Can i use via in an essay

Words are fun and useful. Where would we be without them? Not only do they communicate, but your choice of words reveals a lot about you — sometimes things you may not want someone to see or think. Because I also work in the world of education, I see literally thousands of words every week.

Essay Structure

Writing an academic essay means fashioning a coherent set of ideas into an argument. Because essays are essentially linear—they offer one idea at a time—they must present their ideas in the order that makes most sense to a reader. Successfully structuring an essay means attending to a reader's logic. The focus of such an essay predicts its structure. It dictates the information readers need to know and the order in which they need to receive it. Thus your essay's structure is necessarily unique to the main claim you're making.

Although there are guidelines for constructing certain classic essay types e. A typical essay contains many different kinds of information, often located in specialized parts or sections. Even short essays perform several different operations: introducing the argument, analyzing data, raising counterarguments, concluding.

Introductions and conclusions have fixed places, but other parts don't. Counterargument, for example, may appear within a paragraph, as a free-standing section, as part of the beginning, or before the ending. Background material historical context or biographical information, a summary of relevant theory or criticism, the definition of a key term often appears at the beginning of the essay, between the introduction and the first analytical section, but might also appear near the beginning of the specific section to which it's relevant.

It's helpful to think of the different essay sections as answering a series of questions your reader might ask when encountering your thesis.

Readers should have questions. If they don't, your thesis is most likely simply an observation of fact, not an arguable claim. To answer the question you must examine your evidence, thus demonstrating the truth of your claim. This "what" or "demonstration" section comes early in the essay, often directly after the introduction. Since you're essentially reporting what you've observed, this is the part you might have most to say about when you first start writing. But be forewarned: it shouldn't take up much more than a third often much less of your finished essay.

If it does, the essay will lack balance and may read as mere summary or description. The corresponding question is "how": How does the thesis stand up to the challenge of a counterargument? How does the introduction of new material—a new way of looking at the evidence, another set of sources—affect the claims you're making? Typically, an essay will include at least one "how" section.

Call it "complication" since you're responding to a reader's complicating questions. This section usually comes after the "what," but keep in mind that an essay may complicate its argument several times depending on its length, and that counterargument alone may appear just about anywhere in an essay. This question addresses the larger implications of your thesis. It allows your readers to understand your essay within a larger context. In answering "why", your essay explains its own significance.

Although you might gesture at this question in your introduction, the fullest answer to it properly belongs at your essay's end. If you leave it out, your readers will experience your essay as unfinished—or, worse, as pointless or insular. Mapping an Essay. Structuring your essay according to a reader's logic means examining your thesis and anticipating what a reader needs to know, and in what sequence, in order to grasp and be convinced by your argument as it unfolds.

The easiest way to do this is to map the essay's ideas via a written narrative. Such an account will give you a preliminary record of your ideas, and will allow you to remind yourself at every turn of the reader's needs in understanding your idea.

Essay maps ask you to predict where your reader will expect background information, counterargument, close analysis of a primary source, or a turn to secondary source material. Essay maps are not concerned with paragraphs so much as with sections of an essay. They anticipate the major argumentative moves you expect your essay to make. Try making your map like this:.

Your map should naturally take you through some preliminary answers to the basic questions of what, how, and why. It is not a contract, though—the order in which the ideas appear is not a rigid one. Essay maps are flexible; they evolve with your ideas. Signs of Trouble.

A common structural flaw in college essays is the "walk-through" also labeled "summary" or "description". Walk-through essays follow the structure of their sources rather than establishing their own. Such essays generally have a descriptive thesis rather than an argumentative one. Be wary of paragraph openers that lead off with "time" words "first," "next," "after," "then" or "listing" words "also," "another," "in addition". Although they don't always signal trouble, these paragraph openers often indicate that an essay's thesis and structure need work: they suggest that the essay simply reproduces the chronology of the source text in the case of time words: first this happens, then that, and afterwards another thing.

