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Subject and Object Pronouns | English Grammar

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Practice the PRESENT PERFECT TENSE in English!

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What Is the Present Perfect Tense? Definition and Examples | Grammarly

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The present perfect tense is an English verb tense used for past actions that are related to or continue into the present. It's easily recognized by the auxiliary verbs (or helper verbs) and , as in, "I have gone fishing since I was a child."

Of all the English verb tenses, the present perfect is one of the most complicated because there's not always a direct translation in other languages. So in this guide, we explain everything you need to know to use it including how and when to use it, with plenty of present perfect tense examples.

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What is present perfect tense?

The present perfect tense is one of the common verb tenses in English, used to show an action that happened in the past that is directly related to the present, such as actions that are still continuing or that indicate a change over time. We cover a complete list of when to use the present perfect tense below.

Don't let the name confuse you-even though the word is there, the present perfect tense deals with actions that happened or started in the past. In fact, the present perfect tense is often used interchangeably with the simple past tense, although there are some special situations in which you can only use one or the other, also explained below.

How do you use the present perfect tense?

In the present perfect tense, the main always use the auxiliary verbs (helper verbs) or . The main verb takes a participle form, specifically the past participle. The past participle is often the same form as the simple past form of the verb, unless it's an irregular verb , which each have their own unique past participle form. We explain in more detail how to form them in our guide to participles .

Only the auxiliary verbs are conjugated to fit the subject-verb agreement in the present perfect tense; the past participle of the main verb remains the same no matter what the subject is. Generally, you use for all subjects except the singular third-person, which instead uses .

The present perfect tense has specific constructions for standard statements, negatives, and questions, explained below. We also discuss how to use the present perfect tense with adverbs and with the passive voice.

The present perfect tense for statements

The present perfect tense for negatives

To use the present perfect tense in the negative, simply add the negative word (like or ) after the auxiliary verb but before the past participle.

This construction works for neither, nor sentences, too.

Please note that it's clearest to avoid contractions when using the present perfect tense with the negative, at least in American English.

The present perfect tense for questions

When asking a question in the present perfect tense, the auxiliary verb comes first, followed by the subject, and then the past participle of the main verb. This follows a similar construction as questions with the auxiliary verb , which also comes before the subject.

How to use the present perfect tense with adverbs

Although you can still use adverbs after the verb (as you do normally), with the present perfect tense you can also place the adverb between the auxiliary verb and the past participle.

The adverb , used often with a negative or in questions, almost always comes at the end of a sentence or clause.

Conversely, the adverb is always placed between the auxiliary verb and the past participle.

How to use the present perfect tense in the passive voice

When discussing writing, we often talk about the active vs. passive voice . Although we recommend using the active voice as much as possible, sometimes the passive voice is unavoidable.

How to use the present perfect continuous tense

You can also combine the present perfect tense with the present continuous tense to show an ongoing action that started in the past and continues to the present. This hybrid tense is called the present perfect continuous tense . The construction is similar to using the present perfect tense in the passive voice, except that the main verb uses the present participle instead of the past participle.

Like all continuous tenses, the present perfect continuous tense can not be used with stative verbs like want, need, love, or

Here's a tip: You don't have to guess whether you're using certain words correctly or breaking grammar rules in your writing. Just copy and paste your writing to check your grammar and get instant feedback on grammar, spelling, punctuation, and other mistakes you might have missed.

6 examples of when to use the present perfect tense

Knowing when to use the present perfect tense is an important part of English grammar, but it can be confusing even for primary English speakers. Below, we explain the six main uses of the present perfect tense, including examples.

1 An ongoing action that started in the past, but has not yet been completed

This is the main usage of the present perfect tense, which demonstrates the relationship between an action started in the past and its effects on the present.

Note that you can also use the present perfect continuous tense for this situation, as long as the action has not been completed yet (and it's not a stative verb). The difference between the present perfect tense and the present perfect continuous tense, in this case, is emphasis:

The present perfect tense emphasizes the effects or consequences of the action.

The present perfect continuous tense emphasizes the action itself or the length of time.

