In school, students are taught to write essays. Some excel in writing persuasive essays, and others excel in more opinionated ones, but the most popular one being a 500 word essay. As adults, depending on the field one enters, essay writing might become something that was only useful for an AP World class or a creative writing class. Even without being in a field that requires writing skills, it’s important to be able to write succinctly on a resume, in order to get the job. But, as the world (especially in this day and age) shifts to be more digital, it’s more important to be able to put thoughts and opinions in a straightforward, detailed format, much like an essay.
Essays aren’t just meant for English class, they’re meant as a form of expressionism. In every part of the world, in almost every era of intelligent thought, essays have been used to showcase different ideas. Some of the greatest thinkers, like Martin Luther, changed the way an entire religion functioned, by expressing a difference in opinion. He believed that the Bible should be open to interpretation by anyone that could read it, and that selling tickets to heaven was morally wrong. Alternatively, Charles Darwin wrote many essays about his findings on the Archipelago Islands.
His works changed the way modern scientists view evolution in living animals, as well as how evolution is taught. Of course, that doesn’t mean that an essay needs to include 95 Theses or has to change the world, but the evidence and compilation of different points is important to get a point across.
In office jobs and the like, emails and other forms of contact are used to explain procedures and to talk with employees and employers alike. It’s an invaluable resource, aided along by many computers and keyboards. The people behind those computers need to be able to compose a proper email in order to explain how to do something, or to express that something needs to be changed in a previously existing procedure. Without the ability to properly word an email, one can come off as aggressive or rude in their approach, instead of confused or helpful.
Essay writing and learning how to correctly write and format an essay brings the knowledge of how to tone a written piece, which avoids this conundrum.
Even if one isn’t moving into an office field, essay writing is useful through the sort of extraneous knowledge that is added. If one is an entrepreneur, attempting to come up with a pitch for their product, it’s important to be able to put their thoughts into a clean, collected format, much like an essay. Learning how to properly space thoughts and how to flow from one point to another is key in writing something that another person (like one’s boss) will eventually read.
This doesn’t solely apply to writing emails or essays, either. Regardless of how essay writing is used, either recreationally or functionally, being able to employ the main principles improves the medium in terms of how it’s read, understood, and spread beyond the author. Despite the fact that an office job might require more essay skills than a job in a restaurant, it’s still immensely important to be able to formulate coherent thought that is comprehensive and brings a complete thought across.
