Analyzing_Written_Essays

Analyzing Written Essays James Candler Com-150 July 15 2012 Tawanza Domino Analyzing Written Essays According to the course reading (Unknown, 2011) the four types of essay organization are: Topic: where topics are placed and discussed in a defined order such as least to most important. Time Order: where topics are placed and discussed in an order based on time, first to last. Space Order: topics are placed in order based on their distance from each other, nearest to farthest. Informative Process: topics are placed to create a guide or how to article covering the steps involved. The first essay chosen for review was “How to Succeed as an Online Student” From Stephen Gatlin, President and CEO of Gatlin Education Services. This essay is an example of the informative process organization type because of the author’s use of organizing the points in a “how to” fashion. It was written more like a guide than an essay, this helps keep the reader’s attention and makes the essay easier to read. This essay could be considered to have topic organization ordered in terms of importance but I believe that doing this would change the essay from expository to persuasive because it would have to be the author’s opinion of what was important. The second essay is “Farthest, Faintest Solar System Objects Found Beyond Neptune” this essay is a bit tougher to determine the organization type. At first glance you would think it to be space order because of the main topic being the location in relation to known objects. Looking further into the essay you might also see properties of time order in the explanation of how these objects formed and their life cycle. This blending of organization types can happen and does happen often, however I found this to also make this essay harder to follow even though the subject matter was of more interest to me than the first essay. These two essays are considered expository because they report verified facts about their topics rather than opinions, though the first essay could straddle the line between fact and opinion. For my essay I think that the informative process type of organization will be the best choice. I want my essay to give readers an understanding of how to configure a system for their particular application, so a how to, or guide fits those purposes more than the other forms of organization would. References Gatlin, S. (n.d.). How to Succeed as an Online Student. Retrieved from http://distancelearn.about.com/od/distancelearning101/a/studentsuccess.htm Millis, J. (n.d.). Farthest, Faintest Solar System Objects Found Beyond Neptune. Retrieved from http://space.about.com/cs/nasanews/a/stsci090803a_2.htm Unknown, U. (2011). Characteristics of the Expository Essay (6th ed.). Phoenix, AR: University of Phoenix.