So, for example, if you want to plainly say where you live, use the normal present perfect tense.

If you want to emphasize how long you've been living in a place, use the present perfect continuous tense.

What about an action started in the past that has already been completed? For that, you can use the simple past.

2 A series of the same action completed multiple times in the past, likely to happen again in the future

When the same action has happened a few times already, you can use the present perfect tense if the action will likely happen again in the future. If the action probably won't happen again, you can use the simple past tense.

The present perfect tense is often used to emphasize a change that happened over an extended period of time.

5 An uncompleted action that is expected to be finished (in the negative)

If an action started in the past but was not completed, you can describe it with the present perfect tense if it's likely to be completed in the future. This situation uses the negative form to show that the action is still unfinished and often uses the adverb .

6 To add significance to a completed action

Last, you can use the present perfect tense to make any past action sound more important. The present perfect tense is often used with great achievements or accomplishments, as well as dramatic or rare events. This makes it appropriate for newsworthy events or major life experiences.

When not to use the present perfect tense

Now that you know when to use the present perfect tense, let's talk about when to avoid it.

A lot of times, the difference between the present perfect tense and the simple past tense is a matter of emphasis or whether or not the action is truly finished. However, there's one rule in particular that should be mentioned: Do not use the present perfect tense with a specific time.

This might be confusing, however, because you can use the present perfect tense with a broad time period. The present perfect tense is only incorrect if used with one specific time. Using the present perfect tense with a general time range is perfectly acceptable.

Present perfect tense FAQs

What is the present perfect tense?

The present perfect tense is an English verb tense used to describe a past action that is related to the present.

How does the present perfect tense work?

The present perfect tense uses the auxiliary verb or and the past participle form of the main verb. For example, if you want to use in the present perfect tense, you say, "I have gone."

When is the present perfect used?

The present perfect tense is commonly used with events that started in the past and continue into the present. However, it has a few other uses too, including events that happened very recently in the past.

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What is the present perfect tense and how is it formed properly? Quickly learn the grammar rules for using this verb tense in your writing.

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Complete description of the past perfect verb tense with past perfect exercises and examples.

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Simple Past Perfect Tense - English grammar (#7/17) | Mark Kulek - ESL

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Englishpage.com's List of English Irregular Verbs contains over 370 irregular verbs used in modern English. We also offer free irregular verb flashcards and exercises, a printable PDF of the Top 100 Irregular Verbs, and an extended list including rare verb forms. Just scroll down to begin!

Irregular Verb Flashcards and Drills

Below, we have created eight sets of flashcards as well as simple irregular verb drills to help English learners learn more than 160 of the most common irregular verbs in English.

The 100 Most Common English Irregular Verbs

Download our printable PDF List of the 100 Most Common Irregular Verbs in English. English teachers and trainers, please read our terms of use.

Common Questions about English Irregular Verbs

What are irregular verbs?

Irregular verbs are verbs which do not follow normal rules for conjugation. For example, the irregular verb be has several unique forms ( I am, you are, he is) which are quite different from regular verbs such as cook ( I cook, you cook, he cooks).

How many irregular verbs are there in English?

Englishpage.com has conducted an extensive text analysis of over 2,000 novels and resources and we have found 680 irregular verbs so far including prefixed verbs ( misunderstand, reread) as well as rare and antiquated forms ( colorbreed, bethink).

What are some examples of irregular verbs?

Good examples of irregular verbs include have, understand and draw. Notice that their past forms had, understood and drew are very different from regular verbs, which end with -d or -ed. For more examples, see Englishpage.com's list of irregular verbs.

What are the most common irregular verbs in English?

According to Englishpage.com's text analysis of over 2,000 novels and resources, the most common irregular verbs in English are: be, have, say, do, know, get, see, think, go and take.

Are there big differences in the irregular verb forms used in British English and American English?

While many references show strong differences between British and American English in irregular verb use, Englishpage.com's research shows that there is far more crossover than many of these references might suggest. (Where we did find a real statistical difference, we have listed the British forms in italics.)

Which verb tenses have irregular forms in English?