Schedule an Appointment. Drop-In Hours. English Grammar and Language Tutor. Departmental Writing Fellows. Writing Resources. Harvard Guide to Using Sources. Skip to main content. Main Menu Utility Menu Search. Mapping an Essay Structuring your essay according to a reader's logic means examining your thesis and anticipating what a reader needs to know, and in what sequence, in order to grasp and be convinced by your argument as it unfolds.

Try making your map like this: State your thesis in a sentence or two, then write another sentence saying why it's important to make that claim.

Indicate, in other words, what a reader might learn by exploring the claim with you. Here you're anticipating your answer to the "why" question that you'll eventually flesh out in your conclusion. Begin your next sentence like this: "To be convinced by my claim, the first thing a reader needs to know is. This will start you off on answering the "what" question. Alternately, you may find that the first thing your reader needs to know is some background information.

Begin each of the following sentences like this: "The next thing my reader needs to know is. Continue until you've mapped out your essay.

Can we use via in formal essays (IELTS)? It worries me if the word are is not formal because I have been using it a lot. I would use "by" unless. It's a perfectly appropriate word to use in an essay if used correctly. And it would be a good idea to use a thesaurus so that you're not using the.

As a genre, it functions within a set of norms, rules, and conventions. The purpose of this discussion is to make clear to you what those rules and norms are, and how to use them to express your argument clearly. Purpose: The purpose of the academic essay is to persuade by reasoned discourse. Scholars use the essay amongst themselves to advance ideas.

This writing advice becomes now and then more urgent.

Try to imagine the English language without any loanwords. What would you call avocados?

An essay checker with super powers

Posted on March 13, by Jessica Velasco. Most students hate writing essays. A thesis, arguments, references, and conclusion are fundamental to every essay. But what makes yours stellar is words you use to convince readers. Words are your powerful weapon to prove critical thinking and knowledge of the topic. Words help you stand out in a crowd of other students writing about the same topics.

How Should I Use Vice Versa?

Writing an academic essay means fashioning a coherent set of ideas into an argument. Because essays are essentially linear—they offer one idea at a time—they must present their ideas in the order that makes most sense to a reader. Successfully structuring an essay means attending to a reader's logic. The focus of such an essay predicts its structure. It dictates the information readers need to know and the order in which they need to receive it. Thus your essay's structure is necessarily unique to the main claim you're making. Although there are guidelines for constructing certain classic essay types e. A typical essay contains many different kinds of information, often located in specialized parts or sections. Even short essays perform several different operations: introducing the argument, analyzing data, raising counterarguments, concluding.

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An academic essay aims to persuade readers of an idea based on evidence. Although there are some basic steps to writing an assignment, essay writing is not a linear process. You might work through the different stages a number of times in the course of writing an essay. For example, you may go back to the reading and notetaking stage if you find another useful text, or perhaps to reread to locate specific information.

The Basics of Essay Writing

By using our site, you acknowledge that you have read and understand our Cookie Policy , Privacy Policy , and our Terms of Service. Academia Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for academics and those enrolled in higher education. It only takes a minute to sign up. In many cases the words via and through are interchangeable. However, is via viewed as acceptable to use among the academic community, typically? There is nothing wrong with the word "via," and in fact I personally have a weakness for it: sometimes it just feels more elegant and specific than alternatives like "through" or "by means of. The general principle which I think academic writing should subscribe to is Orwell's notion of "transparent prose," in which the words are as clear as a window, letting one through to the ideas with minimal obstruction. Using too many unusual words, such as a lot of "via" and "thus" can be distracting, particularly for an international audience. Sometimes, though, a word is simply fit and elegant in its context, and there is no reason to avoid using it. I am skeptical that the [anglophone] academic community as a whole has clear preferences on word choices beyond what is considered good English usage. Specific academic fields and communities of academics certainly do have preferred and deprecated word choices and these choices are not necessarily viewed positively by the larger world: cf.

1. Slow down the pace of information, especially at points of complexity.

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