The term essay comes from the French verb, "essayer," which means "to try or attempt." The literary form is usually credited to Michel de Montaigne who "invented the essay because his thought could not be expressed in the traditional philosophical forms" (Melehy, 2005, p. 453). In this regard, Root calls Montaigne "the father of the essay," and adds that, "As so many people have observed, it all begins with him and the idea of the personal voice, the idea of thinking about your ideas, what you feel, what your experience has been" (2001, para. 2). As a result, in modern usage, the term "essay" has come to mean "An analytical, interpretive or critical composition, usually much shorter and less systematic and formal than a dissertation or thesis and usually dealing with its subject from a limited, often personal point of view" (Webster's Third New International Dictionary, 1999, p. 777). It is important to note, though, that just because essays are not as formal as dissertations or theses that they do not require care in writing, style or format, but they do assume a less rigid quality that makes them suitable for a wide range of topics that can be explored in this fashion.
Although definitions and specific requirements vary from academic institution to academic institution, there are some general features about writing essays that can help guide the process. For example, unlike other types of academic writing, essays generally do not begin with a thesis statement or point you intend to make and defend, but essays rather ask a question that will be examined as the research for proceeds and you codify your thoughts (your school, college or university may be different, but this is a general rule for essays). In fact, in many cases, people don't really know what they think about something until they put their thoughts down on paper (or a computer screen for that matter), which is precisely what Montaigne had in mind when he developed this literary form.
As the original French verb implies, an essay "attempts" or "tries" to answer a question, but they don't always succeed. This is a perfectly acceptable outcome for even a well-written essay because all attempts do not end successfully. Rather, the search for answers to the question posed by the essay represents the essence of the quest for the truth. This quest for the truth may take you places where you did not intend or expect to go when you started writing the essay, but this aspect of essays is what makes them interesting and frequently amusing and entertaining (essays should at least be interesting even if they can't be entertaining). This writing process for essays can be likened to an online search for a given topic that ends up taking you in directions through a series of hyperlinks that you never anticipated, but which relate to the original topic in some fashion. These tangential aspects of an essay's topic can provide some of the most interesting – and unexpected – findings that may come as a surprise to you as well as the reader.
If writing essays sounds like fun, you're right! If you've written several highly structured research papers, term papers and a dissertation or two, you'll probably welcome the opportunity to express your own points of view in the informal way that essays allow. Just remember to make sure that you understand what your academic institution's requirements are concerning essays because they may not conform to the general description provided above. After all, teachers are just human and like students, they may use the terms "research paper," "thesis," and "essay" interchangeably without understanding the fundamental differences that are involved.
References
Melehy, H. (2005). Michel De Montaigne: Accidental philosopher. CLIO, 34(4), 453-455.
Root, R. (2001). Roundtable: The history of the essay. Fourth Genre: Explorations in Nonfiction. Retrieved from http://www.chsbs.cmich.edu/Robert_Root/ background/Roundtable.html.
Webster's third new international dictionary (1999). Springfield, MA: G. & C. Merriam Co.