In English, irregular verb forms occur in simple present and simple past as well as past participles. Remember that past participles are used in many verb forms including: present perfect, past perfect, future perfect, passive forms and past conditional forms.

More about our Irregular Verb Dictionary

Read about our irregular verb research and how these resources were created.

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Nessy Writing Strategy | Irregular Verbs | Learn to Write

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A coordinating conjunction is a conjunction or connecting word that joins two similarly constructed and/or syntactically equal words, phrases, or clauses within a sentence. Conjunctions are also called coordinators. The coordinating conjunctions in English are for, and, nor, but, or, yet, and so -many remember these with the mnemonic "F.A.N.B.O.Y.S."

Coordinating conjunctions are similar to ​ subordinating conjunctions, but subordinating conjunctions are used to join an independent and dependent (subordinate) clause while coordinators join two independent clauses.

When linking two independent clauses to create a compound sentence, place a comma before the coordinating conjunction. When linking two nouns, adjectives, adverbs, or verbs-for example in the case of a compound predicate -a comma is not needed.

Two common coordinating conjunction usages are to join independent clauses to form a sentence or two verbs to form a compound predicate. Be sure to familiarize yourself with these scenarios.

Independent clauses contain both a subject and a verb, so they can stand on their own. Look at these examples.

She wondered when he would get home. She decided not to call.

To combine the above complete sentences, you would either need to join them with a semicolon or comma and a coordinating conjunction, like this:

She wondered when he would get home, but she decided not to call.

Even when linked, each independent clause keeps its own subject and verb. If they were to be joined without a comma and conjunction, this would result in a common writing error called a comma splice.

The sentence below contains a compound predicate, two verbs that share the same subject.

She wondered when he would get home but decided not to call.

Though this doesn't appear to be much different from two independent clauses, notice that She is being shared by the verbs wondered and decided because she did both. There's no comma before but and there are no independent clauses because there is only one subject for the whole sentence.

Many people, at some point in their life, have wondered: can you start a sentence with but or and? For all intents and purposes, yes, a coordinating conjunction may technically be used at the beginning of a sentence. This is just one way that many writers choose to transition. Conjunctions can break up the tedium of sentences too similar in structure and add emphasis.

However, the use of conjunctions at the beginning of a sentence is a controversial topic, though more a matter of whether you should than whether you can. Overall, there are plenty of people in favor and plenty against. Many English teachers, for instance, forbid this in their students' writing, yet some professional writers do it freely. Author David Crystal offers his take on this topic below.

" And at the beginning of a sentence? During the 19th century, some schoolteachers took against the practice of beginning a sentence with a word like but or and, presumably because they noticed the way young children often overused them in their writing. But instead of gently weaning the children away from overuse, they banned the usage altogether! Generations of children were taught they should 'never' begin a sentence with a conjunction. Some still are.

There was never any authority behind this condemnation. It isn't one of the rules laid down by the first prescriptive grammarians. Indeed, one of those grammarians, Bishop Lowth, uses dozens of examples of sentences beginning with and. And in the 20th century, Henry Fowler, in his famous Dictionary of Modern English Usage, went so far as to call it a 'superstition.' He was right. There are sentences starting with And that date back to Anglo-Saxon times," (Crystal 2011).

As Crystal pointed out, you shouldn't overdo it with conjunction introductions. This practice can greatly influence your writing and, when overused, muddle the flow and clarity of your piece. Take this example: "She wondered when he would get home. But she decided not to call."

In this case, splitting up the two sentences changes their rhythm and pacing, placing emphasis on the second clause. Joining them with a conjunction would not have the same effect. Before you start a sentence with a conjunction, think about how you want it to affect your piece. This convention isn't something you want to use sentence after sentence, but it can serve as a useful tool from time to time.

Crystal, David. The Story of English in 100 Words. St. Martin's Press, 2011.

Fowler, Henry. Dictionary of Modern English Usage. Oxford University Press, 1926.

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What Are Coordinating Conjunctions in English?

