can avoid the discomfort often associated with essay writing by understanding some common genres.

Before delving into its various genres, let’s begin with a basic definition of the essay.

What is an essay?

Though the word essay has come to be understood as a type of writing in Modern English, its origins provide us with some useful insights. The word comes into the English language through the French influence on Middle English; tracing it back further, we find that the French form of the word comes from the Latin verb exigere , which means "to examine, test, or (literally) to drive out." Through the excavation of this ancient word, we are able to unearth the essence of the academic essay: to encourage students to test or examine their ideas concerning a particular topic.

Essays are shorter pieces of writing that often require the student to hone a number of skills such as close reading, analysis, comparison and contrast, persuasion, conciseness, clarity, and exposition. As is evidenced by this list of attributes, there is much to be gained by the student who strives to succeed at essay writing.

The purpose of an essay is to encourage students to develop ideas and concepts in their writing with the direction of little more than their own thoughts (it may be helpful to view the essay as the converse of a research paper). Therefore, essays are (by nature) concise and require clarity in purpose and direction. This means that there is no room for the student’s thoughts to wander or stray from his or her purpose; the writing must be deliberate and interesting.

This handout should help students become familiar and comfortable with the process of essay composition through the introduction of some common essay genres.

This handout includes a brief introduction to the following genres of essay writing:

• Expository essays
• Descriptive essays
• Narrative essays
• Argumentative (Persuasive) essays

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• The four main types of essay | Quick guide with examples

The Four Main Types of Essay | Quick Guide with Examples

Published on September 4, 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on July 23, 2023.

An essay is a focused piece of writing designed to inform or persuade. There are many different types of essay, but they are often defined in four categories: argumentative, expository, narrative, and descriptive essays.

Argumentative and expository essays are focused on conveying information and making clear points, while narrative and descriptive essays are about exercising creativity and writing in an interesting way. At university level, argumentative essays are the most common type. 

In high school and college, you will also often have to write textual analysis essays, which test your skills in close reading and interpretation.

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Table of contents

Argumentative essays, expository essays, narrative essays, descriptive essays, textual analysis essays, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about types of essays.

An argumentative essay presents an extended, evidence-based argument. It requires a strong thesis statement —a clearly defined stance on your topic. Your aim is to convince the reader of your thesis using evidence (such as quotations ) and analysis.

Argumentative essays test your ability to research and present your own position on a topic. This is the most common type of essay at college level—most papers you write will involve some kind of argumentation.

The essay is divided into an introduction, body, and conclusion:

• The introduction provides your topic and thesis statement
• The body presents your evidence and arguments
• The conclusion summarizes your argument and emphasizes its importance

The example below is a paragraph from the body of an argumentative essay about the effects of the internet on education. Mouse over it to learn more.

A common frustration for teachers is students’ use of Wikipedia as a source in their writing. Its prevalence among students is not exaggerated; a survey found that the vast majority of the students surveyed used Wikipedia (Head & Eisenberg, 2010). An article in The Guardian stresses a common objection to its use: “a reliance on Wikipedia can discourage students from engaging with genuine academic writing” (Coomer, 2013). Teachers are clearly not mistaken in viewing Wikipedia usage as ubiquitous among their students; but the claim that it discourages engagement with academic sources requires further investigation. This point is treated as self-evident by many teachers, but Wikipedia itself explicitly encourages students to look into other sources. Its articles often provide references to academic publications and include warning notes where citations are missing; the site’s own guidelines for research make clear that it should be used as a starting point, emphasizing that users should always “read the references and check whether they really do support what the article says” (“Wikipedia:Researching with Wikipedia,” 2020). Indeed, for many students, Wikipedia is their first encounter with the concepts of citation and referencing. The use of Wikipedia therefore has a positive side that merits deeper consideration than it often receives.

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An expository essay provides a clear, focused explanation of a topic. It doesn’t require an original argument, just a balanced and well-organized view of the topic.

Expository essays test your familiarity with a topic and your ability to organize and convey information. They are commonly assigned at high school or in exam questions at college level.

The introduction of an expository essay states your topic and provides some general background, the body presents the details, and the conclusion summarizes the information presented.

A typical body paragraph from an expository essay about the invention of the printing press is shown below. Mouse over it to learn more.

The invention of the printing press in 1440 changed this situation dramatically. Johannes Gutenberg, who had worked as a goldsmith, used his knowledge of metals in the design of the press. He made his type from an alloy of lead, tin, and antimony, whose durability allowed for the reliable production of high-quality books. This new technology allowed texts to be reproduced and disseminated on a much larger scale than was previously possible. The Gutenberg Bible appeared in the 1450s, and a large number of printing presses sprang up across the continent in the following decades. Gutenberg’s invention rapidly transformed cultural production in Europe; among other things, it would lead to the Protestant Reformation.

