We have all done it. I did it this morning. I cleaned the whole house. I emptied the litter box. I took a long breakfast. Anything to avoid having to start writing. While getting in front of the screen to type is hard, it becomes even harder when you don't have any guidelines or know what your superiors want. I have learned that knowing your audience and determining the type of essay that is expected of you is equally as hard as the physical writing.
What type of essay should I write? That should be determined by the kinds of questions that your superior wants you to answer. I kept writing a summary of a meeting for my superior, when in fact she wanted a analytical essay of the meeting. How did I know she wanted an analytical essay? After handing her the second summary, she went down a list of the types of questions she wanted answered. They were:
-What is the motivation?
-What did the meeting tell me?
-Did everyone agree?
-What are the issues?
-What are the open questions?
-What were the key themes?
-What was revealed?
-Was there anything that was not anticipated?
-Did anything new surface?
After getting down the kinds of questions my superior wanted. It was a simple task to determine the type of essay she wanted. I thought that she might want something like an op-ed, where my voice came through and my perspective on the issues were presented. At second glance of the questions and this website, I found that she wanted more towards a analytical essay.
It always helps to have a template to work from when writing. In the case of the analytical essay I choose this one.
What did I learn? When confused about how to do something, go back to the question.
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