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A coordinating conjunction is a conjunction or connecting word that joins two similarly constructed and/or syntactically equal words, phrases, or clauses within a sentence. Conjunctions are also called coordinators. The coordinating conjunctions in English are for, and, nor, but, or, yet, and so -many remember these with the mnemonic "F.A.N.B.O.Y.S."

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Lesson on how to use COORDINATING CONJUNCTIONS - FANBOYS (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so)

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3 College Essays That WORK (and don't suck!): OWN The Common Application Essay

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An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a letter, a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have been sub-classified as formal and informal: formal essays are characterized by "serious purpose, dignity, logical organization, length," whereas the informal essay is characterized by "the personal element (self-revelation, individual tastes and experiences, confidential manner), humor, graceful style, rambling structure, unconventionality or novelty of theme," etc.

Essays are commonly used as literary criticism, political manifestos, learned arguments, observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of the author. Almost all modern essays are written in prose, but works in verse have been dubbed essays (e.g., Alexander Pope's An Essay on Criticism and An Essay on Man). While brevity usually defines an essay, voluminous works like John Locke's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding and Thomas Malthus's An Essay on the Principle of Population are counterexamples.

In some countries (e.g., the United States and Canada), essays have become a major part of formal education. Secondary students are taught structured essay formats to improve their writing skills; admission essays are often used by universities in selecting applicants, and in the humanities and social sciences essays are often used as a way of assessing the performance of students during final exams.

The concept of an "essay" has been extended to other media beyond writing. A film essay is a movie that often incorporates documentary filmmaking styles and focuses more on the evolution of a theme or idea. A photographic essay covers a topic with a linked series of photographs that may have accompanying text or captions.

Definitions

The word essay derives from the French infinitive essayer, "to try" or "to attempt". In English essay first meant "a trial" or "an attempt", and this is still an alternative meaning. The Frenchman Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) was the first author to describe his work as essays; he used the term to characterize these as "attempts" to put his thoughts into writing.

Subsequently, essay has been defined in a variety of ways. One definition is a "prose composition with a focused subject of discussion" or a "long, systematic discourse". It is difficult to define the genre into which essays fall. Aldous Huxley, a leading essayist, gives guidance on the subject. He notes that "the essay is a literary device for saying almost everything about almost anything", and adds that "by tradition, almost by definition, the essay is a short piece". Furthermore, Huxley argues that "essays belong to a literary species whose extreme variability can be studied most effectively within a three-poled frame of reference". These three poles (or worlds in which the essay may exist) are:

The personal and the autobiographical: The essayists that feel most comfortable in this pole "write fragments of reflective autobiography and look at the world through the keyhole of anecdote and description".

The objective, the factual, and the concrete particular: The essayists that write from this pole "do not speak directly of themselves, but turn their attention outward to some literary or scientific or political theme. Their art consists of setting forth, passing judgment upon, and drawing general conclusions from the relevant data".

The abstract-universal: In this pole "we find those essayists who do their work in the world of high abstractions", who are never personal and who seldom mention the particular facts of experience.

Huxley adds that the most satisfying essays "...make the best not of one, not of two, but of all the three worlds in which it is possible for the essay to exist."

Montaigne's "attempts" grew out of his commonplacing. Inspired in particular by the works of Plutarch, a translation of whose Œuvres Morales ( Moral works) into French had just been published by Jacques Amyot, Montaigne began to compose his essays in 1572; the first edition, entitled , was published in two volumes in 1580. For the rest of his life, he continued revising previously published essays and composing new ones. A third volume was published posthumously; together, their over 100 examples are widely regarded as the predecessor of the modern essay.

While Montaigne's philosophy was admired and copied in France, none of his most immediate disciples tried to write essays. But Montaigne, who liked to fancy that his family (the Eyquem line) was of English extraction, had spoken of the English people as his "cousins", and he was early read in England, notably by Francis Bacon.

Bacon's essays, published in book form in 1597 (only five years after the death of Montaigne, containing the first ten of his essays), 1612, and 1625, were the first works in English that described themselves as essays. Ben Jonson first used the word essayist in 1609, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. Other English essayists included Sir William Cornwallis, who published essays in 1600 and 1617 that were popular at the time, Robert Burton (1577-1641) and Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682). In Italy, Baldassare Castiglione wrote about courtly manners in his essay Il Cortigiano. In the 17th century, the Spanish Jesuit Baltasar Gracián wrote about the theme of wisdom.