A narrative essay is one that tells a story. This is usually a story about a personal experience you had, but it may also be an imaginative exploration of something you have not experienced.

Narrative essays test your ability to build up a narrative in an engaging, well-structured way. They are much more personal and creative than other kinds of academic writing . Writing a personal statement for an application requires the same skills as a narrative essay.

A narrative essay isn’t strictly divided into introduction, body, and conclusion, but it should still begin by setting up the narrative and finish by expressing the point of the story—what you learned from your experience, or why it made an impression on you.

Mouse over the example below, a short narrative essay responding to the prompt “Write about an experience where you learned something about yourself,” to explore its structure.

Since elementary school, I have always favored subjects like science and math over the humanities. My instinct was always to think of these subjects as more solid and serious than classes like English. If there was no right answer, I thought, why bother? But recently I had an experience that taught me my academic interests are more flexible than I had thought: I took my first philosophy class.

Before I entered the classroom, I was skeptical. I waited outside with the other students and wondered what exactly philosophy would involve—I really had no idea. I imagined something pretty abstract: long, stilted conversations pondering the meaning of life. But what I got was something quite different.

A young man in jeans, Mr. Jones—“but you can call me Rob”—was far from the white-haired, buttoned-up old man I had half-expected. And rather than pulling us into pedantic arguments about obscure philosophical points, Rob engaged us on our level. To talk free will, we looked at our own choices. To talk ethics, we looked at dilemmas we had faced ourselves. By the end of class, I’d discovered that questions with no right answer can turn out to be the most interesting ones.

The experience has taught me to look at things a little more “philosophically”—and not just because it was a philosophy class! I learned that if I let go of my preconceptions, I can actually get a lot out of subjects I was previously dismissive of. The class taught me—in more ways than one—to look at things with an open mind.

A descriptive essay provides a detailed sensory description of something. Like narrative essays, they allow you to be more creative than most academic writing, but they are more tightly focused than narrative essays. You might describe a specific place or object, rather than telling a whole story.

Descriptive essays test your ability to use language creatively, making striking word choices to convey a memorable picture of what you’re describing.

A descriptive essay can be quite loosely structured, though it should usually begin by introducing the object of your description and end by drawing an overall picture of it. The important thing is to use careful word choices and figurative language to create an original description of your object.

Mouse over the example below, a response to the prompt “Describe a place you love to spend time in,” to learn more about descriptive essays.

On Sunday afternoons I like to spend my time in the garden behind my house. The garden is narrow but long, a corridor of green extending from the back of the house, and I sit on a lawn chair at the far end to read and relax. I am in my small peaceful paradise: the shade of the tree, the feel of the grass on my feet, the gentle activity of the fish in the pond beside me.

My cat crosses the garden nimbly and leaps onto the fence to survey it from above. From his perch he can watch over his little kingdom and keep an eye on the neighbours. He does this until the barking of next door’s dog scares him from his post and he bolts for the cat flap to govern from the safety of the kitchen.

With that, I am left alone with the fish, whose whole world is the pond by my feet. The fish explore the pond every day as if for the first time, prodding and inspecting every stone. I sometimes feel the same about sitting here in the garden; I know the place better than anyone, but whenever I return I still feel compelled to pay attention to all its details and novelties—a new bird perched in the tree, the growth of the grass, and the movement of the insects it shelters…

Sitting out in the garden, I feel serene. I feel at home. And yet I always feel there is more to discover. The bounds of my garden may be small, but there is a whole world contained within it, and it is one I will never get tired of inhabiting.

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Though every essay type tests your writing skills, some essays also test your ability to read carefully and critically. In a textual analysis essay, you don’t just present information on a topic, but closely analyze a text to explain how it achieves certain effects.

Rhetorical analysis

A rhetorical analysis looks at a persuasive text (e.g. a speech, an essay, a political cartoon) in terms of the rhetorical devices it uses, and evaluates their effectiveness.

The goal is not to state whether you agree with the author’s argument but to look at how they have constructed it.

The introduction of a rhetorical analysis presents the text, some background information, and your thesis statement; the body comprises the analysis itself; and the conclusion wraps up your analysis of the text, emphasizing its relevance to broader concerns.

The example below is from a rhetorical analysis of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech . Mouse over it to learn more.

