“For me the ideal essay is not an assignment, to be dispatched efficiently and intelligently, but an exploration, a questioning, an introspection”-Alan Lightman in “Essayists on Essays”
This quote from Alan Lightman completely contradicts everything that I have been taught about writing an essay in the past. An essay has always been a structured piece of writing with very little room for creativity and expressing oneself. I have always viewed an essay as an assignment that must clearly and concisely convey an idea to the reader without the author imposing too much of their own personality and opinions into the writing. Many of the essays that I wrote throughout high school were research papers that were to contain little of my own thoughts , instead reflecting only facts and thoughts of others. I believe that many students have also been taught this idea that an essay is a structured piece of writing that must be in a particular style and format. Reading Atwan’s opinions on essays and the opinions of other essayists allowed me to understand that an essay can actually be nearly any form of writing. An essay does not have to be written in a particular style or structure, but can reflect the authors personality and the purpose of their writing. Essays can be as unique and varied as the authors that are expressing their ideas. Although this quote contradicts twelve years of being taught that an essay is a formal assignment to be completed, this quote from Lightman reflects how unstructured essay writing can be outside of school. I understand that an essay can be written in almost any format to suit the author, but for the rest of my schooling I will most likely be restricted in my writing and prevented from exploring these different forms of writing outside of this class. This is because an essay written for a class is very different from an essay that is written to be published. Lightman may be referring to essays that are written by professionals and not essays that are written by students. Like students, many professors have a certain expectation of what an essay is and often that does not involve injecting your own personality into the writing. I believe that an essay should be as Lightman describes it, but that usually does not happen because many have a very different view of what an essay is.