In England, during the Age of Enlightenment, essays were a favored tool of polemicists who aimed at convincing readers of their position; they also featured heavily in the rise of periodical literature, as seen in the works of Joseph Addison, Richard Steele and Samuel Johnson. Addison and Steele used the journal (founded in 1709 by Steele) and its successors as storehouses of their work, and they became the most celebrated eighteenth-century essayists in England. Johnson's essays appear during the 1750s in various similar publications. As a result of the focus on journals, the term also acquired a meaning synonymous with " article", although the content may not the strict definition. On the other hand, Locke's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding is not an essay at all, or cluster of essays, in the technical sense, but still it refers to the experimental and tentative nature of the inquiry which the philosopher was undertaking.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, Edmund Burke and Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote essays for the general public. The early 19th century, in particular, saw a proliferation of great essayists in English- William Hazlitt, Charles Lamb, Leigh Hunt and Thomas De Quincey all penned numerous essays on diverse subjects, reviving the earlier graceful style. Thomas Carlyle's essays were highly influential, and one of his readers, Ralph Waldo Emerson, became a prominent essayist himself. Later in the century, Robert Louis Stevenson also raised the form's literary level. In the 20th century, a number of essayists, such as T.S. Eliot, tried to explain the new movements in art and culture by using essays. Virginia Woolf, Edmund Wilson, and Charles du Bos wrote literary criticism essays.

In France, several writers produced longer works with the title of essai that were not true examples of the form. However, by the mid-19th century, the Causeries du lundi, newspaper columns by the critic Sainte-Beuve, are literary essays in the original sense. Other French writers followed suit, including Théophile Gautier, Anatole France, Jules Lemaître and Émile Faguet.

As with the novel, essays existed in Japan several centuries before they developed in Europe with a genre of essays known as zuihitsu-loosely connected essays and fragmented ideas. Zuihitsu have existed since almost the beginnings of Japanese literature. Many of the most noted early works of Japanese literature are in this genre. Notable examples include The Pillow Book (c. 1000), by court lady Sei Shōnagon, and Tsurezuregusa (1330), by particularly renowned Japanese Buddhist monk Yoshida Kenkō. Kenkō described his short writings similarly to Montaigne, referring to them as "nonsensical thoughts" written in "idle hours". Another noteworthy difference from Europe is that women have traditionally written in Japan, though the more formal, Chinese-influenced writings of male writers were more prized at the time.

The eight-legged essay ( Chinese: 八股文; pinyin: bāgǔwén; 'eight bone text') was a style of essay in imperial examinations during the Ming and Qing dynasties in China. The eight-legged essay was needed for those test takers in these civil service tests to show their merits for government service, often focusing on Confucian thought and knowledge of the Four Books and Five Classics, in relation to governmental ideals. Test takers could not write in innovative or creative ways, but needed to conform to the standards of the eight-legged essay. Various skills were examined, including the ability to write coherently and to display basic logic. In certain times, the candidates were expected to spontaneously compose poetry upon a set theme, whose value was also sometimes questioned, or eliminated as part of the test material. This was a major argument in favor of the eight-legged essay, arguing that it were better to eliminate creative art in favor of prosaic literacy. In the history of Chinese literature, the eight-legged essay is often said to have caused China's "cultural stagnation and economic backwardness" in the 19th century.

Forms and styles

This section describes the different forms and styles of essay writing. These are used by an array of authors, including university students and professional essayists.

Cause and effect

The defining features of a "cause and effect" essay are causal chains that connect from a cause to an effect, careful language, and chronological or emphatic order. A writer using this rhetorical method must consider the subject, determine the purpose, consider the audience, think critically about different causes or consequences, consider a thesis statement, arrange the parts, consider the language, and decide on a conclusion.

Classification and division

Classification is the categorization of objects into a larger whole while division is the breaking of a larger whole into smaller parts.