King’s speech is infused with prophetic language throughout. Even before the famous “dream” part of the speech, King’s language consistently strikes a prophetic tone. He refers to the Lincoln Memorial as a “hallowed spot” and speaks of rising “from the dark and desolate valley of segregation” to “make justice a reality for all of God’s children.” The assumption of this prophetic voice constitutes the text’s strongest ethical appeal; after linking himself with political figures like Lincoln and the Founding Fathers, King’s ethos adopts a distinctly religious tone, recalling Biblical prophets and preachers of change from across history. This adds significant force to his words; standing before an audience of hundreds of thousands, he states not just what the future should be, but what it will be: “The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.” This warning is almost apocalyptic in tone, though it concludes with the positive image of the “bright day of justice.” The power of King’s rhetoric thus stems not only from the pathos of his vision of a brighter future, but from the ethos of the prophetic voice he adopts in expressing this vision.

Literary analysis

A literary analysis essay presents a close reading of a work of literature—e.g. a poem or novel—to explore the choices made by the author and how they help to convey the text’s theme. It is not simply a book report or a review, but an in-depth interpretation of the text.

Literary analysis looks at things like setting, characters, themes, and figurative language. The goal is to closely analyze what the author conveys and how.

The introduction of a literary analysis essay presents the text and background, and provides your thesis statement; the body consists of close readings of the text with quotations and analysis in support of your argument; and the conclusion emphasizes what your approach tells us about the text.

Mouse over the example below, the introduction to a literary analysis essay on Frankenstein , to learn more.

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is often read as a crude cautionary tale about the dangers of scientific advancement unrestrained by ethical considerations. In this reading, protagonist Victor Frankenstein is a stable representation of the callous ambition of modern science throughout the novel. This essay, however, argues that far from providing a stable image of the character, Shelley uses shifting narrative perspectives to portray Frankenstein in an increasingly negative light as the novel goes on. While he initially appears to be a naive but sympathetic idealist, after the creature’s narrative Frankenstein begins to resemble—even in his own telling—the thoughtlessly cruel figure the creature represents him as. This essay begins by exploring the positive portrayal of Frankenstein in the first volume, then moves on to the creature’s perception of him, and finally discusses the third volume’s narrative shift toward viewing Frankenstein as the creature views him.

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

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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.”

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

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.

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.

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Is a robot writing your kids’ essays? We asked educators to weigh in on the growing role of AI in classrooms.

R emember writing essays in high school? Chances are you had to look up stuff in an encyclopedia — an actual one, not Wikipedia — or else connect to AOL via a modem bigger than your parents’ Taurus station wagon.

Now, of course, there’s artificial intelligence. According to new research from Pew, about 1 in 5 US teens who’ve heard of ChatGPT have used it for schoolwork. Kids in upper grades are more apt to have used the chatbot: About a quarter of 11th- and 12th-graders who know about ChatGPT have tried it.

For the uninitiated, ChatGPT arrived on the scene in late 2022, and educators continue to grapple with the ethics surrounding its growing popularity. Essentially, it generates free, human-like responses based on commands. (I’m sure this sentence will look antiquated in about six months, like when people described the internet as the “information superhighway.”)

I used ChatGPT to plug in this prompt: “Write an essay on ‘The Scarlet Letter.’” Within moments, ChatGPT created an essay as thorough as anything I’d labored over in AP English.

Is this cheating? Is it just part of our strange new world? I talked to several educators about what they’re seeing in classrooms and how they’re monitoring it. Before you berate your child over how you wrote essays with a No. 2 pencil, here are some things to consider.

Adapting to new technology isn’t immoral. “We have to recalibrate our sense of what’s acceptable. There was a time when every teacher said: ‘Oh, it’s cheating to use Wikipedia.’ And guess what? We got used to it, we decided it’s reputable enough, and we cite Wikipedia all the time,” says Noah Giansiracusa, an associate math professor at Bentley University who hosts the podcast “ AI in Academia: Navigating the Future .”

“There’s a calibration period where a technology is new and untested. It’s good to be cautious and to treat it with trepidation. Then, over time, the norms kind of adapt,” he says — just like new-fangled graphing calculators or the internet in days of yore.

“I think the current conversation around AI should not be centered on an issue with plagiarism. It should be centered on how AI will alter methods for learning and expressing oneself. ‘Catching’ students who use fully AI-generated products ... implies a ‘gotcha’ atmosphere,” says Jim Nagle, a history teacher at Bedford High School. “Since AI is already a huge part of our day-to-day lives, it’s no surprise our students are making it a part of their academic tool kit. Teachers and students should be at the forefront of discussions about responsible and ethical use.”

Teachers and parents could use AI to think about education at a higher level. Really, learning is about more than regurgitating information — or it should be, anyway. But regurgitation is what AI does best.