Compare and contrast

Compare and contrast essays are characterized by a basis for comparison, points of comparison, and analogies. It is grouped by the object (chunking) or by point (sequential). The comparison highlights the similarities between two or more similar objects while contrasting highlights the differences between two or more objects. When writing a compare/contrast essay, writers need to determine their purpose, consider their audience, consider the basis and points of comparison, consider their thesis statement, arrange and develop the comparison, and reach a conclusion. Compare and contrast is arranged emphatically.

Expository

An expository essay is used to inform, describe or explain a topic, using important facts to teach the reader about a topic. Mostly written in third-person, using "it", "he", "she", "they," the expository essay uses formal language to discuss someone or something. Examples of expository essays are: a medical or biological condition, social or technological process, life or character of a famous person. The writing of an expository essay often consists of the following steps: organizing thoughts ( brainstorming), researching a topic, developing a thesis statement, writing the introduction, writing the body of essay, and writing the conclusion. Expository essays are often assigned as a part of SAT and other standardized testing or as homework for high school and college students.

Descriptive

Descriptive writing is characterized by sensory details, which appeal to the physical senses, and details that appeal to a reader's emotional, physical, or intellectual sensibilities. Determining the purpose, considering the audience, creating a dominant impression, using descriptive language, and organizing the description are the rhetorical choices to consider when using a description. A description is usually arranged spatially but can also be chronological or emphatic. The focus of a description is the scene. Description uses tools such as denotative language, connotative language, figurative language, metaphor, and simile to arrive at a dominant impression. One university essay guide states that "descriptive writing says what happened or what another author has discussed; it provides an account of the topic". Lyric essays are an important form of descriptive essays.

In the dialectic form of the essay, which is commonly used in philosophy, the writer makes a thesis and argument, then objects to their own argument (with a counterargument), but then counters the counterargument with a final and novel argument. This form benefits from presenting a broader perspective while countering a possible flaw that some may present. This type is sometimes called an ethics paper.

Exemplification

An exemplification essay is characterized by a generalization and relevant, representative, and believable examples including anecdotes. Writers need to consider their subject, determine their purpose, consider their audience, decide on specific examples, and arrange all the parts together when writing an exemplification essay.

An essayist writes a familiar essay if speaking to a single reader, writing about both themselves, and about particular subjects. Anne Fadiman notes that "the genre's heyday was the early nineteenth century," and that its greatest exponent was Charles Lamb. She also suggests that while critical essays have more brain than the heart, and personal essays have more heart than brain, familiar essays have equal measures of both.

History (thesis)

A history essay sometimes referred to as a thesis essay describes an argument or claim about one or more historical events and supports that claim with evidence, arguments, and references. The text makes it clear to the reader why the argument or claim is as such.

A narrative uses tools such as flashbacks, flash-forwards, and transitions that often build to a climax. The focus of a narrative is the plot. When creating a narrative, authors must determine their purpose, consider their audience, establish their point of view, use dialogue, and organize the narrative. A narrative is usually arranged chronologically.

Argumentative

An argumentative essay is a critical piece of writing, aimed at presenting objective analysis of the subject matter, narrowed down to a single topic. The main idea of all the criticism is to provide an opinion either of positive or negative implication. As such, a critical essay requires research and analysis, strong internal logic and sharp structure. Its structure normally builds around introduction with a topic's relevance and a thesis statement, body paragraphs with arguments linking back to the main thesis, and conclusion. In addition, an argumentative essay may include a refutation section where conflicting ideas are acknowledged, described, and criticized. Each argument of an argumentative essay should be supported with sufficient evidence, relevant to the point.

A process essay is used for an explanation of making or breaking something. Often, it is written in chronological order or numerical order to show step-by-step processes. It has all the qualities of a technical document with the only difference is that it is often written in descriptive mood, while a technical document is mostly in imperative mood.

An economic essay can start with a thesis, or it can start with a theme. It can take a narrative course and a descriptive course. It can even become an argumentative essay if the author feels the need. After the introduction, the author has to do his/her best to expose the economic matter at hand, to analyze it, evaluate it, and draw a conclusion. If the essay takes more of a narrative form then the author has to expose each aspect of the economic puzzle in a way that makes it clear and understandable for the reader

Reflective

A reflective essay is an analytical piece of writing in which the writer describes a real or imaginary scene, event, interaction, passing thought, memory, or form-adding a personal reflection on the meaning of the topic in the author's life. Thus, the focus is not merely descriptive. The writer doesn't just describe the situation, but revisits the scene with more detail and emotion to examine what went well, or reveal a need for additional learning-and may relate what transpired to the rest of the author's life.

Other logical structures

The logical progression and organizational structure of an essay can take many forms. Understanding how the movement of thought is managed through an essay has a profound impact on its overall cogency and ability to impress. A number of alternative logical structures for essays have been visualized as diagrams, making them easy to implement or adapt in the construction of an argument.

In countries like the United States and the United Kingdom, essays have become a major part of a formal education in the form of free response questions. Secondary students in these countries are taught structured essay formats to improve their writing skills, and essays are often used by universities in these countries in selecting applicants ( see admissions essay). In both secondary and tertiary education, essays are used to judge the mastery and comprehension of the material. Students are asked to explain, comment on, or assess a topic of study in the form of an essay. In some courses, university students must complete one or more essays over several weeks or months. In addition, in fields such as the humanities and social sciences,[citation needed ] mid-term and end of term examinations often require students to write a short essay in two or three hours.

In these countries, so-called academic essays, also called papers, are usually more formal than literary ones.[citation needed ] They may still allow the presentation of the writer's own views, but this is done in a logical and factual manner, with the use of the first person often discouraged. Longer academic essays (often with a word limit of between 2,000 and 5,000 words)[citation needed ] are often more discursive. They sometimes begin with a short summary analysis of what has previously been written on a topic, which is often called a literature review.[citation needed ]

Longer essays may also contain an introductory page that defines words and phrases of the essay's topic. Most academic institutions require that all substantial facts, quotations, and other supporting material in an essay be referenced in a bibliography or works cited page at the end of the text. This scholarly convention helps others (whether teachers or fellow scholars) to understand the basis of facts and quotations the author uses to support the essay's argument. The bibliography also helps readers evaluate to what extent the argument is supported by evidence and to evaluate the quality of that evidence. The academic essay tests the student's ability to present their thoughts in an organized way and is designed to test their intellectual capabilities.

One of the challenges facing universities is that in some cases, students may submit essays purchased from an essay mill (or "paper mill") as their own work. An "essay mill" is a ghostwriting service that sells pre-written essays to university and college students. Since plagiarism is a form of academic dishonesty or academic fraud, universities and colleges may investigate papers they suspect are from an essay mill by using plagiarism detection software, which compares essays against a database of known mill essays and by orally testing students on the contents of their papers.

Magazine or newspaper

Essays often appear in magazines, especially magazines with an intellectual bent, such as The Atlantic and . Magazine and newspaper essays use many of the essay types described in the section on forms and styles (e.g., descriptive essays, narrative essays, etc.). Some newspapers also print essays in the op-ed section.

Employment

Employment essays detailing experience in a certain occupational field are required when applying for some jobs, especially government jobs in the United States. Essays known as Knowledge Skills and Executive Core Qualifications are required when applying to certain US federal government positions.

A KSA, or "Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities", is a series of narrative statements that are required when applying to Federal government job openings in the United States. KSAs are used along with resumes to determine who the best applicants are when several candidates qualify for a job. The knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary for the successful performance of a position are contained on each job vacancy announcement. KSAs are brief and focused essays about one's career and educational background that presumably qualify one to perform the duties of the position being applied for.

An Executive Core Qualification, or ECQ, is a narrative statement that is required when applying to Senior Executive Service positions within the US Federal government. Like the KSAs, ECQs are used along with resumes to determine who the best applicants are when several candidates qualify for a job. The Office of Personnel Management has established five executive core qualifications that all applicants seeking to enter the Senior Executive Service must demonstrate.