“If our system is just for students to write a bunch of essays and then grade the results? Something’s missing. We need to really talk about their purpose and what they’re getting out of this, and maybe think about different forms of assignments and grading,” Giansiracusa says.

After all, while AI aggregates and organizes ideas, the quality of its responses depends on the users’ prompts. Instead of recoiling from it, use it as a conversation-starter.

“What parents and teachers can do is to start the conversation with kids: ‘What are we trying to learn here? Is it even something that ChatGPT could answer? Why did your assignment not convince you that you need to do this thinking on your own when a tool can do it for you?’” says Houman Harouni , a lecturer on education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Harouni urges parents to read an essay written by ChatGPT alongside their student. Was it good? What could be done better? Did it feel like a short cut?

“What they’re going to remember is that you had that conversation with them; that someone thought, at some point in their lives, that taking a shortcut is not the best way ... especially if you do it with the tool right in front of you, because you have something real to talk about,” he says.

Harouni hopes teachers think about its implications, too. Consider math: So much grunt work has been eliminated by calculators and computers. Yet kids are still tested as in days of old, when perhaps they could expand their learning to be assessed in ways that are more personal and human-centric, leaving the rote stuff to AI.

“We could take this moment of confusion and loss of certainty seriously, at least in some small pockets, and start thinking about what a different kind of school would look like. Five years from now, we might have the beginnings of some very interesting exploration. Five years from now, you and I might be talking about schools wherein teaching and learning is happening in a very self-directed way, in a way that’s more based on … igniting the kid’s interest and seeing where they go and supporting them to go deeper and to go wider,” Harouni says.

Teachers have the chance to offer assignments with more intentionality.

“Really think about the purpose of the assignments. Don’t just think of the outcome and the deliverable: ‘I need a student to produce a document.’ Why are we getting students to write? Why are we doing all these things in the first place? If teachers are more mindful, and maybe parents can also be more mindful, I think it pushes us away from this dangerous trap of thinking about in terms of ‘cheating,’ which, to me, is a really slippery path,” Giansiracusa says.

AI can boost confidence and reduce procrastination. Sometimes, a robot can do something better than a human, such as writing a dreaded resume and cover letter. And that’s OK; it’s useful, even.

“Often, students avoid applying to internships because they’re just overwhelmed at the thought of writing a cover letter, or they’re afraid their resume isn’t good enough. I think that tools like this can help them feel more confident. They may be more likely to do it sooner and have more organized and better applications,” says Kristin Casasanto, director of post-graduate planning at Olin College of Engineering.

Casasanto says that AI is also useful for de-stressing during interview prep.

“Students can use generative AI to plug in a job description and say, ‘Come up with a list of interview questions based on the job description,’ which will give them an idea of what may be asked, and they can even then say, ‘Here’s my resume. Give me answers to these questions based on my skills and experience.’ They’re going to really build their confidence around that,” Casasanto says.

Plus, when students use AI for basics, it frees up more time to meet with career counselors about substantive issues.

“It will help us as far as scalability. … Career services staff can then utilize our personal time in much more meaningful ways with students,” Casasanto says.

We need to remember: These kids grew up during a pandemic. We can’t expect kids to resist technology when they’ve been forced to learn in new ways since COVID hit.

“Now we’re seeing pandemic-era high school students come into college. They’ve been channeled through Google Classroom their whole career,” says Katherine Jewell, a history professor at Fitchburg State University.

“They need to have technology management and information literacy built into the curriculum,” Jewell says.

Jewell recently graded a paper on the history of college sports. It was obvious which papers were written by AI: They didn’t address the question. In her syllabus, Jewell defines plagiarism as “any attempt by a student to represent the work of another, including computers, as their own.”

This means that AI qualifies, but she also has an open mind, given students’ circumstances.

“My students want to do the right thing, for the most part. They don’t want to get away with stuff. I understand why they turned to these tools; I really do. I try to reassure them that I’m here to help them learn systems. I’m focusing much more on the learning process. I incentivize them to improve, and I acknowledge: ‘You don’t know how to do this the first time out of the gate,’” Jewell says. “I try to incentivize them so that they’re improving their confidence in their abilities, so they don’t feel the need to turn to these tools.”

Understand the forces that make kids resort to AI in the first place . Clubs, sports, homework: Kids are busy and under pressure. Why not do what’s easy?

“Kids are so overscheduled in their day-to-day lives. I think there’s so much enormous pressure on these kids, whether it’s self-inflicted, parent-inflicted, or school-culture inflicted. It’s on them to maximize their schedule. They’ve learned that AI can be a way to take an assignment that would take five hours and cut it down to one,” says a teacher at a competitive high school outside Boston who asked to remain anonymous.