Non-literary types

A film essay (also essay film or cinematic essay) consists of the evolution of a theme or an idea rather than a plot per se, or the film literally being a cinematic accompaniment to a narrator reading an essay. From another perspective, an essay film could be defined as a documentary film visual basis combined with a form of commentary that contains elements of self-portrait (rather than autobiography), where the signature (rather than the life story) of the filmmaker is apparent. The cinematic essay often blends documentary, fiction, and experimental film making using tones and editing styles.

The genre is not well-defined but might include propaganda works of early Soviet filmmakers like Dziga Vertov, present-day filmmakers including Chris Marker, Michael Moore (, Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11), Errol Morris (The Thin Blue Line), Morgan Spurlock (Supersize Me) and Agnès Varda. Jean-Luc Godard describes his recent work as "film-essays". Two filmmakers whose work was the antecedent to the cinematic essay include Georges Méliès and Bertolt Brecht. Méliès made a short film (The Coronation of Edward VII (1902)) about the 1902 coronation of King Edward VII, which mixes actual footage with shots of a recreation of the event. Brecht was a playwright who experimented with film and incorporated film projections into some of his plays. Orson Welles made an essay film in his own pioneering style, released in 1974, called , which dealt specifically with art forger Elmyr de Hory and with the themes of deception, "fakery", and authenticity in general. These are often published online on video hosting services.

David Winks Gray's article "The essay film in action" states that the "essay film became an identifiable form of filmmaking in the 1950s and '60s". He states that since that time, essay films have tended to be "on the margins" of the filmmaking the world. Essay films have a "peculiar searching, questioning tone ... between documentary and fiction" but without "fitting comfortably" into either genre. Gray notes that just like written essays, essay films "tend to marry the personal voice of a guiding narrator (often the director) with a wide swath of other voices". The University of Wisconsin Cinematheque website echoes some of Gray's comments; it calls a film essay an "intimate and allusive" genre that "catches filmmakers in a pensive mood, ruminating on the margins between fiction and documentary" in a manner that is "refreshingly inventive, playful, and idiosyncratic".

In the realm of music, composer Samuel Barber wrote a set of "Essays for Orchestra", relying on the form and content of the music to guide the listener's ear, rather than any extra-musical plot or story.

Photography

A photographic essay strives to cover a topic with a linked series of photographs. Photo essays range from purely photographic works to photographs with captions or small notes to full-text essays with a few or many accompanying photographs. Photo essays can be sequential in nature, intended to be viewed in a particular order-or they may consist of non-ordered photographs viewed all at once or in an order that the viewer chooses. All photo essays are collections of photographs, but not all collections of photographs are photo essays. Photo essays often address a certain issue or attempt to capture the character of places and events.

Visual arts

In the visual arts, an essay is a preliminary drawing or sketch that forms a basis for a final painting or sculpture, made as a test of the work's composition (this meaning of the term, like several of those following, comes from the word essay' s meaning of "attempt" or "trial").

References

Further reading

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Gosse, Edmund (1911). "Essay, Essayist". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 9 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 776-778.

Theodor W. Adorno, "The Essay as Form" in: Theodor W. Adorno, The Adorno Reader, Blackwell Publishers 2000.

Beaujour, Michel. Miroirs d'encre: Rhétorique de l'autoportrait. Paris: Seuil, 1980. [Poetics of the Literary Self-Portrait. Trans. Yara Milos. New York: NYU Press, 1991].

Bensmaïa, Reda. The Barthes Effect: The Essay as Reflective Text. Trans. Pat Fedkiew. Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press, 1987.

D'Agata, John (Editor), The Lost Origins of the Essay. St Paul: Graywolf Press, 2009.

Giamatti, Louis. "The Cinematic Essay", in Godard and the Others: Essays in Cinematic Form. London, Tantivy Press, 1975.

Lopate, Phillip. "In Search of the Centaur: The Essay-Film", in Beyond Document: Essays on Nonfiction Film. Edited by Charles Warren, Wesleyan University Press, 1998. pp. 243-270.

Warburton, Nigel. The basics of essay writing. Routledge, 2006. ISBN 0-415-24000-X, 978-0-415-24000-0

External links

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An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a letter, a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story.