Recently, this teacher says, “I got papers back that were just so robotic and so cold. I had to tell [students]: ‘I understand that you tried to use a tool to help you. I’m not going to penalize you, but what I am going to penalize you for is that you didn’t actually answer the prompt.”

Afterward, more students felt safe to come forward to say they’d used AI. This teacher hopes that age restrictions become implemented for these programs, similar to apps such as Snapchat. Educationally and developmentally, they say, high-schoolers are still finding their voice — a voice that could be easily thwarted by a robot.

“Part of high school writing is to figure out who you are, and what is your voice as a writer. And I think, developmentally, that takes all of high school to figure out,” they say.

And AI can’t replicate voice and personality — for now, at least.

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Guest Essay

José Andrés: Let People Eat

By José Andrés

Mr. Andrés is the founder of World Central Kitchen.

In the worst conditions you can imagine — after hurricanes, earthquakes, bombs and gunfire — the best of humanity shows up. Not once or twice but always.

The seven people killed on a World Central Kitchen mission in Gaza on Monday were the best of humanity. They are not faceless or nameless. They are not generic aid workers or collateral damage in war.

Saifeddin Issam Ayad Abutaha, John Chapman, Jacob Flickinger, Zomi Frankcom, James Henderson, James Kirby and Damian Sobol risked everything for the most fundamentally human activity: to share our food with others.

These are people I served alongside in Ukraine, Turkey, Morocco, the Bahamas, Indonesia, Mexico, Gaza and Israel. They were far more than heroes.

Their work was based on the simple belief that food is a universal human right. It is not conditional on being good or bad, rich or poor, left or right. We do not ask what religion you belong to. We just ask how many meals you need.

From Day 1, we have fed Israelis as well as Palestinians. Across Israel, we have served more than 1.75 million hot meals. We have fed families displaced by Hezbollah rockets in the north. We have fed grieving families from the south. We delivered meals to the hospitals where hostages were reunited with their families. We have called consistently, repeatedly and passionately for the release of all the hostages.

All the while, we have communicated extensively with Israeli military and civilian officials. At the same time, we have worked closely with community leaders in Gaza, as well as Arab nations in the region. There is no way to bring a ship full of food to Gaza without doing so.

That’s how we served more than 43 million meals in Gaza, preparing hot food in 68 community kitchens where Palestinians are feeding Palestinians.

We know Israelis. Israelis, in their heart of hearts, know that food is not a weapon of war.

Israel is better than the way this war is being waged. It is better than blocking food and medicine to civilians. It is better than killing aid workers who had coordinated their movements with the Israel Defense Forces.

The Israeli government needs to open more land routes for food and medicine today. It needs to stop killing civilians and aid workers today. It needs to start the long journey to peace today.

In the worst conditions, after the worst terrorist attack in its history, it’s time for the best of Israel to show up. You cannot save the hostages by bombing every building in Gaza. You cannot win this war by starving an entire population.

We welcome the government’s promise of an investigation into how and why members of our World Central Kitchen family were killed. That investigation needs to start at the top, not just the bottom.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said of the Israeli killings of our team, “It happens in war.” It was a direct attack on clearly marked vehicles whose movements were known by the Israel Defense Forces.

It was also the direct result of a policy that squeezed humanitarian aid to desperate levels. Our team was en route from a delivery of almost 400 tons of aid by sea — our second shipment, funded by the United Arab Emirates, supported by Cyprus and with clearance from the Israel Defense Forces.

The team members put their lives at risk precisely because this food aid is so rare and desperately needed. According to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification global initiative, half the population of Gaza — 1.1. million people — faces the imminent risk of famine. The team would not have made the journey if there were enough food, traveling by truck across land, to feed the people of Gaza.

The peoples of the Mediterranean and Middle East, regardless of ethnicity and religion, share a culture that values food as a powerful statement of humanity and hospitality — of our shared hope for a better tomorrow.

There’s a reason, at this special time of year, Christians make Easter eggs, Muslims eat an egg at iftar dinners and an egg sits on the Seder plate. This symbol of life and hope reborn in spring extends across religions and cultures.

I have been a stranger at Seder dinners. I have heard the ancient Passover stories about being a stranger in the land of Egypt, the commandment to remember — with a feast before you — that the children of Israel were once slaves.

It is not a sign of weakness to feed strangers; it is a sign of strength. The people of Israel need to remember, at this darkest hour, what strength truly looks like.

José Andrés is a chef and the founder of World Central Kitchen.

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